by: Janice Kortkamp

date: February 16, 2019

This is long – really long like a short book – but for a good reason. I hope you’ll consider reading!

Last October, I posted this question and was so encouraged by the amazing responses I kept them and assembled them into this document:
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ORIGINAL POST:
So here’s a question for you…
I want to hear your WAKE UP story!
In other words, if you were [an idiot] like me and used to believe the lies and so supported these nightmare wars … was there a specific thing you saw or heard that started opening your eyes?
I’m trying to learn what things have resonated with folks to help for upcoming talks or interviews.
For me, it was hearing President Assad speak (on an interview) and for the first time I actually was listening to someone in the Middle East tell their side. It sounds so stupid now – and was stupid of me not to really do it before – but that’s the truth of the matter. My husband got hooked then too…I asked him to watch the interview and afterwards said, “I want to have that man (President Assad) over for dinner!” 
Would love to hear from you – thanks!
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THE RESPONSES unedited and unabridged except for names removed ARE BELOW:

> The sinking of the Belgrano while it was outside the so called exclusion zone and sailing towards port …young men murdered to boost Thatcher’s re-election prospects during the Falklands war

> Same here – just opening my eyes and look for myself – EVERYTHING is a lie in MSM incl. Denmark

> Dr. Ron Paul… 2009..

> Mine was when a couple of young guys in my motorcycle group talked about what they did a majority of the time during their deployment to Afghanistan. They patrolled and guarded poppy fields.

> I’m South African, was part of the resistance movement here, so-called ‘struggle photographer’ and so part of the alternate Press that made a huge difference to understanding the propaganda narrative which had been the exclusive preserve of the apartheid state. This made me open to the alternative media in the new age of the internet, and that has made all the difference in seeing through the western propaganda deluge that keeps most people blind and asleep.

> my wake up call (iside syria) was in the early days of 2011when my home town dreikish-tartus received it’s first martyr of syrian army i knew he did not die in an accident i spoke to his family and they said it was a sniper shot

> Questioning everything. Googling the right questions. Knowing a lot of conspiracies are real so more open minded.

> my mom always said i was born with my eyes so wide open, i remember my first empathy thoughts at age 3..i remember them crystal clearly today. my dad talked the way we talk, too. I was lucky. it was easy for me, but it didn’t stick for some of my siblings who couldn’t be more opposed to my thinking today. it’s been hard, but i could never compromise.

> When I found out how the money machine works and who operates it.
https://youtu.be/2nBPN-MKefA

> It happens in stages for me. The floor gives way, you think you’ve hit solid ground, you struggle to your feet, and then that “solid ground” collapses. Spent some time in Guatamala and went through a cultural program and learned the history of their civil war. How United Fruit played a role in starting it. Met a family who had to flee their village when death squads came into town. However it didn’t click for me until I read about smedley Butler and came across people like Allen Dulles and Eddy Bernays when it really sank in. From then on I wanted to understand how this happens without any real resistance from the American public. That led to public education and media and how that works.

> Many points. The first was through the conservative evangelical movement in Australia and its expose of the New World Order in the 80s. Barry R Smith. The US reaction to the accident in the South China Sea with a Chinese airplane. My “Jamaican Uncle” who told me of the US policy of encirclement of China (confirmed when I was watching an Open University program on TV). Seeing (I think) Rumsfeld saying that the US had needed to invade Iraq whether or not there was WMD. Finding US military documents and political emails. Finding out about Fractional Reserve Banking. Making contact with real life Syrians and people like Janice Kortkamp lol and Frome Stop War. Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Andrew Ashdown, Baroness Cox. One of the strongest things was “Secret Affairs” by Mark Curtis. That really helped me to see that what the West does is habitual and repeated and amazingly, people in the West cannot see these patterns.

> It was when a friend of mine said he wouldn’t be watching the White Helmets documentary on Netflix. 
I asked him why not?
And he answered “Keith, you have so much to learn”
He went on to say, “come back to me when you’ve educated yourself”.
He sent me a link of Vanessa Beeley, and the rest is history. 
I lived in a bubble for so long, I’m nearly ashamed to admit it.
Nowadays I don’t believe anything the MSM report.
My mother once learned me a wise lesson, “never believe what you hear, and only half of what you see”
In the journey to seeing through the nonsense, I came across you Janice. It was your background of non journalism that was so appealing. 
You spoke my language, in a sort of “living room conversation” that made all your reports so heartfelt and genuine. 
Thank you for that.

> Living and travelling overseas in Europe during the 1st Gulf war. CNN in each country had a different spin. This was prior to MSNBC or FOX. No internet either.

> 9/11 was the deal breaker. It was such an unbelievable tale. 
I do not believe people in the US want to wake up. They do not want the ugliness of what happens in other countries to enter their living rooms. By refusing to witness it they are able to deny any responsibility for it.

> My wake up was while I was Desert Storm in ’91. We (the US military) attacked & decimated RETREATING Iraqi forces, who just wanted to go home. Hundreds of not thousands died. From that moment I KNEW I could no longer participate in the US Marines.

When I got back stateside I was due to reenlist. I quit instead at 18.8 months service knowing full well I’d lose my opportunity for a military pension.

I decided I’d rather save my integrity and didn’t need US money soaked in the blood & tears of it’s worldwide victims.

Since that time, I’ve realized that Marine General Smedly D. Butler was absolutely correct. All wars are banker’s wars. The average US citizen is brainwashed by “patriotism & democracy” by every venue available from birth to death. Education is kept exorbitantly expensive so young men & women will join the military for “jobs, education & opportunity”.

An average of 22 Vets commit suicide PER DAY in the good ole US of A. Last year, almost 600 Active Duty military folks committed suicide. Guilt is a lonely feeling.

> Iraq invasion after 911, also stories about the Vietnam war

> It was around 1990 when I learned about the Federal Reserve Bank and the fractional reserve system from a combat marine colonel who took on IRS regarding the income tax. After that it was “follow the money “.

> A number of years ago a friend told me that she was donating to the White Helmets . At the time I knew nothing about what was going on in Syria so I decided to look up the White Helmets on line . Many years ago in the late 60s I worked for a number of years underground in a gold mine in Northern Ontario . My job was to clean out an area that had recently been blasted with explosives .After a couple of minutes you are covered head to toe in a very fine dust . You breath it , it gets into your eyes and goes up your nostrils . Getting back to the White Helmet video I realized it was fake , they were too clean . A little more research led me to Eva Bartlett , Vanessa Beeley and others .

> I was 22 years old living in Melbourne, Australia at the time of the Vietnam war. Around 1970. I was always a rebel without a cause but with right wing views inherited from my father and yet a Labour voter. Confused. I had been to a huge demo in London against the war two years previously in Grosvenor Square outside the American Embassy. Been in Australia six months and attended the Melbourne Moratorium against the war. Australian troops were fighting in Vietnam….it was a nearly a million strong protest that closed down the centre of the city. I spent most of it drinking and jeering at the protesters as they marched by. I heckled the speakers in the park at the end of the day. A young couple approached me and asked me to join them for a beer and began to tell me a few home truths about American imperialism. They mainly talked about the invasion of Nicaragua by American marines and how the Americans had got rid of all progressive governments in South America…..I sat and listened and soaked it all up. I changed from that day onwards. I became almost an anarchist!…..I will be forever grateful to that anonymous young Australian couple who I never saw again.

> Looking back I can kick myself I was a fool, I believed the story of 9/11 ,I was on a sick leave from the hospital I worked but I kept myself glued to CNN and kept crying for days ,admired George Bushes appearances on CNN and developed extreme hate for Taliban and Osama Bin Ladin ,I got carried away with extreme emotion and did not use my own abilities to think.
It was my husband who woke me up from the nightmare and gradually brought me back to the reality .

> I was introduced by a friend to David Icke and read one of his books. The whole nutter reptilian thing bothered me but some of his revelations just floored me. They struck a cord. I went searching. And watched a fabulous documentary about the assassination of JFK “JFK to 9/11, All Wars are a Rich Man’s Trick”. Boy was that another eye opener. Been opening them ever since. It’s a daily occurrence.

> I’m Jordanian, I live close to Syrian borders but never really payed attention to the war or politics before 2017 (I was extremely naive) even though my city Irbid was crowded with Syrian refugees. During my first couple of years at university my closest friend was Syrian, and when the crisis started in 2011 my Syrian friend who was anti-assad kept telling me about the crimes the Syrian army was doing and I believed him (because he was from there) , but then I would go back home and talk to my parents (who luckily for me were well informed politically) and they would say the opposite… Which puzzled me, so I remained doubtful.
As the war started to unfold and more and more refugees came to Jordan and the truth about the FSA became more and more apparent we knew it was all a hoax designed by the US …
But I think what made me wake up even better was reading about an American investigative journalist called Gary Webb who exposed how the United States( in the early 80s under president Reagan) was helping a terrorist group in Nicaragua called “The Contras” to overthrow their government, while on American msm The Contras were called “rebels” who were fighting their “oppressive government”
He also exposed how the CIA knew about cocaine being imported into the states and sold specifically in African American neighborhoods in several places around the states
Gary Webb died of “suicide” by 2 bullets to the head!!!!!

> Following David ike helped me wake up. Also when I researched Libya I was appalled at the lies.

> I do not remember my wake up story since my farmer parents had participated in social uprisings since before I was born. I am number 7 of 8 children. Even though my mother was quite busy raising children, tending her half acre kitchen garden, canning, sewing and everything else, in the evenings she will teach neighboring farmers how to read and write, and how to organize and take to the streets. I grew up with that type of thoughts and meetings and protests. But something that I can not forget is my careless introduction to social media a few years back; once in a sarcastic way on a FB post “pleaded” to the US corporate class to “save” my country from the drug cartels and their violence, to bring their army and intervene, no quotation marks and no clarification of it being sarcasm. Friends and family chastised me in such a way that I felt so stupid for posting something very relevant in such a careless way, that it still bothers me.

> Very painfully, persistently once I got challenged about 5 years ago around 9/11 issues was given a reading list of authors. Hard work, it took time, much diligence, persistence and dissonance, but it changed me, thank heavens!

> had a friend in California , went back to Syria 🇸🇾️, i told her Assad will kill you ‼️! , she said : “You know nothing” ‼️ , she taught me. Syrian Truth – English and here i am – going on 8-years spreading it , yes indeed-American MSM/CNN had got me- it took a friend who actuarlly went to Syria 🇸🇾️- to get my head straight 🇸🇾️Viva! ‼️ Syrian Arab Army 🇸🇾️ 😎

> Mine was when i was 12, (30 years ago) and listening to family discussing Israel and the Palestinians, couldn’t understand why nobody understood or respected that it was their right to revolt against the people who stole their land….

> 911 sparked my interest in the middle east. Coming from the South everyone I talked to said they did this because they hate America, as in ALL Middle Easterners. I thought that made zero sense that an entire population who has never even met me could just hate me. Then I started studying Arabic which lead me to befriend a LOT of Palestinians. One particular ex boyfriend of mine taught me a lot about Palestine. Then I moved to Syria to continue my education and got married and lived through the war and experienced the truth vs. the lies firsthand. It was a gradual process for me.

> Keeping an open mind to accusations that sounded far fetched at the time, listening to KPFK, and reading Michael C. Ruppert’s CrossIng the Rubicon.

> Very similar, i started watching RT news and saw Putin speak, and Assad speak. I had no idea what i was missing.

> Thanks Janice! 2015. If I could give you a dollar for every time my mother said, “Why does everything begin with WHY? …So when the MSM (of which I never watched a lot) revealed the Syrian refugee crisis, I began my WHY into world politics. The picture of the sad little boy in the ambulance- (which I know now was white helmets propaganda), still broke my heart at the time, but the heartbreaking picture of little Alan Kurdi, wearing clothes his aunt Tima Kurdi had bought and sent him, washed ashore in Greece, was the beginning! Tima Kurdi lives only a few miles from me in BC Canada. I heard her answer a reporter’s question that she would ask the United States government to change their foreign-policy and stop the bombing!! I drew a picture based on what I read on the Internet. HaHa! Nothing on that picture is actually true btw! I held onto it only to make me laugh at my naivety. I read and read, I listened and listened, mostly on Facebook, I added friends, and alternate new sites. After about a year I had a picture in my head of news sites that were reputable, independent journalists that were believable, and great Facebook friends who still every day give me a bigger picture and another history lesson! I’m SO grateful for this platform in spite of how corrupt it has now become. This update on Tima Kurdi was just posted yesterday,- going to share it here. https://www.sbs.com.au/…/aunt-of-drowned-syrian-boy…

> Education, traveling, keeping an open mind at all times even when you hear things you don’t want to hear about your country and people, learn other languages, love All human beings, animals and therefore love peace but above all seeking and wanting the Truth and Facts at any cost!

> I knew Western governments had lied about Iraq and WMDs. I knew they were lying about their reasons for being in Syria too, simply because that’s how they work. I knew it was all about control of oil and gas etc because in the long run it always is. But I also “knew” Assad gasses his own people and was a butcher and “had to go.” So when I would comment on Syria (and I ran a pretty big human rights page so I commented on it often) it would always be things like “I’m not saying Assad is s good guy, but the US should get out of Syria.” “Whatever you think of Assad, and he has done some horrible things, it is up to Syrians to sort out, not us.” Then some random commenter I didn’t know asked me “if you don’t know what Assad has actually done, why are you so sure he’s done it?” Me being me, I thought, “Right, bloody good point, get off your ass, stop being lazy, stop parroting what other people are saying and FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.” So I went straight to the horse’s (lion’s!) mouth. Like you, I watched some interviews with President Assad and realised for the first time that ALL the depictions of him being an animal, a butcher, evil, megalomaniac, etc were just completely wrong. He was not ACTING like an honest man with a consistent message and logic. He ACTUALLY WAS ONE. That kicked off months of intensive research and fact checking and getting to know my very first actual Syrians (!!!) and listening to their broad range of views so I could form a strong and detailed picture (as strong as it could be given I can’t afford to actually travel there) from all angles. I even delved into the Facebook pages of White Helmets members and stumbled through their friend networks to see how far from terrorists they actually were (turns out about an arm’s length, if that). I no longer feel the need to add “I’m not defending Assad” as a caveat at the end of my comments. I know better now. I’d also add that the video of Vanessa Beeley presenting a talk on the White Helmets and other NGOs was absolutely critical for my early learning. I can find the link to that particular talk if anyone needs it.

> I was in the Dominican Republic working with displaced Haitian children in 2011. I started researching the politics in Haiti that caused this mass exodus from one poverty stricken country, Haiti, to another, the DR. I learned about the democratic elected Aristide and his overthrow by the US, Canadian and French government that sent him into exile and existing government placed by our western government. During my research, Libya and Syria was happening and the similarities were breath taking. Researched every bit of History I could from the formation of western currency, the oil industry, WW1 and 2 to 911 and read important but obscure authors such as Eduardo Galeano, about the politics in Latin America and John Perkins. I got rid of my TV. My wake up brought on huge depression and wished I didn’t know what I know and the betrayal I felt from all our “fake” history we were taught in our “fake” education. I was alone and had no one to talk to about this. It was not fun. As bad as things are now, I am so happy I am not alone anymore. I am not crazy. And I am hopeful because of this. Thanks Janice for being one of those people that helped me feel sane

> Also, I think my opinions were still generally formed by what I heard (on the radio, from friends, in short newspaper articles and 6 o’clock news), with isolated issues on which I was better informed being the exception, not the rule. So I had no deep knowledge of any of it. I mean, I knew the West lies about Iraq but I didn’t know how. What was the process? Which exact people lied? Just Bush and Blair and Howard? Was it the media lying too? Or did they just parrot the lies? What was the process? Was this a conspiracy of millions? How do lies come out of governments and media when that implies MASSIVE lies that would require entire staffs to be part of the cover up? A few things were instrumental in piecing this baffling picture together. 1. John Pilger’s “The War You Don’t See” shows EXACTLY how this process of deception works so easily and naturally. It relies on normal organisational and human behaviour, not on an unbelievably impractical conspiracy involving a cast of millions of fully informed assassins of truth. 2. A documentary I watched about Iraq where someone interviewed Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell and others and I heard in their own words exactly how they said it all happened. Made it very easy to see how this group of often competing people with their own often conflicting goals could manipulate us and be manipulated by each other. 3. Reading Tim Anderson’s incredibly detailed, forensic take down of the lies in his book “The Dirty War on Syria.” Those 3 things were essential parts of my learning process. Oh, and the people who were patient with me when I asked dumb “noobie” questions. They were the biggest reason for my wake up call. If they weren’t patient with me I may not have bothered to keep dismantling my world view.

> 21, my first LTR was a girl from Lebanon. Learned about Israel and then we bought plane tickets to everywhere as often as possible for years. Boy from Alaska had his whole world view altered forever. I remember coming home from Europe, thinking. What a 3rd world disaster my country is. That was 30 years ago.
Thinking back reading this thread it is like all the dominoes fell since I first blinked.. how was I so blind ..looking back at old films TV and news stories it was all there to see …blatant lies and propaganda that like today don’t stand up to amy critical analysis ..want to go back in time and shake myself

> I honestly don’t remember a time that I didn’t question just about everything, all the way from childhood, not that I was raised like that, I guess I was born that way, maybe that’s why people I was a problem child, as a teenager the Nam war was going on, as a teenager the Nam war was going on, and that’s what really confirmed my thinking that I was not wrong on my questioning and distrust of any bs spread out by anyone, not only the so called “establishment”, but also the other side, that was just as hypocritical.

> Here in France there are people forbidden of MSM. These are the guys I actually follow. Dieudonné, is a excellent comedian guy. FORBIDDEN to even present his shows in private theaters . He made a show named Mahmoud. (Ahmadinejad) and here is the link.
https://youtu.be/0KLg9jGiQVs
https://youtu.be/DYE6wrbbR1I
Where actually I understood the whole situation . I was 🤔 😯 😡 😵 😨 😰 😱 😲 😲 😤 😤 😤 😤 and finally I m here… refusing requests of guys with White Helmets in the profile or a syrian wierd flag with 3 stars on it…. 😁 😁 
And happy to be here.

> hmm, so let’s check… working for an ngo supporting «moderate rebels» in syria… confronting them with contradictional messages in their media… hospitals were getting bombed, «probably carried out by the SyGov led coalition» and «their allies» russia. «last remaining pediatricians» were getting killed. every contradiction was a «mistake», they claimed…
then found out that accusing the SyGov was planned end 2015 and actually ment «we know it was not the us coalition cause they told us so and so we decide to blaim it on SyGov and this is how we will communicate».
also found out that when «hospitals» were «bombed», money was provided to reconstruct the damage. gee, you need money, just say your «hospital» got bombed.
and also found out that some people were facilitated access to syria by this ngo to actually not provide humanitarian aid… well they do send people on the field i guess.
so yes, i woke up, realizing that a good part of the war is funded by humanitarian organisations, funded or not by a certain non syrian government. 3 out of 4 organisations i met (or worked for in one case):

> I was very involved in the Obama/McCain election after reading about Obama’s past, working to get McCain elected & thinking I was doing the right thing for my country. When I watched on tv (someone else’s tv, as we don’t watch tv) McCain walk the stage to concede the election, something deep in my gut told me that McCain was in on it & an accomplice in some way or fashion. This really ‘shook my world’. My response: I fell down on my knees & asked The Lord if He would show me what was wrong with my country. After this I began to find things out I previously would not have imagined! It’s been a journey on the quest for truth.

> My moment was the war on Iraq. A number of flags raised were:
Blatant lies of WMD refuted by the investigation team sent into Iraq.
The continued association of Iraq with 9/11 without any MSM correction
And lastly – our government (Australian) ignoring the massive and I mean massive protests against our involvement in Iraq and going ahead anyway. For me, democracy as I understood how it worked died.
A side note. The light switch went incandescent when I questioned my very smart and switched on cousin (who is a Syrian & christian) why she supported Assad who was portrayed as a genocidal psycopath.
She directed me to the independant journalists – Janice Kortkamp, Vanessa, Tom et al.

> Being Black in America helps but I was totally fooled on the issue of Israel until 8 years ago. Thank goodness for the internet.

> In August 1990 when I came back to my unit from vacation to hear that we were going to war with Iraq. I immediately thought what kind of Orwellian bullshit is this? You mean we are going to war with the country we supported 8 years long in a war against Iran? That was the eye opener and I have been following this shit fest ever since saying over and over “I told you so”
Veteran Desert Storm
Conscientious Objector 1-O
Not until about 2015/2016 I’m embarrassed to say.

> I’d heard people saying the US was arming and funding ISIS (“accidental”weapons drops and so forth). I refused to believe it. And then there were the Paris attacks in late 2015 and the UK started bombing in Syria. Russia asked the US “tell us where ISIS are and we will help bomb them” and the US point blank REFUSED ! It was obvious they didn’t want to bomb ISIS and we were only there to try for another regime change.
Then when Vanessa Beeley blew the lid on the White Helmets it was like “blimey! If they will lie about that they will lie about anything”.

> It’s embarrassing because the Iraq war and the Afghan war were obviously based on lies..

> Reading The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot blew my mind wide open but watching a Kevin Shipp lecture on our shadow government made all the final pieces fall into place.

> The 2016 USA Presidential Election was what jostled me in to my wake up call. I was utterly shocked at the candidates we ended up with in the two party system and the lesser of the two evils did not sit well with me, so I researched alternative candidates. During an interview Gary Johnson, Libertarian Candidate, had a misspeak when asked a question regarding Aleppo. At the time I knew very little about Syria. As I started trying to find out myself about what exactly was going on in Aleppo — Ron Paul (Libertarian) had a recent interview video posted regarding Syria with Vanessa Beeley. She had recently been to Syria and was actually in Syria during one of her interviews with him. This is when I realized that just as how CNN and FOX news have preferential views and candidates they push, so does the entirety of Main Stream Media when controlling the narrative and pushing Corporate, Bankster, War Profiteers, and any of the owners of the news media’s agendas instead of actually reporting the truth. They hide facts that promote and cover up who is really responsible for the killing of innocent people overseas in order to line their own pockets. Nothing matters to them except money, as they did to Americans when the banks were bailed out in the USA and the greatest transfer of wealth in history was given to the Elite Criminals as the American people were forced to take on the extraordinary debt while the Elites celebrated the success of their scheme. Just to name a few, this wake up call led me to Janice Kortkamp, Eva Bartlett, Kevork Almassian, Veterans for Peace just to name a few. Watching interviews with President Bashar Assad was also enlightening. It was so horrible to realize that War really is a disgusting racket in most cases, but at the same time it gives me hope that so many future wars can be prevented if everyone across the world, especially Americans, just wake up and realizes this and refuses to be controlled by and play in to the narrative of the War Profiteers.

> Mine was 4 years ago. My son was challenging my politics – I was a firm Democrat. He was 27 and died unexpectedly. He saw thru both parties as being 2 sides of the same coin, and both totally corrupted. In his memory, I tried to open my mind, spend more time reading and researching. I am no longer a Democrat (or Republican). I will vote, only out of habit, and it will be 3rd party. I’m more in tune with the idea of not voting. Participating in a corrupt process bothers me, and only contributes to it’s perpetuation. Actually the most power an individual has in the “democratic” voting process is to stay away. You remember – “what if they had a war and nobody showed up”. The whole process and system – money and power vs money and power has to change. Kudos to everyone that is woke up.

> My process was gradual over the past 20 years. I’m not sure what woke me up to the lie that Israel was “defending” itself against “terrorists” but that was an early turn. Mostly, reading books: Chomsky’s “Failed States” and “Manufacturing Consent”. A reading spree on the horrors of US interventions in Latin America e.g. “The last Colonial Massacre”, “Killing Hope” by William blum. The documentary “The Century of the Self” helped to give a bigger picture of how propaganda is at work in our lives. Other authors: Chris Hedges, Chalmers Johnson, Naomi Klein, David Harvey, all helped me to understand what America is really up to on the planet – neoliberalism and empire.

> Saw a 9/11 documentary, and Im a scientist, so it was obvious that 9/11 was a lie. After they attacked afganistan and Irak, I knew why they did it. Since then, its been easy to see through their lies and see what they are really trying to accomplish…

> Meeting up with a Cousin’s son. I mentioned I knew nothing of this conflict. He offered some contact suggestions and posts to follow. I knew about Israel’s greedy desires re Greater Israel but life had got in the way of my interest from 40 years ago of world events. Then had discussions with my eldest son who was a wealth of knowledge and he offered titles of some books for me to read. Just recently had discussions with my other children and was surprised to know they are aware of many of the issues regarding the ills of the world, not necessarily related to Syria only. My roots are from Lebanon, however, origins from Syria. I was very politically active in my youth, lost myself in the mire of life and since “retiring” have found my soul once more. I am so saddened, infuriated and disappointed that the world has come to the state it is in today. HOWEVER, my heart sings and rejoices at the voices and unity I have found amongst the kindred spirits found through social media. Irrespective of where social media ends up I believe we will find a way of staying connected. There is so much power in numbers when love, respect, dignity and true freedom are involved. Today I went down the street of my little town and was astounded at the love, support and understanding and encouragement offered by a few of those who follow my “obsession” with peace and love of humankind. Am in awe of you Janice Kortkamp. Thank you for your enormous impact on the world.

> I was in Chiang Mai, Thailand about eight years ago and met an American guy who was planning a murder suicide because his newish Thai wife had thrown him out of their new home which he had recently purchased with the remainsof his savings . This guy informed me ( among other things) that 9/11 was an inside job 😃 😃 😃.Crazy coot!! And he didn’t even wear a tin foil hat. He also told me that some other things that had been faked, the moon landings and other equally ridiculous stuff. That almost all terrorist attacks in the west were carried out by government agents.But when he started on about there being no gas chambers in any of the German work camps during WW11 and that there was never any jewish holocaust.. I realised that he was just another crazy jew hater, poor sap. But his stories niggled away at me and some months later when i was living in one place for a while, i got onto the internet and started checking out some of the leads he had given me. Engineers/ architects / firemen for 9/11 in video. I stumbled or was led to intelligent academics who had lost their careers, marriages, etc. I was stunned to realise that he was correct in everything he had said. Daily another dominoe falls as the pile of lies gets bigger and bigger. It is now very clear to me that almost everything we have taken as a factual truth is a lie. The Powers That Be are seriously intent on world domination and human life had no value to these demons in human form. Because of that crazy guy in Thailand i have learned so much. I dont watch T.V or have anything to do with the mass media. Btw i talked him out of his suicide / murder plan. He found someone who was willing to mediate with his wife on his behalf.

> My wake up started with a friend sharing a Ron Paul video on all the wars our country is involved in and the history behind them. I didn’t know who he was at the time but it was just the beginning. I wasn’t getting all of Ron Paul’s articles on Facebook so I didn’t know what was happening in Syria. But I did keep getting a sponsored ad in my newsfeed on the last Christians in Aleppo. NO CLUE they were actually terrorists in disguise… I felt sad for them, prayed and probably wouldn’t have followed up on it expect that it continued to show up in my newsfeed and friends started sharing how sad it all was. I learn what to research by reading the comments of people and one lady (I wish I knew who she was) kept repeating the word propaganda. That intrigued me so I searched Syria with Ron Paul and found an excellent video with Vanessa Beeley about what was happening in Syria. It was and still is a shocking road of discovery but truth will always outshine the lies. Of course it doesn’t end in Syria, it brought me to a whole new world in which I knew nothing about. I’m very grateful to find new friends and learn about the Middle East and the incredible people who live there!! God’s blessings and hope for peace to reign.

> Reading “L’Europe est Morte à Pristina” by Jacques Hogard. Seems most links to the following interview are down. I don’t believe a word it’s a copyright issue as stated. Hoping Janice understands French. https://rutube.ru/video/d746f8f6932816d4716fa5bc9c6e2efd/

> Year 2000, when I found out Palestinians were actual full human beings and not just crazed radical terrorists, and that Israel was land grabbing and terrorizing Palestinians. I then realized the media was lying to me. Then after 9/11 and listening to Scott Ritter tell me on cspan there were no WMD in Iraq, nor did they have the capacity to even develop a program. The Bush years were complete hell.

> Embarrassingly only in 2015. I was fascinated by stories of the Kurdish YPJ fighting Daesh, and began reading every article I could find. It didn’t take too long until I read about the Timber Sycamore program and that $1bn in weapons was being sent to rebels each year. And I thought to myself there’s no way that could be correct – nobody in their right mind would think sending weapons to a warzone would achieve peace. So I began reading every article I could find, and good god how quickly my convenient picture of the world came apart.

> The answers weren’t hard to find, it’s a very thin veneer – but I was just busy. Imagine how quickly the world would change if we weren’t kept struggling.

> In the late 60s someone from the Garrison Investigation dropped off a copy of the Zapruder film at the AV department at the college where I was working and implicated the CIA in the assassination. In today’s America all roads lead back to Dallas.

> The last 20 years I’ve witnessed U.S. policies first hand with the attack on the Thai Baht by Soros followed by two decades of political violence with the media telling absolute lies.

> Meeting up with my old university friend Tim Anderson and reading his book “Dirty War on Syria” after attending a lecture by Jeremy Salt here in Melbourne with Tim. I was cynical of news media having watched my father’s battles to get his political cartoons published and the way a proprietor or an editor could just pull a story they didn’t like or a cartoon they didn’t like for being too close to the bone taught me that media lies. Listening to Jeremy Salt, an academic and former journalist who lives in the ME spell it all out, reading Tim’s well researched book and having it spelled out to me, thinking about what I knew of the media and then finally talking to and reading Vanessa Beeley’s early stories on Syria. I saw videos of children who had been dismembered by the so called ‘moderate rebels’, a video of a little girl crying for her Dad as she was being led back into a ‘field hospital’ in the tunnels to have her organs harvested and I saw a video of an underground ‘hospital’ where two female ‘doctors’ were holding a dead baby which they had removed from an incubator, pretending the baby was still alive. I was shocked and revolted and frightened by what I saw. Many questions later- like how could Western and regional governments allow this to happen and LIE about the mercenaries they’d sent in to murder people, reading Eva’s articles and talking to her, asking a lot of questions of everyone and finally listening to President Assad speaking about Syria, to journalists . He spoke the truth without fear or favour but with deep compassion, love and intelligence. Assad encapsulates Syria- he is a Syrian son and a great and worthy war time leader, a reluctant leader before then but a great constitutional reformer since 2000, long before war arrived at Syria’s door. Then I made friends with an increasing number of Syrians on line, namely in the early days Reema Hakim, English literature professor, Hind Sheiha, teacher, Fredi Hazeem, Iyad Khadour, spoke to Mahmoud Ataweel when Jabhat Al Nusra had just been through his village killing people- its been an all encompassing journey- and Im grateful.

> I have been on the trail of most of the UK and American domestic politicians for years if not decades. The level of deceit on the Role of War imperialism and the connections with Capitalism came more slowly and probably in the last 10years. This was the first brought home to me when Obama barefaced lied to the World the minute he entered The White House, and he reneged on the the hopes of so many and so blatantly. For some time I just couldn’t work out how this nice Black guy was siding with the business elite and the War beneficiaries, then the penny dropped and I started my political education.

> My father had been a Communist, and both of my parents were atheists, so they were very skeptical of Establishment narratives. We were conditioned to question everything, and respect science. They were Darwinists. I often wondered who I would be today if I had been brought up by right-wing Christians.
I’ve pretty much always been an activist – even as a young teenager. The dismissal of the Whitlam government, the damming of Lake Pedder in Tasmania, and the proposed damming of the Franklin River fanned the flames.

Then the massacre at Port Arthur (Tasmania again) and 9/11 (and Afghanistan/Iraq) in particular got me fully questioning rather than accepting.

But what REALLY woke me up was the GFC and finally figuring out the corrupt financial system that has enslaved pretty much every human on the planet.

Almost everything can be explained by “following the money” and “qui bono”.

Finally, having two young sons (6 and 10 now) compels me to seek truth, justice and peace as best I can to create a better future for them.

I’m a great believer in being the change you want to see in the world. Compassion and empathy form a massive part of this goal.

> I honestly don’t remember a time that I didn’t question just about everything, all the way from childhood, not that I was raised like that, I guess I was born that way, maybe that’s why people thought I was a problem child, as a teenager the Nam war was going on, and that’s what really confirmed my thinking that I was not wrong on my questioning and distrust of any bs spread out by anyone, not only the so called “establishment”, but also the other side, that was just as hypocritical.

> Thinking back reading this thread it is like all the dominoes have fallen since I first blinked.. how was I so blind ..looking back at old films TV and news stories it was all there to see …blatant lies and propaganda that like today don’t stand up to any critical analysis ..want to go back in time and shake myself.