2nd Renaissance -38 : Melbourne Indymedia

Here come de Judge - Time to Leave [266]
There have always been examples of rulings and interpretations that have supported the saying "The law is an ass". This is increasingly the case, because even the best intentioned judges are now facing an avalanche of new technologies and social change. But, it is no good making excuses for the judiciary and continuing to accept their strange interpretations. We must recognise that not only judges but the whole legal system will struggle more and more. In the end the whole system will become a farce. This is the way empires end.

Those of us who aspire to be part of the new civilization that will emerge from the chaos of the collapse of takerism and the capitalist economy, must draw the increasing level of judicial absurdities to the attention of our fellows, and help them to recognise that it is time to leave - to secede from the old society now served by a legal lunatic asylum, no longer capable of coping with change or able to deliver just, sensible interpretations and sentences.

Here are two examples of the confusion and madness of the old system.

* Wired News recently reported on a ruling in The First Court of Appeals in Massachusetts in which a defendant had been accused of illegally viewing e-mail accounts of users on a server he hosted. He was intercepting all mail relating to a competitor in the out-of-print books market in order to steal customers from them.

"Authorities charged _ _ _ with violating the Wiretap Act, which governs unauthorised interception of communication. But the court found that because e-mails were already in the random access memory, or RAM, of the defendant's computer system when he copied them, he did not intercept them while they were in transit over wires and therefore did not violate the Wiretap Act, even though he copied the messages before the intended recipients read them. The court ruled that the messages were in storage rather than transit."

"By interpreting the Wiretap Act's privacy protections very narrowly, this court has effectively given Internet communications providers free rein to invade the privacy of their users for any reason and at any time. ... this decision makes clear that the law has failed to adapt to the realities of Internet communications and must be updated to protect online privacy. ... The line that we draw in this case will have far-reaching effects on personal privacy and security."

Of course, the Wiretap Act itself has become a complete farce. The reality is that the Feds routinely tap and scan all electronic communications. The case referred to here was only determining whether the rest of us can also sneak a look at other people's business. The court, in its infinite wisdom, seems to have said that anyone can spy on data while it is in storage, only when the data is flowing along a wire is there an invasion of privacy problem. Meanwhile the Feds continue to violate everyone's privacy every day, every call, every e-mail, every fax. In such circumstances it is really a bit pointless having a court case about one man looking at one server, every now and then.

* The second example concerns an MSNBC News Service Report of June 8, 2004.

"A Texas woman convicted of neglecting two horses in her care has been sentenced to 30 days in jail - the first three of which will be spent with a diet of only bread and water, a judge said Tuesday.

In imposing the unusual sentence with 'dietary restrictions' on _ _ _ on Monday , Harris County Criminal Court of Law Judge _ _ _ was quoted by the Houston Chronicle as saying, "She's going to get more than her horses got."

The judge on Tuesday confirmed that he also required _ _ _ to post blown-up photographs of the malnourished and ailing horses on her jail cell wall. "I want her to be forever reminded of what her conduct did to those horses," he told Reuters."

While the ill treatment of animals is to be deplored, the judge clearly believes that it is his role to 'make the punishment fit the crime' and that 'two wrongs make a right'. Presumably, if the defendant had shot the horses the judge would have had her shot also!

The judge who imposed the 'bread and water' sentence jailed the offender for only 30 days, but that is still too much of a punishment. The conditions in prisons are such that no judge with any decency at all would send a woman there, even for 30 minutes. Besides the overcrowding, exploitation of labour, and deficient medical, educational and pastoral care systems, there are ever present possibilities of sexual abuse; both from other inmates and from 'correctional' officers. The judges know this when they send women to jail.

* "Among the United States, California has among the highest percentage of male officers working in female prisons - 66%. The national average is 41%. International human rights standards provide that female prisoners should be attended and supervised only by female officers."

* "Persistent privacy violations are a fact of life for women in California prisons. Guards observe female inmates at all times - taking showers, dressing and going to the bathroom. Women are searched continuously, from pat downs after meals to strip and body searches after all visits. ... At times these searches have been an opportunity for some guards to sexually grope female inmates. Furthermore, female inmates have reported experiencing degrading and sexually explicit language and frequent harassment from guards. If an inmate protests or appeals to the prison administration, it can potentially mean more mistreatment, limited privileges, or an increased sentence. It is in this powerless environment that some female inmates have endured sexual assault from guards."

* "Women prisoners were recently slapped in the face. The court appointed assessor in the _ _ _ suit (a class action suit filed by _ _ _ and other women prisoners at Chowchilla against medical malpractice and lack of treatment) is prepared to announce that the DOC has complied with the court's order to provide adequate medical care. This is in a prison where the head doctor told Ted Koppel on Nightline that the reason for unneeded pelvic exams instead of other medical treatment was that women are sexually-deprived and like them ! "

* "According to the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, sexual abuse sometimes occurs during medical treatment. They report instances of doctors using rough and repeated pelvic exams as a form of rape. And the Coalition says lesbians are sometimes targeted for attack it they seek medical care. The way women are intimidated and sexually abused in prison, is a magnified reflection of women’s oppression in the larger society."

"There is not a women’s institution in this country [USA] that is staffed by just women."

* "There are always male administrators and guards. Guards that walk the block, that can come into your cell at will, that can look in your cell at will. And most cells in prison are simply a small room with a toilet, a sink, and a bed. And it you have to change clothes, go to the bathroom, wash or whatever in your room, then you’re talking about a situation where a man can walk by and look in your cell, or come into your cell, at any point. We're also talking about the fact that the reality is that women, generally, cannot beat a man. So you're talking about a very intimidating situation for most women, who feel like they are basically at the mercy [of male guards]."

* "Prison used to be the place where you went if you screwed up and you tried to get yourself back together for when you go out. Now, nobody's getting out. They're putting people away for incredibly long periods of time, so that it's hard to focus on release for most people that are going in. They're sending 19 year-old girls to the pen for life, and lots of them. And, the three-strikes law is just brutal. It's brutal."

State prosecutors and judges know all this, yet these church-going pseudochristians are still sending women to prison to be secondarily punished and abused in whatever ways their jailers and fellow inmates determine. This is not civilization, it's barbarism of the worst kind.

The prison system has never been reformed except in name. The prison system is, by now, incapable of reform, and the same can be said for the law enforcement and justice systems which feed it. This reality applies in most nation states within the old Level 3 Civilization, it is not confined to Australia, Britain and the USA. But that doesn't make it right for those administrations to be engaging in the incarceration of women and children. The practice is barbaric wherever it is practiced and by whomever it is authorised and administered.

The need to abandon all support for federations and states that continue to incarcerate women in prisons where they will surely be mistreated is very clear. The same applies to the imprisonment of men, but the predicament of the girls seems more uncivilized to most people. They must be freed first, then the guys. As for the death penalty, it is not only inhuman - it directly contravenes the rules of God. This is never the way we are supposed to treat each other. The Rule of Law has greatly overstepped its limits when it causes wrongdoers to be put to death. Judicial killings are simply murders dressed up as justice.

Judges and Executioners Defy The 6th Commandment [267]
the United States has carried out female executions since the resumption of capital punishment in 1997; some states even have the death penalty for children. Australia does not presently have the death penalty, but there are persistent voices agitating for its reintroduction. Most of the people who support capital punishment are simply being wound up by the parrot people. They have no idea what happens to women who are executed. A few real examples follow. They might just make a few readers reconsider their support for judicial killings.

The last woman to be executed in Australia was Jean Lee, in 1951. Along with her lover and another man she had been found guilty of the murder of an illegal (SP) bookmaker, in 1949. There was a lack of certainty about the extent to which Jean Lee was actually involved in the murder, and strong criticism of the High Court and Privy Council decisions in her case. Police interrogation procedures were also believed to have contributed to her conviction. Because Jean Lee was a some-time prostitute and petty criminal she was easy 'voter bait' for a government that wished to paint itself as highly moral and tough on crime.

What these shining moral examples to a highly conservative society did was actually very brutal. Jean Lee had collapsed at the sight of the hangman and his assistant entering her cell. Both were dressed in khaki shirts and trousers and wearing large steel-rimmed goggles and soft felt hats pulled over their foreheads, calculated to frighten their victims; just as the large wigs judges wear are intended to intimidate those brought before them.

Jean's limp body was handcuffed, her arms were pinioned and her ankles were bound. A large white hood was placed over her head, with the flap over her face left open. Her limp body was then carried out onto the special execution platform above the internal gallery in Pentridge, and while her unconscious form was held upright on a chair above the trapdoor a noose was placed around her neck and the sheriff read her the warrant for her execution, of which she presumably did not hear a word. The flap in the hood was closed, the trap was sprung, and Jean Lee plummeted to her death.

Hopefully, she subsequently found far greater mercy for her soul than a cruel system had accorded her in her life. All this was done to that woman at the instruction of a judge and verified by his colleagues in higher courts.

Yet, despite the horror of the 'last' female execution, there is now a growing movement to reintroduce the death penalty in Australia. This is occurring at the same time that anti-terrorist hysteria is driving sinister considerations of 'legal' justifications for torturing accused persons. If legal torture and a reintroduction of the death penalty ever come to pass it will truly be a case of the re-enactment of the horrors of the 1st Inquisition that paralleled the Renaissance in Europe many centuries ago.

Australian society will then be no more civilized than Europe was during the Dark Ages. And we shall all have reason to wonder why we have not managed to progress further in terms of our humanity and spiritual understanding.

By any estimate, the State of Victoria is an insignificant part of planet Earth. This is not to say that Victoria isn't a pleasant place or that there is anything lacking in its people; just that it isn't the centre of the universe. The fact is that Australia is a very large island that is lightly peopled by mainly taker-come-latelies descended from the various countries of the first Dark Age. As with the rest of Australia, nothing in Victoria is of great relative importance in world politics, economics, or other matters (except for various sports).

Victoria only became a state able to make its own laws in 1851, when it was separated from the earlier colony of New South Wales. But. having spent a hundred years devising more and more laws of every kind, Victorian politicians and the state judiciary in 1951 deemed themselves so expert in justice, and so correct in their view of the world, that they chose to defy the only laws that really matter - the ten commandments.

The first four of those laws dictate how the human race should relate to God. The remaining six laws dictate how we humans should relate to each other. The 6th commandment is clear and unambiguous: "Thou shalt not kill." It is in no way conditional, it does not even say 'thou shalt not kill except if attacked'.

The sixth commandment certainly does not allow any latitude to kill a woman because you might think she's a strumpet, or that she's probably involved at the edges of a murder committed by her lover. Nor is there latitude or justification in the sixth commandment to allow for hanging people in order to gain electoral popularity. The sixth commandment explicitly says that we shall not kill each other - not ever, not for any reason. Yet, the state of Victoria and its law enforcement and justice agencies and officials clearly saw the 6th commandment as irrelevant in the Jean Lee case, and they saw their own laws as 'right' and 'most important'. All the indications are that they, and every other government in Australia, still think and act that way with regard to The Rule of Law.

The existence of unjust laws and brutal punishments administered by pseudocristian elites provides one of the strongest arguments in favour of secession from federal and state regimes in Australia. Similar examples of brutality involving the 'legal' application of the death penalty abound in other nation states, and these also provide strong arguments for 'leaving' the brutalities of federalism and totalitarian-democracy behind. The following examples of female executions were all 'legal' in the countries in which they occurred. And they were all equally in breach of the laws of God, regarding how we shall treat one another.

Brutal Justice For All - Women Included [268]
The excerpts below are from sources on the WWW and indicate the extent of willingness of the State, the families of the victims of crimes, and the populace at large, to see convicted people put to death. While the focus here is on executions of women there is no suggestion that men should be executed but women should not. Nobody should be put to death, no matter what crimes they are truly guilty of or how many people they have hurt. Who says so? God does!

* "The death penalty began in Texas in 1835 with a piece of 5-strand manila hemp rope. Under the administration of Stephen F. Austin. ... Executions were a public affair so crowds would gather to witness the noose deliver "the hangman's fracture," said to cause instantaneous death forcefully snapping the jaw and rupturing the spinal cord."

"In 1972, the US Supreme Court ruled state executions unconstitutional. Legislators lifted the moratorium on capital punishment in 1976."

"A May 2000 Gallup poll found 65% support for the death poll, 15 points lower than in 1994."

"In 2001, legislation to stop the death penalty was introduced and failed in 18 states."

* "America has carried out 10 female executions since the resumption of capital punishment in 1977.

On 2 November 1984 Margie Velma Barfield became the first to die by lethal injection at Raleigh Central Prison in North Carolina for the murder of four people including that of her own mother.

No woman was executed in America from then until 1998 when Karla Faye Tucker (38) suffered lethal injection in Texas amid huge international publicity (on the 3rd of February), and 54-year-old Judias Buenoano was electrocuted in Florida on the 30th March that year.

Texas executed 62-year-old Betty Lou Beets on the 24th of February 2000 for the murder of her 5th husband. On the 3rd of May, 2000, Arkansas executed Christina Marie Riggs by lethal injection, at her request, for the murder by the same method of her two children.

The first female execution of 2001 was that of Wanda Jean Allen on the 11th January, in Oklahoma for murder. Marilyn Kay Plantz followed her to Oklahoma's death chamber on the 1st of May, 2001, for organising the murder of her husband. ... The execution of 61-year-old Lois Nadean Smith on the 4th December emptied Oklahoma's death row.

Alabama carried out its first female execution since 1957 when 54-year-old Lynda Lyon Block was put to death in the electric chair on the 10th of May, 2002, for the murder of a policeman. ... Serial killer Aileen Wournoss was executed by lethal injection in Florida on 9th October, 2002."

Much the same barbarism has gone on in various other countries in recent times, all at the behest of state punishment systems and the relevant judiciaries.

* "America, Botswana, China, the Congo, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Qutar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates have all carried out [female] death sentences for murder in the last few years.

China, Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam have executed women for drug offences and it is thought that Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand all have women on death row at this time. The Philippines also has the death penalty for drug trafficking and murder at the end of 2000. In October 1999, [then] President Joseph Estrada reprieved Josefina Esparas who was due to be executed by lethal injection for drug smuggling."

* "At least three women have been stoned to death for incest and adultery, one in Afghanistan and two in Iran. Iran also executed a 35-year-old woman by stoning on the 25th May, 2001, for acting in 'obscene sex films' and stoned a 35-year-old woman for murdering her husband and [for] adultery.

It is highly probable that the real figure for stoning executions is much greater, as this form of death sentence may be handed down and carried out locally in remote rural areas and thus not always reported. Stonings are usually carried out in public and by the public, although the latest stoning in Iran was carried out inside Evin prison in Tehran by officials. The poor woman was wrapped in a white shroud and then buried up to her armpits in the prison yard to receive her punishment.

In Iran Article 119 of the Law of Hodoud and Qesas states, "In the punishment of stoning to death, the stones should not be too large so that the person dies on being hit by one or two of them nor should they be so small either that they could not be defined as stones." Women are buried in the ground up to their armpits as it is unacceptable for stones to hit their breasts."

* "On or about January 25th [2004] an unnamed woman was given 80 lashes and then hanged in private in Iran after being convicted of luring girls and women to work in a brothel in the northern city of Qazvin. ... March the 1st saw the hanging of 24-year-old Ibtisam Hussein in Jordan's Swaqa Penitentiary for the murder of two children. The rope broke at the first attempt and she was hanged again an hour later."

* "Zinat al-Sadat, a 34-year-old Iranian nurse was hanged in a Tehran prison on Wednesday the 8th October [2003] for strangling a 70-year-old man and his 11-year-old grandson in 1999. ... On Wednesday the 3rd of December, Qazma Al-Qahtani, a Saudi national, was beheaded in Abha, Saudi Arabia for the murder, by suffocation, of her husband."

* "... Death sentences for 'economic crimes' are quite common in China. On the 11th January, 2001, Liu Yixia was shot with her husband, Liu Shaoyang for fraud. An unnamed young woman was shot for murdering her husband on the 11th April, 2001, after a mass sentencing rally. She was one of 89 people put to death that day." "

* "Sami Pan-intara (59) was executed by machine gun in Bangkwang prison on November the 23rd, 1999, for heroin trafficking, together with two male murderers. She was the first woman to be executed in Thailand for over 20 years. There are at least 11 other women on death row there."

* "Women account for about 0.6% of all executions carried out worldwide in recent years and there is a marked reluctance to execute them in most countries. Only China, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Vietnam regularly execute women without any apparent sex bias."

"America has shown a marked reluctance to execute women although the rate of male executions had been accelerating through the 90's. ... Women commit around 15% of all murders in America but represent about 1.5% of the overall death row population. Juries seem much more likely to recommend the death sentence where there are factors such as lesbianism involved (see Wanda Jean Allen)."

* "American politicians have learned the peril of opposing the death penalty. During the 1988 Presidential race, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis stumbled in the polls after stating that he would oppose executing first degree murderers. New York Governor Mario Cuomo's 1994 re-election loss to a political newcomer could be attributed to his annual vetos of death penalty bills. Public support for capital punishment is overwhelming. Federal provisions allowing capital punishment, as well as executions, have increased dramatically over the last decade. Nationwide surveys [however], indicate the number of Americans who favour the death penalty is declining."

"The prospect that innocent people will be executed in America is horrifyingly likely. Police officers and prosecutors have suppressed evidence, many public defenders are incompetent and the appeals process in becoming more difficult.

In this [20th] century, at least 400 innocent people have been convicted of capital crimes they did not commit, 23 were executed. The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be rectified."

"Approximately 3,000 men are waiting to die in prisons across America. But few people are aware that 50 women await the same fate, convicted of crimes so heinous that they have been sentenced to death."

At first encounter the debate around the death penalty appears to be complex, there are a variety of standpoints and issues involved and it seems impossible to balance them out in a logical manner. On the one hand there are notions of just punishment and deterrence; on the other there are fears of wrongful conviction and the conflict between the commandment of God and the laws of mankind - the much touted Rule of Law. There is even dissent between various religious groups regarding the interpretation of the Bible; some people claiming to find justification for capital punishment in the scriptures despite the unambiguity of the sixth commandment. However, there are sound reasons to eliminate many of the arguments.

The revenge motive, on the part of the families of victims, is very strong and it underlies much of the resistance to the abolition of capital punishment, but it can be eliminated because of the hollowness of its outcomes. Many families feel strongly that the execution of a person who has been convicted of murdering one of their loved ones is justice; they see it as balancing the ledger - an eye for an eye ... and so on. But the overall society loses by such pay-back notions.

A women's group in Malaysia opposed the introduction of a mandatory death sentence for convicted child molesters on the very sound basis that once this happened the crimes would be driven even deeper underground - they would be hushed up and not acknowledged under any circumstances - and more children would then be at risk. Moreover, if a mandatory death sentence applies, juries will be more reluctant to convict an accused person and, as a consequence, a greater number of genuine child rapists will walk free - back into the community to offend again.

The argument that the death penalty is required as a deterrent, and that without it more citizens are at risk of being murdered, has already been shown to be fallacious. The figures from countries that have abandoned the practice of executing people for murder - and this includes most countries in Europe - do not show any rise in such crimes nor any deterioration in public safety as a result of there being no prospect of offenders being executed.

Similarly, there is no reason to expect that drug trafficking will increase as a direct result of abolishing the death penalty. This evil industry is owned and managed by people who are never brought before the courts and for whom the prospect of conviction and execution simply does not exist. A lack of serious law enforcement, because of who the real 'Mr Bigs' are and the power they have, is the more serious issue in the prevention of drug trafficking. Those who drive the drug trafficking industry 'onwards and upwards' are successful capitalists and as the saying goes: "Capital punishment is for people who have no capital." Executing any number of underlings in the trafficking industry will never curtail or eliminate it, a death penalty for trafficking addresses a symptom of the drugs pandemic not its cause.

The notion of the death penalty as a supreme punishment - not revenge or a deterrent, but punishment because offenders 'deserve' it - is seldom part of the debate about its retention or abolition. Nonetheless, the concepts of punishment and the right to punish underpin the whole practice of condemning people to death. Daniel Quinn's writings have laid bare the Taker assumption regarding the 'right' of humans - as the most advanced life form on the planet - to decide: 'Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die'. Not only which humans shall die, but also which animals and which plants; which rivers shall be polluted and which ecosystems shall be destroyed. Such arrogance and stupidity is acting to keep the death penalty on the statute books, it is also sustaining ongoing campaigns for its reinstatement in countries, such as Australia, which had earlier abandoned it.

Some commentators attribute the notion of humanity's right to kill or otherwise punish its own kind - and just about everything else - to false religious interpretations. However, most mainstream religions oppose the death penalty. It is true that some minor religious groups tend to comb the scriptures for justifications for everything they do, including punishing others, but this is not where the modern attitudes to punishment come from.

The notion of punishing those who 'deserve' to be punished follows from our profound lack of spiritual understanding - including the nature of death and the purpose of life.

In the present Level 3 Civilization, religion is everywhere but true spirituality is almost nowhere. During an interview the author and Gnostic, John V. Panella, was asked what he considers to be the biggest problem on this planet. His reply:

"Spiritual and metaphysical ineptness ... it's that simple!
Nothing else matters, and never will."

Isn't religion the same as spirituality? Not really, religions are about believing in and worshiping a deity or divine power, whilst spirituality relates to the human spirit and soul and their place in the nonmaterial world. There have been many religions throughout the course of human history, all of them have embodied spiritual concepts but none of them are spirituality.

When people in a society rely solely on religious scriptures to determine right and wrong they can derive narrow viewpoints on these issues. They can then demand punishment when it isn't appropriate. Considering only religious scriptures is limiting in the same way that only studying and applying Newtonian physics is limiting. Just as understanding the quantum world requires new insights and different laws, so the consideration of justice and the right, or not, of humanity to execute members of their own species requires insights and understanding beyond those available in religious texts.

Spirituality is the context in which religions are set, it is wider than the worship of a deity or deities; it surrounds religion and permeates religion but it is not religion as such. A religion is a belief system, it is based on faith and it is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to prove. Since spirituality deals with the spirit and the soul it is far more examinable by modern science. Despite the protestations of a well organised sceptics movement, it is possible for experimenters to seek out the soul in our material bodies and to prove the existence of life after death. The nonmaterial world is a world of vibrations and it is examinable. This freesite is not about spirituality per se and it does not develop the subject. Perhaps spirituality and the growing evidence for life after death might be the theme of a further freesite devoted to such matters.

One thought that is relevant to the debate over the death penalty, and which derives both from spirituality and present-day religions, is this:

A divine system exists and it has a creator. Whether you call that creator God or not, It has defined good and evil, right and wrong, in various revelations over the millennia. Further, in realisation that we humans are almost incapable of always doing good and never doing evil, It has also defined mercy. Mercy is there to be used. We are meant to show mercy to those who transgress the teachings of religious scriptures. To understand why this might be so one must appreciate the essence of spirituality and the nature of our journey through life, and beyond.

Final Reactions [269]
The following excerpts from a web site about the execution of Karla Faye Tucker capture a range of typical reactions to that event. They are quite revealing.

* The husband of one of Karla's victims:
"Justice for Deborah ... is complete. ... Fourteen and a half years ago, Karla Faye Tucker exploded my family. fourteen and a half years later, she brought my family back together again. I have nothing but sympathy and sorrow for her family. They are now going through what we have been through. My religion says to forgive, turn the other cheek. I'm not a perfect man. I've tried very hard. i still cannot do it. I don't believe her Christianity; I don't believe her conversion. I never did, I never will."
A relative of one of the victims:

* "As she was dying, I did ask God to have mercy on her soul. It was the right thing to do. And her dying also was the right thing to do. I cannot forgive her, but I have asked God to."

* The lead attorney for Karla's defence:
"(In) my last visit as her lawyer, her spirits were excellent. She never faltered in any way about her faith. She told me over and over again how much love she had for her family members, certainly Dan Brown, her husband ... typical, vintage Karla Faye Tucker Brown. She was at peace as (much as) one can be in that circumstance. And about four minutes later, the state of Texas got its way."

Another of Karla's attorneys:
"The state of Texas killed a good person today. Karla Faye Tucker will forever live in our hearts, our souls, our minds. She is in a better place tonight than she was today."

* The chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice that dispensed justice to Karla:

"The issues here were not religious conversion or gender, but rather culpability and accountability. Karla Faye Tucker brutally murdered two innocent people and was found guilty by the court and afforded all legal processes. Although I believe she finally found God, her religious awakening could in no way excuse or mitigate her actions in the world she just left, but hopefully will provide her redemption in the world she just entered."

Karla Faye Tucker seems to have found God; but the judiciary and other authorities of the state of Texas showed no signs of any such conversion. Otherwise they would have obeyed God's commandments and not taken it upon themselves to judge and mortally punish another human being.

Related:

2nd Renaissance -37

The World Organisation for Human Rights USA site also documents another innovation that enables guards to control greater numbers of prisoners, with consequent savings in operating costs.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113467.php

2nd Renaissance -36

It is not fanciful to believe that criminals can be rehabilitated or that the harm they have caused might be repaired, various tribal societies managed to achieve such outcomes for thousands of years. It can be done, and discussing the presently catastrophic regimes of justice and incarceration will lead people to fathom ways of doing so again, within a Level 4 Civilization.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113284.php

2nd Renaissance -35

But, before considering the implications of the death penalty, there is reason to consider how we already treat each other in relation to the imprisonment and punishment of women and their families. Great barbarity is going on right now in this area; within the ambit of the rule of law and the revenge and punishment systems of our "civilized" societies.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113143.php

New Strategy for an Autonomous Politics

My aim in this article is to present some hypotheses on issues of strategy for anti-capitalist emancipatory movements. The idea is to rethink the conditions for an effective politics, with the capacity to radically change the society we live in. Even if I will not have the space to analyze concrete cases, these reflections are not a purely "theoretical" endeavor, but spring from the observation of a series of movements I had the chance to be part of -the movement of neighbor's assemblies in Argentina, some processes of the World Social Forum, and other global networks- or that I followed closely in the past years -the piquetero (unemployed) movement also in Argentina, and the Zapatistas in Mexico.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113147.php

2nd Renaissance -34

Punishment By Imprisonment Is A Medieval Concept [258] Although this is the 21st century, the societies of the Level 3 Civilization have not yet abandoned the medieval notion of prisons being places of punishment. Today’s institutions of incarceration are called 'Correctional Centres' and other sanitised terms, but they remain vehicles for revenge and punishment exacted by courts under the Rule of Law.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113003.php

2nd Renaissance -33

The natural, some would say instinctive, organisation model for humans is the tribe. But there is no suggestion here of attacking or harming the less numerous members of big government and big business organisations that are structured along institutional and militarist lines. Any physical attack on the forces of the OWO would not only violate the sixth commandment, it would fail to advance humanity or benefit society in any way. No, the conflict between the OWO and the rest of us is a battle of ideas and, as such, it holds great potential as a transformational force that will benefit all of humanity - even those people who are presently on the side of federalism, capitalism and a creeping totalitarian control of the many by a few.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112747.php

2nd Renaissance -32

Then the penny drops, literally. The earthlings are selling water, they are treating it as a commodity. For the sellers of water this means that the scarcer fresh water is the higher the price and the greater the profit. There is still CAPITALISM on Earth; a system that became redundant in most galaxies aeons ago. No wonder water is scarce here.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112562.php

2nd Renaissance -31

The dissemination of information about the end of the 20th century scientific Dark Age and the advent of wondrous new spike technologies is something we can all do. It is not yet illegal to write or talk about such matters. In order to help raise general awareness of already existing opportunities to end economic scarcity it is necessary to first discover and absorb information that is never presented by the OWO controlled media. Then it is time to spread those alternate perspectives of science and technology at the interpersonal level.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112310.php

2nd Renaissance -30

"Near-Spike technologies will ensure that everyone could have access to this cornucopia, and while different cultures and moieties within those cultures will respond idiosyncratically to the great change, we might expect a general drift back toward the ancient codes implanted by evolutionary pressures. Humans have evolved in a million years and more of moderate ease, each tribe's small numbers drawing modestly upon the self-replenishing bounty of the earth. We will slip easily back into that blissful state, spared its occasional murderous bouts of uncontrollable fire, flood, drought, plague and infestation.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112101.php

2nd Renaissance -29

There is a simple answer, however, and that is to set up the bomb, and arm it to go off when the Sun passes through the required geometric point. The newspapers warn us that the tests will be carried out over a series of months, so we sit back with a set of astro tables and paper on which to calculate Sun positions, and wait for the results. When the first start coming in, we must confess to a certain excitement. What began as a theory is proving in actuality to be perfectly correct. We have cracked a code that the atom bomb countries have long tried to hide. "

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/111933.php

2nd Renaissance -28

Far Out Ideas For a Far Out Century [226] This freesite is not concerned with the existence or otherwise of aliens or UFOs, nor is it concerned with what such beings might be doing in our skies. There are thousands of web sites and publications that deal with UFOs and aliens. This freesite is concerned with far more serious threats to the freedom and well-being of humanity than extraterrestrial visitors. These threats have already been identified as takerism, nationalism, capitalism, and militarism. The iron grip of the OWO on the world's resources has far more serious consequences than the alleged activities of aliens and UFOs.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/111733.php

2nd Renaissance -27

At first impression this might seem a good thing, but the real price of such a concealment has been more than seven decades of denying the means and capability to bring abundant energy to the whole world. Not only could the release of such knowledge have ended all militarism and the related suffering caused by wars, it could have enabled presently 'developing' countries to feed, house and clothe their populations to levels that would have freed them from poverty, disease, and the burden of debt they currently 'owe' to the capitalist West.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/111574.php

2nd Renaissance -25

This diagram is not reproduced here to suggest that the absolute amount of energy that can be obtained from matter is known, Cramp points out that it is theoretical. The purpose of the diagram is to drive home the realisation that energy is by no means scarce. All that is required to tap it is the right knowledge. Tesla and many others have already shown that such knowledge exists and that it is practical to draw energy from beyond matter - from the ether itself.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/111235.php

2nd Renaissance -24

The defection of large numbers of people from federal citizenship, and the establishment of free cities that will run on free energy, can and will break the hold of old ideas and false scientific notions that held us back during the entire 20th century. That 2nd Dark Age is now behind us and the way to a better, Level 4 Civilization, is open. How soon the transformation is accomplished is now in the hands of ordinary folk, it has very little to do with our federal 'representatives', the industrial councils of big business, the parrot press, or the dogma specialists of orthodox science.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/111028.php

2nd Renaissance -23

While it is far less radical than Tesla's idea of 'broadcasting' power to everyone on earth, the Christie/Brits generator could revolutionise domestic power supply, if it were ever allowed to do so. Once a household had one of these devices it could not only meet all its own power requirements, it could also feed around 10 kW of energy into the local power grid each day. When a family moved home, it would be practical to take the generator with them to their new residence. Given the long service life of the device, many generations of the family would inherit it, and it would continue to pump out 24 kW of clean power every day.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/110786.php

2nd Renaissance -22

Tesla was arguably one of the most outstanding geniuses of the late 19th century. But he was never astute in business, being far too naive and trusting. Tesla thought that everyone would readily support a discovery that would make energy available to all, and do much to end poverty and scarcity in the world. The capitalist/militarist establishments of the US thought quite differently.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/110212.php

2nd Renaissance -21

Who Is Running The Universe? [205] There is a common piece of street wisdom that describes how to determine who is really running any strange town that you come to on a journey. The advice is to listen to who is mentioned in conversations about the affairs and administration of the town. It is never the people who are talked about in connection with town matters or politics who are actually running things. The rule says that it is always the people who are never mentioned who are in real control. If you want to know who has the power, find out who is never mentioned as having any. When you begin to learn about and debate science with other non-scientists like yourself, remember this piece of street wisdom. Nothing is what it seems to be. The mayor or the police chief might seem to wield the power but, in reality, the power lies elsewhere, and that truth is seldom mentioned.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/109956.php

2nd Renaissance -20

Who are the most imaginative and lateral thinking people in our present society? Are they the scientists, or possibly the high IQ individuals employed to find new products and markets? Are they the entrepreneurs of the world, or are they advisors and consultants to industry and government? The answer to this question is known, and it is surprising to most people.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/109767.php

2nd Renaissance -19

A key principle in such situations will be to limit the time that any individual can serve in political office. One or two terms should be the limit, there should be no opportunity for people to make a career out of politics. Nor should it be possible for generation after generation of any family to be employed in politics or as politicians. One only has to look at the distortions and inequalities that some of these political dynasties have introduced to the course of legislation in Australia and the US to know that long-term careers and generation to generation successions are not a good idea.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/109519.php

2nd Renaissance -18

It is worth learning geometry as the ancients taught it because music is geometric. It is worth studying music in a geometric sense because this uncovers truths about vibrations and patterns of vibrations, Vibrations are important because all matter is formed from them. The 2nd Renaissance involves an explosion of knowledge and discovery that is taking humanity beyond the old 'drop in on your foot' materialistic and mechanistic view of the world and the universe beyond. The 21st century talent collectives that will build new technologies to defeat scarcity and create abundance will do most of their work in the realms of invisible vibration patterns. All young people, both boys and girls, now need to learn within these fields of knowledge, because humanity's future will be built there.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/109198.php

2nd Renaissance -17

Education systems in free cities and regions must be very different to those of nation states. It is not just the methods of encouraging learning that will distinguish education in free cities from that of nation states, but the truth that the knowledge is rooted in. There is no point in swotting to pass examinations in subject knowledge that is wrong. Yet, that is exactly what young people in state education systems are doing. Neither they, or their parents, or their teachers realise this fact, but it remains the case.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/109002.php

2nd Renaissance -16

Supporting secessions and the formation of free cities and regions is going to be crucial. Only in these new beachheads of tomorrow’s society will such innovations as home-schooling, and a lack of state censorship and media spin, enable young people to discover the truths they will need to know to build a Level 4 Civilization.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108722.php

2nd Renaissance -15

Historically, there have been periods when legal distinctions between animals and humans have been blurred. For instance, in medieval Europe, in the 14th and 15th centuries, numerous trials and executions of animals occurred. One source identifies 34 recorded instances of pigs having been tried and cruelly put to death. Besides pigs; rats, chickens, goats, and bees were similarly tried. Some of the pigs were fully dressed in human clothes at the time they were, inevitably, found guilty. In one case a vicar excommunicated a flock of sparrows that infested his church. All this happened despite the theological stance that animals had no soul, and no morals or conscience. They could not really be guilty of transgressing the Rule of Law.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108557.php

2nd Renaissance -14

Withdrawing Support For Militarism [179] The problem with revenge is that it lowers the humanity of those who exercise it down to the same level, of even below, those who committed the original crime. Although we can't yet know who was responsible for 911 or 1012, we do now know that forces of the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) have, on occasions, been just as barbaric as the people who killed on those dates. This has been amply demonstrated in Afghanistan and again in Iraq. If you doubt this, seek out more facts about the CoW's use of DU and NDU weaponry and cluster bombs. These horror weapons continue, to this day, to put young children and adult civilians at risk of injury or death from unexploded munitions, radiation, and toxic substances in the ground water and the food chain.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108373.php

Surveillance

It is up to ordinary people to raise the level of debate about the undemocratic surveillance practices of the many faceless and unaccountable agents who make daily intrusions on individual privacy, and about the apologists and propagandists for the War nn Terror who applaud every new attack on human rights and freedoms as "prudent" or "necessary". If there is no discussion of reverse surveillance in the national media, create it on the streets on a citizen to citizen basis. If nobody is talking about the outrageous assaults on privacy and human rights embodied in the new antiterrorist acts forced through US, UK and Australian legislatures, start talking about it to your neighbours and friends.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108175.php

2nd Renaissance -13

Such a development is part of the phenomenon of reverse surveillance that will come to characterise the 2nd Renaissance and a rapid transition to a Level 4 Civilization and a truly free society. You can learn more about reverse surveillance at the 'Surveillance' freesite. Reverse surveillance principles extend well beyond the use of ubiquitous digital imaging technologies, and include audits of all aspects of federal government operations, by randomly selected teams of citizens. The Feds and the parrot people will be quick to pronounce that such monitoting is "not in the national interest," but it will definitely be in our interests, and those of future generations of humanity.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107989.php

2nd Renaissance -12

There are reports that in one Balinese kampong that provided labour to the clubs in Kuta Beach, seven empty coffins were buried, because there were no identifiable remains of the missing workers. It was as if they had been vaporised. Scores of people, mainly locals, are thought to have disappeared without trace.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107756.php

2nd Renaissance -11

Fortunately, the power and control of government and military elites is illusory in the 21st century. The world no longer works the way it did, and there is nothing to compel people to support failed, outdated systems any longer. This is an understanding that must be widely and quickly shared. The future of our children and the planet depends upon our changing our thinking about governments, and our support for them.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107560.php

2nd Renaissance -10

In the Afghanistan turkey shoot the CoW forces used vast numbers of hard target weapons and other munitions containing depleted uranium (DU). This substance is almost twice as dense as lead. When it punches through concrete bunkers, armour, or mud huts, DU disintegrates into a chemically toxic and radioactive dust. In contrast to the earlier DU weapons used in Gulf War I, the newer ordinance produced deaths and deformities within weeks of the start of military action by the CoW. Between 1990-91 and 2001 the US arms manufacturers are thought to have "improved" the DU technology by introducing milled uranium ore to their warheads. This non-depleted uranium (NDU) is - wait for it - cheaper to produce and far more potent than DU. It poses massive health risks to civilian populations exposed to it, and constitutes, in every sense of the word, a weapon of mass destruction, or WMD. "Hey they're hunting them in Iraq, aren't they?"

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107216.php

2nd Renaissance -9

The Old World Order will not do anything to smooth the path to a Level 4 Civilization, and a better world. On the contrary, they will do whatever they can to make it difficult. The police, the military, the media, the financial system, the rule of law, and all the mechanisms of civil control and surveillance will be mobilised in defence of the status quo. But, once they understand their options, the people of the world will not engage in a battle with the forces of the OWO. They will simply abandon the old way of living under national rule, for a better, freer, life in new tribal societies. Kinship mechanisms will help people cope with the pressures of official opposition to radical changes that will finally enable them to escape the invisible prison that the OWO had fashioned around them.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107047.php

2nd Renaissance -8

Ultimately the old order will lose the battle to preserve their privileged way of life, based on all prevailing scarcity, pseudo-democracy, and the rule of law. But in the interim, hundreds of millions of innocent people might lose their lives in bloody resistance to the changes being made by the Old World Order (OWO).. If such a terrible thing happens, it will all have been for nothing, because:

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106816.php

Tales of Adam
Daniel Quinn*
http://ishmael.com/index1.cfm

2nd Renaissance -7

When coupled with the introduction of artificial scarcity and taker concepts of property ownership and legal tender, Western death-fearing religions played a significant role in subduing, otherwise independent, tribal peoples.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106537.php

2nd Renaissance -6

The second route involves the setting up of entirely new living spaces on tribal lands that were previously seized by colonising governments that espoused and followed Taker philosophies. This route has greater credibility, in the sense of secession rights, where clear historical ownership of the land can be shown.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106327.php

2nd Renaissance -5

Quinn contends that while governments can imagine a revolution they can't imagine abandonment. As he puts it, "..even if it could imagine abandonment , it couldn't defend against it, because abandonment isn't an attack, it's just a discontinuance of support."

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106136.php

2nd Renaissance -4

In due course, there is one achievement of overriding significance that Caral might well provide. One great contribution or lesson that can be applied to the 2nd Renaissance. How to live in peace, with spiritual meaning, and without warfare, for a thousand years.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105935.php

The New Renaissance
Daniel Quinn*

http://www.mnforsustain.org/quinn_d_new_renaissance.htm

2nd Renaissance -3

Plichta writes of this model as follows. "There was a time I used to make fun of the Apocalypse of St John and believed it to be a totally unreliable historical source. Today I am filled with deep humility, perhaps because I am now able to give a concrete description of the foundation of the world as seen by St John with my mathematical discoveries, and thus possibly open a new way to all of humanity which has now reached a dead end."

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105799.php

2nd Renaissance -2

Georg Cantor (1845-1918), by his origination of modern set theory and his studies of the nature of infinity, left science a valuable legacy. Cantor was regularly admitted to a psychiatric clinic within the University of Halle, in Germany, where he lectured and worked as a Professor of Mathematics. On each occasion that he became ill he had been thinking about infinity and the continuum hypothesis. Such intense thought, at the boundaries of his comprehension, caused Cantor to suffer repeated mental breakdowns. Infinity drove him mad.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105634.php

2nd Renaissance

This story was published in September 2004 and it was a big secret. I received it on disk but I think it should be public by now anyway. It is interesting to look back at it and in terms of today's world some two years on. I will link each chapter as I go along over the coming weeks.- The Old World Order - Happy reading!

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105519.php

Fight Iemma - Debnam

All they can say is 'lock em up'

It seems we are in the thick of it again - the stupid, heartless "Law & Order" auction.

Premier Morris Iemma and Opposition leader Peter Debnam are trying to outdo each other with idiotic "tough on crime" policies.

Original Article
http://oldsydimc.cat.org.au/front.php3?article_id=64701

Karla Faye Tucker seems to have found God; but the judiciary and other authorities of the state of Texas showed no signs of any such conversion. Otherwise they would have obeyed God's commandments and not taken it upon themselves to judge and mortally punish another human being.