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wrbones
01-25-03, 10:25 PM
http://www.uksociety.org/ken_home.htm

wrbones
01-25-03, 10:27 PM
info @ indymedia.nl <br />
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Ken Nichols to burn U.S. Passport <br />
Ken Nichols to burn U.S. Passport - 28.06.2002 13:33 <br />
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Ken Nichols, voormalig V.S. marinier en momenteel asielaanvrager in...

wrbones
01-25-03, 10:29 PM
See the US State Department answer to that question at www.uksociety.org (updated July 25).

Ken Nichols - A US Citizen???
My evolution in renunciation of US citizenship was for me a natural path guided by reverence for the truth and uncompromising defense of my own personal peace of mind. I suppose this really began when the US conducted human experiments on me, and 600,000 others in the Gulf War by its forced injection and ingestion of pyridostigmine bromide pills and anthrax and botulinum toxoid vaccines which had not been approved for use on uninformed and non-consenting humans. It is in no way an exaggeration to say the US is 100% guilty of human experiments, they even admit to it. Panel Releases Report on Human Radiation Experiments, Human Radiation Experiments Associated with the U.S. Department of Energy and Its Predecessors

My evolution continued during my early twenties, and a college class I attended at this time accelerated my personal "awakening." The class was "American History" from a black perspective. In this class I confronted for the first time the incredible hypocrisy of the slaveholding "Founding Fathers." I learned of the past crimes and witnessed ongoing oppression of blacks in America. Rodney King was soon a household name and the police beatings and murder continue to this day. I realized for myself that had I been born black in America I would have almost certainly been one of the countless "statistics;" the "collateral damage" victimized by drugs, violence, incarceration and premature death. I realized that the color of my skin had blinded me and shielded me from the pain and legacy of enslavement that my brothers and sisters from Africa had endured for centuries. I felt the beginning of shame.

I read a book that should be required reading for all American's; "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," a book that exposes the real America, the America responsible for one of the greatest acts of genocide in the history of the world. I realized once again that the color of my skin had blinded me and shielded me from the pain of genocide endured by my brothers and sisters who first inhabited "America." I felt an upwelling of shame.

I became increasingly frustrated and disheartened with the ignorance and denial of the average white middle-class American, the social/racial group from which I came. I sought to learn the truth not taught in school about the unparalleled participation of the US in Crimes against Humanity around the globe. Crimes committed throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries and continuing into the 21st. Crimes that remain all to conspicuously ignored to this day. I ask where is the virtue of "Freedom" and "Democracy" and "Justice" in the invasion and bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos that lead to the death and dismemberment of millions of civilians? I ask where are these virtues in the "economic sanctions" led by the US against the civilian population of Iraq that has resulted in the death of at least 500,000 children and well over one million total? I ask whom did former Secretary of State Madeline Albright speak for when she said this death toll was, "worth it?" Sanctions that have strengthening the once beloved, now despised trading partner to the US, Saddam Hussein. All this made even more disgusting by Bush's plea to the world to support his new war against Iraq because Hussein "has even gassed his own people," always failing to mention that while daddy Bush was in the White House at that time, not only did the US not punish Hussein for this horrendous crime, but actually rewarded him by providing economic and agricultural support. Support that continued right up till the Gulf War some three years later.

I watch in awe as I see America's latest war criminal George W. Bush declare to the world that Ariel Sharon is a "Man of Peace" while telling the world that "If your not with us, you are with the terrorists." FOR THE RECORD - I AM NOT WITH GEORGE W. BUSH NOR ANY ENTITY LOYAL TO HIS AGENDA. In other words, I am not with the nation of my birth or its "elected" government or anyone who supports their insane policies. I say to the majority of people in the US, you have been duped in the biggest of ways. Your legacy on the current path may well be the launch of World War III and possible total global annihilation. But don't worry, your "representatives" will be sheltered from the nuclear fallout in the mass of underground complexes built to house them for that very purpose.

The truth stares us in the face in every way yet we continue to blind ourselves in order to avoid the discomfort that comes with the responsibility and power of knowledge. Ah but the luxurious "ignorance is bliss" lifestyle you have so ignorantly and selfishly embraced is in its final days. In the prosperous society from which I come I have developed almost overwhelming shame for my ancestors and many of my contemporaries who for the sake of this comfort remain in denial and literally sacrifice the future of their own children. Shame on you. I want no part of it. Instead I will fight till death with all those who see the madness and know the stakes. For those of you who will condemn me or worse, I can assure you that your children will thank me, if they get a chance that is.

I give all my respect to many great writers and speakers for their courage and integrity in helping me to see the truth. I include Noam Chomsky and Malcolm X at the top of this list. I say that Noam Chomsky will go down as one of the noblest American's (persons) ever and his truthful accounts of our world are an invaluable source of truth in a world full of lies. I can hear the jeers in my adoration of Malcolm yet I say with pride that I love Malcolm as my brother and that he truly lives in me. Most who would criticize him have no idea who this wonderful man was, what he stood for in the end, and where he was going. Had he been allowed to live I can only imagine the progress that could have been made for all people. My deepest love and admiration goes out to them and the countless others, many who remain unknown, for their courageous rejection of tyranny.

wrbones
01-25-03, 10:30 PM
I stand with all those that resist oppression "by any means necessary." My love for you is not conditional, but I argue once again that those who resist do so non-violently whenever possible. Outsmart your enemy; do not be lured into your death by him. I point to perhaps the most beautiful and brave example provided by Gandhi and his seemingly impossible defeat of the most powerful empire of its time, but with the understanding that many of Gandhi's followers were slaughtered in extreme adherence to the principle of non-violent civil disobedience. I cannot in good faith suggest that everyone take this path. The end goal is peace but it is the powerful tyrants who must first put down the weapons, not those who are the victims of tyrants.

I resent the mass of hypocrites in the West who preach peace while condemning those who have no such luxury. Those who preach peace while paying taxes to produce and employ ungodly weapons of mass-destruction for so-called "National Security." These hypocrites who have no desire to understand what it is to live the life of a Palestinian in the West Bank, a black South African under Apartheid, or a peasant farmer facing the Nazi fashioned "Death Squads" of El Salvador freshly trained in the School of the America's. These cowardly hypocrites who by their own logic would not have fought the Nazi's. Or is it that violence is ok when the oppression and murder hits Europe? Yeah, that is what I thought.

I am even more sickened by the mass of people who justify the fire-bombing of Dresden, the atomic bomb attacks of Hiroshima & Nagasaki and the indiscriminate bombing of Southeast Asia by the US that used more bombs than in all of World War II combined. "Patriots" who sanctioned the "Cold War" that rewards us today with the unbridled superpower rogue nation that is America. The "War on Drugs," that leaves America ("Land of the Free") with the biggest prison population in the history of the world and more drugs on the street than ever. And now the disgraceful farce that does mortal injury to the collective intelligence of humanity known as the "War on Terror." The fact that the worlds leading terrorist by legal definition of the word is leading this war is providing the nails for our own coffins. Stupid, bloody stupid I say.

I apologize from the bottom of my heart to the rest of my human family. Many of whom being doomed by the shear stupidity of my societies sanction or complicity in their "democratically elected representatives" and their horrendous policies. I so foolishly ignored you in my previously comatose state of ethical unconsciousness. I hereby devote the rest of my life to your cause, which is of course, every ones cause.

Having this perspective it was only logical for me to divorce myself of association with the champions of global environmental destruction, mass murder via the use and sale of weapons of mass-destruction, and the enforcer who degrades life for the majority while increasing the wealth of a tiny minority. In short, renunciation of United States citizenship was absolutely necessary for me. No matter how "extreme" it may seem to most. Once my mind was made up, nobody could stop me. I first publicly announced my intent to renounce my US citizenship at US Federal Hearings in Honolulu on December 11, 1999. I repeated my intent and right to renounce several more times in public hearings. After making the required written request for the legal renunciation papers in the summer of 2000, I was given the date of March 1, 2001 to renounce my citizenship at the US Consulate in Vancouver, Canada. I did so under oath and I relinquished my passport for the first time. Although citing UNITED STATES PUBLIC LAW 103-150 and its legal confession to stealing the Hawaiian Nation, while further citing the legitimate Hawaiian Government (www.reinstated.org) and my allegiance and citizenship within it, the US "rejected" my renunciation based on my returning to Hawaii. They of course ignored every single reference to the existence of the Hawaiian Nation recognized in their own federal law.

In the aftermath of 9-11, with an unlawful bench warrant issued for my arrest I decided enough was enough, and I left Hawaii, my business ( www.deepecology1.com), my home and my family to seek political asylum in Holland. Upon my arrival I filled out the same renunciation documents and relinquished my passport once again. In my added declaration I made clear that I would not return to the United States. I have cited International Law, Human Rights Law, and even US Federal Law that all affirms my right to renounce. I have even been compelled to burn my US passport after having it returned to me for the second time on July 1, 2002. I have done everything required by law and more, I have fulfilled all of my obligations to renounce, and yet the United States, as of July 16, 2002, still considers me a US citizen! Ask yourself, what possible reason could the mighty US have for attempting to deny my human right to "Self Determination?" The answer is more powerful than most can imagine. It is in this right to renounce that brings me closer to achieving absolute freedom than perhaps anyone in history and others are beginning to join me. We the People can take this world back, indeed the power resides within us and the time to act is now.

In response to the latest US attack on my human rights, I will be filing many legal documents to law abiding international bodies. I will speak to international media in all mediums. I will publish my book in October 2002, tentatively entitled "Kenneth Nichols vs. the United States of America." And in a meaningful non-violent yet powerful civil disobedience action, I will burn the American flag within the next month in public. I will have with me many victims of the US from Palestine and around the world. For those who view this as extreme, or who no longer wish to be associated with me, I say peace be unto you. For those not disturbed by my honesty, I welcome your positive energy and promise to use it with the ultimate goal of truth and justice for all and the peace that inevitably follows. We have been blinded by the madness for far too long; the time for action is now. "Power to the People." To view the actual State Department documents dated July 16 go to my site at www.uksociety.org. The site provides the real reason the US cannot approve my renunciation and the true power of my actions.

Peace Love Aloha,
Kenneth Nichols - Stateless
Universal Kinship Society

wrbones
01-25-03, 10:33 PM
http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/stwb/101002PRED.htm

wrbones
01-25-03, 10:35 PM
Observer Comment Extra
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Back to Iraq as a human shield
Today's Observer reports plans by peace activists to go to Iraq as human shields. In this online commentary, protest organiser and former US veteran Ken Nichols O'Keefe explains why he believes that this is the most effective way to oppose the war

Ken Nichols O'Keefe
Sunday December 29, 2002
The Observer

Day by day, the latest headlines tell us that we are moving ever closer to war with Iraq. So many people around the world are ashamed and outraged by this prospect and yet feel powerless to make their voices heard. Large rallies for peace have been held in cities around the world. Yet the bulletins quickly return to the war drums beating ever faster for what must be one of the most choreographed and longest-planned wars in history.

Those who suffer most will of course be the innocent and victimized men, women and children in Iraq who are set to endure yet another war and unknown loss of life. Their crime? Simply to be the powerless citizens of an oil rich nation with a violent dictator who no longer fulfils the needs of Western powers who supported and armed him in the past.

Yet we need not be powerless. Gandhi said that "peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds." So what would happen if several thousand Western citizens migrated to Iraq to stand side by side with the Iraqi people? Along with at first just a few hundred people - from hundreds of millions in the west - I will be going to Iraq to volunteer to act as a human shield in the interests of protecting human life. We will join our fellow citizens of the world in Iraq to bear witness for peace and justice.

We will run the risk of being maimed or killed - but it is simply the same risk that innocent Iraqis will themselves face. I would rather die in defense of justice and peace than "prosper" in complicity with mass murder and war. This is not about supporting Saddam Hussein, as our governments did in the past. It is about saving the lives of those in our human family. We will be expressing to the Iraqi people the reality that most people in the West do not support this criminal war. And we will bring home to western publics the human cost of war because, unfortunately, the death and destruction faced daily by countless millions of our fellow human beings seems somehow an unfathomable abstraction unless western lives are at stake as well.

For me, this is also an act of personal penance. In 1989, at the age of nineteen I committed the most ignorant act of my life, I joined the United States Marine Corps. In 1991 I went beyond ignorance into criminal participation in a war against the Iraqi people which ultimately included the use of depleted uranium against the civilian population. My reward as an "American Hero" was to be used by Bush Sr. as a human guinea pig along with several hundred thousand other "heroes". We have still not been told the full story about "Gulf War syndrome" or how many of my fellow soldiers died as a result, but we do know the value our own leaders put on our lives. When a nation's leaders do not even respect the lives of their own "sons and daughters," the enemy will never enter into the realm of consideration. The hundreds of thousands killed by sanctions against Iraq are seen as a price worth paying. The human costs of another war in Iraq barely seem to register with our political leaders.

But, as I understand it, we the "citizens" are responsible for the actions of "our" governments. It is we who are privileged to live in so-called "democracies" and so we are collectively guilty for what we allow to be done in our name, to both to the civilian population of Iraq and to others around the world. Ignorance is no defence. The existence of other tyrants, worse or not, is no defence.

In 1999 I renounced my US citizenship in shame and disgust having arrived at the logical, albeit belated, conclusion that my government was not worthy of my funding - through taxes - and certainly not my allegiance. Paying for roads and schools is one thing, paying for "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to the point of insanity and nurturing global oppression is another thing all together. No moral being can be compelled to fund war, death and murder.

Only the most indoctrinated can not see the irony in the United States, with its long record of intervention and around the world, prosecuting this war on terrorism. A leader of a nation with thousands of nuclear weapons - and who has declared his right to use them - is ready to pulverize one of the poorest nations on the planet on the grounds that they may be planning to develop similar weapons themselves.

This "War on Terror" is becoming the ultimate "War on Freedom", in the United States and around the world. George Bush has said that "every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make, either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

But we do not only have two choices, For the record, I am not with George Bush or with the terrorists. And that is why, when this war finally begins, I will be in Iraq - with the people of Iraq. I invite everybody to join me in declaring themselves not citizens of nations but world citizens prepared to act in solidarity with the most wretched on our planet and to join us or to support our efforts in other ways. In doing so I honour the principles and laws of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And if I should die in Iraq, it will be as a man at peace with himself because he saw the truth and acted on it.

· Ken Nichols O'Keefe of the Universal Kinship Society is leading the volunteer mission of peace activists who will be acting as human shields in Iraq. See www.uksociety.org for more information.

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