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Sin Espíritu, Corazón y Mente Invertida (ce399 artwork)

Sin Espíritu, Corazón y Mente Inversa_ce399. 2009

No offense to horned creatures.

The US Military's Mapping of Mexico's Indigenous Communities

An investigative report into Kansas University's D.O.D. funded mapping project of indigenous land in Oaxaca and San Luis Potosi. By Simon Sedillo

An edited and abridged version of the article "The Demarest Factor: The Ethics of U.S. Department of Defense Funding for Academic Research in Mexico" by Simon Sedillo, of www.elenemigocomun.net.

Background

Lawrence Journal World published an article (October 2006) which quietly uncovered a funding scandal at Kansas University.  In 2005, the Department of Geography received at minimum $500,000 in Department of Defense funds to map communally-held indigenous lands held in San Luis Potosi and Oaxaca, Mexico.

Piqued by LJ World's article, elenemigocomun published a follow-up story "The Road to Hell" (9/26/2007) elaborating upon the dangers of a military-funded mapping project. Since then, we found ourselves among a growing number of community members and students across the U.S./Mexico border investigating those behind the mapping project.

Our concerns have revolved around:

1. academic ethics violations due to lack of transparency with communities about the sources of their research funding,
2. U.S. Army violations of Mexican sovereignty,
3. and violations of indigenous autonomy.

Our collective research has shown that our concerns have indeed been justified.

Bowman Expeditions & Mexico Indigena

Kansas University Dept. of Geography professors Peter Herlihy and Jerome Dobson received funding for their mapping project Bowman Expeditions from the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth.  The Mexican incarnation of the project —Mexico Indigena— began mapping an indigenous region known as "La Huasteca" in 2005, and then moved into areas in the state of Oaxaca amid the 2006 popular uprising of the APPO (Oaxacan People's Popular Assembly).

On the January 14th 2009, UNOSJO (the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca) released a communique expressing concerns of biopiracy as result of the Mexico Indigena mapping project, claiming that communities were unaware that the primary funder of the project was the FMSO. They cited a lack of  transparency and expressed concerns about the US Army's controversial Human Terrain Mapping System (HTMS).  Indeed, there is compelling evidence that the FMSO is engaging in what they themselves define as "Civil Information Management in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations."

Mexico Indigena's Response

Following the initial elenemigocomun.net article, the Mexico Indigena team released an official response to concerns raised by the military funding.  Since then the scandal has ballooned and several Oaxacan indigenous communities and organizers are demanding answers:  Why were they not told about the military funding?  What will the maps be used for by the military? And is any of this ethical at all?

In the face of these concerns, Professor Dobson individually, his Mexico Indigena team, and the American Geographical Society (AGS) —of which Dobson serves as president— have each released statements claiming transparency, conformance to ethical standards, as well as "the best of intentions" for the indigenous populations under study.  The AGS goes on to deny any involvement with the US Army's HTMS project.

Intentions

The Bowman Expeditions are aptly named after the father of American imperial geographic exploration and imposition, Isaiah Bowman.  A recent biography by Neil Smith, "American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization," reveals a racist, arrogant academic who used science  to advance imperial political and economic impositions around the world.  One example among many that Smith cites is that Bowman captured several indigenous Quechua people and used them as pack animals during his explorations in Peru, leading to the "discovery" of Machu Pichu. 

UNOSJO claims that neither they, nor the communities they represent were ever made aware of FMSO funding behind the Mexico Indigena mapping project.  At a press conference held in February 2009, the Director of UNOSJO Aldo Gonzalez said that originally several Oaxacan communities denied the Mexico Indigena mapping project access to their territory because they noticed a FMSO logo on some of the promotional maps shown to the communities. Later on, new maps were shown without the logo. However, at no point was the funding source ever mentioned to them.

Mexico Indigena team members have also worked in Colombia with FMSO.  In Colombia, counter insurgency and strategic military uses of US Army funded mapping projects cannot be disguised as altruistic or otherwise intended.  Either the Mexico Indigena team is lying about their intentions in Mexico, or they're feigning naivete. Yet the implications and intentions behind a military-funded project are self-evident.

Colonel Demarest: Private Property = Security

The official at FMSO assigned to the Bowman expeditions is Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey B. Demarest, an IberoAmerica researcher. During a 23-year military career, Demarest served in multiple assignments in Latin America. A graduate of the School of the Americas, his first book Geoproperty considers private property ownership as an issue of national security and strategy.

The Foreign Military Studies Office is a research and analysis center operating under the Deputy Chief of Staff G-2 (Intelligence). FMSO manages and operates the Ft. Leavenworth Joint Reserve Intelligence Center (JRIC) and conducts analytical programs focused on emerging and asymmetric threats, regional military and security developments, and other issues that define evolving operational environments around the world.  Asymmetric threats are defined as terrorist organizations and guerrilla insurgent armies, while emerging threats are being defined as social phenomenon and in particular, social movements.

Six declassified essays published by Lieutenant Colonel Demarest belie the professed innocent intentions of the Bowman Expeditions.  One is entitled "Mapping Colombia: The Correlation Between Land Data and Strategy,"  and another essay by FMSO colleague Major José M. Madera is titled "Civil Information Management in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations: A Case for the Use of Geospatial Information Systems in Colombia." It details the counterinsurgency and intelligence uses of open source GIS information and land data for what the FMSO calls "Civil Information Management."

It's notable that the bulk of the information provided by these texts is in reference to the use of geographic data for ongoing U.S. military operations in Colombia.  The military operation is financed by U.S. taxpayers through funding for Plan Colombia. Although Plan Colombia has brought about little positive results in the last ten years, recently the U.S. government voted to fund a similar plan in Mexico: the Merida Initiative, known among communities and organizers in Mexico as Plan Mexico.  Both plans use the pretext of narcoterrorism to militarize poor and indigenous communities. 

These FMSO essays and Demarest's textbook expose a particularly sinister military ethic, attitude and strategy with regards to the control of large populations of poor people, indigenous people, and the disenfranchised.  This includes the systematic devaluation of any forms of indigenous self governance and self determination.  Cultural identity, as a whole, is regarded as an impediment to prosperity.  Traditional forms of communal land usage and rights, or in Demarest's words "informal land use," is specifically cited as the primary impediment to "progress" and "security." Demarest's essays argue that informal property ownership in both rural and urban settings is a breeding ground for criminal and/or insurrectionary activity. 

Full Article:

http://www.casacollective.org/story/issue-69-march-2009/demarest-factor-ethics-us-department-defense-funding-academic-research-mex

IBM Controls the Nordic Viking Genome

In 1998, Iceland created the world's first national DNA database of its citizens. Almost all of its 275,000 citizens trace their lineages to the original Nordic Vikings of a prior millennium. In a unique arrangement, Iceland's national genetic code was sold to the genetic research and pharmacogenetic industries through an entity called deCODE Genetics. Less than 8 percent of Iceland's population opted out of the voluntary program, hence deCODE possesses virtually a complete national genetic and hereditary portrait of Iceland. Scientists at deCODE are currently utilizing the information in their study of a range of debilitating condition, including respiratory and muscular disease. Safeguards have been built into the program to conceal individuals' names. But at least one Icelander has sued the government to have her father's genetic history removed. As of March 2003, the case is still winding its way through Icelandic courts. Iceland's national genomic information will be made available to a wide variety of scientific, commercial and governmental entities in an Internet-based system that employs massive data storage drives codenamed "Shark." 31

One main company manages and controls Iceland's genetic data. That company is already positioned to become the worldwide manager and disseminator of all genomic information globally. In anticipation of that day, the company currently operates genomic offices in California, New York, Zurich, Haifa, New Delhi and Tokyo. The name of the company is IBM. Its Iceland project operates under a division known as "Life Services - Nordic." 32 

War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. By Edwin Black. Pg. 439

Related Archive:

http://ce399.typepad.com/weblog/2009/08/humans-are-extinct-part-two.html

PANs, Personal Area Networks: Intra-Body Communications by IBM (1996)

Personal Area Networks (PAN):
A Technology Demonstration by IBM Research
November 18-19, 1996

Technology Description

Scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center (San Jose, CA) are perfecting a new Personal Area Network technology that uses the natural electrical conductivity of the human body to transmit electronic data.

Using a small prototype transmitter (roughly the size of a deck of cards) embedded with a microchip, and a slightly larger receiving device, the researchers can transmit a pre-programmed electronic business card between two people via a simple handshake. What's more, the prototype allows data to be transmitted from sender to receiver through up to four touching bodies.

PAN technology is being demonstrated publicly for the first time at the Comdex computer industry trade show in Las Vegas.

How PAN works

The natural salinity of the human body makes it an excellent conductor of electrical current. PAN technology takes advantage of this conductivity by creating an external electric field that passes an incredibly tiny current through the body, over which data is carried.

The current used is one-billionth of an amp (one nanoamp), which is lower than the natural currents already in the body. In fact, the electrical field created by running a comb through hair is more than 1,000 times greater than that being used by PAN technology.

The speed at which the data is transmitted is equivalent to a 2400-baud modem. Theoretically, 400,000 bits per second could be communicated using this method.

Potential applications

IBM researchers envision PAN technology initially being applied in three ways:

1) To pass simple data between electronic devices carried by two human beings, such as an electronic business card exchanged during a handshake.

2) To exchange information between personal information and communications devices carried by an individual, including cellular phones, pagers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart cards. For example, upon receiving a page, the number could be automatically uploaded to the cellular phone, requiring the user to simply hit the send button. This automation increases accuracy and safety, especially in driving situations.

3) To automate and secure consumer business transactions. Among the many examples:

A public phone equipped with PAN sensors would automatically identify the user, who would no longer have to input calling card numbers and PINs. This application significantly reduces fraud and makes calling it easier and more convenient for users;

By placing RF (radio frequency) sensors on products, such as rental videos, stores could essentially eliminate counter lines and expedite rentals and sales. The customer would simply carry the selected videos through a detecting device that would automatically and accurately identify the customer and his selections, and then bill his account accordingly.

Health service workers could more safely and quickly identify patients, their medical histories and unique medicinal needs by simply touching them. This application would be particularly helpful in accident situations or where the patient is unable to speak or communicate.

Why Use The Body To Transmit Data?

Sharing information increases the usefulness of personal information devices and provides users with features not possible with independent or isolated devices. However, finding a way to do this effectively, securely and cost-efficiently presented a challenge, at least until PAN was developed.

That's because other likely approaches are not practical for everyday use. For example, wiring all these devices together would be cumbersome and constrictive to the user. Infra-red communications of information, used on TV remote controls, requires direct lines of sight to be effective. Radio frequencies (such as those used with automated car locks) could jam or interfere with each other, or be imprecise in crowded situations.

Previous Work In This Area

PAN grew out of work between Professor Mike Hawley's Personal Information Architecture Group and Professor Neil Gershenfeld's Physics and Media Group, both located at the MIT Media Laboratory. Initial research was funded by the IBM Corporation, Hewlett-Packard and the Festo Didactic Corporation.

Thomas Zimmerman (now at the IBM Almaden Research Center - User System Ergonomics Research), working closely with Gershenfeld, realized that data could be sent through the body by modulating the electric field used in position measurement experiments. This technique was developed by Zimmerman in part while MIT was working with the magicians Penn and Teller to refine an illusion in which Penn Jillette playedmusical instruments without touching them.

Availability

The prototype technology being demonstrated by IBM at Comdex is still in the research stages and is being refined before it will be applied to any future products and services.

An IBM Systems Journal article on Personal Area Network technology is available, the article is titled: "Personal Area Networks: Near-field intrabody communication" by Thomas Zimmerman. Vol. 35, No. 3&4, 1996 - MIT Media Lab

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/user/pan/pan.html

Plan 156 from Intra-Space

Balok

Plan 93 from Outer Space

"Like a vast network , the iridescent tendrils of our occult complex spread across the land, linking such centres as are located in California, Florida, North Carolina, Chicago, and New York. These dynamic centres of Thelema receive their vivifying current through our World centre in England." Such was the message of Janice Ayers in 'Sothis' I;2, in September 1977.

...

Crowley's erstwhile secretary Kenneth Grant (who claims to have formed a link to his 'angel' Aossic, and so calls himself Aossic, Ossik, or A'ashik) has - together with his followers - developed a more or less comprehensible outline of a 'new' cosmos on this basis. Interested readers are referred to Grant's books, many of which remain in print. [7] In this article we shall be concentrating on Grant's resulting theoretical expansion of Crowley's demonology. The latter never seems to have regarded angels or demons as very definite beings; for him, they ruled the material world, and were useful for things like getting hold of money. Under Grant's influence they were elaborated into complex transcendental schemes of alternate dimensions outside the circles of space and time. "The terrestrial vehicle is an outcropping in three dimensions of the Angel: the Angel is the fountain of living waters which empowers the terrestrial vehicle." [8] Through contact with this fountain, the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) opens the gate of remembrance of our supernatural reality, what Grant calls "the continuum often glyphed as the Goddess of which we are terrestrial facets." [9] Grant and his adherents 'remember' the origins of Be-ing [10] and have constructed a remarkably complicated collection of metaphors drawn from sources such as the Qabalah, H.P. Lovecraft, [11] Salvador Dalí, Michael P. Bertiaux, Austin Osman Spare, [12] Lemuria, Atlantis, extraterrestrial visitors from Sirius, the promotion of at least one new 'New Aeon', and a whole shoal of 'revelations'. 

Grant placed great emphasis on the development of a IX° 'dream-control' technique, borrowed from Thomas Lake Harris, and introduced into the Crowleyan O.T.O. by Ida Nellidorf under the name of "eroto-comatose lucidity." Before going to sleep the sexual energies were first raised by constant sexual stimulation without orgasm, and then concentrated onto a talisman bearing a requisite symbol, so that in its dreams, the aroused libido would copulate with a dream-partner. The talisman would thus become magically charged, and would make a particular wish - be it for gold or Gnosis - come true.

...

The Cult of Lam and Michael Staley, Grant's London amanuensis.

The 1919 portrait of Lam drawn by Crowley came into Grant's possession in 1945. Crowley never published any explanation of the image, and this allowed for the development of a distinct 'Lam cult'. For this article, Michael Staley provided the following detail in June 2001: "The point is that Crowley says nothing about Lam in his published writing; whether or not there is anything unpublished, I don't know. Interestingly, I have come across an account by an American visitor to Crowley's flat in Jermyn Street, London, in 1941 or thereabouts, who says that the portrait [he doesn't say who it is, but his description of it - he found it repulsive - leaves no doubt] was on Crowley's wall. When the visitor asked who or what it was, Crowley said that it was a portrait of his guru."

In the 1990's this cult (described as the "quintessence of the Typhonian O.T.O. tradition") was supposed to be a manifestation of the Hidden praeternatural/supernatural God or Holy Guardian Angel (HGA), who united the natural with the supernatural. Contact with this HGA was identical to an entry into the Aeon of Ma'at, or the extra-terrestrial continuum. [17] "In my view Lam is the mask of a dynamic state of [extra-terrestrial] [18] gnosis, rather than simply an entity." [19] Staley interested himself in Lam as a state of Gnosis, although he admitted that this state could sometimes also take the nature of an entity's mask; but he would break through these masks.

Crowley's (feminine?) Hoor-paar-kraat (Set) was again understood as the HGA; in the Tetragrammaton YHVH Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Horus) corresponded with the Vav, and Hoor-paar-kraat to the Heh final. "This identifies Hoor-paar-kraat with the Aeon of Ma'at." [20] Lam 'sits' in the Muladhara Chakra's Bija-Mantra, where the Fiery Serpent (or Kundalini) waits to uncoil. The 'optical' union with Lam took place in Lam's eyes, the region of the Ajna-Chakra (and also the seat of the will). [21] According to Crowley this corresponded to a sex-magical act in which one became conscious of the Ajna and Muladhara Chakras during orgasm. [22]

Contact with the HGA was defined as the stage of "reaching critical mass" after doing intensive Abramelin or Liber Samekh exercises. The HGA is the sum total of experience, gathered into this critical mass and then able to take on spontaneous form. [23]

This contact with the HGA - whether experienced in concrete exterior form, or as the aspirant's spiritual Higher Self - corresponded with the start of 'occult puberty'. [24] For an occultist, it meant that there was no longer any distinction between inner and outer. Evolution demanded that one cast off such old mental habits, [25] and that humanity should become non-human, as in Crowley's A*A*, where a kind of superman hatched from the Egg or Babe of the Abyss (that is, the concept of dissolution in occult Qabalah, the bridge between human and divine).

Freed of Ego, only this new human creature can help human evolution, and perhaps even that of the universe. ['Babe of the Abyss'; the whole point being that the Kabbalistic Abyss is the ultimate womb from which the soul is born before progressing to the Supernal Triad of sefiroth (Kether, Chokmah, and Binah) on the Tree of Life. After being born from the Abyss, it first reaches Binah, the 'Magna Mater'.]

For Staley, magic is primarily a matter of communicating with non-human entities. However, such entities are not to be found outside human beings, as man and the universe are one - both are aspects of the universe. [26] Staley found better comprehension of this through the Sanskrit concept of Advaita or "not-divided", and in the Prajnaparamita-Buddhist "Sunyavada". At one stage Staley worked with a Lam-Serpent Sadhana, in which the Lam-Serpent was visualised as the Kundalini surmounted by Lam's head. [27] This Lam-Serpent uncoiled itself along the sushumna, while the chakras were visualised, and the Bija-Mantras were vibrated. According to Staley the 'secret' of sex-magic resided solely in the fact "that matter is malleable and can be influenced by sustained, intense visualisation; the potency of this visualisation can be increased by the directed sexual current." [28]

The HGA functioned as the mediator and boundary station between the terrestrial and the infinite. With the HGA projected as the Egregore outside the individuality, the HGA can be used to communicate with the 'Secret Chiefs'; using the occult technique of 'Assuming a God-Form' one becomes an angel/egregore among other angels/egregores.

...

26. In Thelemic terms, the magician expels his blood into the chalice of Babalon. Babalon (or Venus, see Crowley's "Vision and the Voice", 1909) has been the (sometimes masculine) Scarlet Whore of Revelation; her number, 156, is equated Kabbalistically with 'constant copulation' and 'samadhi'. 

(excerpt)

Full Article and Hyperlinks:

http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/lam.htm

Related Archive:

Double Helix Codiscoverer James Watson's "Pretty Women" Revisited

Thelemic Ideas Integrated into Structure of American Society and Government

Warren Buffett: "first stimulus was like taking half tablet of Viagra" 

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1987: Chaos Magic, SDI, Prozac, GMO Crops and the Human Genome Initiative

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Archive closed for indexing and renovations. U.S. imperialists out of Latin America!

"Humans" are EXTINCT (Part Two)

It's not an easy thing to meet your maker - Roy Batty. Blade Runner 

In 1998, Iceland created the world's first national DNA database of its citizens. Almost all of its 275,000 citizens trace their lineages to the original Nordic Vikings of a prior millennium. In a unique arrangement, Iceland's national genetic code was sold to the genetic research and pharmacogenetic industries through an entity called deCODE Genetics. Less than 8 percent of Iceland's population opted out of the voluntary program, hence deCODE possesses virtually a complete national genetic and hereditary portrait of Iceland. Scientists at deCODE are currently utilizing the information in their study of a range of debilitating condition, including respiratory and muscular disease. Safeguards have been built into the program to conceal individuals' names. But at least one Icelander has sued the government to have her father's genetic history removed. As of March 2003, the case is still winding its way through Icelandic courts. Iceland's national genomic information will be made available to a wide variety of scientific, commercial and governmental entities in an Internet-based system that employs massive data storage drives codenamed "Shark." 31

One main company manages and controls Iceland's genetic data. That company is already positioned to become the worldwide manager and disseminator of all genomic information globally. In anticipation of that day, the company currently operates genomic offices in California, New York, Zurich, Haifa, New Delhi and Tokyo. The name of the company is IBM. Its Iceland project operates under a division known as "Life Services - Nordic." 32

Estonia became the second nation to databank its entire population. In 2001, Estonia created the Estonia Genome Project to capture the genetic profiles of its 1.4 million citizens. A biotechnology industry article cited by the government's website explains,  "Unlike remote Iceland, Estonia has long been a European stomping ground, ruled by a succession of Russian, Swedish, German and Danish invaders who left their genetic heritage. Estonia's ethnic mix thus could be a major draw for pharmaceutical companies that want to find disease genes common to most Europeans. 33

The tiny Polynesian nation of Tonga sold the information on its unique gene pool to Autogen, an Australian genetic research firm, in 2000. Tonga's 170 islands host a group of some 108,000 natives isolated for more than three millennia. Autogen was quoted as explaining its interest in Tonga's population: " The less mixture of inter-racial marriage, the more likely you are to be able to determine a particular gene that may be responsible for a particular disease, whether it's breast cancer or whether it's kidney disease."34

After reevaluation the arrangement between Tonga and Autogen was cancelled. Autogen instead focused on a Tasmanian genetic repository. "Tasmania is one of only a few populations in the world where up to seven-generation family pedigrees are available," the company announced. "This makes it an ideal location to study the genetics of complex diseases such as obesity and diabetes."35

In England, the UK Biobank recently opened as a repository for the medical information and genetic data of a half million volunteers. More commercial initiatives are underway to secure national genetic information around the world using ethnic, national racial and even religious parameters. The pharmaceutical companies, governmental agencies and research foundations that operate these databanks will interconnect them globally. The devoted men and women laboring on these national projects are joining research hands to create new disease-fighting drugs, unlock the mysteries of hereditary disease and improve the quality of life. In the process, prodigious masses of individual genetic information are being gathered. This data can be exchanged and retrieved at the speed on light from a computer and even downloaded to a cell phone. 

War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. By Edwin Black. Pg. 439

Related Archives:

"Humans" are EXTINCT (Part One)

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Eugenic Bomb? (Part One) (The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture)

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Eugenic Bomb? (Part Three) (The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture)

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Eugenic Bomb? (Part Two) (The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture)

Mind Control and Eugenics: "Redressing" Nature's Randomness, Intolerant of Uncertainty in Human Behavior

Oatmeal (Quaker Oats Billboard)