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Friday, October 31, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So lets not go overboard in setting & enforcing tough emissions standards for man made sources."
- - President Ronald Reagan
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - OCTOBER 31st
= All Hallows' Eve / Halloween -- Pagan festival of fall during which the dead can be communicated with & set to rest. Appropriated, but not totally demolished, by the churches. Also referred to as Mischief Night ,the original reason for disguise was to prevent lonely spirits recognizing you & snatching you away to their between-the-worlds lair.
= The Druid's SAMHAIN Autumn sun festival.
= ANCIENT ROMAN FEAST TO POMONA.
= Druids held human sacrifices & prayers...ALL HALLOW'S EVE, 10th century.
= ALL SAINT'S EVE. Human sacrifice became cakes left out for the dead, thrown into the fire in the morning. In Brittany all wore black, etc.
= OLD CELTIC NEW YEAR'S EVE. Struggle between old & new years.
1938 -- On Halloween night Orson Welles & the Mercury Theater provoked a national panic with their dramatization of the H.G. Wells novel, "War of the Worlds." Widespread fears that Martian soldiers are landing in New Jersey ensues. Drivers trying to escape the commie invaders clog highways, & one Pittsburgh woman, shrieking "I'd rather die this way," was saved only at the last moment from poisoning herself. Orson Welles' radio broadcast demonstrates the suggestive power of mass communications.
http://www.conspire.com/ufolink.html
1987 -- Joseph Campbell, 83, passes to the spirit world, mythologically speaking.
RHINO HERE:
Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE continues on yesterday's subject of political framing. In this Alternet exclusive, Bioneers founder, Kenny Ausubel reveals how republican strategists and P.R. wonks are working to frame environmental issues in their favor. A stretch? Yes but they know a majority of Americans are concerned about our Mother Nature, so if they're to stay in power, they know they need to take the issue away from the progressives.
For more on The Bioneers,
including audio recordings of the recent Bioneers Conference, go to:
http://www.bioneers.org
BUT FIRST, a few excerpts & a link to a story that threatens all non-violent protest. It's written by John Passacantando, the executive director of Greenpeace USA.
Personal Voices: Ashcroft's Attack On Greenpeace
By John Passacantando, AlterNet, October 30, 2003
Yesterday the Greenpeace ship MV Esperanza arrived in Miami. However, rather than pulling into port, as Greenpeace ships do throughout the world, she will remain at anchor... ...The Port of Miami has refused us entry because John Ashcroft's Justice Department is prosecuting us for a protest action last year. The prosecution is unprecedented. Never before in U.S. history has an entire organization been prosecuted for a peaceful protest by its supporters. Last year, two Greenpeace activists climbed aboard a ship carrying Amazon mahogany wood. They held a banner that said "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging."... ...Instead of halting the shipment, the government is prosecuting Greenpeace in federal court in Miami. It has charged Greenpeace under an obscure 19th-century law never intended for this purpose. A trial is now set for December... ...But if this prosecution succeeds, non-violent protest may become yet another casualty of John Ashcroft's attack on civil liberties.
IT"S ALL AT: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17073
Take Action - Contact President Bush and John Ashcroft
Tell them to prosecute illegal loggers, not Greenpeace
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/10048/action_id/195.html
Contact the authorities in Miami
Tell them that they should allow the Esperanza to dock in Miami.
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/10048/action_id/196.html
7:48:46 AM 
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This Is Your Brain on Public Relations
By Kenny Ausubel, AlterNet, October 28, 2003
New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote last year to the effect that, "George W. Bush's harshest critics say he's dumb. But the real point is - he thinks we're dumb." Well, sure - W. may be a few beers short of a six-pack - but just how dumb does he think the American people are?
Perhaps part of the problem is that human beings seem to be hardwired for fraud.
Recently the Environmental Working Group, a public-interest group based in the Beltway, leaked a fascinating story, a kind of story within a story about how to frame the environmental story. Actually it's about instructing conservative politicians how to lie through their teeth to sucker the public into doing the opposite of what people want. After all, survey after survey shows that Americans care deeply about the environment and are even willing to shell out money to take good care of it. So duping innocent people into harming the environment requires an occult technology of trickery.
The Environmental Working Group managed to obtain documents from a briefing book assembled by Frank Luntz, the top public opinion researcher for corporate lobbyists. Luntz was the architect of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and he has a Who's Who client list of top lobbyists as well as many conservative politicians.
The briefing book is a playbook on how to frame the current wholesale rollback of environmental and public health protections while avoiding a stinging public backlash like the one that happened to Reagan's ignominious Secretary of the Interior James Watt in 1994. Watt became a political lightning rod by staring the corporate pillaging of the public trust in the eye and proclaiming: "Bring it on." The country felt otherwise; Watt went down in flames. So the new, improved manual counsels a stealth campaign to shine up a hall of mirrors where nothing is what it seems.
READ IT ALL AT: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17034
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6:30:24 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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