<html><body><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div><br></div><div style="color:#000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;"><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div style="color:#000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;"><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div><p style="margin: 0px;">Dear friends and neighbors,</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">I understand why the north-south fiber optic connection failed, yesterday — the T1 line owned by AT&T. It was cut (sabotaged?) in Hopland, here in Mendocino County.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br>What I don't understand is why the east-west fiber optic connection didn't kick in — the “redundant fiber,” the cable that was completed in 2011, the $14.4 million, 131-mile project that state taxpayers spent $5.7 million to help finance out of the California Advanced Services Fund.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">That redundancy promised to forever end days like yesterday, in which not only everyday residential customers are cut off from the outside world, but especially law enforcement, emergency services and other governmental agencies, and banks and all sorts of other ATM facilities, also lose their connection to the outside world.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">That redundant line is not owned by AT&T. It's owned by PG&E. AT&T has to rent bandwidth on that line, if it wants to provide redundancy to its customers. Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that both AT&T and PG&E were both complicit in cutting northern California off from the outside world.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">And so, I'm wondering: Does yesterday's outrage have some connection to Jade Helm, a domestic military exercise currently taking place throughout the country?</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">Remember that Jade Helm's playbook is intended to see how the U.S. military performs after the declaration of martial law. Troops engaging in the exercise assume the roles of either occupying or resistance forces. Most locations are in sparsely populated arid regions near small towns. Some participants in Jade Helm wear civilian attire and drive civilian vehicles.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">The Jade Helm exercise is about about what the military now calls "asymmetrical" or unconventional warfare. Jade Helm involves United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) with other U.S Armed Forces units in multiple states, including California.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">In the playbook, California is divided into north and south -- "hostile" and "friendly" to the federal government.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">I'm not making this stuff up.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">Jade Helm started on July 15, 2015, and will end on September 15, 2015. The announcements of these training exercises have raised concerns that have been characterized by The New York Times as "travers[ing] the outer edges of political paranoia."</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">See: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/in-texas-a-military-exercise-is-met-by-some-with-suspicion.html?_r=0" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/in-texas-a-military-exercise-is-met-by-some-with-suspicion.html?_r=0</a></p><p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px;">John Sakowicz</p><p style="margin: 0px;">KMEC Radio at the Mendocino Environmental Center</p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.5999994277954px;"><br></span></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>