Ten years ago Final Fantasy VII came out for the PlayStation and was instantly hailed as one of gaming’s greatest achievements to date. It wasn’t the only game in the series to come out within the next few months leading into 1998 though. Final Fantasy Tactics came out in January, a few months after Final Fantasy VII, and completely flew under the radar. Final Fantasy VII wasn’t all at fault for this though. Final Fantasy fans weren’t typically used to the strategy RPG genre so they generally weren’t interested. Strategy RPG fanatics picked it up though, because it was developed by the same person responsible for the fantastic Ogre battle series, Yasumi Matsuno, as his first project for Square. Whether you were one that picked up the original Final Fantasy Tactics or not, Square Enix is giving you a second chance with Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for PSP.
If you have never played a strategy RPG before, you might want to do a little background check on them. I advise this because Final Fantasy Tactics is hard to learn for newcomers at times, and can be quite difficult in the early going if you don’t understand the game. Those who have played a strategy RPG before will fare much better in getting used to the rhythm and flow of the game. Final Fantasy Tactics is actually pretty straight forward once you get used to it, which just might take a few failed attempts in the early going to achieve. Of course, those who have already played this game know what it is I’m talking about. For those that have played this game, there is plenty new content here to give you reason to re-purchase this game though. You may just find yourself coming out of this with an entirely new perspective on the game than you did on the PlayStation.
The first notable thing that is improved upon is the English translation. The original had some awkward “Engrish” moments where typos and sentences that didn’t make much sense took the player completely out of it. This is all fixed here. Square Enix tossed the old translation completely out the door and has redone it from scratch. The first things people will notice who have played the game is that many of the names of characters, items, jobs, and abilities have been changed for the better. Algus is now Argath, breaking is now rending, and Lancer is now Dragoon. Many of the things changed help Tactics fit more into its series traditions (like Fire 2 now being Fira). These changes might be a turn-off for some purists, but as long as you come into it knowing the experience will be better, it really shouldn’t matter. It helps the game fit more into the style of a traditional Final Fantasy game. While the changes to these areas of the translation shouldn’t be complained about, I can see reason as to why some would complain about the dialogue. I personally loved it and felt it made the overall atmosphere of the game that much sweeter, but there will definitely be that crowd that just “doesn’t get it.” This is because Square Enix went with a more Shakespearean approach to make it fit the tone of the story and setting. Those who aren’t accustomed to this old style of language will probably protest this completely, but for the overall quality of the game, it completely helps it.
Improvements to the story are definitely a great thing for this game, since it is one of the best stories in the series. The story always keeps you on your toes with emotional resonance not matched by many video games. However, it is clear that if all Square Enix would have changed is the story then I wouldn’t be warranting a purchase of this game to people. War of the Lions also has new content never seen in the original version. Two brand new classes were added into this PSP version, which include the onion knight and dark knight respectively. These classes derived from the first game in the series to feature job classes, Final Fantasy III, and help round out the stellar system used in the original Final Fantasy Tactics. Also added was a new multiplayer feature that enables players to pit each others teams of characters against each other vis-a-vis the ad-hoc system of the PSP, as well as co-op missions similar to those in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. In these missions is where you can get equipment not sold in the game as well as some of the stronger equipment early on. The only thing is that you need to make sure your partner is around your level because if either of you is higher than the other (we are talking about 5-10 levels or higher) you will be at a complete disadvantage in the co-op missions because the enemies level is that of the highest character used. You need to be aware of this for the player vs. player mode as well because most likely the higher level will win. Of course, there are a few things added in to the player vs. player so that it isn’t just a traditional battle (like being able to lock swords and having to rapidly tap a button faster than the other to win the sword clash). One disappointment with the multiplayer though, is the fact that there is no online mode. Even still the multiplayer is very solid and worth trying out if you have a friend with the game.
The biggest thing that has been added to the game though, is the brand new animated cutscenes. They are absolutely gorgeous to behold and are used for the biggest story pieces in the game. Not only does it have this, but the cutscenes even feature voice-acting. The voice-acting is stellar and really brings out the best of each of the characters involved in the story. It adds more drama and suspense than ever before. This, to me is the biggest draw to bring back those who have experience this game before. The in-game graphics haven’t really changed that much, still featuring the PlayStation era graphics, but they absolutely still fit the bill nicely. The sprites are very well animated for the story sequences to bring out the emotion of the characters, and all the 3-D effects that are mixed in go well with the art design. The soundtrack to the original Final Fantasy Tactics was a riveting, engaging piece of work that really helped the game bring drama to the story, as well as soothing to your ears during battle with extremely hummable and excellent music. The same can be said for the PSP version as well because it sounds identical to the original version in nearly every way. The soundtrack is easily one of the best in the series. The sound effects are largely the same to, except for a few changes that most probably won’t even notice.
There are a few things that haven’t been improved though, that easily should have been. The original Tactics for the PlayStation had some slow-down when trying to perform the more powerful spells and abilities and nothing has changed on the PSP. There is actually a more substantial amount of slowdown in this version compared to the original. Even worse is the fact that the animations and sound effects are less in synch than they were in the original. The camera in the original also didn’t always give you the best view of the battlefield and there were some amounts of frustration from that. This still has not been remedied in this remake. None of these are problems are truly game-breaking, but Square Enix easily could have spent a little more time on these small problems to make the overall experience a better one.
Despite the fact that Final Fantasy Tactics is a decade old game, I still feel that it is absolutely one of the finest RPG experiences you can find. There are some things that Square Enix could have ironed out, but Final Fantasy Tactics is still, in my mind, the definitive strategy RPG experience of its time. Whether you have already played the game or not, you simply can’t go wrong with this modern classic remake.
I thought this was a better-constructed story than in Dragon Wing, but I also think it could only have been done in the second book of the series. In the first book, we wanted to know about Haplo. I think we get a better idea in this book, however, because nothing goes according to his plans. From the moment he sets foot on Pryan, the world of fire (or heat or energy, to be more precise), he is constantly playing catch-up to the events.
The other idea that works well here is Zifnab. Although there was humor in the first book, none of the characters, including Alfred, was the fool, like Simkin from the Darksword Chronicles, and Fizban (hmm… note the inverse spelling) from the Dragonlance Chronicles. I have always loved inside references, which is one of the reasons I like the Star Wars expanded universe so much. Zifnab is ripe with internal and external references. I thought he was a Sartan, but it appears that he is a life form beyond Sartan. Later in the series, he will declare that he is God. I wonder, given the name association with Fizban, if that’s not far from the truth. He is able to poke through Haplo’s magic without the typical Sartan rune magic -at least none that is visible, he knows of Haplo’s coming well before he even enters the Death Gate to this world, and he knows about OUR world, as well as other fantasy worlds.
Zifnab talks several times about Fizban and Gandalf (the grey, because he smokes!). The dragon at one point says he should have gone to Pern! Zifnab talks about speaking with George Lucas, the space shuttle heat shield tiles and Challenger explosion, tries to christen Haplo’s ship Enterprise (“all rights reserved”), the Millennium Falcon and others. It’s quite hilarious reading his lines. He is a lot like Fizban, in that he is always falling asleep or disappearing at the most inopportune moments (letting the lower life-forms exercise their own powers without becoming reliant on him), forgetting his magic (he seems to have a similar fireball spell he can’t remember, like Fizban), singing songs like “over the rainbow” and being quite absent-minded. He is one of the most loveable characters! As I’ve said in my review of Dragon Wing, I don’t remember Haplo’s dog, but here Zifnab says he knows the secret of the dog! I can’t wait to hear this one revealed. I find it interesting that the dog tries to protect the lesser races and Zifnab against Haplo, even though it is most loyal to the Patryn.
Other characters include the elf siblings Paithan and Aleatha, both prodigal children to their older sister Cassandra, who runs the weapons business and the family. Then there are Roland and Rega, human siblings who are buying the weapons. They are all full-fledged characters, fully developed and fun to read about. Then there is the dwarf Drugar, out for revenge on all of them.
The threat in this book is not eternal war, as in Dragon Wing. Instead, mighty giants, blessed with Sartan rune-magic in its most elemental form, are roaming the land, killing all they find, looking for their lost “citadels”. Distant human lands have already fallen to them before the story starts. The dwarves want to buy the elven weapons from Roland and Rega for protection, but Paithan arrives late, and Roland and Rega don’t really know the way to the dwarf kingdoms, so it takes even longer to arrive. By the time they do, all is destroyed. Paithan and the humans are captured by the giant Tytans, but Drugar helps them escape, because he wants them to see the destruction of their own people before he kills them himself.
Retreating through the human lands, they do see it in chaos, and eventually the tytans overwhelm them. Instead of coming to their aid, elven archers fire upon the terrified humans. Haplo arrives in his ship in time to rescue Paithan, Roland and Rega, and encounters the Tytans firsthand -and they overwhelm him, even with his powerful magic.
Haplo was caught by surprise in a number of ways by Pryan. Through the Death Gate, he encountered four suns surrounding him. When he decided to move beyond them, he spent days or weeks in empty space -but it wasn’t space, it was the air in the center of the world, for Pryan is a solid shell on the outside, with a hollowed-out inside, with the vegetation growing on the inside of the shell. There is so much energy that it is difficult in most spots to find the ground (except for the dwarves, who live underground). The elves live in the treetops, and on mossy plains or by lakes in the mossy plains. The humans prefer open plains without much tree cover. Haplo starts to second-guess himself and his master and his magic. He sees stars in the sky, and we get a little more information about the new worlds. From what the Lord of the Nexus has read in the Sartan books, none of the worlds have stars or moons. I wonder, then, if the new worlds exist in our reality any more, or if they still exist in our solar system.
When Haplo arrives at Cassandra’s house, he is met by Zifnab, who accosts him with the news that he will be taking refugees to the stars. He doesn’t believe it, but accepts Zifnab’s suggestion that he go out and rescue Paithan. When the Tytans attack the elven settlement, Haplo sets a trap to gain knowledge of whatever is in its mind, hopefully to find out where the Sartan have gone, for he recognizes the Sartan rune magic in them. He nearly dies in the assault, but is saved by Zifnab’s dragon (I guess the human “intelligence” about the Tytans was wrong, because it stated that even Dragons raced away in fear of the Tytans -instead, the Tytan ran away in fear).
Then begins another long trip through the sky, as everybody nearby takes shelter in Haplo’s ship to escape the stars. I question Zifnab’s planning here, as the variety he picks to save from the Tytans is so small that the three races will die out in a generation. One dwarf, a handful of humans (including at least one brother and sister), and a handful of elves, also including at least one brother and sister. To add to that, Roland and Aleatha are sexually attracted to each other, and Rega and Paithan are already romantically involved. I wonder how factual is the “fact” that the two races cannot interbreed. Thus the genetic variety is left to a single elven servant family of elves and few human slaves.
On the way, a war almost starts on Haplo’s ship, and he is reduced to the role of mediator or baby sitter, something to which he is not accustomed. I can tell he wouldn’t have made a very patient parent. We get lots of flashbacks to his time in the Labyrinth, including a romantic interest, and the division of runners (individuals who try to get through the gates) and squatters (groups of people who band together for protection and move much more slowly). The girl wants to raise a family, which would mean at least temporarily (for several years) joining a group of squatters. Haplo, in stereotypical male fashion, freezes at the thought. He never sees her again.
When Haplo’s ship arrives at the “star”, he makes the discovery that it is actually still on Pryan, just on the other side of the globe. Arriving at the shining city, he takes the opportunity of the strife between the races to sneak out and enter it, learning about Pryan the way he learned about Arianus. Pryan seemed to work a little better than that world, except for the undying light and the extreme heat. The Sartan had planned to use the excessive energy on the other worlds, for example to power the Kicksey Winsey, but they apparently died out before that could happen.
They built shining cities that could magically darken so the people living within could experience night. But instead of completing their grand design, they were reduced to the role of babysitters of the races, trying to end squabbles and wars, just as Haplo did on his ship. And, of course, they started to fade. I wonder if it is God’s price, to make them pay for destroying the world He created and making four more out of its parts. I don’t recall much about The Seventh Gate at all, except I believe there is an answer.
The humans, elves and dwarf leave Haplo’s ship and move toward the city. They meet Haplo leaving as they arrive, but can’t get in because the city was magically locked. In a hilarious but telegraphed piece of acting, the dragon eats Zifnab and roars at the group until Drugar figures out that he has the key to the city in his rune charm. Like Haplo, I wonder where the dwarves learned about the runes. He is astonished that they could grasp such things. Was it Zifnab, or did the Sartan of old teach the lesser races, like they endowed the Tytans? I don’t recall if that question is answered. In the end, Zifnab and the dragon talk about their performances, with Zifnab quoting Gandalf from Moria (“run, you fools!”) and the dragon wondering how much longer he could have stayed there salivating and growling before the dwarf figured out how to open the gates.
Haplo’s world is starting to shatter. He thinks he knows all about himself and the worlds he will visit, and especially about the Patryns and Sartan. But he is learning that there are things he doesn’t understand, and that his Lord could be mistaken about some things. It will take two more books before he really shatters, but I see the cracks beginning, even though he has regained his sense of superiority and almightiness by the end, as he leaves to go back to the Nexus.
Speaking of the Nexus, we get one chapter in that place before Haplo goes through Death’s Gate. In it, he nearly flies into the Labyrinth. If his ship could get in, I wonder if it could get out again, and if he could rescue anybody from within. Presumably anybody who enters could not get out again without a lot of trouble.
Finally, the only person I can think of who could be on the cover of this book would be Haplo, but where are the runes on his hands?
Otherwise, I can’t have enough praise for this book. It doesn’t have the gritty style that characterizes books written these days, and that just adds to its charm. I am already loving this series, again.
Despite only being a modest hit when it was first released during the early months of 1986, Highlander has gone on to be a cult classic, and is now considered one of the most influential and well regarded sci-fi action movies of the decade. Directed by Russell Mulcahy, the film stars Christopher Lambert as Conor MacLeod, born in Scotland in the year 1518, who gradually discovers that he is an ‘immortal’, one of many such men who are destined to fight one another across time, and who can only be killed by complete decapitation. When one immortal decapitates another, the survivor receives a transfer of power called a “quickening,” and eventually, after all the immortals have battled until there is only one left alive, the last survivor will receive “the prize” of immense knowledge about the nature of the universe. After receiving training and education from Spanish nobleman Ramirez (Sean Connery), a fellow immortal, MacLeod gradually battles his way to 1980s New York, where he lives under the assumed identity of an antiquities dealer named Russell Nash. However, a string of beheadings in the city brings MacLeod into contact with NYPD detective Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) and – worst of all – the evil immortal Kurgan (Clancy Brown), who will stop at nothing to claim the Prize for himself.
The score for Highlander was written by the up-and-coming Anglo-American composer Michael Kamen, whose fledgling career was still on the rise following his scores for films such as The Dead Zone and Brazil, and the British TV series Edge of Darkness. At the behest of producer Peter Davis, Kamen worked closely with Brian May of the rock band Queen in creating the score; Kamen wrote the majority of the orchestral material while May wrote the film’s love theme, “Who Wants to Live Forever,” and the rest of the band wrote several additional songs for the film’s soundtrack, including “A Kind of Magic” and “Princes of the Universe”. Their collaboration was very successful – Kamen was able to seamlessly include May’s melody into his score at appropriate moments, while the songs themselves went on to be chart hits, especially in the UK, where “A Kind of Magic” peaked at #3.
Unfortunately, the film’s poor box office performance caused the planned soundtrack album to be cancelled. Queen’s songs were released on their 1986 album, “A Kind of Magic,” but the vast majority of Kamen’s score remains unreleased to this day. The only legitimate release of Highlander’s score music is via the 1995 album Highlander: The Original Scores, released by the German label Edel, which features five tracks of Kamen’s score along with selections from Stewart Copeland’s score for Highlander II: The Quickening, and J. Peter Robinson’s score for Highlander: The Final Dimension.
The five Kamen cues – “The Highlander Theme,” “Rachel’s Surprise/Who Wants To Live Forever,” “The Quickening,” “Swordfight at 34th Street,” and “Under the Garden/The Prize” – show a composer who is clearly still honing his craft. Despite the performance of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, much of the Highlander score feels very raw, as though Kamen was trying too hard to impress his employers with a vast array of flourishes, changes of tempo and style, and densely orchestrated action sequences. This is something that Kamen was guilty of quite a bit during the early years of his career – Kamen himself, when reflecting on his earlier works, once called his score for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen ‘overwhelmingly baroque and ornate’ – and some may find his writing here lacks the smoothness and clarity of some of his later works.
Despite this, there is still a great deal in Highlander to recommend. Kamen’s main Highlander theme is memorable – a two-note fanfare, echoed by a six note response in the horns – and it plays throughout much of the score. It’s a quintessential Kamen motif, with chord progressions and rhythmic ideas that those who have followed his career will recognize, and it gives MacLeod a noble, heroic identity. Kamen allows the theme to pass around his orchestra freely, from strings to brasses, and he augments his ensemble with electronics, a female solo vocalist, and even some region-specific instrumentalists, including bagpipes and a mandora, a type of medieval mandolin or lute.
The performance of Brian May’s love theme in “Rachel’s Surprise/Who Wants To Live Forever” is simply gorgeous, sweeping and sentimental, performed by a bank of tremolo-heavy strings. “The Quickening” is equally pretty, with elegant string phrases, light woodwind accents, and interpolations of the Highlander theme which play against a more dance-like motif for his friend and mentor, Ramirez. “Swordfight at 34th Street” is full of swash and buckle, with the tinkling mandora playing off a series of timpani runs and horn fanfares that recall the similarly buoyant writing heard in later scores like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and, oddly, Mr. Holland’s Opus. The final cue, “Under the Garden/The Prize,” has more of a sense of danger to it, with more dissonant writing for piano clusters and stark, stabbing strings. Heraldic variations on the Highlander theme build up to the climax, a cacophony of overlapping horns and cymbal clashes.
Over the years, several bootlegs of the score have emerged on the secondary market, the best of which combines the five tracks from the Edel album with five additional score tracks, an instrumental version of “A Kind of Magic,” three Queen songs, and a re-orchestrated version of “There Can Be Only One” taken from the 1998 compilation album Michael Kamen’s Opus. While I usually do not condone bootlegs, I would nevertheless recommend finding a copy if you are able, at least until a legitimate version is released. There are some superbly rousing variations on the Highlander theme in “The Castle – Anno Domini 1518” and “Training Montage,” a longer statement of Ramirez’s theme in “Ramirez Arrives,” a brutal action sequence in “Forge Battle/There Can Be Only One,” and an especially moving piece in “Heather’s Death,” highlighting some lovely interplay between harp and strings, and a surprisingly effective electric guitar variation on the “Who Wants to Live Forever” theme.
Considering the cult success of Highlander, with its multitude of sequels and it’s unfathomably long-lasting TV spinoff starring Adrian Paul, it’s a real shame that Michael Kamen’s score is not better known than it is. In many ways, Highlander is the genesis of the action style Kamen perfected in later scores like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Three Musketeers, and both the intelligent thematic writing and the florid orchestral arrangements illustrate perfectly why so many hold him in such high regard. This score is a prime candidate for a La-La Land, Intrada, or Varese Sarabande re-release, if the original source material can be located, and should that ever happen I would unhesitatingly recommend picking it up.
An Lushan (Traditional Chinese: 安祿山; Simplified Chinese: 安禄山; pinyin: Ān Lùshān) (703 – 757) was a military leader of Turkic-Sogdian origin during the Tang Dynasty in China. He rose to prominence by fighting during the Tang Frontier Wars between 741 and 755. He was made the military governor of Fanyang Province (Hebei), (jiedushi) of Manchuria, and during frequent visits to the capital, became a personal favorite of Emperor Xuanzong and his beloved Consort, Yang Guifei. An Lushan was extremely fat, and often played the jester to win favor. Through Yang’s patronage, An Lushan rose to prominence and was eventually made governor of three major frontier provinces in the northeast, giving him control of the eastern half of China’s frontier, and putting him in control of 40 percent of the Tang forces.
In 755, after the High Chancellor Li Linfu died, An Lushan came into conflict with Li’s replacement, Yang Guozhong, who was Yang Guifei’s cousin. He captured the eastern capital city of Loyang (Luoyang), declared himself Emperor of the new Great Yan dynasty (大燕皇帝), and launched the An Shi Rebellion (Simplified Chinese: 安史之乱; Traditional Chinese: 安史之亂; pinyin: Ān Shǐ Zhī Luàn). In 756, he took the capital of Chang’an and forced the Emperor to flee. In 757, An Lushan was murdered by his own son. By 763, Tang forces had allied with Turkic troops and ended the rebellion. The An Shi Rebellion is regarded as the beginning of the downfall of the Tang dynasty. It is estimated to have caused the death of thirty-six million people, due to battle, oppression and famine.
Foreign Origins
An Lushan was born An Rokhan in 703 in northern Manchuria, where his father was a Sogdian sartapo (merchant) employed by the Turkic Khanate to administer their domains. His mother was a Turkic Shaman, and belonged to the nobility of a Turkish clan. The name “An Lushan” is the Sinicized version of the name An Rokhan. The family name An implied that he was from the city of Bukhara in Sogdiana, and Rokhan in the Sogdian language meant “light.” An Rokhan grew up in a town in Ürümqi, and was working as a sartapo in the market when he was accused of sheep theft and sentenced to death. He escaped from the city and joined the Tang army as a mercenary. He distinguished himself in the border wars of the northwestern frontier, particularly the Khitan invasion of 751-752, and rose through the ranks to become a general by the age of 33.
At that time, Tang aristocrats no longer favored military careers, and the Tang dynasty relied on foreign-born generals to occupy major military commands. In 744, An Rokhan (An Lushan) was made the military governor of Fanyang Province (Hebei), (jiedushi) of Manchuria, by the High Chancellor Li lin-fu, who favored foreign generals because he feared that Chinese generals might usurp his authority at court. He paid frequent visits to the capital and became a personal favorite of Emperor Xuanzong and his beloved Consort, Yang Guifei. An Lushan was extremely fat, and often played the jester to win favor. On one occasion, three days after his birthday, he was taken into the women’s quarters of the palace dressed as a baby, and put through a mock adoption ceremony by Yang. This type of conduct led to rumors of an inappropriate relationship between Yang and An Lushan. Through Yang’s patronage, An Lushan rose to prominence. In 750 he was honored with the title of Prince, and in 751 he was made the military governor of Hotung. Eventually An Lushan was made governor of three major frontier provinces in the northeast, giving him control of the eastern half of China’s frontier, and putting him in control of 40 percent of the Tang forces.
An Lushan had good relations with the High Chancellor, Li Linfu. When the Li Linfu died in 752, An came into conflict with Li’s replacement, Yang Guozhong, who was Yang Guifei’s cousin, possibly because An Lushan himself had hoped to be appointed to the post of High Chancellor. Around that time, An Lushan’s army was thoroughly defeated in a campaign against the Khitans, and China suffered other military setbacks at the hands of the Arabs in the Battle of Talus and Nanzhao in southern China. A series of natural disasters, including drought, severe storms and floods, which caused terrible suffering among the Chinese people, were perceived as signs that Heaven was displeased with the conduct of the Emperor.
An Shi Rebellion
In the fall of 755, An Lushan, using the northern provinces of Heibei and Henan as his base, led an army of about 150,000 soldiers from Peking (Beijing) to capture the eastern capital city of Loyang (Luoyang). Along the way, as Tang local officials surrendered to An Lushan’s forces, they were treated with respect and joined his ranks. He moved rapidly along the Grand Canal of China and captured the city of Luoyang within the year. There, An Lushan declared himself Emperor of the new Great Yan dynasty (大燕皇帝), and launched the An Shi Rebellion (Simplified Chinese: 安史之乱; Traditional Chinese: 安史之亂; pinyin: Ān Shǐ Zhī Luàn), also known as the Tianbao Rebellion (天寶之亂), because An Lushan started it in the fourteenth year of that namesake era.
An Lushan next set out to take the Tang capital and the rest of southern China before the Tang forces could recover. However, the battle for eastern China went badly for An Lushan; although his army was large, it was unable to take control of the Suiyang District from the Tang defenders. An Lushan’s forces were blocked from the main imperial capital at Chang’an by loyal troops placed in impregnable defensive positions in the intervening mountain passes, until Yang Guozhong, in a grossly inept military judgment, ordered the troops in the passes to attack An’s army on open ground. They were demolished, and the road to the capital now lay open. Seeing the imminent threat to Changan, Xuanzong fled to Sichuan with his household. On the way, at Mawei Inn in Shaanxi, Xuanzong’s bodyguard troops demanded the death of Yang Guozhong, and of his cousin, Lady Yang, whom they held responsible for the political upheaval in China. With the army on the verge of mutiny, the Emperor had no choice but to agree, ordering the execution of Yang Guozhong and the suicide of Lady Yang. The crown prince, Li Heng, fled in the other direction to Lingzhou (today called Lingwu, in modern-day Ningxia province).
Decline of the Rebellion
After reaching Sichuan, Xuanzong abdicated in favor of the crown prince, who was proclaimed Suzong. One of Suzong’s first acts as emperor was to appoint the generals Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi to deal with the rebellion. The generals, after much discussion, decided to borrow troops from an offshoot of the Turkish Tujue Tribe, the Huihe tribe (ancestors of the modern-day Uighurs). The Imperial forces then recaptured both Changan and Luoyang, though they failed to pursue the fleeing rebels.
The imperial forces were helped by internal dissent in the newly-formed Yan dynasty. In 757, An Lushan was murdered by his own son, An Qingxu, after exhibiting signs of extreme paranoia which posed a danger to those around him. (It has been suggested, due to his obesity, that An Lushan was suffering the symptoms of acute diabetes.) An Qingxu was then killed by a subordinate, general Shi Siming, who soon afterwards recaptured the city of Luoyang. Shi Siming was killed in turn by his own son, Shi Chaoyi. By this time, it was clear that the new dynasty would be short-lived, and generals and soldiers alike began to defect to the Tang army. Finally, in 763, after Luoyang was taken by the Tang forces for the second time, Shi Chaoyi committed suicide, ending the eight-year-long rebellion.
Effects of the An Shi Rebellion
The beginning of the An Shi Rebellion in 756 marked the watershed of Tang power. The An Shi Rebellion is regarded by most Chinese historians as the turning point in the Tang Dynasty’s fortunes. For the next 144 years, the Tang ceased to exist in all but name, a far cry from its glorious days under Emperors Taizong and Xuanzong.
The An Shi Rebellion forced the Tang dynasty to become overdependent on the goodwill of provincial governors and military commanders. In an effort to quickly establish peace after the Rebellion, the Tang dynasty pardoned many rebels, and put some of them in command of their own garrisons, eroding the authority of the central government. Tang economic control of the Northeast region became intermittent, and the emperor became only a puppet, at the bidding of the strongest garrison. By borrowing troops from neighboring tribes to put down the Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty lowered its prestige in the eyes of the barbarians, who eventually began raiding Tang settlements again. (Changan itself was briefly occupied by the Tibetan army in 764, after the course of the rebellion.)
The rebellion spanned the reigns of three emperors, starting during the reign of Xuanzong and ending during the reign of Daizong. The toll of dead and missing, including those who died by suppression and famine, is estimated at up to thirty-six million, or two-thirds of the total population on the tax rolls at that time. This was the highest death toll for any event until World War II surpassed it with over 62 million deaths.
The problem was Edward Snowden, the reaction is the PCLOB and the solution is CISPA.
What is significant about the timing of the CISPA promoting army of corporate suits hitting D.C. right before the president and congress finally get the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) up and running (Obama never put this board into play even though they were supposed to be the agency reporting to congress about our civil liberties and mass spying by agencies like the NSA) and around the same time Edward Snowden is talking to Glenn Greenwald setting the stage for his big “groundbreaking” leak?
Why does Obama keep talking about “having the discussion” about the “right balance” between privacy and security while repeating the notion that the way to fix the current manufactured crisis has to include the private sector? Isn’t that “Big Brother’s Friend” CISPA?
Why is it OK to call Snowden a traitor (which could get him and other whistleblowers killed) but down right unacceptable to say it’s a psyop?
Why are people being dragged out of public forums for simply saying we don’t need to “have the discussion”?
What is the role of the PCLOB in CISPA? Are they connected?
Why are so many of the newly reconstituted PCLOB members aligned with big business, the Chamber of Commerce and a single law-firm who contracts with major corporations, helping them get their legislation passed in congress (A law-firm with connections to Robert Mueller by the way)? How many of that law-firm’s corporate clients are backing CISPA?
The PCLOB was never formed under Obama yet they were supposedly our protectors, being the only real oversight of the massive spying program. Under CISPA, they are again our ONLY protectors standing between us and the corporations with their new authority to do whatever they want with our most intimate information. And suddenly the PCLOB is up and running and being tasked by Obama to formulate the response to the Snowden psyop?
Is the Edward Snowden “leak” all about creating the pretext for the national discussion on finding the right balance between how many civil liberties we have to give up in order to protect us from the fake domestic war on terror?
Is the timing of all of this just a remarkable coincidence or is it an obvious fabrication?
The Big Prize: CISPA
“I’ll (Obama) be meeting with them (PCLOB) and what I want to do is to set up and structure a national conversation not only about these two programs but also about the general problem of these big data sets because this is not going to be restricted to government entities,” Politico
On April 15th, 2013 a small army of executives hit Washington with cash in hand in order to convince various politicians that they really wanted to have vote to pass CISPA this time around after it failed to fly through congress last year… an election year. According to The Hill they were pretty clear about what they wanted :“The message we’re going to give [lawmakers] is going to be a very simple, clear message: support the passage of CISPA,”
“CISPA had garnered favor from corporations and lobbying groups such as Microsoft, Facebook, AT&T, IBM, Apple Inc. , Intel, Oracle Corporation, Symantec, and Verizon and the United States Chamber of Commerce, which look on it as a simple and effective means of sharing important cyber threat information with the government. Google has not taken a public position on the bill but has shown previous support for it…” List of companies who have sent letters of support for CISPA since 2012
You will also find major players like the Business Roundtable in support of CISPA as well as:
The Financial Services Roundtable
Lockheed Martin
Boeing
Cyber, Space and Intelligence Association
Internet Security Alliance
Overall we are talking about 800 major corporations in the United States which have aligned themselves with the passage of CISPA. A total of $68 million dollars was paid out last year in the run-up to the election to keep certain agreeable congress people in power so that this deed would be done.
What they wanted was more power for themselves. A purely fascist piece of legislation, like the TPP, which would fundamentally rewrite the laws of the country putting more power in the hands of the corporate state. Bob Adelmann said in 2012 CISPA is Big Brother’s Friend“
The primary problem, according to Meeks, is that it tries to kill a flea with a baseball bat: Any alleged security the bill offers against potential hackers “comes at the expense of unfettered government access to our personal information, which is then likely to be sucked into the secretive black hole of the spying complex known as the National Security Agency.”
Despite some window dressing by Mssrs. Rogers and Ruppersberger, the bill still has major problems. First it has “an overly broad, almost unlimited definition of the information [that] can be shared [by private Internet companies] with government agencies.” It overrides existing federal or state privacy laws with its language that says information between private and public agencies is shared “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”
In addition, the bill would create a “backdoor wiretap program” because the information being shared isn’t limited specifically to issues of cybersecurity but could be used for any other purpose as well. The language is unclear about what would trigger a CISPA investigation: “efforts to degrade, disrupt or destroy” a network. Would that apply to someone innocently downloading a large file — a movie, perhaps — that is perceived, under the bill, to be an “effort to degrade, disrupt or destroy” a network? Bob Adelmann, April 2012
Understand that because it’s the reason these major corporations want CISPA so badly… this bill will override existing federal and state law giving these companies the power to do whatever they want with this massive amount of deeply personal information, for any purpose they want… not just security purposes.
Anything. They can use it for marketing, they can use it for credit ratings. They can take that data and bundle it into derivitives after they sell it to other companies. They can use it to squash your small business or they can take that raw data and turn over emails to your competitors for a price. There are no limitation to how these entities can use that data. That is absolute power over your most personal private and business life and even over the internet itself.
The amazing threat CISPA poses is directly proportional to the effort and the money these 800 corporations will commit to getting it passed in congress and signed into law.
Finally, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board at just the Right Time
In 2004 the 9/11 Commission decided on a few suggestions in order to hopefully make a weary nation a little less worried about our next False Flag event and the constitution crushing Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act and the virtual bonanza of other fascist legislation that came from those “terrorists” who “hate us for our freedom”
They suggested a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board which was supposed to report to congress twice a year about how the mass spying programs were progressing and also to provide oversight to make sure they never overreached their legal limits.
It was never a priority by either George W. Bush or Barack Obama, funny enough. They finally formed their first version of the board in 2006 but before they could really do much, an old Clinton adviser who had been appointed to the board by Bush threw a hissy fit saying the board was too close to Bush and he took his toys and quit leaving the board without enough members to officially meet.
In 2007 congress decided to make the board “independent” of the executive branch but they never got started back up before Bush left the White House.
When Obama came to power in Jan of 2009, it wasn’t one of his priorities. He finally got around to nominating the last of the members of the board, the chair, on May 7th of this year. That nomination, Mr. David Medine, was rushed through confirmation in the senate the same day and suddenly all the pieces were in place for the long long overdue Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
On May the 7th this board which should have been serving our interests all this time, is finally put in place, ready to get up an running looking out for our civil liberties. Remember, the Snowden “leak” has not yet happened but Edward is talking to Glenn Greenwald at this time. Also remember that the PCLOB is a critical part of the CISPA bill….
“The House bill H.R. 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, known as CISPA, would make PCLOB responsible for reporting on privacy and civil liberty intrusions under its information sharing program. Specifically, CISPA proposed that the PCLOB issue annual reports on the civil liberties and privacy impact of CISPA’s provisions for the sharing of “cyber threat” information and intelligence between the government and private companies“ GovTrack
Those corporate raiders who wrote CISPA and the corporate persons who put $68 million dollars in the pockets of our corrupt legislative branch want the PCLOB to be THE ONLY OVERSIGHT agency so naturally it is important to get that group up and running prior to CISPA big “debate” in the country.
And as it just so happens, our president just went to the board to get them to come up with a plan to deal with the Edward Snowden “leak”
“I’ll (Obama) be meeting with them (PCLOB) and what I want to do is to set up and structure a national conversation not only about these two programs but also about the general problem of these big data sets because this is not going to be restricted to government entities,” Politico
Who are the members of the PCLOB and what is Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP?
With one exception the board members of the PCLOB are reactionary servants to power with exceptionally close ties to super large legal firms that serve corporate interests, one of which keeps popping up over and over in their bios. And even that one exception, the so-called “fierce civil libertarian” claims “The Patriot Act doesn’t have to be scrapped, it can be fixed“
“Since details of the NSA’s phone metadata collection and PRISM programs were published earlier this month, Obama and his aides have repeatedly said that he “welcomes” debate over finding the right balance between protecting national security and privacy rights. And he hinted earlier this week that a meeting with the board would be coming, telling PBS’s Charlie Rose that the board is “made up of independent citizens, including some fierce civil libertarians.” Politico
These citizens as you will see are certainly not “independent” in any fashion. They have spent a lifetime in service to corporate masters, the same corporate masters who want CISPA passed in the worst way.
The board consists of David Medine, Chair, Rachel Brand, Member. Elizabeth Collins Cook, Member. James X. Dempsey, Member. Patricia Wald, Member.
David Medine, Chair:
“Mr. David Medine is a Partner in Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP. After developing e-commerce and financial services policy at the Federal Trade Commission and the White House, Mr. Medine has brought his experience to a wide range of online and offline clients. His government experience has made him a valuable asset to clients, whether it involves defending investigations, advice on legislative strategies, development of privacy and security policies, or counsel on regulatory compliance. Mr. Medine’s representation of the United States in international organizations, such as the OECD, or in negotiations with the European Union, has positioned him well to represent clients wrestling with international data and consumer protection issues. Mr. Medine currently represents major online companies, media firms, and consumer product companies regarding compliance with federal and state consumer protection and privacy laws and regulations. He also represents a wide range of financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies, credit card issuers, and broker-dealers on credit, financial privacy, and other issues. At the FTC, Mr. Medine’s responsibilities included the development of policy and regulations, oversight of programs involving consumer financial services, privacy, and e-commerce, and enforcement activities in those areas. He participated in drafting the Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial privacy and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) regulations. In August 2000, Mr. Medine left the FTC to serve as a Senior Advisor to the National Economic Council at The White House, where he advised both the President and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, coordinated Administration policies on such issues as privacy, financial institutions, and expanding capital investment in under-served areas. He advised government agencies on implementation of electronic signature legislation and represented the White House in congressional consideration of “spam” legislation. He did his J.D. from University of Chicago Law School and his B.A. from Hampshire College, 1975.” businessweek
In 2004 Mr. Medine presented suggestions to the FTC on behalf of American Express, Capital One Financial Corporation, Providian Financial Corporation.
Medine helped write the legislation that killed Glass-Steagall and set the stage for the derivatives demolition of the global economy. He then helped set up the legislation that provided money to poor people so they could buy homes in the liar loan sub-prime mortgage bubble.
At the time the Business Week article was written, he was in direct service to the big corporate institutions that are pushing CISPA right now. And he is Obama’s choice to head the board charged with looking out for our constitutional rights?
Rachel Brand, Member
Rachel Brand has made a career out of litigating on behalf of major corporations against pesky regulation that limits their profits. You will notice that prior to jumping back through the revolving door, she was at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
It’s important to note the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the BIG SUPPORTERS OF CISPA as noted in the quote above “CISPA had garnered favor from corporations and lobbying groups such as Microsoft, Facebook, AT&T, IBM, Apple Inc. , Intel, Oracle Corporation, Symantec, and Verizon and the United States Chamber of Commerce…”
“Before joining NCLC, Brand practiced in the Regulatory and Government Affairs and the Litigation/Controversy departments at WilmerHale LLP, where she focused on strategic public policy counseling and regulatory litigation. Prior to WilmerHale, Brand served in government for nearly eight years as, among other things, Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice (2005-2007) and Associate Counsel to the President (2001-2002). Brand also practiced law with Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal PLLC and served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Brand received her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and her B.A. from University of Minnesota-Morris” us chamber of commerce
“High-powered litigatrices on the move: Rachel Brand and Kate Comerford Todd, two fabulous members of The Elect, are joining the National Chamber Litigation Center — where they will contribute to the Chamber’s impressive track record of litigating against excessive regulation.” Above the law
It’s also important to note that WilmerHale LLP is the latest incarnation of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP. More on that later.
Elizabeth Collins Cook, Member
Perhaps the most reactionary and frightening member of this board is Elizabeth Collins Cook. It is difficult to accurately convey the contempt she has for our civil liberties. This woman was an assistant to Michael Mukasy if that tells you anything. She also supported the Bush program of Cass Sunstein cognitive infiltration programs where they would infiltrate law abiding political organizations and peace activists and attempt to dismantle them from the inside. And to top that all off, she opposes a journalist’s right to keep his sources private.
Elisabeth Collins Cook was an Assistant Attorney General, appointed by the Bush administration to work on legal policy under Michael Mukasey, who refused to investigate or even make a determination regarding the legality of government-sponsored torture. Nowadays, Mukasey is writing editorials to tell Americans that the understaffed and inactive PCLOB is somehow already on the job protecting our civil liberties. It would be inappropriate to preemptively assign Elisebeth Cook responsibility for Mukasey’s actions just because she worked as his lieutenant; that would be assigning guilt by association. But considering that she worked in the Office of Legal Policy before and during Mukasey’s tenure, it would be reasonable for Senators to ask in her (still unscheduled) confirmation hearing whether she considers the torture policy of the Bush administration to have been legally and constitutionally appropriate.
There are additional matters of concern that don’t regard Elisabeth Collins Cook’s professional associations, but are directly related to her activities as Assistant Attorney General under George W. Bush. On September 23 2008, Cook appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committtee to endorse the Bush administration’s new policy for engaging in undercover surveillance and infiltration of American political groups without probable cause to believe a crime was being committed. At her confirmation hearing, Senators should ask Cook whether she still stands by federal infiltration of law-abiding political groups. If so, how does she square that endorsement with the free speech and free association clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution? How does Elisebeth Collins Cook plan to safeguard Americans’ civil liberties if she still holds her prior position?
In addition to free speech, another civil liberty guaranteed by the Constitution is a free press. A free press has to be able to act independently of the government. Reporters cannot do their job of uncovering information, often about the ethics of actions taken by the government, if agents of the government are constantly perching on their shoulders and effectively using journalists as agents of surveillance by confiscating all the information and compelling identification of all the anonymous sources that a journalist obtains. Freedom of speech must also include the freedom not to speak, even to the government. If reporters are compelled to choose between spilling the beans on their sources or being jailed, their speech is no longer free; again, they’ve been assimilated to become unwilling tools of the government.
As Assistant Attorney General, Elisebeth Collins Cook wrote an editorial that appeared in U.S. News & World Report in August of 2008, in which she opposed the right of journalists to keep their sources to themselves and their right to keep mum in the face of government threats of jail. For Cook, it wasn’t enough that Congress sought to grant the government national security exceptions, because “in the real world, such a privilege would adversely affect our ability to keep the country safe from terrorists and other criminals.” When the Senate Judiciary Committee gets around to considering the nomination of Elisabeth Collins Cook, members should ask her whether she continues to hold that freedom of the press is a “privilege” to be retracted, and how such a belief squares the with the responsibility of protecting America’s liberties as a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.” John Cook
A real treasure we have there on the board looking out for our civil liberties, huh?
James X. Dempsey, member
Dempsey is the big “civil libertarian” watchdog that Obama was chirping about. Funny he didn’t mention the other reactionary corporatist tools he loaded the board with.
Patricia Wald, Member
Wald served on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia put there by the Clintons after they destabilized the country and literally tore it apart for the corporate/banking elites. Her task was to make sure the government of the former Yugoslavia was properly demonized after Clinton bombed it into pieces for humanitarian reasons of course.
In 2004 she was put on the Iraq Intelligence Commission where their task was to effectively cover-up the conscience disinformation campaign fed to us by the Bush administration and their puppets in various news organizations about WMDs.
She currently chairs the board of directors of the Open Society Justice Initiative . That’s a George Soros financed globalist NGO formed in 93 in order to spread our particular form of top-down trickle down “democracy” to Eastern Europe. They focus on all things globalism and Obama’s board member pick headed up their board of directors which kinda makes her queen globalist, doesn’t it?
“The network of Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute (OSI) until 2011, is a grantmaking operation founded by George Soros, aimed to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. On a local level, OSF implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media.”
Sum it up
So with the exception of Dempsey, you couldn’t pick a more corporatist set of shills for the globalist agenda if you tried. Yeah, they’re on the right, yeah they’re on the left, but that is what the Washington Consensus means.
As for the influence of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP (now called Wilmer Hale) as you can see, several of these members have a direct association with the firm including it’s chair. But what is also interesting, is the fact that Robert Mueller, head of the FBI who is leaving office soon, was at one time a full partner in Hale & Dorr. Their client list is pretty extensive and certainly contains many of those 800 corporations that support CISPA. Go here to read their “guiding principles” page. Basically what they claim they do is help corporate clients steer a path through globalization and deregulation with the help of their connected staff, both current and former.
It’s enough to make one wonder if somehow the PCLOB isn’t just an extension of Wilmer Hale as they are certainly an extension of the Chamber of Commerce.
Enter Edward Snowden Stage Left
As I have already highlighted in other articles, Edward Snowden began his communications with Glenn Greenwald in early May when he was brought in by Laura Poitras on the project “whistleblowing” project. She had supposedly been in communications with Snowden since January.
According to the story, Snowden saw the video Poitras made of William Binney, a real NSA whistleblower, and wanted her to do his story.
Why he would need to include Glenn Greenwald is not made clear. She interviewed Binney herself and obviously didn’t need Glenn for any reason.
Some speculation floats around out there that this is errily similar to a plot exposed when some Stratfor emails got leaked a while back in the HBGary scandal. Specifically, the plot was to get Greenwald discredited by feeding him some bullshit story about NSA surveillance.
Sound familiar?
Anyway, the “Edward Snowden” character has released no new information, repeated lied or exaggerated about his background, dropped out of high school and a community college as well as an online degree program to boot.
There are many serious discrepancies with his “big leaks” not the least of which are his silly Power Point presentation slides which are so amateurishly formatted and put together, they almost look like they are supposed to make us think it’s a fraud. Even the logo for PRISM is hijacked from some British guy’s copyrighted image.
Greenwald and others have been doing everything they can to promote this story near and far. But as the problems with Snowden started emerging, the first thing they did was go into spin control overdrive, which is usually a sign of something seriously wrong with a “news” story.
If a reporter gets something wrong or commits an oversight of some kind, usually they are pretty quick to admit it and fix it. The last thing you want to do when hemorrhaging credibility is dig yourself in deeper. But that is exactly what Glenn has been doing since day two of this psyop. You don’t do that when you are reporting on a developing story but you do exactly that when pushing propaganda.
Hero or Traitor but NOTHING ELSE
Recently the narrative has been to attack anyone who dares claim Snowden is neither a hero nor a traitor. They attack with such vile animosity, you wonder why it is they seem to rather have you believe he’s a traitor than just a guy doing his job running a psyop.
There’s a reason for that.
Because in the end this is all about “having the discussion” between freedom and security and if it turns out they ran another “incubator babies” story on us or another Jessica Lynch, Syrian Danny or Gay Girl in Damascus story, then all of that “discussion” falls apart.
What they needed was a crisis. A crisis in which the public was seemingly divided between those who thought his actions were illegal and those who thought he was a hero. Back and forth they go, but they would both agree something had to be done to fix the problem that caused the crisis.
What is going to fix the problem of an out of control government agency which allows such looser access to private information at a whim?
CISPA of course.
And who will ultimately recommend CISPA as a result of their careful study of the facts of this crisis?
The newly minted Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
It’s a typical psyop of problem, reaction, solution. The problem was Edward Snowden, the reaction is the PCLOB and the solution is CISPA.
The timing and the people Obama put on that board tell you everything. The PCLOB has to be in place for CISPA to be given the credibility it needs but they will never serve as a truly independent board of oversight. Based on their track record, I would be surprised if the board ever meets after CISPA is signed into law.
They needed something big to serve as a pretext to get people seriously considering allowing CISPA to become law this time around and Snowden was it.
Now it’s reported that Snowden is off to all the countries that we consider our enemies. He was in China (technically) then off to Russia where he may or may not go to Cuba and eventually Venezuela. It’s like Nightmare on Elm Street and all their sequels rolled into one. How many enemy states can the Snowden character visit to prove his treason while real whistleblowers like Binney sit here in the U.S.
This is the story of Edward Snowden and his ultimate connection with Big Brother’s Friend, CISPA.
As a side note, Snowden apparently contacted Laura Poitras in mid January sometime right after Aaron Schwartz was murdered and it was made to look like a suicide. Then a couple of days later, the new version of CISPA hit the floor of congress. They cleared away a stumbling block and set the stage for this new psyop as they were floating the final CISPA bill. And this is just after congress got back in after the $68 million dollar election?
As Chomsky has said before on a couple of occasions, you have to have a pretty expensive education to miss the obvious connections here. What kind of degree does Mr. Greenwald have?
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