the pressure grows... our daily amok

"This year, March was a very busy month. On March 10, 11 people were killed in a shooting spree in Alabama. On March 21, four police officers were shot to death in two separate incidents in Oakland, Calif. And on March 29, a gunman killed eight people in a North Carolina nursing home, and six were fatally shot in Santa Clara, Calif.

April has also started off badly. First, there were the shootings in Binghamton on Friday. Then on Saturday, James Harrison shot and killed his four children, ages 7 to 16, in Washington state before killing himself. On the same day, Richard Poplawski, 23, allegedly shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers and wounded a fourth. "//politico

"The unemployed twenty-two year old man who killed three Pittsburgh police officers and wounded two others in a four-hour shootout on Saturday morning had been heavily influenced by extremist conspiracy theories prior to the incident.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Richard Poplawski was "convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry. ..."//rawstory

"The man accused of fatally shooting three Pittsburgh police officers and injuring two others was alternately described by friends as "an easygoing, fun-loving guy" and a known gun enthusiast who was prepared to die after he woke up on a bright spring Saturday morning.

Poplawski's mother said her son has been "stockpiling guns and ammunition, buying and selling the weapons online because he believed that as a result of economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society.""//pittsburghchannel

"Poplawski exhibited rage against racial minorities, Jews, the government and police. According to ADL, Poplawski also frequented "Infowars," the Web site of the right-wing conspiracy radio talk-show host Alex Jones, where he shared links to its stories with others and sometimes posted his own messages to the site."//ADL

"We learned that Poplawski hosted his own (failed) Internet radio show and that he visited the Web site of 9/11 conspiracy backer Alex Jones, who has been hyping the threat of a totalitarian world government for years.

Who's Alex Jones? Even according to some conservative bloggers, the anti-government, anti-Obama talker is a "freak" who's popular with "the tin-foil-hat crowd." Like Poplawski, apparently.

Jones might be a "freak," but he has recently been embraced -- and mainstreamed -- by Fox News as part of the news channel's unprecedented drive to push radical propaganda warning of America's democratic demise under the new president."//alternet

"I've known this kid my entire life and he was a good kid. He never had bad intentions. He never spoke about harming anybody," said Edward Perkovic, a lifelong friend who had known Mr. Poplawski since the two paired up at a daycare.
Mr. Poplawski collaborated with Mr. Perkovic on an Internet show that featured clips --- sometimes from local news broadcasts, other times video from around the town --- where they discussed politics."//postgazette

""The federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of -- if not completely controlled by -- Zionist interest," the post declares. "An economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental U.S., civil/revolutionary/racial war. ... This collapse is likely engineered by the elite Jewish powers that be in order to make for a power and asset grab."

Mr. Poplawski also appears to agree with another poster who criticized Alex Jones, host of a conspiracy theorist radio program and author of an Internet site to which Mr. Poplawski's friends said he sometimes turned for news.

The other poster complained that Mr. Jones' site deleted posts alleging Jewish control of the United States."//postgazette

"The discussion of the shootings at Stormfront, which began with speculations that the gunman would turn out to be "some non-white" or "a jew," then turned to suspicions that the recent rash of shootings is a "setup" to push through gun control legislation, has become oddly muted since the revelation that Poplawski appears to be one of theirs."//rawstory

"The fact that the Times makes the connection between Poplawski and Jones, while failing to point out that Poplawski disagreed with Jones’ political viewpoint, underscores the fact that this is a baseless smear intended to take what was a tragic domestic dispute completely out of context in order to demonize anti-establishment media outlets and chill free speech....

The fact that the ADL and the New York Times ganged up to propagate this smear really shows us that we are hurting the establishment with our message of non-violent, non-racist civil disobedience and urging people of all colors and creeds to come together and resist the new world order.

The desperation of the smear attempt is self-evident and this will only backfire once again to reveal the agenda-driven hatred that the ADL and the decaying establishment media have for the growing liberty movement in America."//AlexJones::prisonplanet

""I apologize to the families and the police officers that are there to serve and protect us, that they lost their lives, but I don't want the stories about my nephew to be told the wrong way," Klimczyk said."//pittsburghchannel

"Jones: The new world order is a private group of ultra rich bankers who are off shore. They are above the US, above Iran, Russia, Venezuela. They are international, and they are creating a network of international laws to regulate, and control, and dominate nations. They openly state that they want to deindustrialize countries, they want to bankrupt the population. They want a poor population that has to go to the government for handouts. They want a domesticated population. So the new world order is what every other dictatorship has called for in history. They are people who want a planetary dictatorship run by a group of plutocratic financiers. It is a world government of, for, and by private bankers."//russiatoday

""For some time now there has been a pretty good connection between being sucked into this conspiracy world and propagating violence," Heidi Beirich, director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Center -- a non-profit that tracks the activities of hate groups -- told the newspaper."//upi

"...we have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies." -- George W. Bush, 9/20/01

Rites of Passage

"Most rites of passage fall into three main phases: separation, transition, and incorporation. In the separation phase, the participant is taken away from his/her familiar environment and former role and enters a very different and sometimes foreign routine...The transition phase is the time that the participant learns the appropriate behavior for the new stage they are entering...The last phase, incorporation, takes place when the participant is formally admitted into the new role.."//teacherlink

"Our programs are hard work. Heart-work, and soul-work is not easy, and it brings with it surprises that you never expected, commitments that are difficult to achieve, and personal discipline. "//ropj

"Through ritual forms they take living people and in a symbolic sense cause them to "die" and be "reborn" as new kinds of individuals, shedding old, used-up selves so new ones can take their place. Not only are they given a new status but they will also have experienced inner changes to their sense of identity."//DR