Project Armannd

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. ~ Thomas Huxley

Obedience is defined as receiver compliance to source authority. The classic example of obedience is the officer giving orders to the soldier. The soldier complies with the officer because the officer has legitimate, organizational power. The compliance does not occur because the soldier likes the officer or necessarily respects his judgment and expertise, but rather simply because the the officer has power and the soldier was trained to obey.

As demonstrated by the Milgram experiment in the 1960s, humans have been shown to be surprisingly obedient in the presence of perceived legitimate authority figures.

Stanley Milgram carried out his experiments to discover how the Nazis had managed to get ordinary people to take part in the mass murder of the Holocaust. The experiment showed that compliance to authority was the norm and not the exception.

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Flora Nicoletta

"Why Pharaoh is so arrogant? Because nobody stops him!" ~ Palestinian saying

"In the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip live 1.5 m people. At least 800 are in jail in Israeli and have been deprived of family visitation for three years. The Israeli navy fire at the fishermen, arrest them, confiscate their equipment. IOF fire at farmers working on their lands close to the "security belt"; at the workers collecting raw construction materials from ruins of destroyed buildings in border areas; at Palestinians and Internationals who peacefully demonstrate at the border against the establishment of a buffer zone. Furthermore, IOF conduct "limited' incursions into the Gaza Strip."

At present in Gaza the flame trees bear enormous balls of orange-red flowers. The frangipani trees perfume the streets with their white flowers which seem porcelain. Other big trees bear clusters of yellow or mauve flowers.

The Gazans love ice cream, are fond of pizza, adore their children, inundate their beaches and meditate about their fate. Many foreigners have always lived and worked in Gaza and they feel very well here. So one wonders: why is it compulsory to murder Palestinians, dispossess them, imprison them, expel them, occupy them, besiege them? Why and why?

There is a question always in our ears. The people ask: "Kif Ghaza?", how is Gaza? how is the situation? From the tone of their voice we understand they are not content. Nobody is content here. The man-made disaster that envelop Gaza and all Palestine has pushed them on the edge of an abyss. Many don't dream anymore of Jerusalem and Haifa. They dream of Norway and a Schengen visa.

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Stephen Lendman

As dawn broke on Monday, Haitians woke to another day in
their tent cities.

"While the quake has been an overwhelming human catastrophe, it's been "particularly (hard) for women with significant risks of worsening. The crisis has intensified (their) responsibilities, such as care-giving for the vulnerable, including infants, children, the elderly and disabled, and amplified existing social inequalities, therefore exposing women to higher rates of poverty and violence." ~ The Huairou Commission

Six months after Haiti's January 12 quake, inadequate relief has arrived, numerous accounts calling conditions hellish, unsanitary and unsafe - New York Times writer Deborah Sontag's July 10 article for one, headlined, "In Haiti, the Displaced Are Left Clinging to the Edge," saying:

Conditions around Port-au-Prince "contain a spectrum of circumstances: precarious, neglected encampments; planned tent cities (with poor sanitation); debris-strewn neighborhoods, (and only) 28,000 of the 1.5 million (or more) displaced moved into new homes," the affected areas "a tableau of life in the ruins."

Oxfam's Julie Schindall said "Everywhere I go, people ask me 'When will we get out of this camp?' " She doesn't know so can't say.

In her July 3 article, Montreal Gazette writer Sue Montgomery headlined, "Haiti's camps of despair," saying

"life in Haiti's 1,300 camps is crowded, unsanitary and increasingly dangerous, (an ongoing) miserable, boring existence....proper housing (and pre-quake conditions) years away" at best.

In dismal slums, she describes traumatized Haitians living in "torn, sweltering and soaked tents suitable at best for weekend camping," surrounded by rubble and the stench of rotting garbage, their patience taxed to the limit, their lives shattered for lack of basic services, including housing, sanitation, and enough food and clean water.

Torrential afternoon rains leave "lake-sized puddles in which mosquitoes breed, then spread malaria. Deep, raspy coughs can be heard everywhere. Scabies and other infections transform children's soft skin into irritating red bumpy rashes. Bellies are swelling and hair turning orange from malnutrition. Vomiting and diarrhea are as common as flies."

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Stephen Lendman

Across America, daily incidents occur, one of many the cold-blooded January 1, 2009 murder of Oscar Grant - unarmed, offering no resistance, thrust face-down on the ground, shot in the back, and killed, videotaped on at least four cameras for irrefutable proof. USA Today said five bystanders taped it.

His killer: Oakland, CA transit officer, Johannes Mehserle, tried for the killing, the jury told to consider four possible verdicts - innocent, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter, jurors deciding the latter.

The Legal Dictionary defines it as "The act of unlawfully killing another human being unintentionally," the absence of intent distinguishing it from voluntary manslaughter. Many states don't define it or do it vaguely. Wallin & Klarich Violent Crime Attorneys say in California it carries a two - four year sentence. However, since a gun was used, Judge Robert Perry can add three to 10 additional years.

Because minority victims seldom get justice, especially against police, Mehserle may serve minimal time, then be paroled quietly when the current furor subsides.

After the verdict, it erupted on Oakland streets, hundreds turning out to protest, Bay Area indymedia.org saying:

"The actions of the Police in Oakland tonight (including dozens of arrests) show their disrespect for justice in General. Their heavy handed violence towards protestors just reinforces their total disconnect with the people of Oakland." It's as true everywhere across America, police acting like Gestapo, usually unaccountably.

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