gary d chance: February 2011

Paige Parvin, Editor, Emory Magazine
Mary Loftus, Associate Editor, Emory Magazine

Re Emory Magazine Winter 2011 Ethics: military corruption; President's commission; social media & Internet; ethics education.

You have both edited and written key articles for this superb issue of Emory Magazine, so I address this to both of you.

Friday night I sent along a "background" Email after I had begun reading your ethics edition of Emory Magazine about which I had just received Email notification enclosing a similar Email that I had sent the previous day to Dean Bowen at Oxford College [of Emory University].

At that time I had read the first article Ethics Ed. Since then I've read the other three: Lab to Life, An American Warrior and The Devil You Know the article on social media's dark side. I have not yet read the discussions about each having wanted to note my reaction and thoughts first.

I find what has been discussed here in these four articles quite profound and most relevant to my own experience and activity which includes all our experience in this world today. I just wanted to add a "few" more comments to the "background" from yesterday.

These comments hinge on the fact of my having been (and still am as of this writing) a surveillance target and non-consenting experimental human guinea pig for 12.5 years 24/7/365 since August 1998. This rather bizarre abuse of surveillance technology in a truly "Big Brother" manner given its most extreme sophistication has negatively impacted every aspect of life from the personal through the environment, community and nation to the international relating to antisocial and criminal behaviour, organised crime and terrorism. This is why what you are presenting here in these articles is so profound.

1. Emory Magazine: Winter 2011: From Lab to Life by Mary J Loftus Ethical considerations for biological research. Penn & Emory presidents.

"While forming its recommendations, the commission kept in mind five ethical principles relevant to considering the social implications of emerging technologies:

public beneficence,

responsible stewardship,

intellectual freedom and responsibility,

democratic deliberation, and

justice and fairness."

I've opened these up for my own benefit, focus and concentration because I believe that they form the foundation of what must be considered when approaching the ethical standards for any human activity most especially the indefinite surveillance abuse being carried out against me.

The commission was side tracked initially by the creation of life that needed addressing because it caught the public's attention and usefully provided a focus as well as a starting point from extreme public interest and need. I then noted the last paragraph which I found most important:

"As for the work of Gutmann, Wagner, and the rest of the bioethics panel? They will begin two new projects—one involving the ethics of genetic and neurological testing, the other reviewing human subject trials to ensure that all participants are protected from harm and unethical treatment."

I have yet to see anywhere any mention of the ability to intercept and decode human brainwaves surrounding the head in order to completely monitor and feedback to the human brain including reading thoughts and images as well as monitoring all human sensory perceptions.

This has been done to me for a decade since February 2001 introduced by Colonel Vine USMC Ret, Lt Harry Bird USMC Ret and others into the already ongoing surveillance abuse carried out against me started in August 1998.

Since the publication last July of Top Secret America by The Washington Post and its expose of the vast contracting activity being carried out, I have assumed that these people are from Top Secret America as either agents or contractors. Colonel Vine is a world traveller in this regard having gone to Kabul after the 2001 invasion, Sri Lanka after the Boxing Day Tsunami and might very well be or have been in Tibet recently.

Further, the revelation on 10th January 2011 just a few weeks ago of the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) operating a secret police force on a private basis since at least 1997 has filled a gap of how this could have taken place and not be accountable to the UK's Home Office/Secretary and the Surveillance Commissioner. ACPO itself became a private company in 1997 coincident with the incoming UK Labour government at that time.

In the past I have sent several Emails over the years to James Wagner [Emory University's President] about my experience and the need to address this extreme abuse of neurological science so that when these abuses come to light which they surely will, the scientific and medical communities are not attacked as responsible that would have the effect of discrediting research.

I have also just learned that James Wagner is an electrical engineer who has developed through medical applications of his knowledge. He should be well positioned to technically understand the Tempest intercept facility that leads to the decoding of human brainwave electromagnetic radiation.

Please see James Bamford's book Body of Secrets concerning Yuri Gagarin's April 1961 space flight and the USS Oxford off Havana Harbour during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis for examples of this 50 years ago. His index will take you right to them. The very beginning of his The Shadow Factory will reveal this protection necessary in the office of the Director of the NSA (DIRNSA) at the beginning of this decade.

I will be waiting to see what develops from this commission in the future to see if it can really get at the single most important issue that confronts the worldwide public that has originated from the US with respect to neurological research and its abuses which have long been in existence. This abuse of neurological science and medicine threatens the foundation of democracy. Reporting it as I do would be similar to one of those in the Tuskegee experiment trying to get the truth out while that experiment was taking place.

2. Emory Magazine: Winter 2011: An American Warrior by Mary J Loftus Ethics meets Iraq contractor corruption. Guess who loses?

"On June 5, 2005, Ted Westhusing was found dead in a trailer at Camp Dublin in Baghdad, his service pistol on his bed along with a letter indicating that he had taken his own life. “I cannot support a msn [mission] that leads to corruption, human rights abuse, and liars. I am sullied—no more,” it read in part. “I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. . . . Death before being dishonored anymore.” "

I have to sympathise with Colonel Ted Westhusing's wife and do not believe that he committed suicide given my experience of the past 12.5 years 24/7/365 and especially during the past decade as a result of Vine, Bird and others. Every effort is made to destroy especially escalating these when I attempted to report what was happening. They seek every means to kill including trying to drive someone to suicide. Faking suicide is a very real possibility despite the fact that his letter was in his handwriting. I'm still of the mind that Dr David Kelly's death could very well have been a faked suicide:

The abrogation of all ethical standards in the abuse of this surveillance technology is the least of it for it is extreme criminal activity operating outside the democratic rule of law destroying government and any governing body in favour of vigilante abuse driven by this surveillance technology. It destroys the lives of all who come in contact with its abuse.

A key element in this surveillance technology is the ability to transmit sound electronically which the US Army calls Voice-to-Skull (V2K). They can look through my eyes to see all that I am doing; hear with my ears and read my thoughts to anticipate behaviour in which they can then interfere. All of this and more can be done wherever I am located. They validate this activity for me by the verbal abuse from those I know: the mother of the abused children since 1998 and earlier, Lt Harry Bird USMC Ret since 2001 and others.

I can easily see where this kind of abuse would drive someone to suicide. They keep trying to do this to me while predicting it, but it has not and will not happen. They also make every effort to cause as much physical injury as they can. The capability of this surveillance technology doing this is far greater than they have used since they are trying to create death which will be seen as natural causes or suicide.

I found this article to be quite extraordinary about what happens to those who run into the corruption that exists on a mass scale as it does in Iraq, Afghanistan and other similar places where contractors are only interested in milking the system for as much as they can get. It's not just the war zones but also areas where I live in London's North Kensington. I have been experiencing this massive corruption for a very long time here driven by former US military types in a situation where the disposition to surveillance abuse already existed and understand fully what he ran into in Iraq. His wife was right when she said that she wished the generals had stayed away from his funeral.

3. Emory Magazine: Winter 2011: The Devil You Know by Paige P Parvin Social media & Internet harbours a dark side impacting human behaviour.

All of my efforts for over three years to properly address this abuse from August 1998 to August 2001 (before 9/11) led me to start making my experience public with the creation of a web site in November 2001 (just after 9/11). I later started using a Bravenet Journal (Blog) and YouTube.

I wanted to communicate the creation of antisocial behaviour in this environment by filming it and making it generally available so that something could be done about it and its source which derived from the surveillance technology abuse. You will note that I was subjected to intense abuse by the comments which were left on YouTube and a bit on MySpace. I stopped using it after some 50 or so videos were posted.

Those using the surveillance technology were instrumental in inducing antisocial behaviour then abusing me further for reporting it by this means. They also attempted to discredit my addressing the problem by inciting abuse from those engaging in the antisocial behaviour which I then filmed. A few of the video clips were removed from YouTube as a result of complaints from those abusing surveillance technology who sought to stop me altogether and still do by declaring this documentation as "illegal."

The YouTube videos show that not only was this antisocial behaviour extremely dangerous to those so engaged, but it also put at direct risk those passing by using the narrow entrance/exit where it was taking place.

On two occasions I filmed the police walking right through it and on at least one occasion driving right passed it. There was a general failure in addressing serious safety problems which were seen by those in authority. Steps were taken finally after a few years to make the fences higher and renovate the area out front where the benches had been damaged, but the problems and surveillance technology abuse persist.

There have been over 50K views of these videos on YouTube. You will see here as with all my Internet activity that I use my full name. This is not true for others which reflects what you are describing with respect to anonymity fostering abusive behaviour. Nothing went viral!

This raises not only an issue of ethics but of law enforcement and the protection of public safety which those abusing surveillance technology sought to abrogate by maintaining standards of antisocial and criminal behaviour.

More recently I've taken on MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and Blogger in addition to the Bravenet Journal after my computer systems were attacked by those using surveillance technology and disabled. I've continued to access these to communicate as best I can the essence of what is occurring against the news events that occur as all of this activity can be compared and contrasted with what is happening publicly with respect to government at all its levels and across the UK and world.

I started Twitter in mid-2009 as a result of the US health care plan being touted then and its criticism. I wanted to point out the extreme dangers that exist in government run health systems such as the NHS (National Health Service) in the UK. They have participated directly in the surveillance technology abuse against me since the end of 1999 just after I sent an Email to Prime Minister Tony Blair a copy of which was subsequently displayed to me in a visit I had at the local St Charles Hospital with a psychiatrist.

Last summer I learned that St Charles Hospital had been leasing one of its wards to a porn film company c 1998 to help finance itself although it was an NHS hospital fully funded by the taxpayer:

St Charles Hospital Porn Financed Surveillance S&M Torture

At the end of this Blog are links to the letter I sent to the Prime Minister, its five appendices, the various publicised newspaper reports about this porn financing and three links to correspondence from early 2000 that I sent regarding the abuse I received from these psychiatrists and a later Email of these to my Member of Parliament under the title "Repression By Psychiatry." This still goes on today.

This porn financing occurred at the onset of its abuse against me including these NHS health professionals rolling out into the community to join in the surveillance technology abuse and medical experimentation being carried out against me. Since I had met and talked with a couple of them, I could recognise their voices as they continued for years. This was a significant additional expenditure which could be financed by methods like these about which the public taxpayer was kept in the dark for over a decade. There is no accountability here and most certainly no responsibility.

You will find in Blogger (published at the end of December 2009) that I accurately forecast the risk of the Christmas Day bomber five months in advance:

Achilles Heel at US National Counterterrorism Centre?

I sent copies to President Obama and Prime Minister Brown of an Email that I had sent to the editor of Columbia Magazine (I finished my undergraduate work and went to graduate school at Columbia) at the end of July 2009 following an article they had done on the Director of the National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC). Based upon my experience I knew he did not fully know what he was doing which constituted a risk that turned out to be precisely correct.

In July of 2010 The Washington Post revealed its two years of research connected with Top Secret America which started me adding Facebook to what I had been Tweeting for a year. The Tweets, by the way, automatically feed to MySpace and Buzz. Since my YouTube experience, I've kept the information flow on social media on the Internet in one direction largely because I do not have any time. I am beset by those abusing surveillance technology around-the-clock without any let up at all including sleep deprivation.

I make every effort to document all that I can by writing and recording with audio and video recordings so that I have a complete record of all that is happening. I've been doing this since 1998 to facilitate my reporting of what has been happening to all those in positions of authority where I seek to bring this to an end. This has enabled me to also make some of this information public on the Internet's social media, but I cannot interactively engage anyone there yet although I do this when I am posting on news commentary such as The Washington Post or The Daily Beast.

I'm not concerned about not being believed because I know that at some point all of this will become public knowledge which is slowly happening. Every conceivable effort is made to isolate and alienate me from everyone by those abusing the surveillance technology, but I am able to counter this by at least describing what is happening on the Internet. For this reason I think that it is a positive force for the overall betterment of the world and its people despite the abuses and its shortcomings.

You expressed concern about the media itself where journalists feel compelled to stay out front of news events in the 24/7 publishing world and are sometimes lax with respect to fact checking. That's not a new problem at all and goes way back including such venerable publications as The New York Times. Consider the reporting that surrounded the 1960s murder of Kitty Genovese:

Kitty Genovese: Truth About Witnessing & Reporting Crime

The whole truth about this murder did not come out until decades later when this blog poster did an excellent job of research and described it on the Internet. It turns out that the original New York Times reporting was somewhat suspect to put it mildly, but then they, too, like all journalists are under pressure to produce copy.

The same thing is happening here with significant forces and powers that be trying to maintain their positions of power by abusing surveillance technology and, for some like the child abusers, gain positions of power. Because of the Internet I am able to make this situation known as I have done for almost a decade while continuing to document and report to those in authority what is happening. I am subject to a great deal of abuse and attempts to discredit which I can counter to a degree by audio and video records of what is happening some of which I have made available on the Internet to publicly present what is happening.

It's a constant struggle but one that has to be done which the Internet and social media are making possible through the media itself, e.g., The Washington Post and The Daily Beast, as well as individuals of all sorts everywhere around the world. The need is to bring out the facts and disabuse any who would want to distort and misrepresent want is happening. That is exactly what you are doing here including pointing out the dark side of the Internet which needs to be recognised and properly addressed as you report is happening. After all it's called ethics, n'est-ce pas?

4. Emory Magazine: Winter 2011: Ethics Ed by Jim Auchmutey Challenge assumptions, embrace ambiguity, and step outside comfort zones

This was an excellent article and these comments about the essence of an ethics education set against practical experience are, as I've said, quite profound. But, I want to take them a step further in light of what I have discussed above in terms of "assumptions," "ambiguity" and "comfort zone."

I see the death of Colonel Ted Westhusing as a failure in either the educational system or in a system where eithics does not exist as a consideration. Whether or not Colonel Westhusing committed suicide, was driven to commit suicide or was actually murdered to make it appear as suicide is not important although investigation into and speculation about his death are extremely important. The fact is he's dead. Why? Where is the failure?

1. Is there a failure in the educational system at Emory that allowed a mechanistic approach to earning a Doctor of Philosophy degree in ethics (of all things) to override full consideration and probing of the ethical issues with which he was dealing?

2. Is it really meaningful to crank out a dissertation in half a year or so when two years would have enabled a more probing and thought provoking process?

3. Would Colonel Westhusing have gained more insight into the issues and himself if he had spent more time working through them rather than dashing them off to get back out into the system from which he came that ultimately led to his death?

4. Would he have questioned issues far more that might have led him to actually resign his commission before going to Iraq if he had understood that the problems were far more extensive and complex than he realised?

5. Did Emory's graduate programme fail him to the extent that he lost his life?

6. Or, is the system that currently exists especially with respect to the military and its current wars including terrorism along with the huge contractor revolving door between the military and civilian worlds so gargantuan now as The Washington Post has presented in its Top Secret America as to be "beyond control?"

7. Is it impossible for anyone to cope with this system that has self selected brutality and death as a means of perpetuating its own unethical and criminal character?

8. Did he ultimately learn the hard way after his education process at Emory that the world as it is today is far beyond anyone's comprehension even his own?

I give Colonel Ted Westhusing credit for having the ability to understand exactly what was happening around him in Iraq. Personally, I find it difficult to believe that he committed suicide although his letter appears to be genuinely his. There are facts that we cannot know about this situation except the fact of this death and the fact of the extensive corruption he described which was condoned and supported by those to whom he reported. He walked into a snake pit of vipers feeding off each other and the situation for their own gain which he deplored because they lied, cheated and stole all they could doing the least amount of work possible as he wrote.

The failure exists in that he could not address this situation properly when he found it, and he could not anticipate its existence beforehand since either that knowledge was unavailable or being hidden and denied including perhaps by himself as well.

Did he not question "assumption"; consider "ambiguities" and step outside his own "comfort zone" before entering the snake pit so that he could cope with it in some way that would have not resulted in his death by whatever means and for whatever reasons it took place?

The military itself is founded upon the principle of destroying any questioning whatsoever so that people are conditioned into accepting orders in the face of death and carrying them out regardless of any consideration for their own lives. This is the military training and what the chain of command is all about. It is wide open to abuse. Fundamentally, the military does not consider ethics and leaves that to the civilian authorities while it develops as a fighting machine or as in this case "An American Warrior." We also have to recognise that there are just wars and the military is an essential part of the state and its government.

9. The question then becomes how do we deal with its problems when it goes astray as inevitably occurs in times of war but is occurring now on an institutionalised basis in terms of civilian contractors who have formed a monolith that cannot be held responsible and is unaccountable to anyone because it is largely unknown even to those in ultimate civilian power in the government?

In the UK this has also been reflected by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) who, since 1997, has been a private company employing a secret police force outside government control that has acted for years as infiltrators and agents provocateurs inside organisations considered as threats to domestic safety.

10. What happens when, as is probably the case in the UK, these two unaccountable, unknown and beyond control entities get together as I've experienced in London's North Kensington for 12.5 years 24/7/365?

First and foremost, they will kill anyone who threatens their exposure. They have the weapon in surveillance technology to do so as I've directly experienced all these years since August 1998.

They lie to make up a threat to justify their surveillance which turns out to be indefinite and outside the democratic rule of law including the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), the Surveillance Commissioner and Home Secretary. The foundation of this activity rests upon the most sophisticated surveillance technology ever known that itself is founded upon neurological science and a principle of electronics that has been known and used by the intelligence community in the US for over fifty years.

This technology has been introduced by the military/contractor revolving door element from the US into a civilian UK neighbourhood in London indefinitely from February 2001 and continues as of this writing. We are not talking about war zones only here but an extended abuse of this surveillance technology carried out indefinitely for at least a decade by former US military personnel who also travel the world presumably doing the same elsewhere which might very well include Tibet of late as well as other locations in the UK.

These are the same people who have given the world rendition with which I was threatened in May 2001, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. I call this Toxic Surveillance and refer to it as the Portable Concentration Camp. You have got to ask and answer the question for yourselves why the National Health Service, police and other parts of government have been active participants in this while no one has stopped this despite my continuous documentation and reporting about what is happening.

If I'm having this problem, think of the problem Colonel Ted Westhusing would have inside the military with its chain of command for tyranny and cover up. In my situation there are scores if not hundreds of people involved. There are those who refuse based upon "ethics" such as the medical student who stopped participating for that reason.or the male who said this past week while I was reading your articles and writing this "I can't do this any more." Still, they do not do anything to stop it since it goes on and on.

I believe that you will find the same activity taking place inside the US, and you will find it in areas where there exists social housing so that ignorance can be exploited and people without any means to respond can be abused as non-consenting human guinea pigs. They may not even know about it. When you went to a social housing area for Somalia refugees and others to clean up, you needed to look at ways to further involve yourselves in the community. Cleaning up is a first step, but you need to connect with the people to find out about their "ethical" problems and how you can help them.

Without creating privacy invasion problems there needs to be a way to connect between the remote, elite university and the socially deprived areas so that all these people can see positive reinforcement for honest ethical standards as opposed to dishonest antisocial and criminal standards that seek to abuse and exploit them. The university by its very nature can be the key source for such help from all its disciplines including medicine, law, business as well as social work and the liberal arts and sciences. In the meantime the ethical studies centre should grow into an institute and a full academic discipline where case studies can be developed for education.

That academic discipline needs to draw upon and involve everyone else throughout the university. If my experience is any indication every aspect of the education system is being abused in the extreme in the community and perverted to such a degree as to destroy the very foundation of civilisation as we know it. So, the people need all aspects of community support and assistance which they cannot afford such as law, medicine, business and so on. This needs to be done in areas where potential disaffection can develop especially with refugees from places like Somalia. If Colonel Ted Westhusing cannot cope from within the system given all that he had, these people are doomed unless others come along to help them.

They are doomed because there are too many of the kind that I see like Lt Harry Bird USMC Ret and the family of child abusers who participate in the surveillance technology abuse against me leading and driving it for all to participate which is happening instead of its being stopped. The mother of the abused children went on to further child abuse expanding to adult abuse with surveillance technology against me and then generally inverting the standards of this environment and community. When the abused young boy grew to 18, he could not function as an adult. His mother using the surveillance technology sought to get him accepted as an official participant in its abuse. This is what is happening, and no one is stopping it.

I applaud you for what your doing and what you've done. I just want to see a lot more of it because my personal experience tells me there is a most profound abrogation of ethics that is taking over society. Much like the fraud that ended the likes of Enron and the Toxic Debt that almost financially wrecked the world, Toxic Surveillance will ultimate destroy society if it is not stopped. There will be no recovery from it if allowed to go on to the kinds of debacles we've witnessed in these other areas.

I took a look at James Wagner's background which had this statement:

"Dr. Wagner has worked closely with faculty, students, alumni, and staff to enhance the undergraduate educational experience, grow research, and foster more effective partnership between the academy and local institutions, including government and industry. Out of a firm devotion to the ancient university mission of liberal education-which he defines as mastering a discipline and developing a thirst for new knowledge-Dr. Wagner has been able to forge collaborations among a diverse array of schools and programs, ranging from the arts and sciences to the professional schools."

This has to be the future development, and it needs to be carried out on a huge scale if the "dark forces" are to be counter balanced before they are ultimately and finally destructive. The dark forces that emerge on the Internet need to be incorporated and addressed by the interactive educational process. What we really need to do is learn to start thinking about the process of thinking and open up those comfort zones, consider the ambiguities and challenge assumptions so that the experience of life can be meaningful for all and not destructive which now enables the abusive few to dominate and control the many.

I was at Oxford College [of Emory University] from 1958 to 1961 in what was called the Four-Year-Programme that only lasted three years by that time. I spent too much of my time thinking about what I was doing and exploring the phenomenal world that this education opened for me. I was quite taken by Dean Bowen's Email that I received the day before the Emory Magazine Email. He was discussing the new science facility to be constructed at Oxford [College of Emory University], but here's what he said in his last paragraph:

"We speak often about the transformation an Oxford education makes in our students' lives. Many Oxford graduates have taken the foundation in science and math that they gained here and gone on to scientific and technical roles with world-wide influence. Others, though not science or math majors, have encountered science and math through the Oxford liberal-arts curriculum and broadened their intellectual horizons. Both experiences can be life-changing."

Carl Jung's Psychology and Religion was one of the profound books we read in a history course's "B" section exploring the literature and thought of the period in this case the modern era. These were Jung's 1938 Terry Lectures at Yale University which are still in print. He brings to light here the dark side of the human character, or more properly called the shadow personality, the anima/animus, against the background of the conflict generated between the religious nature of man and modern rationality of scientific based knowledge. The conflict here led to the individual experiencing difficulties in functioning until he could resolve the two sides reflected by a religious character and rational scientific knowledge.

Erich Neumann wrote a book which came out in 1949 in Tel Aviv called Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. In it he carried on with Jung's work noting that the dark side of the human character had to be recognised for what it was as an integral part of human nature and integrated into the whole personality not denied [and repressed] as it had been in the past. Such denial [and repression] led to the dichotomy between good and evil which he called the old ethic [that he] sought to re-align thinking to approach these by fully integrating them into the whole personality so that a new and more satisfactory ethic could emerge. A key aspect of this is that lying damages the liar internally. Jung wrote a foreward as did others.

This same integration needs to take place across all disciplines in the educational community and reach out into the community where it exists. Dean Bowen described the facilities for the new science structure at Oxford [Collage of Emory University] as integrating the various science disciplines. He should go further to integrate all disciplines at Oxford [College of Emory University] under an ethical umbrella so that each understands better what is being done and how it can best suit the community at large. This does not mean that practical applications should be dominant, but that they should create an awareness in science and all disciplines about the issues and consequences of learning and knowledge. This can be readily seen in the neurological and electronic sciences where it is now possible to read the human brain as I've experienced directly as a surveillance target for a decade.

"Have to kill him," said Lt Harry Bird USMC Ret after I finished this Email. This is what they do as has occurred to Colonel Ted Westhusing. They seek to create an enclave in disadvantaged areas from which to operate. That's why it is key for the university to get out into the community to prevent this kind of development by providing an education for students in the real problems of the world which they need to solve. Otherwise, this lying, cheating and stealing by surveillance technology will undercut and destroy the fabric and integrity of the entire community and also the university as it has already done to the community here. These people steal everything with surveillance technology then rewrite it to suit themselves much like the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984. Society cannot be constructed on such dirty data. It will eventually collapse or run at a demented, low level.

Is Teaching Ethics a Waste of Time? by James Wagner, President, Emory University

"For [H Richard] Niebuhr, response-ability is the capacity to size up what is going on, determine what the appropriate response should be, and then hold oneself accountable for the outcomes of one’s actions."

Judgement "is the capacity to size up what is going on" to repeat given what Dr Wagner goes on to say about the purpose of Emory as an educational institution.

In the autumn of 1958 we read Plato's Republic in our Greek seminar class at Oxford College [of Emory University] as my class of 14 students started its Four-Year-Programme. It was an exploration of "What is virtue?" His answer was knowledge but in the special sense of what Plato called knowledge as it related to his "forms" and the ability to understand them. In my Greek humanities class that quarter (quarter system in those days) I wrote a paper called Plato's Theory of the Just Man. It wasn't that good but reflected a start in that direction. I'm still working on it. Yes, ethics can and needs to be taught. Judgement can be taught. We have no alternative any more given the advances in science and its abuse as described above.

One of my favourite books from Oxford College [of Emory University] is Gilbert Murray's Five Stages of Greek Religion which was the first book we encountered in our Greek humanities course. It was first published a hundred years ago in 1912 as Four Stages of Greek Religion.

This book is probably best known for its The Failure of Nerve thesis noting "a loss of self-confidence, of hope in this life and of faith in normal human effort; a despair of patient inquiry . . . an indifference to the welfare of the state" that occurred in "tone" between the classical writers of ancient Greece and those of the Christian era where this failure occurred. The suicide bombers and cults of today exhibit this same failure of nerve to engage in the world as part of it and reject it for death and a hoped for paradise.

I don't believe that Colonel Ted Westhusing suffered from a "Failure of Nerve" and took his own life. I believe that the problem today centres around losing one's nerve when confronted by Toxic Surveillance and its associated abuses so that one gives up as has occurred whenever totalitarian governments begin to emerge.

Sincerely yours

Gary D Chance

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cc James Wagner, President, Emory University
Stephen Bowen, Dean, Oxford College of Emory University
The Washington Post Top Secret America
The Daily Beast
BBC News Channel

gary d chance

Friday, 11 February 2011

White House - Review of Human Subjects Protection

Monday, 7 February 2011

Ethics at Emory University, Presidential Commission, Colonel Ted Westhusing

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