Down The Rabbit Hole With Me

Divine Stardust



Picture, if you will, a very large old house. It has a basement and some rooms that have been added in various places over the years, so one gets the impression that the structure has not been planned architecturally. It has many doors to admit people from the outside, and on the inside it has many doors between rooms. Occasionally between two older rooms there is a new room or a passageway that has been added. There is no name for the house, but it contains a room for each discipline found in the context of higher education.

We are constructed with material and stamped with a coded reminder of the One to whom we owe our ultimate existence.
In one part of the basement, close to the foundation, the rooms of mathematics and physics are found. Directly above is the room called chemistry and above that biology. It is no accident the building is arranged this way, for the location of these rooms is indicative of their relational dependence.

In another part of the basement the rooms philosophy and theology can be found, and above, covering several levels, appear art, history, music, and many other disciplines that we collectively study. Two noticeably unique features about this structure exist: First, rooms such as biochemistry and bioethics have been added rather recently. They are positioned between older rooms which have been around for a long time. Secondly, there are passageways that connect various disciplines so people can move, for example, from philosophy to any of the sciences or from ethics to business.

Persons of all backgrounds may enter this building, but relatively few go to the basement. While the rooms located there serve as the foundations for those above them, the rooms are relatively quiet compared to many others. In each room there are various nooks and corners which identify the various subsets of the discipline. As we now enter the room named physics we see the specific subsets: atomic, solid state, space, nuclear, thermal, and so on.

Immediately adjacent to the nuclear part of the room is the entry into another rather new room, which is located between physics and astronomy. It has been given the name cosmology. While much of physics is concerned with the ultrasmall, modern cosmology concentrates on the ultralarge as well as the ultrasmall.

ADVANCES IN THE FIELD OF COSMOLOGY
By the close of the twentieth century, the field of cosmology has presented us with some rather startling advances regarding our universe. Only in the past three decades has it been possible to catch a consistent picture of the universe and humankind’s place in it.

A few years ago, Michael Behe produced a book titled, Darwin’s Black Box.1 It deals with certain biochemical systems which he describes as “irreducibly complex.” An example by which he illustrates this idea is the ordinary mousetrap. If you remove any one of the key components of a mousetrap it will not function. He then showed how the same idea can be extended to certain biochemical structures. His book is not against biological change once the system is constructed, but it does challenge the reader to envision the processes whereby the system was initially arranged to be just right.

It is an interesting book, but I want to move the discussion found in Behe’s book to an even deeper level and consider a more fundamental question. Why are the atoms and molecules that make up trees, cars, and computers even here? Or stated more personally: Why are you even here?

You might be concerned with the teleological aspects of such a question, and rightly so because this certainly is a key aspect to be addressed. But I am going to leave that part of the question to first focus on another, often overlooked aspect of the question which considers the underpinning physical properties that make it possible for us to be here. So, the question can be narrowed: Why are you even here physically?

For many centuries, the earth and its inhabitants were viewed as super special by virtue that the earth was thought to be located at the center of the universe. In such a view everything was about humanity. Then Nicolaus Copernicus came along and disrupted the official view of the church (early sixteenth century). He was followed many years later by Harlow Shapley (1917) who showed that even the sun is not at the center of the galaxy. Then Edwin Hubble demonstrated (1920s) that the galaxy in which we are located is not at the center of the universe.

The dislocation of humanity’s centrism in the observed universe was reinforced by advances in astronomy which started down the path that today shows our part of the universe to be very ordinary. The adoption of what became widely known as the Copernican Principle made it clear that, taken on a large scale, the universe is very homogeneous. During the twentieth century, special and general relativity as presented by Albert Einstein reinforced this view of a universe without any special reference frame. The Cosmological Principle—that an observer’s view of the universe depends neither on the direction in which one looks nor on one’s location—was often quoted to capture the idea that, since the universe is very uniform, there is no preferential location for the earth or for human beings.

A NEW AWARENESS
Now as we reflect back upon a century filled with an explosion of knowledge, a new realization about the universe has occurred. That realization is that in the eyes of the Deity, the whole universe of which humans are a part is incredibly special.

This realization has occurred with greater frequency during the past twenty-five years by a conjunction of several scientific disciplines. Back in the big old house, persons from chemistry, nuclear physics, particle physics, astronomy, and astrophysics got together during lunch breaks up on the top floor. Occasionally philosophers and biologists joined the discussions. During the course of their conversation they merged their insights to produce a wealth of new understanding about the universe. So today, the study of the ultralarge (cosmology) is understood to be closely connected with the study of the ultrasmall (particle physics).

We live in a very fortunate period of time regarding humanity’s understanding of the basic structure of the cosmos. There is still much to do to fill in the details, but enough is understood that the broad brush strokes which describe our cosmos should be a discussion point that can engage everyone. Among the broad brush strokes is the clear knowledge that (1) we live in a very old universe, and (2) this universe is very carefully designed. What is the evidence for these claims?

An Old Universe
The first claim, regarding age, is rather straightforward. There are several key evidences of which I will mention but two. First, we know that as the universe expanded during the initial phases of the big explosion which propelled a high temperature plasma, only the lightest elements—hydrogen, helium, and lithium—were formed.2 The observed abundances of these lightest elements are consistent with the short times available for their formation during the early moments of the universe.

To produce the elements from boron through iron requires fusion reactions that take place over a few billion years, as a star accretes matter and generates the necessary pressure and temperatures. As the star continues to burn and the temperature increases, endothermic reactions kick in which initiate the buildup of those elements from iron on up. In some cases the star may become unstable and a supernova occurs which distributes the contents of the stellar crucible over all the cosmos. The process of accretion then begins anew to form a second generation star, but now with the heavy elements already produced during the earlier era.

When optical spectra coming from old stars are compared to those from younger stars there is a vast difference which directly shows the result of nucleosynthesis. Since our earth and sun possess many heavy elements which are part of the stardust that required billions of years to produce, the very presence of these elements serves as an indicator of the long elapsed time. In effect, each person or plant is another evidence of the long past needed to produce the elements from stars which are needed for life.

A second evidence of an old universe is the direct observation, first announced by Edwin Hubble, that the universe is expanding. This discovery in the 1920s produced quite a stir among cosmologists who preferred the universe to be static and infinitely old for philosophical reasons. However, with Hubble’s discovery comes the realization that the universe had a beginning, has been in motion for about fifteen billion years, and appears able to continue to expand indefinitely.

A Carefully Designed Universe
The second claim, that we live in a very carefully designed universe, is one that was only realized in the last part of the twentieth century. With the advent of large particle accelerators, we have been able to gather details about atomic and nuclear structure and to slowly gain a perspective of the basic interactions which operate at the atomic and subnuclear levels. These studies involve the use of quantum mechanics and higher mathematics in order to understand the quantitative symmetries and important slight asymmetries which are present.

As a result, we now talk routinely about the four basic forces present in the universe: strong, electromagnetic, weak, and gravitational. Two of the four forces, the electromagnetic and the weak, are really one overarching force, which operates in different situations. The great hope is that someday a grand unified theory will be found that will include all four forces and thereby increase our understanding of those very early moments of the universe when giga-sized energies and temperatures were present.

EVIDENCES OF DESIGN
In recent years, physicists and cosmologists have realized that the forces which are responsible for the basic building blocks of matter are themselves somehow inherently carefully constructed within narrow limits. There appears to be something at work which has made it possible for the universe to change while yet maintaining its cosmic focus.

David Schramm, noted cosmologist, has written, “It [the universe] had to be a very, very carefully laid out machine. We also know that the universe seems to be very fine-tuned. One of the giants in the area of nuclear physics, Victor Weisskopf, put it this way, “It looks as if ‘somebody’ had arranged it so the density is the same all over, even in places that would not have had any possible communication or interaction with one another.” And further, the origin of the universe can be talked about not only in scientific terms but also in poetic and spiritual language, an approach that is complimentary to the scientific one. Creation ex nihilo (L. "from nothing") is thought to be the most common type of creation described in these stories. It is the type of creation described in the Genesis creation narrative in the Bible in Judaism and Christianity, and also in the Koran's Sura VII in Islam. It is also known as "creation de novo". Besides in the Bible, Ex nihilo creation is found in creation stories from ancient Egypt, the Rig Veda and many animistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania and North America. In most of these stories the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator's bodily secretions. The literal translation of the phrase ex nihilo is "from nothing" but in many creation myths the line is blurred whether the creative act would be better classified as a creation ex nihilo or creation from chaos. With ex nihilo, the potential and the substance of creation springs from within the creator. Such a creator may or may not be existing in physical surroundings such as darkness or water, but does not create the world from them. In creation from chaos the substance used for creation is pre-existing within the unformed void. Indeed many ancient religions of the Mediterranean world described the beginning of the world in a way that is surprisingly similar to the scientific model.
And then Weisskopf quotes Genesis 1:1.

The words, “fine-tuned” imply that if any of the four fundamental forces were changed by a very small amount, typically one percent or less, the atomic, nuclear, and gravitational structures composing our universe would not be sustained. Two examples of many should help illustrate this insight. Consider the case of gravity, the weakest of the four forces. If it were slightly stronger, matter would accrete faster and stars would burn more rapidly and there would not be time to fuse the nuclei needed to sustain life. If the force of gravity were slightly weaker, stars would not possess the temperatures needed to ignite fusion, so only the very lightest elements hydrogen and helium would exist.

Consider the nuclear force, the strongest of the four, which is responsible for binding neutrons and protons together. In the simplest system of one proton and one neutron, deuterium, if the nuclear force were slightly weaker the nucleus would not hold together, so the formation of heavier elements would be terminated. If the force were slightly stronger, then neutrons and protons would readily form only very heavy elements so life would not exist.

There are many other examples which could be cited to show the fine-tuning present in the physical world that enables the universe to exist. The universe and its contents are constantly changing, but always within the narrow limits of these four fundamental laws that govern the range of possible outcomes. Change was woven into the very fabric of the universe, but the Weaver apparently kept an eye on the overall pattern.

DESIGNER GENES
As previously stated, due to the uniformity of the universe, the Cosmological Principle (CP) prohibits any statement that places humanity at the focal point of the developing universe. The idea here is that humanity is just another part of the universe that has developed over time and should not be given any special reason for existence. This certainly fits the philosophical ideas that Einstein embraced when he developed his two types of relativity as well as his view of the quantum mechanical wave function-observer problem.

Strong advocates of CP insist that conditions in the universe occurred initially which led to the universe as we see it today as a result of chaotic processes void of any order or probability. Certainly one may envision a full ensemble of possible universes to be initiated which would not possess the characteristics of the universe we observe. However, even after undertaking these mental gymnastics, we still need to explain why our present universe survives after fifteen billion years, whereas the hypothesized universes will not support life.

From the time you were one cell until now—more than seventy-five trillion cells—that set of cells has developed and functioned to make you a conscious organism. Purpose has been part of the overall process. This emerging structure also has had to deal with other interacting agents that would harm the structure (chemicals, X rays, other radiation), but usually the organism repairs itself to remain functional. This is all due ultimately to the nature of quantum mechanics and one or more of the four basic forces within the universe. These hold the cells together and give rise to biological activity that eventually produces the amazing quantity we call life and consciousness.

So in the case of cell material you do not have to purchase designer genes, you were born with them. What I am suggesting is that within the vast array of designer possibilities or design space, similar to the idea of phase space in physics, there appears to be something present which is more than just random construction. J. Polkinghorne puts it this way. “The way life has spread out has not been totally random, for there is a metric on Design Space, a pattern of hills and valleys which directs development in one way and not in another.

THE ORIGIN OF INTELLIGENT BEINGS
The overall effects which result from the four fundamental forces suggest that the physical laws of the universe are “loaded with purpose” or “freighted with the future.” That is, the laws of physics appear to give evidence of intention. Why is it that the universe permits the development of stars and galaxies and intelligent beings at any place or at any time in history?

To answer this and similar questions, one may refer to the “Anthropic Cosmological Principle” (AP). This term was first introduced by Brandon Carter in 1973 to counter an extreme version of the Copernican Principle, namely, that humanity’s place in the universe cannot be privileged in any sense. There are two forms of the Anthropic Principle. One, called the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP), states that only one particular set of laws of physics and particular conditions that exist in the universe would allow the existence of (intelligent) life. Thus the WAP is selecting only that universe in which life can develop and exist out of a larger ensemble of universes. Just as a mousetrap has parts which make it “irreducibly complex” for Behe, I am suggesting that a few physical laws of our universe also form a set that appears “irreducibly complex” regarding the ability of the universe to develop and support life.

Could it be that structures, large and small, in the cosmos are endowed by the Creator with the capacity to demonstrate purpose? For me the answer is a clear “Yes.” The remarkable precision of certain nuclear energy levels which control nucleosynthesis and the narrow window for the velocity of expansion during the early moments of the universe which are now known to be “just right,” are only two of many examples of a universe that possesses the critical elements and conditions for life to exist. The WAP can help determine where and when life could arise among all the “gedanken universes” that might be envisioned.8 The WAP informs us that the physics as determined by the coupling constants in each of the four fundamental forces cannot deviate very much from that observed in the laboratory and allow life to continue to function.

BIOLOGICAL DESIGN
The presence of life on earth (or anywhere?) is the all-consuming issue for some persons. If the physical universe, which is evolving since its beginning with the big-bang scenario, contains evidence of purpose and “fine-tuning,” could it be that the (much later) biological part of the changing universe possesses evidence in systems that also demonstrate intelligent design?

The record of biological development is in many ways more complicated than that of the physical which this paper is considering. While the data provides many examples of ongoing change and development that fit a smooth sequence in time, the fossil record that is available is apparently sometimes incomplete.

In addition, the data also indicates the equivalent of a major biological explosion about 570 million years ago (Cambrian era) which effectively signaled “time = zero” in the biological world for the major phyla. A quite recent (cosmically speaking) second big bang! Much of the controversy regarding biological evolution seems to be centered around the existence, or the lack thereof, of credible data. Since science is a data-based enterprise, it is not surprising that the different views of biological evolution quite often are centered around personal interpretations of the available data.

Virtually everyone agrees that evolution is a word that characterizes the changing cosmos, but not everyone seems to agree that the evolutionary processes which exhibit “fine-tuning” and purpose early in the developing physical universe were present later in the biological development. A concise summary of the different types of biological evolutionary thought has recently been printed.

MUST INTELLIGENT LIFE EXIST?
In contrast to the WAP is the SAP (Strong Anthropic Principle). The SAP says that intelligent life must exist in the universe. The reason for the imperative goes back to one of the ways of interpreting quantum mechanics whereby an observer is required to collapse the wave function which produces an observable. However, since quantum mechanics, while very productive, is not totally functional or self-consistent in avoiding singularities, the SAP approach is not widely accepted. And who else, other than a Creator, was present initially to observe!

So, what is it about the nature of fundamental forces that seems to admit the existence of life or even prefer the existence of life? A random set of physical laws would certainly not come close to meeting this final condition of supporting the structure of life. We live at a time in the long history of humanity whereby we can accommodate the idea that the detailed design of life as we see it has been achieved by a purposeful process.

The principles of physics and chemistry permit the operation and functioning of cells, individuals, and large ecosystems with amazing complexity and countless variety. From a design viewpoint it is the WAP that filters only those physical laws that allow the profound creative activity to take place. The WAP does not prove the existence of a Designer, it only gives evidence. However, it does provide a strong indicator through all that is observed. When George Smoot found evidence a few years ago in the cosmic microwave background for early galaxy formation, he said the discovery “was like looking at the face of God. In a very real sense, the entire history of the developing universe has been required to produce life.

CONCLUSIONS
It seems to me the AP affords a combined view of religious myth and scientific knowledge. This is the passageway in the basement of our old house that connects physics and theology which relatively few individuals have dared to enter.

Contrary to the opinion of Einstein that God could not possibly be interested in an insignificant speck in the universe such as a person,12 the view manr religions is shaped by the idea of a personal walk with the Divine. The Creator could have arranged things differently, but he apparently selected from an infinite number of possibilities the particular set of physical laws we see in the universe. As a Father, he created a universe for his image and provided a place for humanity to live.

Humankind is an infinitesimal point in space compared to the vast reaches of space. However, it is also religious dogma that often blinds us as to who we are with where we are. We are conscious beings because the laws of physics facilitate the development of life. It is the total moral, ethical, and spiritual response that reflects the underlying purpose present in everyone who contemplates their own existence.

There is nothing wrong in attempting to connect solid science with our faith to honor our Mother’s work in the universe. In an old Ftraditional Jewish tale, God said to Abraham, “But for me you would not be here.” “I know that, Lord,” Abraham replied, “but were I not here there would be no one to think about you.

In this universe that exhibits order and purpose and proceeds through time, the Creator so wove purpose and change into the very fabric of the building blocks of the universe that as he sustains the creation it unfolds its ultimate purposes. If the Designer chose a particular framework for the universe that also self-selected, then people would see the universe that would be said to be “fine-tuned.” This would not be proof of the existence of the Designer, but it would be a hint regarding his existence. In this way, God can remain invisible and yet achieve the plan for his creation because the universe is governed by physical laws which have his purpose/destiny built into their very nature.

Consequently, the concept of intelligent design is not a human-made dictum, but rather an outcome of what we see and observe. In other words, the divine is inherent in the physical so that everything we see is not just stardust but divine stardust. We are constructed with material and stamped with a coded reminder of the One to whom we owe our ultimate existence.

The opportunity to look upward on a clear dark night into the great cathedral of space is an opportunity to contemplate the universe’s amazing construction. We live in a very old universe, carefully designed, full of grandeur, and in continuous change. It is a universe of vast proportions still being carefully crafted, and yet it is inhabited by people who have the capacity to think about their past and project their future. Lastly, it is a universe whose development through the ages has been necessary for us to even be here to think about it.

NOTES
Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box (New York: Free, 1996).
W. A. Fowler, International Association of Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, first meeting, 1967.
David N. Schramm, “The Early Universe and High Energy Physics,” Physics Today 36:4 (1983):


Hugh Siefken Did most of the hard work here; he is a Professor of Physics and Chairman of the Division of Mathematics and Natural and Computer Sciences at Greenville College, Greenville, Illinois. He has published numerous scientific papers in professional journals. The many changes I made here do not necessarily reflect his views or opinions.






I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran

WHY IS THERE NO REAL MONEY??

Everyone reading this article is being robbed. We all use paper money and every day, governments are lowering its value. That value is being stolen from us. To understand how this is happening, we need to get to the basics of what we are using for money. It is called Fiat Money; (Fiat from the Latin fiat, meaning “let it be done.”) This is an item, usually paper or low value metal coins, that is decreed to have value by a government.

A government puts fiat money into circulation first by connecting it to a gold or silver standard, but then cuts the link and says that gold and paper are no longer convertible, making the piece of paper “legal tender for all debts public and private.” It is obvious that debtors would be very happy if the pa-per money lost its value because they could pay their debts with inflated currency. In a letter to Edward Carrington in 1788, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Paper is poverty … it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.” Jefferson died bankrupt because of the early United States money (monetary) policy based on paper.

Money as debt - your ticket to slavery 1/5

Because of greed, America will soon fail, and will take down all the corrupt world banks with it.

The Movie- Federal Reserve (Part 1 of 5)

8 Must See Documentaries Vol 1

The Cloud God Has Eaten The Sun

Massive icebergs floating past the coast of New Zealand

Falling Snow in Australia At The Summer
Posted on December 21, 2010 by Hot News
NewSecond – In recent days, residents in parts of eastern Australia experienced a rare weather. Usually the air remains hot, but the territory they now actually very cold and snowy.

According to media circles, this is a weird weather phenomenon, considering the number of regions in Australia, such as areas of New South Wales and Victoria, are still experiencing summer at the end of the year.

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled-Part 1

The Lies Of Global Warming pt 1


CLIMATE CHANGE TOOLS AND THE MEDIA TOOLS THAT LOVE THEM

Maybe before ClimateGate, Roger.

Roger Highfield is one who thinks he can ask questions like the one below and be protected from ridicule because he’s so scary smart–or something.

Are we freezing because of global warming?

As a blanket of snow settles across the country, Airports, and train services grind to a halt and roads become impassable, you could be forgiven for thinking that global warming seems more remote than ever. But the World Meteorological Organisation announced that 2010 is almost certain to rank among the three warmest years since records began in 1850 – and it has long been accepted that one of the effects of climate change could be an increase in the frequency of harsher, Continental-style winters.

This is what passes for “reporting” these days: acknowledge that the hard data is against you: i.e., the snow and record cold temperatures–but then re-announce some climate change pimpinghouse’s announcement of “forget all of the freezing cold–these past years has really been a scorcher–really!”

Why not just write that the Cloud God has eaten the Sun and crapped out snow?

That makes just as good an argument–while being as logical.


Advice for Staying Warm and Safe in a Freezing World.

To avoid cold-related injuries, here is a simple way to remember four basic steps to staying warm. Think of COLD -- C.O.L.D


The C stands for cover. Wear a hat and scarf to keep heat from escaping through the head, neck and ears. And wear mittens instead of gloves. In gloves, the fingers are separated, so the hands might not stay as warm as they would in mittens.

The O stands for overexertion. Avoid activities that will make you sweaty. Wet clothes and cold weather are a dangerous combination.

L is for layers. Wearing loose, lightweight clothes, one layer on top of another, is better than wearing a single heavy layer of clothing. Make sure outerwear is made of material that is water-resistant and tightly knit.

D is for dry. In other words, stay as dry as possible. Pay attention to the places where snow can enter clothing. These include the tops of boots, the necks of coats and the wrist areas of mittens or gloves.

And here are two other things to keep in mind -- one for children and the other for adults. Eating snow might be fun but it lowers the body's temperature. And drinking alcohol might make a person feel warm. But what it really does is weaken the body's ability to hold heat.

It was Cold that killed my father, and it will be Cold that will one day reclaim the earth. I pray that it will be a longtime in coming.








I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran

What is Love?

LOVE

Love is an act of endless forgiveness
A tender look which becomes a habit. Peter Ustinov

Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love. Erich Fromm Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away. Elbert Hubbard

Love knows no reasons,
love knows no lies.
Love defies all reasons,
love has no eyes.
But love is not blind,
love sees but doesn't mind. Unknown

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows.
For love is the beauty of the soul. St. Augustine

So what is love? A word so often used in spiritual circles, in religions and in all kinds of organisations as well as, of course, on a personal level. But just what is it? We all understand that there can be a physical attraction an infatuation that leads to sexual intimacy. Then there is the type of love that you may have for a child, a parent, a peer. Yet there is also a deeper expression of love. When you hear energies like mine saying: 'Send out unconditional love', what are we really saying?


At the finest level of your spirit, each one of you emanates an energy that has a harmonic resonance, and that harmonic resonance is love. So when you meet another person, a situation, another form of evolution such as an animal, a bird, a rabbit, a flower, a tree - for all of the Great Spirit's divine creations have a harmonic resonance even the rocks and the air, and the harmonic resonance of creation blends with your own resonance. Not only people, even a horse, a dog, a cat, a duck, will respond to you in a very special way and you will respond to it in a very special way. There is be a blending of this harmonic resonance between you, and you feel it raise the energy vibration in both of you.

So this resonance can manifest on different levels, the finest being the harmonic resonance from the higher Self, the spirit itself. The important thing is that the simpler the resonance, the finer and deeper it will be. The more complex and structured the resonance, the more difficult for it to exist on those finer levels. Now it is quite important to understand this because when you are endeavouring to send thoughts of unconditional love, you are trying to harness, acknowledge, recognise, feel that unconditional love within you - a love without judgement, and allow it to radiate from you as an offering. The essential aspect is that you are placing no condition on how it may be received. In some areas it will be received in a loving way and it will enhance love in your world as well as other areas, depending on the purity of your own thoughts - and here we go to the other end of the polarity - it can create confrontation. That is the nature of evolution. For if love is conditional, you are not allowing the recipient the choice; it can become manipulative, it may well produce a polarised reaction from the recipient because you are trying to tell some other energy how you think it should be thinking, doing, behaving.



Whereas, tuning into the finest in you, where there is no judgement, and sending out your harmonic resonance, your unconditional love . . . . this has a much wider implication. If you can work towards loving unconditionally, it is a form of offering to the highest level of a person or group of people; and it is the freewill of their spirit or group spirit that will respond or not respond, as it wishes.

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation...and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else. Hermann Hesse



Read more: http://www.romantic-ideas-online.com/what-is-love.html#ixzz1AqiT5VF0.










I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. Kahlil Gibran

Bush Drugs: The Real Reason to Kill The Kennedys

Bo Gritz Letter to George Bush
1 February 1988, Sandy Valley, NV
Honorable George Bush, Vice President, United States of America, Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Why does it seem that you are saying "YES" to illegal narcotics in America?

I turned over video tapes to your NSC staff assistant, Tom Harvey, January 1987, wherein General KHUN SA, overlord of Asia's "Golden Triangle", offered to stop 900 tons of heroin/opium from entering the free world in 1987. Harvey told me, "...there is no interest here in doing that." General Khun Sa also offered to identify U.S. Government officials who, he says, have been trafficking in heroin for more than 20 years.

November 1986, Scott Weekly and I went into Burma in coordination and cooperation with The White House. Tom Harvey told me you received a letter from Arthur Suchesk, Orange County, CA, dated 29 August 1986. Dr. Suchesk said that Gen Khun Sa had access to U.S. POWs. Harvey said the letter had received "highest attention". He gave me a copy along with other case documents. I was asked if it was possible to verify the information. According to Harvey, the CIA said Khun Sa had been assassinated some months before. Harvey supplied Scott and myself with language under White House and NSC letterhead that would help us gain access to Khun Sa. It worked. Unfortunately, Khun Sa knew nothing about US POWs. He did, however, offer to trade his nation's poppy dependence for a legitimate economy.

Instead of receiving an "Atta Boy" for bringing back video tape showing Khun Sa`s offer to stop 900 tons of illegal narcotics and expose dirty USG officials, Scott was jailed and I was threatened. I was told that if I didn't "erase and forget" all that we had discovered, I would, "hurt the government". Further, I was promised a prison sentence of "15 years".

I returned to Burma with two other American witnesses, Lance Trimmer, a private detective from San Francisco, and Barry Flynn from Boston. Gen Khun Sa identified some of those in government service he says were dealing in heroin and arms sales. We video taped this second interview and I turned copies over in June 1987, to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence; Chairman of the House on Foreign Affairs Task Force on Narcotics Control; Co-Chairman, Senate Narcotics Committee; Senator Harry Reid, NV; Representative James Bilbray, NV; and other Congressional members. Mister Richard Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, is one of those USG officials implicated by Khun Sa. Nothing was done with this evidence that indicated that anyone of authority, including yourself, had intended to do anything more than protect Mr. Armitage. I was charged with "Misuse of Passport". Seems that it is alright for Oliver North and Robert MacFarlane to go into Iran on Irish Passports to negotiate an illegal arms deal that neither you nor anyone else admits condoning, but I can't use a passport that brings back drug information against your friends.

Lance Trimmer and I submitted a "Citizen Complaint of Wrongdoing by Federal Officers" to Attorney General Edwin Meese, III on 17 September 1987. Continuous private and Legislative inquiries to date indicate that the Attorney General's Office has "lost" the document. Congressional requests to the Government Accounting Office have resulted in additional government snares and stalls.

January 20, 1988, I talked before your Breakfast Club in Houston, Texas. A distinguished group of approximately 125 associates of yours, including the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, expressed assurance that you are a righteous man. Almost all of them raised their hand when I asked how many of them know you personally. If you are a man with good intent, I pray you will do more than respond to this letter. I ask that you seriously look into the possibility that political appointees close to you are guilty of by passing our Constitutional process, and for purposes of promoting illegal covert operations, conspired in the trafficking of narcotics and arms.

Please answer why a respected American Citizen like Mister H. Ross Perot can bring you a pile of evidence of wrongdoing by Armitage and others, and you, according to TIME magazine (May 4, page 18), not only offer him no support, but have your Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci tell Mr. Perot to "stop pursuing Mr. Armitage". Why Sir, will you not look into affidavits gathered by The Christic Institute (Washington, D.C.), which testify that Armitage not only trafficked in heroin, but did so under the guise of an officer charged with bringing home our POWs. If the charges are true, Armitage, who is still responsible for POW recovery as your Assistant Secretary of Defense ISA, has every reason not to want these heros returned to us alive. Clearly, follow on investigations would illuminate the collective crimes of Armitage and others.

Several years ago a secretary working for Armitage asked me "Why would he have us expunge his official record of all reference to past POW/MIA assignments and activities?" Not knowing, I ventured a guess that maybe he was considering running for public office and didn't feel the POW -Vietnam association would be a plus in his resume. It was about the same time a CIA agent named by Khun Sa turned up dead in Bangkok under "mysterious circumstances". Also about this time, as an agent of NSC's Intelligence Support Activity, I was told by ISA Chief Jerry King, "...there are still too many bureaucrats in Washington who don't want to see POWs returned alive". I failed to realize the fullness of his meaning, or these other events, until in May 1987, Gen Khun Sa, in his jungle headquarters, named Richard Armitage as a key connection in a ring of heroin trafficking mobsters and USG officials. A U.S. agent I have known for many years stopped by my home last month enroute to his next overseas assignment. He remarked that he had worked for those CIA chiefs named by Khun Sa, and that by his own personal knowledge, he knew what Khun Sa said was true. He was surprised it had taken so long to surface.

I am a registered Republican. I voted for you twice. I will not do so again. If you have any love or loyalty in your heart for this nation; if you have not completely sold out, then do something positive to determine the truth of these most serious allegations. You were Director of the CIA in 1975, during a time Khun Sa says Armitage and CIA officials were trafficking in heroin. As Director of Intelligence you were responsible to the American people for the activities of your assistant - even as you should know what some of these same people are doing who are close to you now as our Vice President because I feel these "parallel government" types will only be promoted by you, giving them more reason to bury our POWs.

I am enclosing some documentation that supports the charges made. Chief is a letter from Khun Sa to the U.S. Justice Department dated 28 June 1987, wherein Richard Armitage is named along with Theodore Shackley (your former Deputy Director CIA from Covert Operations) and others. Please also note William Stevenson's article, "Bank of Intrigue-Circles of Power". You, Armitage, and General Richard Secord are prominently mentioned. Stevenson, you might remember, authored A MAN CALLED INTREPID. Also Tom Fitzpatrick's article, "From Burma to Bush, a Heroin Highway", should interest you. Both of these men are prize winning journalists. The book, CRIMES of PATRIOTS, "A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA", by Jonathan Kwitny, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, details for you the bank connections that Khun Sa mentions. Finally, the basic primer that spells out exactly how this dope for covert operations gambit began, is Alfred McCoy's THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. All of these should be required reading for the man appointed chief cop by our President to safeguard America from illegal narcotics. These are just a sampling of many works now available that chronical disgraceful conduct by those sworn to protect and defend our Constitution.

Parting shot Mr. Vice President: On 28 January 1988, General Khun Sa tendered an offer to turn over to me one metric ton (2,200 pounds) of heroin. He says this is a good faith gesture to the American people that he is serious about stopping all drugs coming from the infamous Golden Triangle. I, you and Nancy Reagan are really serious about saying "NO" to drugs, why not test Gen Khun Sa? I challenge you to allow me in the company of agents of your choice to arrange to receive this token offer worth over $4 billion on the streets of New York City. It will represent the largest "legal" seizure of heroin on record. You can personally torch it, dump it in the ocean, or turn it into legal medication; as I understand there is a great shortage of legal opiates available to our doctors. I think Gen Khun Sa's offer is most interesting. If you say "YES" then the ever increasing flow of heroin from Southeast Asia (600-- tons-- '86, 900 tons-- '87, 1200-- tons'88) may dry up--not good for business in the parallel government and super CIA circles Oliver North mentioned. If you say "NO" to Khun Sa, you are showing colors not fit for a man who would be President.

What is your decision? I challenge you to demonstrate exactly where you stand with respect to big-business-drugs, parallel government, misuse of U.S. tax-payer dollars in foreign drug supression programs that don't work, no interest in dialogue that will stem the flow of illegal narcotics, return of POWs while they are still alive? I for one am not for a "USA, Inc." with you or anyone else as Chairman of the Board.

Respecting Your Office,

James "Bo" Gritz, Concerned American, Box 472 HCR-31Sandy Valley, NV 89019, Tel: (702) 723-5266

`````````````````````````````````````````````

The CIA, Drugs, And An Australian Killer Cop



by Michael Barker









"Most well-developed heroin networks very quickly move towards a complementation of interests between the narcotics traffickers and corrupt elements of the enforcement agencies responsible for the suppression of the illicit drug trade."
— Alfred McCoy, 1980. (1)
"INFORMATION."
—Norman Finkelstein, 2008.


(Swans - October 5, 2009) For decades, police forces worldwide have worked in cahoots with drug traffickers and government intelligence agencies; such deceitful capitalist enterprises rarely obtain sustained public attention. This injustice owes much to the fact that when evidence of institutionalized corruption, what Peter Dale Scott refers to as deep politics, cannot be contained from the broader populous, capitalist elites jump into damage control to protect the status quo. In this manner, official commissions can be relied upon to provide the requisite scapegoats so that the mainstream mass media can manufacture consent for capitalist prerogatives. However, for those wishing to delve beneath the mass media's obscurations of the politics of drug trafficking, Australian-based researcher John Jiggens provides a breath of fresh air in his recent book, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay (Network to Investigate the Mackay Murder, 2009). (2) In his book, Jiggens weaves an enthralling story that links institutionalized police corruption to the infamous CIA front-group the Nugan Hand Bank and in turn to the controversial murder of Donald Mackay. Given the media blackout surrounding the publication of this critical book, this article will review its main thesis in an attempt to undermine elite support for the widely publicized and officially sanctioned version of Mackay's murder: a murder that Jiggens suggests "most surely announced the criminal takeover of the Australian drug scene." (3)

Murdered in 1977, former Liberal Party local candidate Donald Mackay was a well-respected businessman from the town of Griffith, a farming community situated 600 km southwest of Sydney, Australia. Jiggens argues that Mackay was assassinated after helping bring about a police investigation that led to the largest cannabis seizure in Australian history, and Mackay was one of the few people who would have been able to link the Griffith drug smuggling networks to the CIA's global drug trafficking network.

Mackay's story, however, begins in February 1974, when members of two families of Italian descent, the Sergi and Barbaro families, were caught with two pot plantations in Griffith. Despite the seriousness of their offence, with their marijuana crops having a market value of some AU$250,000, the plantation growers incurred only small fines of AU$250 and AU$500. This lenient treatment owed much to the sympathetic detectives dealing with the case -- John Ellis, John Robins, and Brian Borthwick, all of whom "would later be charged with conspiring with the growers to pervert the course of justice." This perversion of justice was upheld in plain view of the residents of Griffith, and was so extreme that the day following the discovery of the plantations, a group including Robert Trimbole and Tony Sergi were seen to be harvesting their crop, apparently with the permission of Detective Ellis. (4) Local grievance with this blatant display of corruption, then led locals including Donald Mackay to investigate further, and:

In July 1975, Mackay prepared a dossier to be sent to the NSW [New South Wales] attorney general, Mr. Maddison, accusing Robert Trimbole of being the outlet for the drugs in Sydney, and mentioning that he had "been warned not to report this to the local constabulary." (p.24)
Unfortunately, "Attorney-General Maddison did nothing about this information," and Mackay subsequently took his information to an "honest Sydney drug squad detective, senior constable Ron Jenkins." This in turn led to the November 10, 1975, raid on a property at Coleambally (60 km south of Griffith), where around 375,000 cannabis plants were found, grown on land purchased the year before with money provided by the Sergi and Trimboli families. (5)

During the ensuing court proceedings (that started in March 1977), Mackay was revealed as constable Jenkins's informant, and Mackay was later assassinated on July 15, 1977. The murder of a well-respected member of the Griffith community then led to a media frenzy demanding justice. However, the type of justice that was actually sought was extremely limited, as "high-level NSW police were determined to blame the 'Italian' marijuana growers of Griffith for Mackay's murder." (6) The media and police force's narrow focus on local growers of course missed the broader capitalist infrastructure that more likely demanded the assassination of Mackay (for reasons that become clearer later) -- a topic that Jiggens explores in his book. A good explanation for the limited focus for the murder case owes to the fact that the Coleambally seizure demonstrated that Australia was involved in exporting cannabis. Jiggens suggests that such a conclusion would have necessitated a closer examination of drug related activities outside of Griffith, which would naturally lead investigators to the SE Asia-Sydney-US drug route, otherwise known as the Sydney Connection. (7)

Jiggens first explored the first Sydney Connection in an earlier book, but it is important to note that "the pioneer" of the Sydney Connection was a New South Wales Special Branch detective named John Wesley Egan, who first became involved in heroin smuggling for the CIA after he joined the Special Branch. After pioneering the Sydney Connection, Egan resigned from the police, and over "a six-month period in 1966-1967, Egan and his gang [of 20 couriers "usually NSW police officers on leave"] smuggled $22 million worth of heroin into the USA, before a mistake by a courier led to Egan's arrest." After accepting a deal and pleading guilty, Egan spent a few months in a US prison, and on his return to Australia, he "told The Bulletin that the world's heroin routes were either protected by, or actively participated in, by the police forces of the countries concerned." (8)

Egan estimated that, in the last ten years, 50 per cent of the narcotics sold in New York had been handled by serving members of the police force. He cited the scandal that erupted when it was discovered that 70 per cent of the elite Special Squad of the New York Narcotics Bureau were dealing in narcotics. (p.47)
In addition to Egan's Sydney Connection, the second Sydney Connection Jiggens explains, began during the vice boom in Sydney which began in 1967 and coincided with the "rest and recreation" tours for US soldiers on leave from Vietnam. Then when these "R and R" tours ended, "vice entrepreneurs from Sydney's clubland, led by [ex-policeman] Murray Riley, moved into the trans-Pacific drug trade." Notably, these inglorious R and R years "coincided with the premiership of Sir Robert Askin (1965-1975), a [Liberal Party] premiership tainted by widespread corruption." (9) Jiggens writes how...

... the ex-police and police who became heavily involved in the Drug Joke after the criminal takeover of the drug trade, began their corruption with the abortion racket and the illegal casinos during the Askin years. Not only were the detectives in Griffith corrupt, but many other NSW detectives were corrupt, and the corruption went all the way to the top. Rather than suppress the drug trade, the corrupt police sought to control it, which effectively meant giving the drug trade to their good friend, Murray Riley. (p.52)
Here it is fitting to note that Admiral Earl Yates, who around this time served as the president of the now infamous CIA front group the Nugan Hand Bank, "said he accepted the position as Nugan Hand president [in 1977] on the advice of Sir Robert Askin." (10) Thus Riley, after having disappeared underground during Justice Athol Moffitt's Royal Commission into Organised Crime in Clubs (which began in 1973), reappeared in Sydney the following year, a day after the commission was finalised. In 1975, Riley then became involved in drug trafficking with the soon to collapse Moylan group, and subsequently met Frank Nugan (of Nugan Hand Bank fame), which aided Riley's smooth transition from the vice scene to the drugs scene.

At first, Frank Nugan managed the Nugan Hand [Bank's] relationship with Riley, but when Michael Hand returned in March 1976, he took over the relationship. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was during the period when he was close to Hand when Riley moved into Southeast Asian heroin.

The drug related activities of Murray Riley and the Nugan Hand group were investigated by the Commonwealth-New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking, which concluded that Riley organised five shipments of heroin into Australia in April, June, August, September-October, and November-December 1976, mostly in false bottom suitcases. For each importation the facilities of the Nugan Hand group of companies were used to transfer the purchase money from Sydney to Hong Kong. Over one hundred pounds of heroin was involved, and much of this was shipped on to the US. Riley was also involved in two heroin importations in July and September 1977. (p.66)
To fill in some details, Frank Nugan who was born in Griffith, was the Australian partner in the Nugan Hand Bank, a bank that was "set up to hide money made from arms smuggling, drug trafficking, money laundering and tax avoidance." "By 1977, Nugan Hand and its associates dominated the Australian drug trade in a way that had never been achieved before." (11) Dirty money was then laundered through a dizzying array of shelf companies from the Bank to the Nugan Group, which was Frank Nugan's vegetable and fruit packing company.

The Nugan Group, it is important to emphasize, was intimately connected to the Mackay story as they "operated a major 5-acre factory complex in Griffith," and in 1977 "an independent audit turned up secret accounts in the group's books in the names of local pot growers with the cheques for thousands of dollars made out to member of the Trimboli and Sergi families." In light of this troubling turn of events (for the Nugan Group), Frank Nugan set out to remove the auditors, and hired ex-NSW detective Fred Krahe to intimidate irksome members of their board of directors. Although ultimately unsuccessful in forcing the auditors to resign, this was the type of task that Fred Krahe excelled in, as his "reputation as an underworld enforcer and hit man [had] earned him the nickname of the 'Killer Cop.'" (12)

Later in 1978, "[w]ith assistance from the US embassy, Frank Nugan succeeded in closing down" an investigation of Nugan Hand Bank that was set up by the Narcotics Bureau. (13) Similarly, Frank has also worked hard to stave off a NSW Corporate Affairs investigation in the Nugan Group, however, eventually...

... conspiracy charges over the secret accounts were laid against Frank Nugan, Ken Nugan, several Nugan Group employees, and ex-detectives Fred Krahe and Keith Kelly. After a committal hearing before Clarrie Briese SM, the charges against Krahe and Kelly were dismissed and they were awarded costs. The other defendants were committed for trial, a fate that Frank Nugan avoided by suicide. (p.114)
Fortunately for the criminal underworld the Nugan Groups secret accounts "were never given to the Woodward royal commission, nor to the Joint Task Force," (14) yet as Jiggens notes, these accounts are critical to understanding the assassination of Mackay.

The suggestion is that shortly after the secret accounts at the Nugan Group became a public scandal in the first weeks of July 1977, someone who suspected that marijuana growing might be the explanation behind the secret accounts went to Donald Mackay with this information, but Fred Krahe learned of this. As we have seen, Frank Nugan had many reasons to kill to prevent exposure, and in Fred Krahe he had the perfect assassin. Up until this point, Donald Mackay knew only of the growers in their grass castles. The secret accounts would have given him the clue that led to the man with the mansion in Vaucluse. As many suspected, Mackay was murdered to protect the financiers and distributors, those higher up the chain of this enormous drug-smuggling network. In a twist worthy of a thriller, the boys from Homicide couldn't find the killer because he was a former top homicide investigator. (p.131)
Importantly, the murder of Mackay also served to cover up the potential exposure of Frank Nugan's CIA connections, which was particularly critical given that in "April, May and June 1977, the Australian media and Parliament were awash with allegations of CIA activities in Australia, caused by the allegations of Christopher Boyce and Gough Whitlam." (15) Other evidence to support Jiggens's theory comes from Tony Reeve's book Mr Sin: The Abe Saffron Dossier (Allen & Unwin, 2007). Reeves provided evidence of how Frank Nugan had distributed marijuana from his Griffith packing shed, and how Sir Peter Abele's trucking company, Thomas Nationwide Transport (TNT), was used "to move -- along with huge volumes of legitimate cargoes -- large quantities of illegal drugs around Australia and the world." Reeves also drew attention to the close relations that existed between Abeles and the Nugan Hand Bank: information which is particularly significant because "Bela Csidei, Murray Riley's partner in the trans-Pacific drug trade, was well known as a front man for Abeles." (16)

As one might expect, the mainstream media fulfilled a critical function in shielding the police force and the Nugans from critical public scrutiny, and so it is fitting that Frank Nugan's henchman, "Fred Krahe, was employed at the time of the murder with The Sun newspaper in Sydney." Moreover the tight relationship between the mainstream media and the criminal underworld was no anomaly, as prior to leaving the police force, Krahe had "carefully cultivated" the support of leading NSW crime reporters like Bill Jenkins, whose "frequent scoops were breathlessly splashed across the... front pages" of Rupert Murdoch's now defunct Sydney paper The Daily Mirror. Thus while under normal circumstances one might expect that structural factors alone are enough to ensure that the mainstream media manufactures consent for elite interests, in the case of Krahe, it is apparent that individual journalists, like Jenkins, facilitated this process by covering up for the key movers in Australia's organized crime scene. (17)

Likewise, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking (1980-83) served to manufacture consent for elite interests. "Justice Donald Stewart --'crime fighter extraordinaire' as the Sydney Morning Herald billed him in 1998 -- was the man selected by the conservative Fraser government to chair the royal commission into the can of worms that was Nugan Hand." Jiggens points out that:

Many investigators regard Stewart's report on the affairs of Nugan Hand as a whitewash, not so much of Nugan and Hand (who Stewart conveniently blamed for everything), but of the US government. ... Not surprisingly, journalists like [Marian] Wilkinson, [Brian] Toohey, [Jonathan] Kwitny, [Wendy] Bacon and [Alfred] McCoy felt that Stewart inverted Nugan Hand's real chain of command. (p.165) (18)
Later, as is to be expected, the media acted in concert with the legal system:

Stewart's conclusion that there was no evidence of links with the CIA was headlined in [Rupert] Murdoch's Australian as "CIA Link Disproved." As Brian Toohey commented in the National Times: "Far from being disproved, the extent of the links was not even investigated by Justice Stewart in any normal sense of the world." (p.170)
This brings my brief review of The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay to an end. Unfortunately, beyond superficial political reforms, little has changed since the dark days that saw the murder of Donald Mackay. The mass media that keep the public misinformed about the true criminality of capitalism have more power than ever, while official government whitewashes of crime continue to protect deep politics from critical scrutiny. John Jiggens penetrates the myopic drug-fuelled hallucinations that emanate from the mainstream media, and provides the necessary context to wake us (the public) from our addiction to the real drug of the nation, the corporate media.


Notes

1. Alfred McCoy, Drug Traffic: Narcotics and Organised Crime in Australia (Harper & Row, 1980), p.30. (back)

2. This book draws upon the research undertaken in John Jiggens's PhD thesis, "Marijuana Australiana: Cannabis Use, Popular Culture and the Americanisation of Drugs Policy in Australia 1938-1988" (Queensland University of Technology, 2004). Some of the book's content has been published online in a three-art series in StickyPoint magazine, see "In a Time of Murder" (Issue 2, 2007), "The Banker and The Killer Kop" (Issue 3, 2007), and "The Mystery of Nugan Hand Bank" (Issue 4, 2008). (back)

3. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.22. After the murder of MacKay, there was a marijuana drought, and so with "pot unavailable, heroin sales went through the roof." (pp.18-9)

The officially sanctioned version of Mackay's murder resulted in the jailing of Jimmy Bazely, a small-time crim" who had escaped police custody "after one particularly unsuccessful bank robbery where he was caught by a one-legged man." (pp.174-5) "This is the official version of the murder of Donald Mackay to be found in Underbelly 2, TV documentaries like The Donald Mackay Disappearance and books like [Bob] Bottom's Shadow of Shame and [Keith] Moor's Crims in Grass Castles." (p.180) (back)

4. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.23. The detective on duty in Griffith on the night of Mackay's assassination, Graham Lawrence Keech, "spent almost the entire shift on what has been described as 'an extended pub crawl' with Tony Sergi and Domenic Sergi, two of the principals suspected of ordering Mackay's murder." Brian Borthwick had also met them for dinner that night, and with no irony the following morning Keech went on to "play a key role in the investigation of the murder." (p.31) Later, in 1994, "John Hatton MP blamed the failure of the police investigation on John Whelan, who was appointed second-in-charge of the police assisting the Woodward Royal Commission and then took over as chief investigator. In 1994, Hatton said it was frightening that Whelan, who he called a crook and a member of the "Black Knights," was the chief investigator into the Mackay murder." (p.32) Justice Philip Woodward also "fell" for the police generated propaganda and "put all the blame [for the murder] on the Italian-Australians," a situation that was bound to happen given his "over-concentration on Griffith." "It was not," Jiggens continues, "until his Further Report that Woodward investigated the Sydney drug scene and looked at Murray Riley and his gang." Moreover even then: "At the end of his commission in 1980, Woodward left his outstanding investigations (Murray Riley, Bela Csidei and Nugan Hand!) to the Joint Police Task Force." (p.33, p.35)

In 2009, in addition to Jiggens's publication, another book relating to crime in Australia is Clive Small and Tom Gilling's Smack Express: How Organised Crime Got Hooked on Drugs (Allen & Unwin, 2009). This well-received book is significant because Gilling, a former New South Wales police officer, was an investigator for the Woodward Commission from 1977 until 1980, and then spent the next three years on the Commonwealth-state Joint Task Force which investigated the Nugan Hand Bank. No surprise then that Small's book whitewashes the historical roots of organized crime in Australia. (back)

The use of an "export" theory to explain the murder of Mackay was initially followed by Bob Bottom in The Godfather in Australia: Organised Crime's Australian Connections (Reed, 1979). Jiggens estimates that "the size of the Australian cannabis market in 1975 was about 50 tonnes, indicating that Coleambally alone was bigger than the entire annual Australian cannabis market." (p.39) Additionally, the seizure should have produced a marijuana drought the following year, but "the Australian marijuana market was healthy right up to July 1977," which indicates that the Coleambally crop was probably grown for the US market, "the one market that could absorb such a large quantity of cannabis." (p.42) "The marijuana drought was caused by the murder of Donald Mackay, which was carried out to cover-up Frank Nugan's role in Griffith. Other factors contributed, such as the launch of the War on Drugs and the massive cannabis seizures, but it was the Mackay murder, and the subsequent police investigations and royal commissions, that created the drought." (p.192)

"Although this Americanisation of Sydney's crime scene in the 1960s and 1970s, its penetration by US mobsters and the Mafia, went largely unnoticed by Australian authorities, it formed the subject of books like Bob Bottom's The Godfather in Australia, Athol Moffitt's A Quarter to Midnight and Alfred McCoy's Drug Traffic." (p.188) In addition, Jiggens observes that: "Although the prevailing wisdom remains that the export or trans-shipment of drugs via Australia is something that 'can't happen here,' it clearly does; and even some members of the Australian Federal Police have begun to admit this following the seizure of four tonnes of ecstasy, valued at $400 million in 2007." (back)

8. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.46. For a brief review of the CIA's global involvement in drug trafficking, see William Blum, "The CIA, Contras, Gangs, and Crack," (pdf) Foreign Policy in Focus, November 1996.

Brian Martin in his important book, The Whistleblower's Handbook: How to Be an Effective Resister (Jon Carpenter, 1999), discusses the role of customs officers in aiding and abetting drug trafficking in Australia. He writes: "Fred was a customs officer who had just moved to a new posting. He began to notice that certain types of goods were always put through on a particular shift involving the same group of officers. He knew from previous experience that these types of goods were. Fred was a customs officer who had just moved to a new posting. He began to notice that certain types of goods were always put through on a particular shift involving the same group of officers. He knew from previous experience that these types of goods were commonly used to smuggle drugs. In the face of much resistance, he managed to get on the shift himself, and uncovered a major drugs shipment. Then he was transferred out to a less desirable job. He went to the media with claims of corruption in customs. But in the face of bland denials by customs officials, nothing could be done." (p.4) For an account of whistleblowing with regards to police corruption see pp.71-3. (back)

9. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.50, p.51.

On his retirement, in 1975, Askin "joined the board of TNT, and was given 110,000 shares in that company. In January 1978, Mike Hand announced that Sir Robert Askin might be joining Nugen Hand as chairman, though nothing seems to have come of this." (p.52) Jiggens writes that:" Tony Reeves claimed in Mr Sin that Krahe [according to an informant and contacts in the Commonwealth Police] was given a position on the board of TNT after he retired". (p.161) Given Askin's TNT-CIA connection is it interesting to observe that the current chair of TNT's supervisory board, Piet Klaver, is a board member of the "environmental" African Parks Foundation -- a group whose senior counsellors include former US Secretary of State for Africa, Walter Kansteiner, and Wim Kok, a TNT supervisory board member who is a board member of the "humanitarian" International Crisis Group.

For an exhaustive examination of the "central" role that Askin played in institutionalizing crime in New South Wales, see David Hickie's The Prince and The Premier: The Story of Perce Galea, Bob Askin and the Others Who Gave Organised Crime Its Start in Australia (Angus & Robertson, 1985).

Jiggens writes: "In New South Wales, the Wood commission was told that an officer wishing to become a detective had to commit at least one corrupt act as a test to see if he was fit to be a detective. Those who refused were blackballed from that elite branch of the force because they were seen as being untrustworthy." (pp.200-1) "This entrenched network of police corruption had many names. In New South Wales the terms 'The Laugh' and 'The Giggle' were commonly used. In Queensland it was best known as 'The Joke.' The Joke flourished in Queensland in the sixties under the supervision of Police Commissioner Frank Bischof. His bagmen were said to be the Rat Pack of Terry Lewis, Tony Murphy and Glen Halloran. The Rat Pack and their friends were central to the corruption uncovered later by Fitzgerald, by which time Lewis was Commissioner. Bischof's Joke in the 1960s revolved around SP bookmakers and prostitution. This was the corruption that the Fitzgerald inquiry focused on, while giving only a tantalising glimpse of the Drug Joke. By the time of the Wood commission, almost a decade later, the Drug Joke had become central to police corruption." (p.201) (back)

10. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.103. (back)

11. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.81, p.84.

Black banks are "an import part of... clandestine trade, and the Nugan Hand Bank, like the Castle Bank before it and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) after it, formed an important part in this Cold War network." When the Castle Bank -- which was set up by "Paul Helliwell, a very senior CIA operative" -- was investigated by the US Internal Revenue Service in the late 1970s, the CIA blocked the investigation. Subsequently, when the Castle Bank collapsed, the Australian-based Nugan Hand Bank quickly "acquir[ed] Latin American and European structures that had belonged to Castle Bank" and an array of board members from the US intelligence establishment: for example, the new legal counsel of the Bank was the former CIA Director, William Colby. (p.217-8) (back)

12. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.104, p.105. (back)

13. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.112. (back)

14. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.126. (back)

15. Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.194.

Head of the Eastern Division of the CIA, Ted Shackley, played a key role in the November 1975 Pine Gap security crisis, which helped lead to the constitutional coup that led to the removal of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. (p.95) Thus it is noteworthy that Shackley "was very closely associated with Michael Hand... and nearly all the other Nugan Hand players." (p.91)

Here it is important to point out that while it is widely alleged that Whitlam's policies provided a serious threat to sanctity of intelligence agencies, in actual fact they did not pose such threat (although this was most likely misinterpreted by the CIA). Jim Jose writes: "Whitlam accepted the necessity and desirability of agencies like the [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation] ASIO; he also accepted the assumption which legitimized these groups." Jim Jose, "The Whitlam Years: Illusion and Reality," in Pat Flanagan (ed.), Big Brother or Democracy: The Case for the Abolition of ASIO (University of Adelaide, 1979), p.40. (back)

16. Tony Reeves, Mr Sin: The Abe Saffron Dossier (Allen & Unwin, 2007), p.84; Jiggens, The Killer Cop and the Murder of Donald Mackay, p.134.

Sir Peter Abeles "belonged to a powerful, right-wing émigré group which included Alexander Barton, Sir Paul Strasser and Sir Ivan Charody who were referred to as 'the Hungarian Mafia' or as 'Askin's Knights' because NSW premier, Sir Robert Askin knighted all of them." (p.135) David Hickie writes that he was told that knighthoods could be brought "earlier in Askin's reign at a... modest $20,000 a pop." He then continues noting that "while such claims are hard to document... a $20,000 cheque from the chief executive of Boral Ltd, Sir Elton Griffin, turned up in the private bank account of Sir Robert Ask in at the time Griffin was knighted." Boral is now "Australia's largest building and construction materials supplier". It is also interesting to note that Bernie Houghton -- who played a key role in setting up the Nugan Hand Bank -- arranged for Michael Hand to work with Sir Paul Strasser's Parkes Corporation. Moreover, although little known, in 1969, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) "uncovered the involvement of Lennie [McPherson], Houghton and some NSW police in a massive people-smuggling operation. ASIS had mounted a 'national security' exercise to check on illegal immigrants as part of Australia's Cold War paranoia about communists arriving by stealth and taking over the country. What they found was a massive trade in sex slaves, run by Sydney criminals and back by a local undercover agent of the CIA." (For a critical analysis of the links between capitalism and modern-day slavery.


Michael Barker and Swans need your support, please consider
making a donation. Money is spent to pay for Internet costs, maintenance

Swans Commentary
and upgrade of our computer network, and development of the site

A Happy New Year? ...Oh Please!!

I just got this email from my dear sweetheart in Malaysia; a country who's noble people wish to have true freedom for their nation, much like the myth of freedom that we all believed America once had.

By Alan Caruba

The Obama administration is “one of the most corrupt administrations in modern times” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) Sunday, January 2st. As the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, we can expect some explosive revelations.

The larger question is how long can a nation survive when its east and west coasts are occupied by liberals who are so out of touch with reality they cannot understand why the rest of the nation would disagree with them about anything? Two States alone, California and New York, are so broke and so laden with red tape they exist by mercy alone.

Liberals are people who still think bigger government, more regulations and more spending is the answer to every problem and need.

These are people who still talk about “global warming”, often in the midst of a raging blizzard.

These are people who refuse to consider the daily headlines of Muslim bombings of Christians, often in their churches, poses a threat to Western civilization.

In the middle, in “fly over country”, the bulk of the population simply stares in disbelief at the White House and Congress and keeps asking, “What are those people thinking?”

Having sent a small army of new people, conservatives, to the House of Representatives and narrowed the Senate’s ability to do further damage, these are independents who now expect change of a different kind than Obama’s.

It’s not so much change as a “return” to smaller government, less borrowing and spending, and such, but those days essentially ended in the last century as progressives got an income tax written into the Constitution, took away the right of State legislatures to name Senators who would represent their State’s interests, and then went on a binge of “entitlement” programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

A century of liberal government has bankrupted the government.

Indeed, just about anything one wants to do, go to college, start a small business, begin raising alpacas, whatever, the government will provide a loan or a grant or a tax exemption. The federal government determines how much each State receives for road and bridge repair, for its school systems, for just about everything for which States were formerly responsible.

The so-called Stimulus Act was nothing more than Representatives and Senators throwing every state and local project into a huge spending bill and then claiming it would create jobs. As has been the case for decades, the only jobs that get created from such largess are government jobs, while businesses large and small are required to waste thousands of hours and thousands of dollars filling out government forms.

There’s a word for that. It’s called communism. To avoid the ugliness of that, it is also called socialism, but it is still communism when the government makes the most important decisions about virtually everything affecting one’s life.

The financial collapse of 2008 was the result of the utter failure of two “government entities”, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that so distorted the housing mortgage marketplace that it finally collapsed from an excess of incoherence. No one knew who owned the mortgage. Not Fannie or Freddie, not the banks, investment firms or AIG that used them as “bundled” assets.

The current bank failure rate is testimony to the need to shut down Fanny and Freddy.

Those mortgages were loans made to people that often didn’t have a job, bought homes so large they were beyond their ability to make the monthly payments, or just got fired and couldn’t pay. Whose fault was that? The lenders who knew they could turn around and sell the mortgage to Fannie and Freddie, and stick the American taxpayer with the cost to the tune of billions.

Beyond the mortgage fiasco, there is the government’s steady erosion of American’s vast energy industries. They cannot drill for oil anywhere. They cannot mine coal. If, however, you want to build a wind or solar farm, the government will give you millions to produce minimal amounts of electricity and require utilities to purchase it.

Or perhaps you want to be an ethanol producer? The government requires that all gasoline be mixed with ethanol, thus raising the cost per gallon for a chemical that actually reduces the mileage you’d get without it. In addition, since it’s mostly made from corn it forces up the cost of feed to livestock which in turns forces up the cost of meat at the supermarket and the countless other food products that utilize corn in some fashion.

In a free market ethanol would not exist. Even Al Gore has disowned it!

What kind of government would insist on regulating carbon dioxide, claiming it is causing “global warming” when it is obvious to everyone there is no “global warming” and CO2 is not causing anything except the growth of every form of vegetation on planet Earth.

When a government lies that much to everyone in an effort to control all energy use, it has become a criminal enterprise.

While all this is going on, that same government is borrowing and borrowing and borrowing, mostly from China, to keep the monstrosity it has created going. Our government is flat broke.

When you add in a President who thinks America is too arrogant and represents people who eat too much, drive too much, and need to expect less if they get sick, it is little wonder people are beginning to lose faith in him.

We need a lot of change in a big hurry or one day we will all wake up and there will be no United States of America because it had to default on nearly $16 trillion in present debt. That's equal to our current Gross Domestic Product. The U.S. dollar continues to lose its value and we have two more years of a President who cannot sign more spending bills fast enough.

© Alan Caruba, 2011