Free-thinkers Movement

[xmasdale]

Does the approach of the Free-thinkers' movement appeal to our supporters?

Does it tend to unite or to divide?

Do you personally find any inspiration in this approach?

Does it give the 9/11 Truth Movement the opportunity to approach a wider audience?

An article about Free-thinkers appears as the next post in this thread.

Noel

[xmasdale]

Mike Stagman has sent us this:

The FREE-THINKERS Movement

[subtitle---WORLD WAR III: Giant Corporations against Planet and People]



SUMMARY

We have entered a corporate fascist era of growing horror. Giant Corporations are determined to seize global control of economies, governments and societies --- world conquest.

[The most powerful of these corporations are American. The U.S. Military has frankly stated the goal of "full-spectrum domination".]

And they are succeeding. For their purpose, these Corporations and their henchman governments are using new nightmare technologies such as genetic engineering and surveillance apparati in conjunction with the old, trusty methods of bribery, thought control, and the suppression of civil liberties.

Fascism from the early 20th century has returned in full force, and already the current governments of the United States, Britain and the European Union are essentialy fascist as they do their paymasters' bidding.

Since established organisations are hopelessly compromised or just plain phony, The People as INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS must rescue ourselves and all we hold dear. [This can be done.]

Each of us can do this by becoming a small but valuable part of The FREE-THINKERS Movement. We shall be following the great Free-Thinking spirits of the past -- people such as Socrates, Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson.

We must assume control of the political system which rightfully and legally belongs to The People, but is now in the hands of The Few.

How?? By creating an Alternative Information System which reaches out to and includes the General Public. Become an informed, independent thinker and, in SPARETIME, further one or more of the many reformist Good Causes crying out for your help.

In this manner, we ourselves proceed to establish an honest, Grassroots Democracy to replace the habitual Money Politics.

The key: Educate and Activate the General Public regarding your Good Cause. Educate and Activate the General Public in sparetime, but regularly, as part of an ethical life-style.

In your small but valuable way, or in a bigger way as a small group, conduct Public Education campaigns through your contacts and in your community.

Always, please, PUBLICISE The ETHIC of sparetime engagement in Good Causes, educating & activating the General Public.

Avoid large established organisations as if they were plague, and do your good work as individuals and in small groups.

If you and others do not come to the rescue of the civilised and natural world, then say farewell to Liberty, say goodbye to Equality, and sit by to watch Giant Corporations and their Government henchmen take over our lives and destroy everything cherished and honoured over the centuries -- - even to the poisoning of food and medicine in this ever-darkening world.

Join the Free-Thinkers movement !!

[Do read the following article which prints out to approximately 10 pages. It could not really be made shorter, or it would have been. The Free-Thinkers Movement needs you to understand the essential information provided below.]


I. World War III: Giant Corporations against Planet and People

The Third World War is well underway, and few people even realise there is a war. This gives Giant Corporations an immense advantage in their assault on People and our Planet. The Corporations are winning this terrible conflict, and Human Beings had better learn quickly what is going on.

Giant Corporations, using nightmare technology among other methods, are destroying us and our planet. They are destroying any semblance of democracy, destroying human health, Nature's animal and plant species, and even Earth's climate.

Giant Corporations are driven by a pathological greed for Money and Power, the Twin Cronies. The major, controlling shareholders, their board of directors and executive officers, their armies of scientists and lawyers, and all their political and government enforcers --- they are morally ill and have lost touch with human decency.

Giant Corporations are dictatorships (and should not be so because of their power). They are owned (i.e. effectively controlled) by the major stockholders.
(For example. the giant oil corporations of Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and the largest bank in the world, Citibank, are a few of the giant corporations owned by one American family, the Rockefellers;
(DuPont Chemical and General Motors, the largest automobile company in the world, are among the possessions of the DuPont family.
(Note: A few percent of the voting stock is normally enough to control the corporation due to the diffuse holdings of millions of much smaller investors.).

These Corporations are managed for the benefit of the major shareholders by directors and executive officers. The major shareholders and their principal directors are the heartless souls of the Corporation.

Giant Corporations are destroying food safety, poisoning the world's food supply with pesticides and other disease-causing chemicals, radioactivity, and -- worst of all -- genetically modified organisms (GMOs, the British say 'GM').
Genetically engineered products (food, medicine, food supplements, etc.) have been clearly implicated in many hundreds of human deaths, thousands of cripplings, hundreds of thousands of hospitalisations, and millions of so-called 'allergic' reactions.
There have been a number of GMO epidemics, hushed up by the corporate media and controlled governments. [On the GMOs subject, see, for example, Jeffrey M. Smith's excellent book, Seeds of Deception, 2003; www.CCIN.info; www.I-SIS.org.uk]

Genetically engineered (Frankenstein) food and crops are in the process of contaminating Earth's plant life, destroying the independence and livelihoods of one and one-half billion farmers worldwide, and giving a few Giant Corporations control of world agriculture.

Frankenstein food and crops, and the closely associated, obscene, sacrilegious Patents on Life-Forms, must be OUTLAWED.

Note: All food should be organic. Before World War II, it was organic, as per the previous 15,000 years of farming. We had surpluses of healthy food. The Giant Chemcal Corporations created an enormous industry where there was no agricultural need -- doing it primarily by bribing government.

Giant Corporations are destroying the safety of medicine, marketing dangerous drugs with inadequate or false testing, bribing governments to pass them and bribing doctors to prescribe them.
The increasing use of genetically engineered drugs is already making this terrible situation much worse (e.g. the GMO insulin epidemic which the media will not mention; the recent, March 2006, incident in London where 6 volunteers took an experimental drug and experienced multiple organ failure, nearly dying -- the BBC, etc., suppressed the fact that the drug was genetically engineered).

Fact: The third largest cause of death and illness in the western world, after cancer and heart disease, is prescribed drugs. (One supposed pain-killing drug, Vioxx, may have killed 55,000 people in the United States alone. Few wars do that.

Note: See the House of Commons Health Select Committee's report, April 2005, volume 2, "The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry", where testimony describes the Drug Industry's blanket bribery of the entire medical system from Government regulatory agencies to doctors to newspapers and medical journals, patient advocacy groups, etc. [This is how the entire political-economic system operates.]

Giant Corporations profit stupendously from CANCER, their chemicals and radioactivity causing most of it, then their drugs devouring money for treatment. The world's greatest racket !!
[And now GMOs will begin to cause cancer, as the genetically-engineered artifical sweetner, Aspartame; and GMO growth hormone, rBGH (rBST), swallowed with much American meat, are known to be carcinogenic.]

Giant Corporations own most of the scientists, turning them into conscienceless devisers of horrid technological processes (e.g. genetic engineering and nanotechnology, spying technology, biological and other military weapons).

Exploiting, controlling and killing are the overwhelming concerns of scientific investigations today.

Giant Corporations dominate and corrupt the legal system. They see to it that Corporation-inclined judges are politically appointed from the vast stock of unsavory lawyers, and that lawyers can extort such incredibly high fees that only the Rich can receive genuine representation.
[Lawyers form essentially a parasitical class whose fees ought to be set by a Citizenry which sharply oversees and regulates lawyers..]
Moreever, the use of the lawcourts for political frameups is not uncommon, and serves as excellent propaganda for corporate-government purposes.

[Note: PATENT LAW is probably the most unfair and dishonest of all the disfigured fields of law. Patent law is a method for corporations to gain monpolies over things that rightly belong in the PUBLIC DOMAIN (i.e. belong to all of us),
Patents are rarely used to encourage beneficial inventions. They are habitually used to control markets, stop others from doing research, and set artifically (often astronomically) high prices. Get this: 2/3 of patented products are never marketed !!
Patent law should be completely overhauled, almost all inventions belonging in the public domain. Over 90% of current patents should be instantly abolished.
The vilest part of patent law is the fairly recent 'legitimising' of the formerly illegal and sacrilegious Patents on Life-Forms. These allow Giant Corporations to successfully sue victimised farmers whose fields have been contaminated by GMOs, charging them with "patent infringement".
This is how the Chemical-Drug-Biotechnology Corporations can take over world agriculture. Contamination leads to corporate proprietary rights !!
A nightclub comedian could not have made this up.

Giant Corporations dominate the mass communications media, occasioning the suppression and distortion of truth, not to mention a fistful of lies with every delivery.
Giant Corporations absolutely dominate Television, the chief weapon in their media propaganda arsenal. Television, which instills materialistic values and wastes mountains of time which could be gainfully employed, is one of the worst influences on the planet.
[NBC is controlled by the Rockefellers. Rupert Murdoch has been allowed to found media empires in country after country because he customarily peddles giant corporation propaganda.]

Giant Corporations establish subservient international organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organisation (WTO) that pretend to be neutral benefactors of mankind but are simply the economic enforcers of Giant Corporations.

Extremely important:
NGOs (non-governmental organisations) --- Giant Corporations corrupt and dominate the hierarchies and decison-making of NGOs They even create NGOs which pretend to be well-intentioned environmental organisations, research institutes, etc.
Try and guess which giant, prestigious environmental organisation was actually founded by the major oil corporations as part of their "ecology agenda" to slickly control, dilute, and derail the growing environmental movement. (Hint: It's not Greenpeace.)

Avoid NGOs (including so-called 'charities'). Their inevitably self-seeking hierachies never care very much for the Cause that activists fight for and followers support. NEVER. They have been corrupted to siphon off your energies and your money.
Avoid large, established organisations of all kinds. They are not what you think they are.

[Naturally,the hierarchies of political parties, which may begin as genuinely reformist and achieve some success, will soon be corrupted. Subversion methods include bribery, blackmail, or even planting people in the party, getting them into high, obstructive positions through money and other levers.]

Giant Corporations destroy jobs -- wholesale demolition -- together with employment rights and security. And they evidently have big plans to substitute technology for hundreds of millions of jobs. (see Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era, 1995)

Giant Corporations destroy small and medium-sized businesses. Smaller businesses are more efficient, but government does giant corporation bidding to discriminate against and often ruin competition. [The antitrust laws and the government departments sworn to uphold them are a joke.]

Giant Corporations warp and downgrade our educational systems, corrupting administration and professors to turn universities into research arms of giant corporations -- at public expense.
Another terrible casualty has been the reduction, even decimation of classical studies which impart intelligence and culture. The Classics and Humanities were revered during the European Enlightenment, with excellent reason. The Renaissance featured a rebirth of emphasis on the Greek and Latin Classics.

Giant Corporations sponsor ANIMAL CRUELTY of unimaginable proportions, torturing and killing tens of billions of animals each year. The process includes:

(1) giant animal factories in which the creatures live in barbarous conditions before being slaughtered. [Compare the humane treatment of organic farming and small family farms.]
(2) experiments designed to slip unsafe drugs onto the market via essentially false or falsified 'animal research'.

Giant Corporations destroy the ethical fabric of family and society. They convert people into singleminded worshippers of material things (Materialism -- 'Mammon'), and morally compromised in pursuit of money and 'success'.

Giant Corporations rob the Third World of their resources (e.g. oil, water -- the monstrosities of giant western corporations given monopolies over native water supplies !! and other valuable minerals, and now -- due to Patents on Life-Forms -- biopiracy of genetic materials).
The robbery is accomplished through bribery and extortion, subversion, and outright military aggression (e.g. the recent Iraq war, and next on the list is Iran; EU miltary forces have invaded the Congo to go after their oil, diamonds, gold, bauxite, etc.) Their scriptwriter has it as a "peacekeeping mission".)

The Giant Oil Corporations (the Rockefeller Exxon-Mobil-Chevron, etc. corporations, and British BP and Shell) are responsible for many of the wars which took place in the 20th century, and the same pattern is occurring in the 21st century.
[See the distinguished economist-historian William Engdahl's A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, revised 2004 edition, which describes in detail the US and UK oil corporations and governments as international predators. Get the revised 2004 edition which has important material on the Iraq War.]

Giant Corporations control the world's Energy supplies, ensuring that the worst polluters (oil & gas, nuclear) dominate the Earth while clean, renewable sources (e.g. solar energy, tidal, geothermal, hydrogen) are kept in handcuffs.
GLOBAL WARMING, which can kill off most life on this planet (and will force countless millions of refugees to enter other countries) is one result.

Giant Corporations operate the Death Trade of armaments, sometimes selling to both sides in a conflict, and always making sure that despots have plenty of weaponry to kill off opposition.

European Union:
Giant Corporations dominate the European Union, ruling primarily through the unelected, unaccountable (persistently corrupt) European Commission (EC). (The European Parliament is a futile talking shop.) That is why major EU policies almost always benefit giant corporations against the public interest.
Giant American Corporations (e.g. the oil, chemical-drug-biotechnology giants, and giant banks) are part of the ruling elite.
That is why the CIA for many years had a top priority policy of establishing the European Union. And why George W. Bush in 2005 wanted to come to England to urge British acceptance of the subjugating, dictatorial European Constitution.
[It is propaganda which leads people to believe that the EU will provide a bulwark against the United States.]

USA and EU --- now there are two bullies on the block pushing the interests of Giant Corporations They disagree only on tactics and the division of the spoils.
The nucleus of Giant Corporations dominating the EU includes most prominently: Germany's Deutschebank and chemical-drug-biotechnology syndicate of Bayer, Aventis and BASF. (Aventis was formed a few years ago by the merger of Hoechst with France's Rhone Poulenc. Bayer, Hoechst and BASF comprised I.G. Farben, Nazi Germany's economic giant which -- in addition to colonising factories in conquered Europe -- constructed and operated the slave labor and death camp at Auschwitz.)

Fascist Tyranny: This is an invention of Giant Corporations.
The phenomenon of Fascism dominated Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Fascist governments took over Italy, Germany, and Spain, and Fascism had a powerful influence in France.

What is Fascism? Mussolini's definition should be remembered. He called it "the merging of big business and government" (but he conveniently left out the part about police-state tyranny). Giant Corporations either rule Fascist governments from behind-the-scenes (as today) or are the chief allies and beneficiaries of it (as in Hitler's Germany).

Therefore, with essentially fascist governments today ruling the United States, Britain, and the European Union, it is little wonder that we once again (as in the 1930s and 40s) see the crushing of individual rights, torture, and secret police bombing public places, then blaming it inventively on imaginary, so-called "Islamic terrorists".

[E.g. New York's World Trade Center -- the greatest fraud-and-slander in history-- where the bombs were planted inside the WTC and the camouflaging plane directed into the building by controls-capturing technology perfected by the U.S. Government and revealed by a former German Minister of Technology;
[London (where the bombs were laid under the train by police agents, not carted around in backpacks by innocent young people);
[Madrid (where the outgoing, complicit government destroyed all the files on the bombing !!).

So did the Nazis firebomb the Reichstag and blame others for such "terrorism", using the event to destroy the Weimar Republic and institute the Nazi dictatorship. Stalin had Kirov murdered and blamed this on "counter-revolutionaries" to justify the Great Purge; President Lyndon Johnson simply made up the "Tonkin Gulf Incident" to justify the Vietnam War.

Study history and you would yawn at contemporary "terrorism" as the same old Government tactic -- the engineered pretext.
These State-perpetrated atrocities have built up the myth of "Terrorism" to substitute for the defunct "Communism".in order to

(1) justify the destruction of democratic liberties typically used to oppose corporate policies, instituting a police state;
(2) justify foreign invasions designed to seize enormously valuable resources.

We are also subject now to voting fraud & rigged elections (the EU's version of this is to ignore referendum results on the enslaving European Constitution that go against the Corporate elite's interests, and to ban a political party the EU does not like when it achieves popularity.)

We are now subject to widespread government spying on the Public and destruction of our sacred right of privacy (hence centralised & expanded, detailed databases),
a servile press and disgracefully dishonest television, a blanket of propaganda smothering the air waves, and so many other unconscionable, police state policies.

HOW CAN Giant Corporations manage to accomplish such prodigious evil? They are, after all, a relative handful of people.
[This evokes the immemorial question of how an oligarchy (Greek, government by The Few) can prevent or subvert Democracy (Gr, government by The Many)].

HOW? Through two principal methods:

One, and most importantly, BRIBERY of the political system. The control of GOVERNMENT is the greatest prize, handing Giant Corporations a military machine and police forces (including secret police), a legal system, a legislature, a financial administration, a publicity machine, etc., etc., -- all the tools and powers which are vested in government.

Consequently, They get their own people into key positions in government & political parties, and we see the "revolving door" of high government officials going into Giant Corporations they have helped while in office, or coming out of the Corporations and going into government.

Thus, politicians tend to be puppets. Presidents and prime ministers are paid to make palatable to the Public such policies as would horrify the Public if honestly presented to them.
For instance, if the CEO of an oil corporation were placed in the presidency by Corporate money and the new president said we must invade Iraq, not to seize their oil, but to do some moral good, Who would be so stupid as to believe him? They need political leaders who can fool the Public into believing propaganda.
Moreover, politicans are paid to 'take the heat' when protest over unconscionable policies wells up in the Public --- and to keep the Corporations' names out of it at all costs.

Two, Thought Control, by dominating the mass media, especially television.
Here again, without control of the political system, television and newspapers would not lend themselves easily to Corporate propaganda and truth-suppression.

[A Note regarding The Misfortune 500 --- Perhaps the most powerful, profitable and destructive corporations are in the following fields:

(1) OIL syndicate (e.g. Exxon-Mobil-Chevron, Gulf, British Petroleum and Shell Oil).

(2) Chemical-Drug-Biotechnology syndicate (e.g. Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, Pfizer (USA); Astra Zeneca (Syngenta, the world's 2nd largest biotechnology corporation, is Britain's Astra Zeneca merged with Swiss Novartis, Glaxo (UK), Bayer, Aventis, BASF (Germany);

(3) Banking (e.g,. Citibank, Chase Manhattan (USA), Barclays (UK), Deutschebank (Germany).
[The American corporations named here are almost all controlled by one family -- the Rockefellers, by far the most powerful people on earth.]


II. The FREE-THINKERS have arisen in every age to see through the propaganda of ruling elites and to combat the evils hidden by their propaganda.

The Free-Thinkers were independent-minded, freed from the dogma, lies and distortions of vested institutions.

The Free-Thinkers were deeply sceptical of (even cynical about) pronouncements from 'Authority', from governments and large institutions.

The Free-Thinkers consistently sought Truth. They were informed, knowledgeable about the subjects they were concerned with. They desired to LEARN, not just to follow leaders. Without knowledge, without being an informed person, how can you free yourself?

The Free-Thinkers were guided by moral conscience. To them, the individual moral conscience was the supreme arbitre of right and wrong.

The Free-Thinkers fought for Justice. And they demanded Fair Play for everyone.

The Free-Thinkers engaged in Good Causes, wishing to help create a better world.

The Free-Thinkers -- this was crucial -- endeavored to educate and activate others, to educate & activate the General Public on important issues so they too would participate in the fight for Justice.

Socrates was the original Free-Thinker. The great philosopher of Classical Athens, 5th century BC, founded moral philosophy. His style was to persistently ask penetrating questions in order to reveal Truth and Wisdom, encouraging people to think logically and independently.

Socrates went from person to person, speaking to them individually or in small groups, seeking to educate and morally activate his fellow Athenians.

Socrates staunchly opposed what a heavy majority of Athenians favoured and took pride in -- their Empire. Socrates told them everyday, for decades, that imperialism and empire were moral poison, wreaking injustices on subject peoples and corrupting themselves -- the conquerors -- in the process.

He never tired of declaring that Justice and decent behavior were to be valued, not Money and Power. The Twin Cronies were false idols.

Socrates said thousands of times, in various ways,"Always ask yourself, 'What is the ethical thing to do.'"]


Voltaire, the 18th century French genius and "natural aristocrat", was the most famous man in the world during his time. Why? Because of his unending fight for Justice. And, in addition to his literary works, the thousands of beautiful letters he composed to educate and activate people, exposing despotism and setting wrongs to right.

Voltaire took up individual cases of injustice, and could spend years combating powerful institutions in order to obtain justice for one individual victim.

A man whom Voltaire saved from prison and possibly death, paid this splendid compliment to the extraordinary prince of belles lettres: "Your good heart is superior even to your intellect, and you are the best friend any man has ever had."

Voltaire is credited with having invented Public Opinion as a weapon for Justice.

Voltaire was the greatest leader of the 18th century "Enlightenment" in Europe, a movement against tyrannical authority. The Age of Reason held dear the idea of individual rights and freedoms.

Voltaire was an international symbol of Free Thought, and was specifically called a "Free-Thinker".


Thomas Jefferson was the foremost American Free-Thinker of his day, the composer of the Declaration of Independence. This would have been his death warrant had the revolution against England failed.

Jefferson was known as "the friend of the People", because he always stood up for the Poor and Weak against the Rich and Powerful.

Not very long after the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, America experienced a counter-revolution. Not directly involving the British, it saw the (for that time) giant commercial and financial interests, located in the Northeast, bankroll a successful overthrow of American democracy. They prompted and aided politicans called "Federalists" to effectively take over the Government after the two terms of George Washington.

The Federalists suppressed the Bill of Rights and made it illegal, with severe punishments for violation, to criticise the Government. The large printing houses, which were the mass media of that day, churned out Federalist propaganda and were offbounds to democratic sentiments.

Thomas Jefferson was Vice-President under President John Adams, and he was forbidden to write or speak out against the new despotism. What could he and his friend, Congressman James Madison, do?

They set about educating and politically activating the country, visiting people and writing letters to resurrect the democracy. Very much like Socrates, but not so openly. In time, these two great Free-Thinkers had created and mobilised Public Opinion to throw the Federalists out and reinstate American Democracy.

The next presidential election was a fair one -- because the People saw to it that no voting fraud would take place. Thomas Jefferson won that election, becoming the third president of the United States. He was re-elected 4 years later. After his second term, Jefferson stood down, and the 4th president of the United States was James Madison.

The Free-Thinking Jefferson, by the way, wrote on his tombstone some of the achievements he was most proud of, such as composing the Declaration of Independence. He did not mention that he was twice elected and served two terms as President of the United States.

When another famous man was dying, he said by way of expressing hope for the fledgling American Democracy -- "Jefferson lives".



III. What To Do, Free-Thinkers, to fight and win World War III?

Contribute to a movement whereby The People assume control of the political system and government which are rightfully and lawfully theirs.

We must ourselves create an Honest, Grassroots Democracy to replace Money Politics.

To do this, The Many (The General Public) must participate in the political process (in any one of a number of ways), in SPARETIME but regularly, as part of an ethical life-style.

This is the ONLY METHOD to take control away from The Few rich and powerful Giant Corporations.

This is how they did it 2,500 years ago in Athens to end Oligarchy and create a genuine Democracy, and this is how we must do it today. [The only true democracy is a popular, participatory one; otherwise the outward form of government is a sham, a cover for Oligarchy.]

How to participate in the political process? Just engage, in sparetime, in one or more Good Causes, important reformist Causes.
We have indicated above a nunber of them, and you can surely think of many others, perhaps of more immediate concern to you.

Let us point out exactly what a Free-Thinker can do, then conclude by listing our notion of the most crucial Good Causes.

Please remember to work individually or in small groups. NEVER join an established organisation. NONE of them are what you think they are. Their HIERARCHIES will always disappoint and disillusion intelligent, well-motivated followers. Steer clear of them !!

Giant Corporations and their politicos depend absolutely on Public ignorance and passivity regarding major issues. This is the basis of Oligarchic dominance over The People.

Keep in mind we are creating an ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM which reaches & includes the GENERAL PUBLIC, and creating an HONEST, GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY.

Alone or in small groups (people you know):

(1) Educate and Activate others directly (talking to them, letter-writing and emailing),.
Always ask them to pass on the information to others -- creating a Chain Process and ripple effect.
Ambitious groups can conduct a Public Education Campaign in their community or school.
[Note: Double-sided A4s make good information sheets to sufficiently present the basic argument.
Suggestion: essential subject information on one side, and What To Do on the other. Have an interesting, significant picture or two on each side. Hand them out, especially getting them to people's doors. If someone is home, say two or three sentences to them about the leaflet and its importance to them, their children and grandchldren.
Arrange for a public meeting/discussion to be held in that community, announcing it on the information sheet. Perhaps prepare a DVD for presentation at the meeting or at a lecture.

(2) Telephone the media (e.g. to a reporter who might prove sympathetic, or to an editor, leaving a message) and write letters-to-the-editors. If enough people do it, some letters will be printed (it's a very popular section of the paper, reaching a lot of people), and editors will modify their editorials and begin to alter their instructions to journalists.

Something must be done about TELEVISION --- Its evil influence is so important to Giant Corporations and their dominated Governments.

To start, be aware of its propaganda function and persistent suppression of truth. Publicise and pressure.

(3) Lobby your local and national governments. By far the best thing is for 2, 3, or 4 of you to make an appointment with your legislative representative(s) and, armed with some information (never assume they know anything), register your opinions with him/her.

Unless your rep is really corrupt (most are not; they just seem that way because The System compromises them), it does not take many such meetings from different people to impel the legislator to take heed.

(4) Direct Action. This is meant to publicise, to discomfort, and to establish. PUBLICISE, with the appropriate slant, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
We wish to establish an honest, grassroots democracy. In such a truly democratic system, there would be things like:

(a) popular initiative & referendum for legislation (as in California) and RATIFICATION (via referendum ) by the People of laws passed by legislatures,

(b) Citizen Oversight Committees for all the branches of government, at all levels,

(c) Citizen investigations -- on-going -- of Giant Corporations, and appropriate publicity,

(d) Citizen legislatures, judiciaries and executive departments. This is a way of publicising what ought to be in contrast to what unfortunately is taking place in Corporate-dominated government. They would also provide excellent learning and training.

(e) the opening of Democracy Centres which instruct and encourage people to do all the above.

Go ahead and establish them.


Good Causes worthy of a little contribution from everyone because they are so terribly important:

1. Work against police state FASCISM --- Spread the word about World War III and the re-establishment of the early 20th century terror.

See through Propaganda. Support civil liberties absolutely, support the separation of government power (with the Legislature dominant over the Executive) and oppose centralised databases, centralisation of the police, etc.

Of extreme importance, work to prevent VOTING FRAUD and RIGGED ELECTIONS.
NO TECHNOLOGY should be involved in voting procedures -- it's easy to rig machines and software. NO ALL-POSTAL VOTING.
Devise methods to ensure a fair count, involving citizen watchdogs.

REPEAL the tyrannical Patriot Act (USA) and all repressive legislation of the New Labour Government (UK), the European Union, etc.
In Britain, make sure to repeal the Civil Contingencies Act which was based on Adolf Hitler's Enabling Act and allows the Government, in a so-called 'Emergency', to destroy essentially all democratic rights and processes.

[The complicity of the hierarchy of the Conservative Party with the New Labour Government in forcing passage through the House of Lords of this plainly Fascist legislation, made one's skin crawl. One prominent Lord of the Conservative Party called the Civil Continencies Bill "the death warrant" of democracy, yet he too wilted under pressure from the unscrupulous leadership.]

Establish those Citizen Oversight Committees to inspect and publicise the doings of government (at all levels) and the most destructive Giant Corporations (e.g. Oil Industry, Chemical-Drug-Biotechnology syndicate, Banking Industry).
Establish those Democracy Centres in every town.

2. OUTLAW all Genetic Engineering and Patents on Life-Forms.
Frankenstein food & crops will contaminate everything and must be outlawed. Genetically engineered medicine will make medicines and hospitals utterly unsafe.

[Message to independent, ethical and talented scientists --- It is theoretically possible to devise suicide vectors for GMOs.]

The genetic engineering process itself converts easily into biological weaponry.
All genetic engineering must be outlawed.

3. Patent Law is being used increasingly to monopolise practically everything of great value in western countries as well as n the Third World. These corrupt patent laws should be radically changed, almost everything placed in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

4. Global Warming --- see www.ccin.info for a summary of the subject and what can be done about drastic climate change. (e.g. attack the power of the Oil Industry, develop -- without patenting -- clean, renewable energy sources, promote public transport and stop building airports -- the problem was always POLITICAL, not technical).

5. Rescue endangered animal and plant species, and the fish that are rapidly dying out in their polluted seas
--- "At current rates of conservation and deforestation and other forms of environmental destruction, at least one-fifth of species of plants and animals would be gone or committed to early extinction by 2030, and one-half by the end of the century." --- Prof. Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University, The Future of Life, 2002.
(see www.ccin.info for a summary of the subject and what can be done)

Join The Free-Thinkers Movement !!

Participate in the Alternative Information Syatem.

Publicise the Free-Thinker's Ethic of engaging in Good Causes, in sparetime but regularly, as part of an ethical-life style.

Educate and activate the General Public so The People can assume control of the all-important political system which is rightfully and lawfully theirs, establishing an Honest, Grassroots Democracy.

P.S. Message to Students: Start a Free-Thinkers society in your college or university.

Message to Senior Citizens: Join the Free-Thinkers. Engaging in reformist Good Causes gives you moral purpose and sets a good example for your grandchildren..

[Andrew Johnson]

Author Unknown:


It started out innocently enough.

I began to think at parties now and then, just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone -- to relax, I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true.

Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time. I even began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and working don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it we are doing here?"

Things weren't going so great at home either. One evening, I turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

Soon, I had a reputation as a heavy thinker.

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Skippy, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another place to work." This gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking ..."

"I know you've been thinking," she snapped, "and I want a divorce!"

"But Honey,” I said, “surely it's not that serious."

"Yes it is," she replied, her lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors, and college professors don't make any money. So if you keep on thinking we won't have any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, but that just made her cry.

I'd had enough.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled, as I stomped out the door. I drove off, in the mood for some Nietzsche, and cranked up National Public Radio on the car stereo. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors ... but they didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

As I sank to the ground, clawing at the unfeeling glass and whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye: "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?"

Most of you no doubt recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster.

And that’s how I became what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video. Last week, it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed ... easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.

[alkmyst]

Free-Thinkers ?...yeah, right!

I'd just like to thank Mike Stagman of Free-thinkers for his detailed advice on what to think ... on just about every subject upon which he has a view!

Read the language of his missive ... a prime application of Hegelian dialectic.

Al K Myst

[xmasdale]

Mike Stagman wants to know what you all thought of his free-thinkers article. I think the answer is:

"Not much"

Noel