Globalization as a Massive Civilizational Shift - The Globalist

Contemporary globalization is essentially a massive civilizational shift in the making — a worldwide civil society that is more complex and integrated than we have yet imagined. It promises a potential improvement on what we now have.
"For centuries, people have thought about the world in terms of the organization of nation states. But, thanks to globalization, nation states are now becoming units within broader clusters that are sometimes called civilizations. As Max Stackhouse explains in the second installment in his five-part series, this shift does not homogenize everything, but creates new patterns of diversity that foster innovative global patterns of life and more complex identities.

lobalization has gained many meanings since being introduced into the language as a term of analysis in the 1950s by Roland Robertson. In general, it refers, as he points out, to a worldwide set of dynamic social and cultural developments that are influencing every local context, all peoples, each nation and the ecology of the earth itself.

It has thus become the framework that relativizes and modulates every regional, national and local context — and is simultaneously adapted into each local, national or regional context in distinctive ways. It creates new cultural varieties that are 'glocal,' new combinations of the global and local."...more

Pupils 'frogmarched by teachers to have fingerprints taken' so they could eat in canteen

"A school has provoked uproar after taking children's fingerprints without permission
from their parents.

Pupils were 'frogmarched' to be fingerprinted so they could use touch screens in the canteen to have money deducted from their account, thereby speeding up lunch queues.

Capital City Academy in Brent, north London, was later forced to apologise and wiped all prints it obtained before asking for consent.

It also introduced an opt-out for parents uncomfortable with the technology, allowing pupils to enter a four-digit pin code instead of scanning their print.

The revelation comes as teachers today warned schools are routinely taking children's fingerprints without permission from their parents.

As many as 3,500 schools take biometric data from pupils to speed up basic administration such as buying canteen lunches or borrowing library books.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262087/Schools-taking-fingerprints-pupils-parents-knowing.html#ixzz0jzHYxd6i

Waterboarding.Torture 101

Internal CIA documents reveal a devilish protocol that was far more brutal than Dick Cheney's "dunk in the water"

"Self-proclaimed waterboarding fan Dick Cheney called it a no-brainer in a 2006 radio interview: Terror suspects should get a 'a dunk in the water.' But recently released internal documents reveal the controversial 'enhanced interrogation' practice was far more brutal on detainees than Cheney's description sounds, and was administered with meticulous cruelty.

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney 'specially designed' to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner's nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding 'session.' Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to 'dam the runoff' and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee's mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second 'applications' of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee's nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus." ...more

Glen Beck hypocrite and liar for the "New World Order"

Audi's Eco-Fascist commercial

Are You Ready for a Fascist America?

"The tax on banks proposed by Washington guarantees Wall Street $US 4 trillion which means top banks will keep playing the same game in the future, economic trend forecaster Gerald Celente warned.

“Goldman Sachs is nothing more than a big hedge fund, period and paragraph. If they went under – people don’t have go to the ATM machine to get their money out of the Goldman Sachs bank, they do not have Goldman Sachs cheques, they are just fronting for Wall Street and all Wall Street is doing is gambling and their risks are covered by the American taxpayer,” said Celente.

“America was at its greatest when it was not about Wall Street but Main Street; when it was not about the Walmart but moms and pops and community; when it was not about factory farms but family farms. Everything in America has gone corporate,” grieved the forecaster.

Celente concluded by saying, “the merger of state and corporate powers, according to Mussolini, who knew a thing or two about it, is called fascism and fascism is coming to America.”"
...more

Pope continues crusade for fascist world government

"Glenn Beck recently said that he was inundated with messages from people concerned about an Obama executive order giving special rights to the international police organization known as Interpol. But what about the global campaign by the Vatican to establish a “World Political Authority” with “teeth.” Don’t look for Beck, O’Reilly or anybody else in the media to take on Pope Benedict XVI. It is just too controversial. Commentators who question the Vatican run the risk of being labeled anti-Catholic bigots.

Many Catholics, especially of a conservative persuasion, are embarrassed and troubled by what is happening inside their church. But they are mostly reluctant to say anything publicly. The facts, however, speak for themselves, and they are available on the Vatican’s own website in the actual words and statements being uttered by the Pope.

Consider, for example, Pope Benedict’s passionate embrace of the radical environmental movement. The Washington Times on Tuesday ran a front-page photo of the Pope greeting ambassadors to the Vatican during his new year’s address to the diplomatic corps. “The Pope denounced the failure of world leaders to agree on a climate change treaty last month,” the caption said. It’s true. Despite the Climategate scandal that has thrown the man-made global warming theory into disrepute, the Pope is still a believer in the discredited claims being made about the role of man in creating a hotter planet and he is trying to force world leaders to embrace and act on them" ...more

Brain scans could detect future criminals

"Someone makes you a promise that seems too good to be true: they sound persuasive – but if only you could look inside their brain, you would know whether to trust them.

Scientists from universities in Zurich and Konstanz, Germany have uncovered how brains behave in people who make promises they know very well they are going to break.

The researchers, economists and neuroscientists, discovered that although to all outward appearances trustworthy and untrustworthy people behave the same way, the ones who do not keep their word show increased activity in the areas of the brain that play important roles in processes of emotion and control.

More importantly, the research showed that patterns of brain activity make it possible to predict whether a person is likely break a promise.

Applying the results of the research could “in the (distant) future” help prevent fraudulent and criminal intrigues, Zurich University said in a press release."...more
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Fingerprint-sharing plan raises privacy concerns

"Calling asylum seekers a 'vulnerable group,' Canada's privacy commissioner expressed concern Friday about a new government plan to share fingerprint information with Britain and Australia to combat immigration fraud.

The three-country agreement was announced Friday with little fanfare, with Canada and the two countries providing assurances that no one's privacy would be violated and that no database for the prints would be created.

A lawyers' group in Australia also raised privacy concerns about the plan, which the United States and New Zealand were expected to join later on.

The offices of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan made the announcement Friday along with their counterparts in London and Canberra, calling it a 'landmark initiative' that would 'improve our ability to identify foreign nationals who are seeking to enter Canada and who are trying to hide their past from authorities.'

The new agreement allows countries to check each other's fingerprint databases, but doesn't give them unfettered access.

The measure was touted as a way to better detect bogus immigration and refugee claimants. To allay privacy concerns, the countries said that no central database of fingerprints would be created and all inquiries would be done anonymously.

If a set of fingerprints did not produce a match, they would be destroyed.

This information sharing is part of a broader government initiative to introduce biometrics into Canada's immigration and refugee screening system." ...more
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India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards - Times Online

"It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived. India is to issue each of its 1.2 billion citizens, millions of whom live in remote villages and possess no documentary proof of existence, with cyber-age biometric identity cards.

The Government in Delhi recently created the Unique Identification Authority, a new state department charged with the task of assigning every living Indian an exclusive number. It will also be responsible for gathering and electronically storing their personal details, at a predicted cost of at least £3 billion.

The task will be led by Nandan Nilekani, the outsourcing sage who coined the phrase “the world is flat”, which became a mantra for supporters of globalisation. “It is a humongous, mind-boggling challenge,” he told The Times. “But we have the opportunity to give every Indian citizen, for the first time, a unique identity. We can transform the country.”

If the cards were piled on top of each other they would be 150 times as high as Mount Everest — 1,200 kilometre"

India’s legions of local bureaucrats currently issue at least 20 proofs of identity, including birth certificates, driving licences and ration cards. None is accepted universally and moving from one state to the next can easily render a citizen officially invisible — a disastrous predicament for the millions of poor who rely on state handouts to survive.

It is hoped that the ID scheme will close such bureaucratic black holes while also fighting corruption. It may also be put to more controversial ends, such as the identification of illegal immigrants and tackling terrorism. A computer chip in each card will contain personal data and proof of identity, such as fingerprint or iris scans. Criminal records and credit histories may also be included....more

"Pope Endorses "World Political Authority"

"Some in the media are calling it just a statement about 'economic justice.' But Pope Benedict XVI's 'Charity in Truth' statement, also known as an encyclical, is a radical document that puts the Roman Catholic Church firmly on the side of an emerging world government.

In explicit and direct language, the Pope calls for a 'true world political authority' to manage the affairs of the world. At the same time, however, the Pope also warns that such an international order could 'produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature' and must be guarded against somehow.

The New York Times got it right this time, noting the Pope's call for a world political authority amounted to endorsement of a New World Economic Order, a long-time goal of the old Soviet-sponsored international communist movement. Bloomberg.com highlighted the Pope's call for a new world order with 'teeth.'

The Pope's shocking endorsement of a 'World Political Authority,' which has prophetic implications for some Christians who fear that a global dictatorship will take power in the 'last days' of man's reign on earth, comes shortly after the United Nations Conference
on the World Financial and Economic Crisis issued a call for global taxes and more powerful global institutions. U.N. General Assembly President, Miguel D'Escoto, a Communist Catholic Priest, gave a speech at the event calling on the nations of the world to revere 'Mother Earth' but concluded with words from the Pope blessing the conference participants.

The controversial Papal statement comes just before a meeting of the G-8 nations and a scheduled meeting between the Pope and President Obama at the Vatican on July 10.

Sounding like Obama himself, Pope Benedict says this new international order can be accomplished through 'reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.'

The 'teeth' may come in adopting the global environmental agenda, which the Pope warmly embraces." ...more

The Third Leg of the New World Order: The Globalization of Religious Tolerance

By Tony Blair

Faith matters. Even if you are not of religious faith yourself. Over 4 billion people world-wide recognize themselves as religious. They may not attend an organized place of worship. But Faith plays a part in their lives. A recent poll found that religion is important for around 30-35% of people in Europe, 65% of Americans and for about 90% of people in most Muslim-majority countries.

I started the Tony Blair Faith Foundation because I believe the modern world cannot work unless people from different faiths and cultures learn to live in peaceful co-existence with each other. Understanding increases the possibility of peace. Ignorance increases the potential for division.

The reason this is so important today is that globalization is shrinking the space we live in, making us share it, pushing people together in a way that is unique in human history. Some dislike this process. Some, like me, are content and even welcome it. But, for sure, it is a fact.

In this world, if religious faith becomes a counter force to this process, one which pulls people apart, then it becomes reactionary and divisive. So if I define myself as a Christian in opposition to you as a Muslim, then just as we are forced to live together by globalization, so we are forced apart by a view of religious faith that is exclusionary and hostile to those of a different faith to our own.
Apostasy
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation works in a number of ways to prevent this happening. One way is an inter-faith encounter through action, which is why we are supporting the UN anti-malaria campaign, to mobilize the faith communities to become centres of distribution for bed nets and medicines in Africa. We work also for reconciliation where religion is a dimension in political conflict, as in the Middle East. A key part of our work is education. In partnership with Yale University in the United States we now have a 'Faith and Globalization' course which began last year. This is now being extended to four other universities world-wide.

Now we are adding a new dimension: an education program linking up schools across the globe and across the faith divide. Launching officially today is Face to Faith, the new global schools project from my Foundation, designed to encourage young people of different faiths to learn directly with, from and about each other. Through structured video-conferencing, an online community and a course syllabus, Face to Faith gets secondary school students from across the world working together, investigating big global issues; sharing their own opinions, values and beliefs; and exploring the reasons for similar and different views. In this way, Face to Faith encourages young people to recognize the similarities between faiths but also, importantly, to respect and deal with the differences between diverse and often conflicting worldviews, helping to equip them to live in a global society made up of different faiths and beliefs."...more

Worker ID cards expected to get a new look - Los Angeles Times

"A supporter of the cards, Sen. Charles Schumer, is expected to introduce a worker ID card bill this fall. Immigrants rights advocates see positives to the system, but they have some worries."

By Teresa Watanabe
2:25 PM PDT, June 15, 2009

As the immigration reform debate begins to heat up again, some immigrant advocates expect that one of the biggest and most controversial new elements will be a proposed national worker identification card for all Americans

A 'forgery-proof' worker ID card, secured with biometric data such as fingerprints, is a favored idea of the new chairman of the Senate immigration subcommittee, Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y). Schumer, who will lead the effort to craft the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform legislation, has publicly espoused the card as the best way to ensure that all workers are authorized.



'The ID will make it easy for employers to avoid undocumented workers, which will allow for tough sanctions against employers who break the law, which will lead to no jobs being available for illegal immigrants, which will stop illegal immigration,' Schumer wrote in his 2007 book, 'Positively American.'

'Once Americans are convinced that we will permanently staunch the flow of illegal immigration, they will be more willing to accept constructing a path toward earned citizenship for those who are already here.'

A Schumer aide said last week that the senator would probably present the worker ID card idea at a hearing this summer on employee verification systems. Schumer previously held a hearing on border enforcement and plans to hold three more this summer -- on future immigrant flows, legalization of illegal immigrants and worker verification -- before introducing a comprehensive bill in the fall, the aide said.

The idea of a national worker ID card has been around for decades, but the ascension of Schumer to head the immigration subcommittee has elevated its chances of becoming part of any reform legislation, many immigrant advocates believe. Some predict that debate over a worker ID card would be more heated than one over legalization.

The idea of a worker ID card is embraced by some business and community organizations. But it has touched off fears of civil rights violations and 'Big Brother' intrusion into private lives among many labor activists and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union. In his book, Schumer proposed requiring every American worker, both citizen and noncitizen, to apply for an identity card.

Some activists also expressed fear that any ID card proposal could divide the immigrant rights community between those opposed to its perceived dangers and those willing to accept it as part of a broad compromise that would legalize many of the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.

'The bottom line is that this would be really expensive, really invasive, and people will hate it,' said Chris Calabrese, consul for the ACLU's technology and liberty project.

Maria Elena Durazo, who heads the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, said she would not want employers to control any worker verification system because they could selectively use it to punish people pushing for labor rights or union organization. She and others also said that worker verification systems of all kinds remain vulnerable to mistakes. Immigration lawyer Peter Schey said it would be nearly impossible to monitor the nation's 26 million employers for compliance with any worker verification system. As a result, he and others argue that the best way to discourage illegal immigration is by strict enforcement of wage and hour laws, and serious penalties on employers who violate them.

For their part, business leaders say they want to be sure that they will not be saddled with high costs or liability for any new verification system.

Some business groups have opposed the idea of making mandatory the now-voluntary system known as E-Verify. The Internet-based system allows employers to check the citizenship status and work eligibility of newly hired employees. But U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokesman Angelo Amador said employers never know whether the passports, driver's licenses or Social Security cards being presented are genuine.

But anyone presenting a worker ID card would be assumed legal, subject to confirmation by swiping into a national database similar to credit cards, he said.

'It sounds like a good idea, because it takes away the burden on employers of being ID experts,' Amador said. 'We do want a system, but we just want to make sure that it's accurate and fast, and that the liability for employers is minimal.'

Brent Wilkes of the League of United Latin American Citizens said one advantage of a worker ID card is that once it is issued, employees can feel confident that they are eligible to apply for any job. Under E-Verify, newly hired employees could lose their jobs if their identities do not check out. Most activists say they are waiting for details before weighing in on worker ID cards. But some say they may ultimately have to compromise.

'At the end of the day, if we're going to achieve legalization of a major share of the undocumented, we realize there will have to be some give and take over worker verification,' said Mike Garcia, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1877 in Los Angeles. 'We're not against it necessarily if all of the other pieces of immigration reform fall into place.'

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com"

The New World Order revealed - Video

Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis - Green Living, Environment

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world's richest food companies are making record profits.... more

New York City becoming like third world dictatorship, police units to patrol city subways with submachine guns and dogs!

"NYPD cops armed with rifles, submachine guns, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs will start patrolling the city's subways on Thursday - a first for mass transit in the United States.

Teams of six officers and a dog will patrol subway platforms and trains in 12-hour shifts.

The TORCH teams are being paid for by $151 million from the feds announced in February.

Similarly equipped NYPD units, known as Hercules teams, have patrolled Wall Street and other aboveground icons as part of the NYPD response to the World Trade Center attacks.

'The TORCH teams are Hercules teams with a MetroCard,' a police source said." ...source

"Your Papers Please" Registered traveler goes international

The Homeland Security Department today published notice it will begin testing an International Registered Traveler program at three airports starting June 10 to expedite airport clearances for prescreened travelers.

Initially, the pilot program is available only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. The eventual goal is to coordinate with other international trusted traveler programs around the globe to allow pre-screened, low-risk foreign visitors to participate as well, according to the notice published today in the Federal Register. .Read more

Lockheed Secures Contract to Expand "Big Brother" Biometric Database

The FBI yesterday announced the award of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to Lockheed Martin to develop what is expected to be the world's largest crime-fighting computer database of biometric information, including fingerprints, palm prints, iris patterns and face images.

Under its contract to build Next Generation Identification, the Bethesda contractor will expand on the FBI's electronic database of 55 million sets of fingerprints and criminal histories used by law enforcement and other authorities. The aim is to make the query and results process quicker, more flexible and more accurate.

Lockheed built and maintains the fingerprint database.

"NGI will give us bigger, better, faster capabilities and lead us into the future," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

The system will not expand the categories of people whose prints are collected: known criminals, known or suspected terrorists, or foreign visitors to the United States who have been convicted of a crime or an immigration violation, Bush said. But additional types of biometric data, such as iris scans and face images, will be collected from criminals and terrorists. The system also separately houses 17 million civilian fingerprints, mostly of federal employees who have undergone background checks.

To enable global sharing of data, NGI is to be built to technical standards shared by the departments of Homeland Security, Defense and State, as well as by Britain, Canada and other countries, Bush said. The FBI also hopes to offer a service allowing employers to store employees' prints, subject to state privacy laws, so that if employees are ever arrested, the employer would be notified.

Beginning this year, Lockheed will conduct a series of "biometric bake-offs" to evaluate the work of biometric firms who will be competing to develop various elements of the system and the maturity of the technologies. It will first expand the FBI's fingerprint processing capability and add palm print processing capability, officials said.

"We're excited to move to the next generation with the FBI," said Judy Marks, president of Lockheed Martin Transportation and Security Solutions, a business unit of Lockheed.

By adding new biometric tools and applying them together, "the system will be able to enhance its accuracy and virtually eliminate the chance of mistaken identities," said Walter Hamilton, chairman of the International Biometric Industry Association.

Privacy advocates said that the work is proceeding before the technologies have been proven. "Congress needs to do a better job of assessing how taxpayer dollars are being spent, particularly on programs that impact the privacy rights of Americans," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center washingtonpost.com

Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs'

Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.

Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.

But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record ...read more

FBI wants instant access to British identity data

Americans seek international database to carry iris, palm and finger prints

Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists.

The US-initiated programme, "Server in the Sky", would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the "war against terror" - the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy.
...read more