Read more here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2738653/Stunning-satellite-images-summer-ice-cap-thicker-covers-1-7million-square-kilometres-MORE-2-years-ago-despite-Al-Gore-s-prediction-ICE-FREE-now.html
Sunday, August 31, 2014
" The central government, created by the Constitution, has become the most powerful government in human history. It has amassed the greatest debt in human history. It's on track to become the most dangerous government in human history. The Constitution that was intended to limit the Federal Government has become a dead letter. I believe Americans face a similar situation that the German people faced in the 1930s. They too were manipulated through government-created crisis and elected the Nazi Party out of desperation. In our case, we have two tyrannical political parties that are only superficially different from each other. The deception has to be sophisticated because of the American tradition of individual freedom."
Political myths that are destroying freedom: The myth of a limited-government Republican Party (Part 1)
Phil Pepin
I will be doing a series of articles exposing commonly held political myths that many Americans have come to accept as historic fact. These myths were intentionally created by those directly involved in government and by its admirers who benefit from the expansion of state power. Over time, these relatively small groups, compared to the general population, have learned that controlling the public perception of government is essential to achieve their agenda. History teaches that, when government grows in size and power, freedom is destroyed for those subject to its rule. Only a few elite enjoy its benefits at the expense of the majority. It's vitally important that the focus needs to be on the supremacy of individual freedom. It must be considered the most precious possession that we have. The critical lesson of human history is how rarely individual freedom has been obtained, and how relatively easily it is for it to be taken away.
The primary reason why America is rapidly transforming into a totalitarian police state is that a majority of Americans are ignorant of history. This has led to a lack of interest in the political system. America has become a victim of it's own success because modern generations don't understand the sacrifices it took to develop the economy that has produced this great abundance we have known all our lives. This ignorance of the political system has allowed the government, by it's nature a parasite, to grow so large that it threatens to kill its host. Governments do not create wealth; they profit from the work of others. To put that in simple modern terms, government is the ultimate welfare recipient.
Thomas Paine said, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." The Federal Government has long ago passed the point of being intolerable. It's only relatively recently that a significant number of Americans have started to realize just how intolerable it has become.
The central government, created by the Constitution, has become the most powerful government in human history. It has amassed the greatest debt in human history. It's on track to become the most dangerous government in human history. The Constitution that was intended to limit the Federal Government has become a dead letter. I believe Americans face a similar situation that the German people faced in the 1930s. They too were manipulated through government-created crisis and elected the Nazi Party out of desperation. In our case, we have two tyrannical political parties that are only superficially different from each other. The deception has to be sophisticated because of the American tradition of individual freedom.
Both political parties use the Fabian Socialist technique of incremental change using the political system. The Stalinist approach is to use brute force against its people to achieve their goals. Fabian Socialists only resort to violence in very limited ways. It's heavily cloaked with legislation to give the appearance of legitimacy. They take over the political parties, education system and media in a coordinated effort to keep the general public ignorant of reality. Unfortunately, they have been extremely successful.
The purpose of this article is not to be an in-depth analysis of the entire political system but to reveal the truth behind the facade of the modern Republican Party. A party that has been in decline for years and appears to be on the path toward extinction. I don't believe that it's going disappear in the near future but, rather like the expansion of government, decline incrementally until it reaches the finally stages where the collapse accelerates.
The simplistic narrative that has developed over the years, and amazingly persists today, is that the Democratic Party is Liberal and the Republican Party is Conservative. Those who know the history behind the words Liberal and Conservative are aware that the meaning related to their political use has changed.
Since I'm analyzing the history of the Republican Party, I'll start with conservatism's definition. Traditional Conservatism -- or as it's also referred to as, Paleoconservatism or "Old Right" -- believes in Laissez-faire capitalism, limited government and a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy. To many, that might sound like a modern Libertarian. There are lots of similarities, but there seems to be a few important differences. Paleoconservatives tend to be devout Christians, usually Non-Zionist Christians. They are critical of the libertine attitude of many modern Libertarians. They tend to agree with Libertarians that government should not intervene in most of these social issues but will speak out in the court of public opinion against those values. The major dividing line is over abortion. A significant amount of Libertarians are pro-choice, while Paleoconservatives tend to be pro-life.
The history of Paleoeoconservatives is best summed up in the abstract of an article by Sheldon L. Richman, "New Deal Nemesis: The 'Old Right' Jeffersonians" published in The Independent Review: "The Old Right began as a diverse group of politicians, writers and activists awakened by a common threat: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his unprecedented accretion of executive power. The Old Right was not truly right-wing or conservative, drawing as it did from the ranks of "progressive" isolationists, Republican "conservative" isolationists, libertarian iconoclasts regarded as leftist radicals in the 1920s, conservative Democrats, social democratic historians, and free-market liberal economists and journalists."
For a more in-depth look at Paleoconservatism, I recommend the book Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement by Justin Raimondo.
That's the history of Conservatism and what it used to mean, but that's not what modern mainstream conservatism represents now. The Democratic Party lost its Jeffersonian heritage with the infiltration of Progressives in the late 19th century. They were in reality Marxists who called themselves Progressives. This may be a shock to modern Republicans, but there was a time when Democrats, though not perfect, were the ones who were strong on state sovereignty, for low taxes and limited government. They weren't the Marxist extremists that they have become.
In my opinion, based on historical facts, the Republican Party didn't really have such an infiltration. They already were, for all practical purposes, "Progressives." From its birth in 1854, the Republican Party didn't respect state sovereignty and wanted an all-powerful central government. They were for high taxes. In the early days, that meant high tariffs. They promoted mercantilism, now referred to as "corporatism," or often called "crony capitalism." They wanted a national central banking system similar to the current Federal Reserve System, which is at the center of the destruction of the financial sector and threatens our entire economy with inflationary fiat dollars and all the distortions of the economy that it causes. Republicans created the first fiat dollar; in the United States, they were called "greenbacks" and were not backed by gold or silver. They enacted the first income tax in 1861, which was repealed in 1871. With deceptive tactics, they started an unconstitutional war of aggression against fellow Americans. I will talk about the war in more detail in part 2. I'll explain why what we call the "Civil War" was unnecessary to end slavery and wasn't even about ending slavery. The primary reasons involved tariffs and Southern independence.
Two concepts of government emerged after the American Revolution, or more accurately called the war of secession from the British Empire. There was Thomas Jefferson's concept, summed up by Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, author of Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution -- and What It Means for America Today. As The Mises Review states:
"Thomas Jefferson supported the American Revolution in order to promote individual liberty. To secure this end, it was essential that the central government be strictly limited in its powers. America, in the Jeffersonian view, was an alliance of sovereign states, and the adoption of the Constitution, though it increased the power of the national government, did not fundamentally change this arrangement."
Professor DiLorenzo describes Hamilton's concept from his book Hamliton's Curse: "Hamilton proposed a kind of "king" who would yield supreme power over all people, who in turn would have essentially no say in how their government was run. The states would be mere provinces whose governors would be appointed by and loyal to the "king."Under such a regime, all political power in the nation would be exercised by the chief executive and his circle of advisors, which would undoubtedly have included Alexander Hamilton as perhaps the chief advisor."
Professor DiLorenzo points out that Hamilton did not secure what he wanted at the Constitutional Convention and called the Constitution "a frail and worthless fabric."
Hamilton's economic concepts were just as troubling. Professor DiLorenzo, in his article "The Founding Father of Crony Capitalism," describes his economic ideas: "It was Hamilton who coined the phrase 'The American System' to describe his economic policy of corporate welfare, protectionist tariffs, central banking, and a large public debt, even though his political descendants, the Whig Party of Henry Clay, popularized the slogan. He was not well schooled in the economics of his day."
Professor DiLorenzo shows the connection between Hamilton's "American System" and the Whig Party of Henry Clay. The Whig Party base fractured, and eventually the party failed. It was replaced by the Republican Party. The name was changed, but the philosophy didn't.
In part two of "The myth of a limited-government Republican Party," I will expose the greatest myth in American history. It has proven to be one of the most dangerous to liberty.
Phil Pepin
Host of Pursuit Of Freedom
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/046666_political_myths_Republican_Party_American_government.html#ixzz3BzjM1u1Z
Phil Pepin
I will be doing a series of articles exposing commonly held political myths that many Americans have come to accept as historic fact. These myths were intentionally created by those directly involved in government and by its admirers who benefit from the expansion of state power. Over time, these relatively small groups, compared to the general population, have learned that controlling the public perception of government is essential to achieve their agenda. History teaches that, when government grows in size and power, freedom is destroyed for those subject to its rule. Only a few elite enjoy its benefits at the expense of the majority. It's vitally important that the focus needs to be on the supremacy of individual freedom. It must be considered the most precious possession that we have. The critical lesson of human history is how rarely individual freedom has been obtained, and how relatively easily it is for it to be taken away.
The primary reason why America is rapidly transforming into a totalitarian police state is that a majority of Americans are ignorant of history. This has led to a lack of interest in the political system. America has become a victim of it's own success because modern generations don't understand the sacrifices it took to develop the economy that has produced this great abundance we have known all our lives. This ignorance of the political system has allowed the government, by it's nature a parasite, to grow so large that it threatens to kill its host. Governments do not create wealth; they profit from the work of others. To put that in simple modern terms, government is the ultimate welfare recipient.
Thomas Paine said, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." The Federal Government has long ago passed the point of being intolerable. It's only relatively recently that a significant number of Americans have started to realize just how intolerable it has become.
The central government, created by the Constitution, has become the most powerful government in human history. It has amassed the greatest debt in human history. It's on track to become the most dangerous government in human history. The Constitution that was intended to limit the Federal Government has become a dead letter. I believe Americans face a similar situation that the German people faced in the 1930s. They too were manipulated through government-created crisis and elected the Nazi Party out of desperation. In our case, we have two tyrannical political parties that are only superficially different from each other. The deception has to be sophisticated because of the American tradition of individual freedom.
Both political parties use the Fabian Socialist technique of incremental change using the political system. The Stalinist approach is to use brute force against its people to achieve their goals. Fabian Socialists only resort to violence in very limited ways. It's heavily cloaked with legislation to give the appearance of legitimacy. They take over the political parties, education system and media in a coordinated effort to keep the general public ignorant of reality. Unfortunately, they have been extremely successful.
The purpose of this article is not to be an in-depth analysis of the entire political system but to reveal the truth behind the facade of the modern Republican Party. A party that has been in decline for years and appears to be on the path toward extinction. I don't believe that it's going disappear in the near future but, rather like the expansion of government, decline incrementally until it reaches the finally stages where the collapse accelerates.
The simplistic narrative that has developed over the years, and amazingly persists today, is that the Democratic Party is Liberal and the Republican Party is Conservative. Those who know the history behind the words Liberal and Conservative are aware that the meaning related to their political use has changed.
Since I'm analyzing the history of the Republican Party, I'll start with conservatism's definition. Traditional Conservatism -- or as it's also referred to as, Paleoconservatism or "Old Right" -- believes in Laissez-faire capitalism, limited government and a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy. To many, that might sound like a modern Libertarian. There are lots of similarities, but there seems to be a few important differences. Paleoconservatives tend to be devout Christians, usually Non-Zionist Christians. They are critical of the libertine attitude of many modern Libertarians. They tend to agree with Libertarians that government should not intervene in most of these social issues but will speak out in the court of public opinion against those values. The major dividing line is over abortion. A significant amount of Libertarians are pro-choice, while Paleoconservatives tend to be pro-life.
The history of Paleoeoconservatives is best summed up in the abstract of an article by Sheldon L. Richman, "New Deal Nemesis: The 'Old Right' Jeffersonians" published in The Independent Review: "The Old Right began as a diverse group of politicians, writers and activists awakened by a common threat: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his unprecedented accretion of executive power. The Old Right was not truly right-wing or conservative, drawing as it did from the ranks of "progressive" isolationists, Republican "conservative" isolationists, libertarian iconoclasts regarded as leftist radicals in the 1920s, conservative Democrats, social democratic historians, and free-market liberal economists and journalists."
For a more in-depth look at Paleoconservatism, I recommend the book Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement by Justin Raimondo.
That's the history of Conservatism and what it used to mean, but that's not what modern mainstream conservatism represents now. The Democratic Party lost its Jeffersonian heritage with the infiltration of Progressives in the late 19th century. They were in reality Marxists who called themselves Progressives. This may be a shock to modern Republicans, but there was a time when Democrats, though not perfect, were the ones who were strong on state sovereignty, for low taxes and limited government. They weren't the Marxist extremists that they have become.
In my opinion, based on historical facts, the Republican Party didn't really have such an infiltration. They already were, for all practical purposes, "Progressives." From its birth in 1854, the Republican Party didn't respect state sovereignty and wanted an all-powerful central government. They were for high taxes. In the early days, that meant high tariffs. They promoted mercantilism, now referred to as "corporatism," or often called "crony capitalism." They wanted a national central banking system similar to the current Federal Reserve System, which is at the center of the destruction of the financial sector and threatens our entire economy with inflationary fiat dollars and all the distortions of the economy that it causes. Republicans created the first fiat dollar; in the United States, they were called "greenbacks" and were not backed by gold or silver. They enacted the first income tax in 1861, which was repealed in 1871. With deceptive tactics, they started an unconstitutional war of aggression against fellow Americans. I will talk about the war in more detail in part 2. I'll explain why what we call the "Civil War" was unnecessary to end slavery and wasn't even about ending slavery. The primary reasons involved tariffs and Southern independence.
Two concepts of government emerged after the American Revolution, or more accurately called the war of secession from the British Empire. There was Thomas Jefferson's concept, summed up by Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, author of Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution -- and What It Means for America Today. As The Mises Review states:
"Thomas Jefferson supported the American Revolution in order to promote individual liberty. To secure this end, it was essential that the central government be strictly limited in its powers. America, in the Jeffersonian view, was an alliance of sovereign states, and the adoption of the Constitution, though it increased the power of the national government, did not fundamentally change this arrangement."
Professor DiLorenzo describes Hamilton's concept from his book Hamliton's Curse: "Hamilton proposed a kind of "king" who would yield supreme power over all people, who in turn would have essentially no say in how their government was run. The states would be mere provinces whose governors would be appointed by and loyal to the "king."Under such a regime, all political power in the nation would be exercised by the chief executive and his circle of advisors, which would undoubtedly have included Alexander Hamilton as perhaps the chief advisor."
Professor DiLorenzo points out that Hamilton did not secure what he wanted at the Constitutional Convention and called the Constitution "a frail and worthless fabric."
Hamilton's economic concepts were just as troubling. Professor DiLorenzo, in his article "The Founding Father of Crony Capitalism," describes his economic ideas: "It was Hamilton who coined the phrase 'The American System' to describe his economic policy of corporate welfare, protectionist tariffs, central banking, and a large public debt, even though his political descendants, the Whig Party of Henry Clay, popularized the slogan. He was not well schooled in the economics of his day."
Professor DiLorenzo shows the connection between Hamilton's "American System" and the Whig Party of Henry Clay. The Whig Party base fractured, and eventually the party failed. It was replaced by the Republican Party. The name was changed, but the philosophy didn't.
In part two of "The myth of a limited-government Republican Party," I will expose the greatest myth in American history. It has proven to be one of the most dangerous to liberty.
Phil Pepin
Host of Pursuit Of Freedom
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/046666_political_myths_Republican_Party_American_government.html#ixzz3BzjM1u1Z
Friday, August 29, 2014
American interventionists can't have it both ways...
What James Foley’s Murder Says about the U.S.
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Given that the Islamic State subjected American citizen James Foley to physical abuse, waterboarding, and extra-judicial execution, U.S. officials and American interventionists, including those in the mainstream media, are describing the Islamic State as savage and barbaric.
But wait a minute! When the U.S. government was doing those same things, weren’t U.S. officials and American interventionists saying that such actions weren’t any big deal? Didn’t they continuously refer to physical abuse and waterboarding of U.S. captives as nothing more than “harsh interrogation techniques”?
I’ll bet that when Foley was being physically abused and waterboarded by his captures, he didn’t think to himself, “Oh well, it’s nothing more than a harsh interrogation technique that I’m being subjected to.” I’ll bet he believed he was being brutally tortured. And it seems that U.S. officials and American interventionists believe the same thing.
Yet, isn’t that what the U.S. government has been doing to its captives at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and its super-secret prisoner installations in Poland and elsewhere? Hasn’t it been subjecting its captives to physical abuse and waterboarding? Indeed, haven’t many U.S. captives been kidnapped and whisked away for indefinite detention without trial and torture?
And let’s not forget rendition. That’s the program by which U.S. officials were sending people into the clutches of friendly dictatorial regimes to have them do the torturing instead. That’s what the partnership between the U.S. government and the Assad regime in Syria was all about—to enable a foreign team of friendly torturers to torture U.S. captives so that the U.S. government could say that they weren’t torturing people.
Kidnapping? That’s what ISIS did to Foley and its other captives. It’s a brutal criminal offense and has long been recognized as such by all civilized people.
But what about the U.S. government’s kidnapping of people? According to U.S. officials and American interventionists (including those in the mainstream media), when the U.S. government kidnaps people, it’s not really a crime because, well, it’s the U.S. government that is doing it for purposes of “national security.”
Recall the brutal kidnapping in Italy a few years ago committed by several CIA agents. They kidnapped a guy who they then transported to the Egyptian military dictatorship, which was serving as a partner in the U.S. government’s torture-rendition program, where he was brutally tortured. The Italian courts indicted and convicted the CIA agents of kidnapping, which, needless to say, is a criminal offense under Italian law, just as it is under U.S. law.
But did the CIA agents face justice in Italy for their crime? Did the U.S. government extradite them to Italy to face justice? Of course not. The reason is that under U.S. national-security state doctrine, either their kidnapping wasn’t considered a crime or, if it was, they were considered immune from criminal prosecution because they were engaged in a “national security” operation.
The execution of James Foley? A brutal murder, no doubt about it, as U.S. officials and American interventionists, including those in the mainstream media, are saying.
But where were those people when we libertarians were speaking out against the CIA’s murder of Manadel al-Jamadi, the Iraqi military officer who was a POW being held at Abu Ghraib prison? The CIA murdered him in cold blood, and yet no one ever been charged with that offense. That’s because it’s the CIA that murdered him, and no one is going to jack with the CIA, which has long had a license to kidnap, detain, assassinate, and execute anyone with impunity, at least insofar as they related it to “national security,” the term that has come to trump constitutional provisions, criminal law, civil law, and basic moral principles.
And let’s not forget the U.S. government’s assassination program, by which it kills people without any trial or due process of law. Is extra-judicial assassination really any different in principle from extra-judicial execution?
Ever since 9/11, libertarians have been arguing against the U.S. government’s moving our nation into the dark side as part of its “war on terrorism.” We have ardently opposed such things as kidnapping, torture, murder, assassination, and other criminal offenses.
Interventionists have scoffed, claiming the dark side was necessary to fight the “war on terrorism.” Of course, they said the same thing during the Cold War, when the U.S. national security state was embracing Nazis, subjecting unknowing Americans to drug experiments, entering into assassination deals with the Mafia, assassinating innocent people, partnering with brutal dictatorships, and engaging in other communist-like actions.
If the Cold War and the war on terrorism really necessitated moving into the dark side, then that, in and of itself, should cause Americans to question the entire Cold War and “war on terrorism” paradigms because nothing can justify such actions as kidnapping, torture, and murder, regardless of who is committing them. What the Islamic State did to Foley should serve as a wake-up call for what the U.S. national-security state and its pro-empire, interventionist foreign policy have done to America.
Link:
http://fff.org/2014/08/29/what-james-foleys-murder-says-about-the-u-s/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Given that the Islamic State subjected American citizen James Foley to physical abuse, waterboarding, and extra-judicial execution, U.S. officials and American interventionists, including those in the mainstream media, are describing the Islamic State as savage and barbaric.
But wait a minute! When the U.S. government was doing those same things, weren’t U.S. officials and American interventionists saying that such actions weren’t any big deal? Didn’t they continuously refer to physical abuse and waterboarding of U.S. captives as nothing more than “harsh interrogation techniques”?
I’ll bet that when Foley was being physically abused and waterboarded by his captures, he didn’t think to himself, “Oh well, it’s nothing more than a harsh interrogation technique that I’m being subjected to.” I’ll bet he believed he was being brutally tortured. And it seems that U.S. officials and American interventionists believe the same thing.
Yet, isn’t that what the U.S. government has been doing to its captives at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and its super-secret prisoner installations in Poland and elsewhere? Hasn’t it been subjecting its captives to physical abuse and waterboarding? Indeed, haven’t many U.S. captives been kidnapped and whisked away for indefinite detention without trial and torture?
And let’s not forget rendition. That’s the program by which U.S. officials were sending people into the clutches of friendly dictatorial regimes to have them do the torturing instead. That’s what the partnership between the U.S. government and the Assad regime in Syria was all about—to enable a foreign team of friendly torturers to torture U.S. captives so that the U.S. government could say that they weren’t torturing people.
Kidnapping? That’s what ISIS did to Foley and its other captives. It’s a brutal criminal offense and has long been recognized as such by all civilized people.
But what about the U.S. government’s kidnapping of people? According to U.S. officials and American interventionists (including those in the mainstream media), when the U.S. government kidnaps people, it’s not really a crime because, well, it’s the U.S. government that is doing it for purposes of “national security.”
Recall the brutal kidnapping in Italy a few years ago committed by several CIA agents. They kidnapped a guy who they then transported to the Egyptian military dictatorship, which was serving as a partner in the U.S. government’s torture-rendition program, where he was brutally tortured. The Italian courts indicted and convicted the CIA agents of kidnapping, which, needless to say, is a criminal offense under Italian law, just as it is under U.S. law.
But did the CIA agents face justice in Italy for their crime? Did the U.S. government extradite them to Italy to face justice? Of course not. The reason is that under U.S. national-security state doctrine, either their kidnapping wasn’t considered a crime or, if it was, they were considered immune from criminal prosecution because they were engaged in a “national security” operation.
The execution of James Foley? A brutal murder, no doubt about it, as U.S. officials and American interventionists, including those in the mainstream media, are saying.
But where were those people when we libertarians were speaking out against the CIA’s murder of Manadel al-Jamadi, the Iraqi military officer who was a POW being held at Abu Ghraib prison? The CIA murdered him in cold blood, and yet no one ever been charged with that offense. That’s because it’s the CIA that murdered him, and no one is going to jack with the CIA, which has long had a license to kidnap, detain, assassinate, and execute anyone with impunity, at least insofar as they related it to “national security,” the term that has come to trump constitutional provisions, criminal law, civil law, and basic moral principles.
And let’s not forget the U.S. government’s assassination program, by which it kills people without any trial or due process of law. Is extra-judicial assassination really any different in principle from extra-judicial execution?
Ever since 9/11, libertarians have been arguing against the U.S. government’s moving our nation into the dark side as part of its “war on terrorism.” We have ardently opposed such things as kidnapping, torture, murder, assassination, and other criminal offenses.
Interventionists have scoffed, claiming the dark side was necessary to fight the “war on terrorism.” Of course, they said the same thing during the Cold War, when the U.S. national security state was embracing Nazis, subjecting unknowing Americans to drug experiments, entering into assassination deals with the Mafia, assassinating innocent people, partnering with brutal dictatorships, and engaging in other communist-like actions.
If the Cold War and the war on terrorism really necessitated moving into the dark side, then that, in and of itself, should cause Americans to question the entire Cold War and “war on terrorism” paradigms because nothing can justify such actions as kidnapping, torture, and murder, regardless of who is committing them. What the Islamic State did to Foley should serve as a wake-up call for what the U.S. national-security state and its pro-empire, interventionist foreign policy have done to America.
Link:
http://fff.org/2014/08/29/what-james-foleys-murder-says-about-the-u-s/
" Ferguson is a flash-point in the cycle of war. It is becoming the government against the people."
Ferguson – Missing the Point
By Martin Armstrong
A few people have sent emails justifying the killing of Brown saying they will prove he was dangerous and on drugs. It really is irrelevant. Aside from the fact there is the little Commandment that says thou shalt not kill with no exception if you have a badge, the only justifiable reason to kill someone is in self-defense. Ferguson is a flash-point. Justifying the shooting is irrelevant. This is no longer a race riot, it is being seen worldwide as war waged by military troops pretending to be police and this crosses the line for that same level of force will be used against white protesters when the economy turns down. The goal is to be so harsh and cruel, like in Donetsk, anyone who disagrees better not show their face.
Ferguson is a flash-point in the cycle of war. It is becoming the government against the people. Police have been mandated to militarize under 1033. We have the police forces going simply nuts. In Florida, police bought 8 Apache Attack Helicopters for Brevard County. When you have every person armed walking around town, shit happens.
I was in Washington DC and one of these police was walking around at the train station with a bullet-proof vest and a machine-gun. He did not look to be as smart as an average teenager, just mean, nasty, and looking for a fight. The typical school-yard bully type. He gave the impression that if you spit-out hot coffee on you and jumped up suddenly, he would shoot first and ask questions later. There was nothing going on there that day. Just this one power-crazed guy. I have been in countries like that. It is never a safe feeling.
This is not whether Brown was a good guy or bad. This is a flash-point and it is moving beyond racism. This is something that is spreading once again into 2017-2018.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/no_author/the-flash-point-for-civil-war/
By Martin Armstrong
A few people have sent emails justifying the killing of Brown saying they will prove he was dangerous and on drugs. It really is irrelevant. Aside from the fact there is the little Commandment that says thou shalt not kill with no exception if you have a badge, the only justifiable reason to kill someone is in self-defense. Ferguson is a flash-point. Justifying the shooting is irrelevant. This is no longer a race riot, it is being seen worldwide as war waged by military troops pretending to be police and this crosses the line for that same level of force will be used against white protesters when the economy turns down. The goal is to be so harsh and cruel, like in Donetsk, anyone who disagrees better not show their face.
Ferguson is a flash-point in the cycle of war. It is becoming the government against the people. Police have been mandated to militarize under 1033. We have the police forces going simply nuts. In Florida, police bought 8 Apache Attack Helicopters for Brevard County. When you have every person armed walking around town, shit happens.
I was in Washington DC and one of these police was walking around at the train station with a bullet-proof vest and a machine-gun. He did not look to be as smart as an average teenager, just mean, nasty, and looking for a fight. The typical school-yard bully type. He gave the impression that if you spit-out hot coffee on you and jumped up suddenly, he would shoot first and ask questions later. There was nothing going on there that day. Just this one power-crazed guy. I have been in countries like that. It is never a safe feeling.
This is not whether Brown was a good guy or bad. This is a flash-point and it is moving beyond racism. This is something that is spreading once again into 2017-2018.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/no_author/the-flash-point-for-civil-war/
"...sometimes they are accidents. Sometimes, they’re not."
Curious Car Crashes: Louis Freeh, The Man With The Secrets
By Russ Baker
Any serious student of history is on alert for “interesting accidents.” Because sometimes they are accidents. Sometimes, they’re not.
We have no opinion at the moment on the one-car-wreck that left former FBI director Louis Freeh badly injured around noon on August 25, other than to note some curious facts: the police were hours late informing the office of the governor of Vermont; Freeh was flown by helicopter to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in New Hampshire under armed guard, and has remained under armed guard; the hospital has refused to confirm that he is a patient, even after reports of two surgeries; at least for the first few days no one has answered the phones at his company, Freeh Group International.
The Crash
From news reports available at press time, Freeh
was headed south on Vermont 12 in his 2010 GMC Yukon when he drove off the east side of the road. The vehicle struck a mailbox and a row of shrubs, then came to rest against the side of a tree, police said…
Louis Freeh
Louis Freeh epitomizes the risks attendant in a president’s decision to demonstrate bipartisanship by appointing or re-appointing figures associated with the opposing political party and/or prior regime. He also embodies the troubled legacy of the Bureau from its earliest days. (For a look at how the U.S. media cooperated with the Bureau to misleadingly burnish its image, see this)
Louis Freeh was appointed by George H.W. Bush to the federal bench in 1991. In the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, Clinton named Freeh head of the FBI.
Right from the start, the Freeh FBI was drenched in controversy. The “screw-ups” were legion—from the exposure of fraudulent FBI crime lab results to the wrongful blaming of an innocent man for the bombings at the Atlanta Olympics—to the bloody standoff and shootout at Ruby Ridge.
Freeh vs the Clintons
In order to move the heat off himself and his agency, Freeh made political peace with Newt Gingrich and his firebrand GOP Congressional operation, deflecting the political pressure back onto the White House. He did this via a Campaign Finance Task Force under the auspices of his parent agency, the Justice Department, established in December of 1996 after Clinton’s re-election. This became, prior to 9/11, what some say was the largest federal investigation in U.S. history.
Over 300 FBI agents were assigned to the investigation, which targeted both Clinton and Gore. No one was ever indicted but a steady drip of leaked stories pounded Gore particularly—feeding the damaging story line that he was a captive of the China Lobby and possibly even compromised by certain foreign intelligence services. This long-simmering PR crisis did serious damage to Al Gore’s prospects in 2000, and thereby aided the campaign of George W. Bush, son of Freeh’s original sponsor.
Freeh, the Saudis and Terrorism
Even more fraught was Freeh’s behavior during the investigation of the massive bombing of U.S. military facilities at the Khobar Towers development in Saudi Arabia. According to the former counterintelligence officials Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon in the book The Age of Sacred Terror, Clinton foreign policy officials felt that Freeh was deeply influenced by the Saudi power structure.
Eventually, Freeh, according to the authors, called the elder Bush and asked him to intervene with Crown Prince Abdullah to allow FBI agents to watch through a one-way mirror while Saudi agents questioned Khobar bombing suspects. They allege that he ignored the chain of command and Clinton’s National Security Council in bringing Bush Sr. into these sensitive negotiations.
In his memoirs, Freeh claimed that Clinton suspected the Saudis, while suggesting that he himself was convinced that Iranian operatives had executed the bombing. (It’s important here to note the Bush family’s long and close ties to the Saudi royal family and the political agenda at work in shifting blame to the hated Iranians.)
Freeh also curtailed FBI agent John P. O’Neill’s investigation into a possible Al Qaeda role in the Khobar bombing and the later attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen. Freeh even pulled O’Neill out of Yemen during the Cole investigation. By transferring O’Neill to New York City, Freeh sided with U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, a Clinton holdover in the new Bush administration, and with Saudi officials who wanted O’Neill out of their way. The aim, it appears, was to shield certain suspects (and any possible sponsors) from over-zealous American investigators. Later, Freeh thwarted O’Neill’s efforts to become head of the FBI NYC field office.
In an extraordinary turn of events, John O’Neill died in the destruction of the Twin Towers—which were allegedly brought down by a group of hijackers dominated by Saudi nationals.
***
If he dared, Louis Freeh could shed a great deal of light on two decades of frequent security emergencies that have led to the greatest buildup of state power in the history of the United States—and limited Americans’ freedom and privacy as never before. Freeh’s strange crash—like most such incidents (see the bizarre one-car crash that killed national security reporter Michael Hastings) – will almost certainly be explained as a flukish accident.
And Freeh, the lucky survivor, is unlikely to volunteer to spread truth about the crash, or any of the other curious events in which he has been involved as the consummate intelligence-establishment insider.
See more at: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/08/28/curious-car-crashes-louis-freeh-the-man-with-the-secrets/#sthash.PAAmiPlh.dpuf
By Russ Baker
Any serious student of history is on alert for “interesting accidents.” Because sometimes they are accidents. Sometimes, they’re not.
We have no opinion at the moment on the one-car-wreck that left former FBI director Louis Freeh badly injured around noon on August 25, other than to note some curious facts: the police were hours late informing the office of the governor of Vermont; Freeh was flown by helicopter to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in New Hampshire under armed guard, and has remained under armed guard; the hospital has refused to confirm that he is a patient, even after reports of two surgeries; at least for the first few days no one has answered the phones at his company, Freeh Group International.
The Crash
From news reports available at press time, Freeh
was headed south on Vermont 12 in his 2010 GMC Yukon when he drove off the east side of the road. The vehicle struck a mailbox and a row of shrubs, then came to rest against the side of a tree, police said…
Louis Freeh
Louis Freeh epitomizes the risks attendant in a president’s decision to demonstrate bipartisanship by appointing or re-appointing figures associated with the opposing political party and/or prior regime. He also embodies the troubled legacy of the Bureau from its earliest days. (For a look at how the U.S. media cooperated with the Bureau to misleadingly burnish its image, see this)
Louis Freeh was appointed by George H.W. Bush to the federal bench in 1991. In the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, Clinton named Freeh head of the FBI.
Right from the start, the Freeh FBI was drenched in controversy. The “screw-ups” were legion—from the exposure of fraudulent FBI crime lab results to the wrongful blaming of an innocent man for the bombings at the Atlanta Olympics—to the bloody standoff and shootout at Ruby Ridge.
Freeh vs the Clintons
In order to move the heat off himself and his agency, Freeh made political peace with Newt Gingrich and his firebrand GOP Congressional operation, deflecting the political pressure back onto the White House. He did this via a Campaign Finance Task Force under the auspices of his parent agency, the Justice Department, established in December of 1996 after Clinton’s re-election. This became, prior to 9/11, what some say was the largest federal investigation in U.S. history.
Over 300 FBI agents were assigned to the investigation, which targeted both Clinton and Gore. No one was ever indicted but a steady drip of leaked stories pounded Gore particularly—feeding the damaging story line that he was a captive of the China Lobby and possibly even compromised by certain foreign intelligence services. This long-simmering PR crisis did serious damage to Al Gore’s prospects in 2000, and thereby aided the campaign of George W. Bush, son of Freeh’s original sponsor.
Freeh, the Saudis and Terrorism
Even more fraught was Freeh’s behavior during the investigation of the massive bombing of U.S. military facilities at the Khobar Towers development in Saudi Arabia. According to the former counterintelligence officials Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon in the book The Age of Sacred Terror, Clinton foreign policy officials felt that Freeh was deeply influenced by the Saudi power structure.
Eventually, Freeh, according to the authors, called the elder Bush and asked him to intervene with Crown Prince Abdullah to allow FBI agents to watch through a one-way mirror while Saudi agents questioned Khobar bombing suspects. They allege that he ignored the chain of command and Clinton’s National Security Council in bringing Bush Sr. into these sensitive negotiations.
In his memoirs, Freeh claimed that Clinton suspected the Saudis, while suggesting that he himself was convinced that Iranian operatives had executed the bombing. (It’s important here to note the Bush family’s long and close ties to the Saudi royal family and the political agenda at work in shifting blame to the hated Iranians.)
Freeh also curtailed FBI agent John P. O’Neill’s investigation into a possible Al Qaeda role in the Khobar bombing and the later attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen. Freeh even pulled O’Neill out of Yemen during the Cole investigation. By transferring O’Neill to New York City, Freeh sided with U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, a Clinton holdover in the new Bush administration, and with Saudi officials who wanted O’Neill out of their way. The aim, it appears, was to shield certain suspects (and any possible sponsors) from over-zealous American investigators. Later, Freeh thwarted O’Neill’s efforts to become head of the FBI NYC field office.
In an extraordinary turn of events, John O’Neill died in the destruction of the Twin Towers—which were allegedly brought down by a group of hijackers dominated by Saudi nationals.
***
If he dared, Louis Freeh could shed a great deal of light on two decades of frequent security emergencies that have led to the greatest buildup of state power in the history of the United States—and limited Americans’ freedom and privacy as never before. Freeh’s strange crash—like most such incidents (see the bizarre one-car crash that killed national security reporter Michael Hastings) – will almost certainly be explained as a flukish accident.
And Freeh, the lucky survivor, is unlikely to volunteer to spread truth about the crash, or any of the other curious events in which he has been involved as the consummate intelligence-establishment insider.
See more at: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/08/28/curious-car-crashes-louis-freeh-the-man-with-the-secrets/#sthash.PAAmiPlh.dpuf
Where do they keep getting these people from???
Elizabeth Warren Finally Speaks on Israel/Gaza, Sounds Like Netanyahu
By Glenn Greenwald
The last time Elizabeth Warren was asked about her views on the Israeli attack on Gaza – on July 17 – she, as Rania Khalek put it, “literally ran away” without answering. But last week, the liberal Senator appeared for one of her regularly scheduled “office hours” with her Massachusetts constituents, this one in Hyannis, and, as a local paper reported, she had nowhere to run.
One voter who identified himself as a Warren supporter, John Bangert, stood up and objected to her recent vote, in the middle of the horrific attack on Gaza, to send yet another $225 million of American taxpayer money to Israel for its “Iron Dome” system. Banger told his Senator: “We are disagreeing with Israel using their guns against innocents. It’s true in Ferguson, Missouri, and it’s true in Israel . . . The vote was wrong, I believe.” To crowd applause, Bangert told Warren that the money “could have been spent on infrastructure or helping immigrants fleeing Central America.”
But Warren steadfastly defended her “pro-Israel” vote, invoking the politician’s platitude: “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.” According to the account in the Cape Cod Times by reporter C. Ryan Barber, flagged by Zaid Jilani, Warren was also asked about her Israel position by other voters who were at the gathering, and she went on to explain:
“I think the vote was right, and I’ll tell you why I think the vote was right. America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”
Warren said Hamas has attacked Israel “indiscriminately,” but with the Iron Dome defense system, the missiles have “not had the terrorist effect Hamas hoped for.” When pressed by another member of the crowd about civilian casualties from Israel’s attacks, Warren said she believes those casualties are the “last thing Israel wants.”
“But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself,” Warren said, drawing applause.
Warren even rejected a different voter’s suggestion that the U.S. force Israel to at least cease building illegal settlements by withholding further aid: “Noreen Thompsen, of Eastham, proposed that Israel should be prevented from building any more settlements as a condition of future U.S. funding, but Warren said, ‘I think there’s a question of whether we should go that far.’”
In her defense, Warren has long been clear that this is what she would do. Her Senate campaign website still contains statements such as “it is a moral imperative to support and defend Israel” and ”as a United States Senator, I will work to ensure Israel’s security and success.”
During her time in the national spotlight, Warren has focused overwhelmingly on domestic issues, rarely venturing into foreign policy discussions. Many of those domestic views, particularly her strident-for-D.C. opposition to banks, have been admirable, elevating her to hero status for many progressives.
But when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe of the kind that she just recited about Israel and Gaza. During her Senate campaign, for instance, she issued wildly militaristic – and in some cases clearly false – statements about Iran and its nuclear program that would have been comfortable on the pages of The Weekly Standard.
Even as conservative Democratic Senate candidates from red states such as Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey were vehemently condemning the threat of war against Iran during their campaigns, Warren was claiming (contrary to the U.S. Government’s own assessment) that “Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons”, adding: “I support strong sanctions against Iran and believe that the United States must also continue to take a leadership role in pushing other countries to implement strong sanctions as well.” Those claims about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons remained her position even after she was told that they squarely contradict the U.S. intelligence community’s clear assessment of Iran’s actions.
In related news, the British newspaper The Telegraph yesterday published the names of all 504 children who were killed in Gaza over the last 50 days by Israel. In the last week, Israel deliberately destroyed an entire large residential apartment building after giving its residents less than an hour to vacate, leaving more than 40 families homeless, and also destroyed a seven-story office building and two-story shopping center (the video of the apartment building destruction is online and ugly to watch).
Echoing Benjamin Nentayahu (and Hillary Clinton), Elizabeth Warren’s clear position is that Israel bears none of the blame for any of this. Or, to use her words, “when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself.” Such carnage is the ”last thing Israel wants.” The last thing. That, ladies and gentlemen, is your inspiring left-wing icon of the Democratic Party.
Link:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/28/elizabeth-warren-speaks-israelgaza-sounds-like-netanyahu/
By Glenn Greenwald
The last time Elizabeth Warren was asked about her views on the Israeli attack on Gaza – on July 17 – she, as Rania Khalek put it, “literally ran away” without answering. But last week, the liberal Senator appeared for one of her regularly scheduled “office hours” with her Massachusetts constituents, this one in Hyannis, and, as a local paper reported, she had nowhere to run.
One voter who identified himself as a Warren supporter, John Bangert, stood up and objected to her recent vote, in the middle of the horrific attack on Gaza, to send yet another $225 million of American taxpayer money to Israel for its “Iron Dome” system. Banger told his Senator: “We are disagreeing with Israel using their guns against innocents. It’s true in Ferguson, Missouri, and it’s true in Israel . . . The vote was wrong, I believe.” To crowd applause, Bangert told Warren that the money “could have been spent on infrastructure or helping immigrants fleeing Central America.”
But Warren steadfastly defended her “pro-Israel” vote, invoking the politician’s platitude: “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.” According to the account in the Cape Cod Times by reporter C. Ryan Barber, flagged by Zaid Jilani, Warren was also asked about her Israel position by other voters who were at the gathering, and she went on to explain:
“I think the vote was right, and I’ll tell you why I think the vote was right. America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”
Warren said Hamas has attacked Israel “indiscriminately,” but with the Iron Dome defense system, the missiles have “not had the terrorist effect Hamas hoped for.” When pressed by another member of the crowd about civilian casualties from Israel’s attacks, Warren said she believes those casualties are the “last thing Israel wants.”
“But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself,” Warren said, drawing applause.
Warren even rejected a different voter’s suggestion that the U.S. force Israel to at least cease building illegal settlements by withholding further aid: “Noreen Thompsen, of Eastham, proposed that Israel should be prevented from building any more settlements as a condition of future U.S. funding, but Warren said, ‘I think there’s a question of whether we should go that far.’”
In her defense, Warren has long been clear that this is what she would do. Her Senate campaign website still contains statements such as “it is a moral imperative to support and defend Israel” and ”as a United States Senator, I will work to ensure Israel’s security and success.”
During her time in the national spotlight, Warren has focused overwhelmingly on domestic issues, rarely venturing into foreign policy discussions. Many of those domestic views, particularly her strident-for-D.C. opposition to banks, have been admirable, elevating her to hero status for many progressives.
But when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe of the kind that she just recited about Israel and Gaza. During her Senate campaign, for instance, she issued wildly militaristic – and in some cases clearly false – statements about Iran and its nuclear program that would have been comfortable on the pages of The Weekly Standard.
Even as conservative Democratic Senate candidates from red states such as Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey were vehemently condemning the threat of war against Iran during their campaigns, Warren was claiming (contrary to the U.S. Government’s own assessment) that “Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons”, adding: “I support strong sanctions against Iran and believe that the United States must also continue to take a leadership role in pushing other countries to implement strong sanctions as well.” Those claims about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons remained her position even after she was told that they squarely contradict the U.S. intelligence community’s clear assessment of Iran’s actions.
In related news, the British newspaper The Telegraph yesterday published the names of all 504 children who were killed in Gaza over the last 50 days by Israel. In the last week, Israel deliberately destroyed an entire large residential apartment building after giving its residents less than an hour to vacate, leaving more than 40 families homeless, and also destroyed a seven-story office building and two-story shopping center (the video of the apartment building destruction is online and ugly to watch).
Echoing Benjamin Nentayahu (and Hillary Clinton), Elizabeth Warren’s clear position is that Israel bears none of the blame for any of this. Or, to use her words, “when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself.” Such carnage is the ”last thing Israel wants.” The last thing. That, ladies and gentlemen, is your inspiring left-wing icon of the Democratic Party.
Link:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/28/elizabeth-warren-speaks-israelgaza-sounds-like-netanyahu/
" Is any more evidence needed that Washington has gone stark raving mad...???"
Bombs Away Over Syria! Washington Has Gone Stark Raving Mad
By David Stockman
America’s spanker-in-chief is at it again—threatening to bomb Syria owing to the uncivilized actions of its inhabitants. And when it comes to Syria, Washington avers that there are punishable malefactors virtually everywhere within its borders.
Exactly one year ago Obama proposed to take Bashar Al Assad to the woodshed because he had allegedly unleashed a vicious chemical attack on his own citizens. That was all pretext, of course, because even the CIA
refused to sign-off on the flimsy case for Assad’s culpability at the time—-a reluctance corroborated since then by the considerable evidence that hundreds of Syrian civilians were murdered during a false flag operation staged by the rebels with help from Turkey. The aim of the rebels, of course, was to activate American tomahawk missiles and bombers in behalf of “regime change”, which was also the stated goal of the Obama Administration.
Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again, but this time its “regime change” objective has been expanded to include both sides! In 12 short months what had been the allegedly heroic Sunni opposition to the “brutal rule” of the Assad/Alawite minority has transmuted into the “greatest terrorist threat ever”, according to the Secretary of Defense.
So Obama has already unleashed the drones and surveillance apparatus to identify targets of attack that will help bring down a regime in northern and eastern Syria—the so-called Islamic State—which did not even exist a year ago. And a regime that is now armed to the teeth with America’s own latest and greatest weaponry as previously supplied to the disintegrated Iraqi army and the Syrian rebels trained by the CIA in Jordan.
Adding to this blinding farce is the warning of Syria’s Foreign Affairs minister that Obama should please to request permission before he rains destruction from the sky on the Opposition—-that is, the opposition to the very same Damascus regime which the White House has vowed to eradicate. Needless to say, the Washington apparatus is having nothing to do with aiding the enemy of its new enemy:
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday tried to tamp down the notion that action against the Islamic State group could bolster Assad, saying, “We’re not interested in trying to help the Assad regime.” However, he acknowledged that “there are a lot of cross pressures
In fact, there is apparently an option emerging from the bowels of the war machine that calls for an odd/even day plan to bomb both sides, thereby making clear that Washington is an equal opportunity spanker. Apparently, whether you use a 12th century sword or 20th century attack helicopter as a means of rule, you will be bombed by the “indispensable nation”, as Obama put it, adding that “no other nation can do what we do”.
Well, that involves some “doing”. According to AP, it appears that Syrian airstrikes are imminent, but could be carried out under the odd/even day plan:
“In an effort to avoid unintentionally strengthening the Syrian government, the White House could seek to balance strikes against the Islamic State with attacks on Assad regime targets.”
Is any more evidence needed that Washington has gone stark raving mad than even the possibility that such an absurd option could be under consideration? Has not the imperial city on the Potomac become so inured to its pretensions of global hegemony and to instant resort to deployment of its war machine that any semblance of rationality and coherence has been dissolved?
Indeed, in the context of Syria’s fractured and riven tribal, religious and political splinters how could anyone in their right mind think that a bombing campaign without boots on the ground will accomplish anything other than function as a potent recruiting tool for ISIS, and a generator of jihadist blowback for years to come. By the same token, the White House’s polling machine surely documents that an outright Iraq-style invasion of the Islamic State is overwhelmingly opposed by the American people, and rightly so.
Accordingly, the silly, hapless man in the Oval Office stumbles forward, apparently unaware that he’s not merely playing video games during his sojourns in the Situation Room. Indeed, the make-believe “nuanced” bombing options that are likely to be ground out by the national security machinery are destined to fail and drag Washington ever deeper into the violent cauldron of Mesopotamia and the Levant. The trillions of treasure wasted, the millions of lives lost and the venomous tribal enmities resulting from Washington’s misbegotten ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan provide all the proof that is needed.
The fact is, the artificial states created by the Sykes-Picot map drawn up by the French and British foreign offices in 1916—- as they carved up the Ottoman empire— are now destined for the dustbin of history. The fracturing remnants of Syria and Iraq cannot be fused back together by means of lethal deposits of metal and chemicals delivered by tomahawks and F-16s.
So let the region rearrange itself without Washington’s unwelcome meddling and mayhem. If Turkey and an independent Kurdistan can make mutually acceptable political and economic arrangements, which are already well-advanced, so be it. If the Shiite south in Iraq and the Alawite/Shiite southwest in Syria break-off from their present Europe-bequeathed boundaries and form independent regimes, how does that jeopardize the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE and Spokane WA?
And, yes, if the Islamic State temporarily manages to coalesce within the Sunni lands of the Euphrates Valley and the upper Tigress why is that really a national security threat which requires launching an unwinnable war, a new round of hostility to America in the Islamic world and the blowback of legions of jihadi with a score to settle?
Now that you know about the Yazidis, did you ever hear of the Sheitaat tribe of Sunnis who inhabit the minor oil province around Deir al-Zor in northeastern Syria? There appear to be about 100,000 members of that sect in the region and they have been declared apostates by the medieval butchers who run ISIS:
Hundreds of members of the Sheitaat clan have been executed after their tribe refused to submit to Islamic State. The entire tribe have been deemed “hostile apostates” by the group, an offshoot of al Qaeda that has declared a “caliphate” in the territory it holds.
Islamic State has declared the Sheitaat tribe “an unbelieving sect” that should be fought as if they were infidels, according to a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the Syrian war.
At least 700 hundred members of the tribe have already been executed, the Observatory reported on Aug. 16.
Another 1,800 are still missing after being detained by Islamic State, according to the Observatory, which gathers information from all sides in the Syrian war. Its efforts to pledge allegiance to Islamic State have been rebuffed.
Pictures of the bodies of men apparently slain by Islamic State fighters in Sheitaat areas are surfacing every day, said Rami Abdelrahman, founder of the Observatory. “We have repeatedly expressed concerns about extermination,” he said.
“It is the first time that the Islamic State has used these (religious) concepts against an entire tribe,” he said.
Three Sheitaat villages seized by Islamic State have been designated as a military zone, the rebel and another activist from the area said. The clan’s property and livestock have also been seized, another person from the area said.
Islamic State has declared that no truce is possible with the Sheitaat, that its prisoners can be killed, and its women are unfit for marriage, according to the Observatory.
“We’re still seeing Islamic State trucks loaded up with furniture and rugs from Sheitaat homes in those villages, which are now totally abandoned,” said one person from the area contacted by internet link, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Islamic State has started to use house demolitions as a punishment. A video posted over the weekend shows what appears to be the detonation of a rural home as the narrator, who identifies himself as from Islamic State, explains that the home belongs to Sheitaat “apostates”.
Why would you believe that a viable state can be built in today’s world on the tactics of Genghis Kahn? The Islamic State, such as it is, is not rich, does not have enough oil to make a difference, will soon be bogged down in the insuperable problems of governance by the sword and will flounder on the impoverished economics of the dusty villages and desert expanse which comprise its natural territory. And it will eventually mobilize its neighbors—-Turkey, Hezbollah, the rump regime of Assad’s Alawite Syria, Kurdistan, the Shiite alliance of Iran and lower Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia and the oil sheikdoms—to contain its external ambitions.
So Washington should call off the bombers and get out of harm’s way. The American Imperium has failed and the prospect of bombing both sides of an irrelevant non-country’s ancient tribal wars ought, at last, to make that much clear.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/08/bombs-away-over-syria-washington-has.html#more
By David Stockman
America’s spanker-in-chief is at it again—threatening to bomb Syria owing to the uncivilized actions of its inhabitants. And when it comes to Syria, Washington avers that there are punishable malefactors virtually everywhere within its borders.
Exactly one year ago Obama proposed to take Bashar Al Assad to the woodshed because he had allegedly unleashed a vicious chemical attack on his own citizens. That was all pretext, of course, because even the CIA
refused to sign-off on the flimsy case for Assad’s culpability at the time—-a reluctance corroborated since then by the considerable evidence that hundreds of Syrian civilians were murdered during a false flag operation staged by the rebels with help from Turkey. The aim of the rebels, of course, was to activate American tomahawk missiles and bombers in behalf of “regime change”, which was also the stated goal of the Obama Administration.
Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again, but this time its “regime change” objective has been expanded to include both sides! In 12 short months what had been the allegedly heroic Sunni opposition to the “brutal rule” of the Assad/Alawite minority has transmuted into the “greatest terrorist threat ever”, according to the Secretary of Defense.
So Obama has already unleashed the drones and surveillance apparatus to identify targets of attack that will help bring down a regime in northern and eastern Syria—the so-called Islamic State—which did not even exist a year ago. And a regime that is now armed to the teeth with America’s own latest and greatest weaponry as previously supplied to the disintegrated Iraqi army and the Syrian rebels trained by the CIA in Jordan.
Adding to this blinding farce is the warning of Syria’s Foreign Affairs minister that Obama should please to request permission before he rains destruction from the sky on the Opposition—-that is, the opposition to the very same Damascus regime which the White House has vowed to eradicate. Needless to say, the Washington apparatus is having nothing to do with aiding the enemy of its new enemy:
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday tried to tamp down the notion that action against the Islamic State group could bolster Assad, saying, “We’re not interested in trying to help the Assad regime.” However, he acknowledged that “there are a lot of cross pressures
In fact, there is apparently an option emerging from the bowels of the war machine that calls for an odd/even day plan to bomb both sides, thereby making clear that Washington is an equal opportunity spanker. Apparently, whether you use a 12th century sword or 20th century attack helicopter as a means of rule, you will be bombed by the “indispensable nation”, as Obama put it, adding that “no other nation can do what we do”.
Well, that involves some “doing”. According to AP, it appears that Syrian airstrikes are imminent, but could be carried out under the odd/even day plan:
“In an effort to avoid unintentionally strengthening the Syrian government, the White House could seek to balance strikes against the Islamic State with attacks on Assad regime targets.”
Is any more evidence needed that Washington has gone stark raving mad than even the possibility that such an absurd option could be under consideration? Has not the imperial city on the Potomac become so inured to its pretensions of global hegemony and to instant resort to deployment of its war machine that any semblance of rationality and coherence has been dissolved?
Indeed, in the context of Syria’s fractured and riven tribal, religious and political splinters how could anyone in their right mind think that a bombing campaign without boots on the ground will accomplish anything other than function as a potent recruiting tool for ISIS, and a generator of jihadist blowback for years to come. By the same token, the White House’s polling machine surely documents that an outright Iraq-style invasion of the Islamic State is overwhelmingly opposed by the American people, and rightly so.
Accordingly, the silly, hapless man in the Oval Office stumbles forward, apparently unaware that he’s not merely playing video games during his sojourns in the Situation Room. Indeed, the make-believe “nuanced” bombing options that are likely to be ground out by the national security machinery are destined to fail and drag Washington ever deeper into the violent cauldron of Mesopotamia and the Levant. The trillions of treasure wasted, the millions of lives lost and the venomous tribal enmities resulting from Washington’s misbegotten ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan provide all the proof that is needed.
The fact is, the artificial states created by the Sykes-Picot map drawn up by the French and British foreign offices in 1916—- as they carved up the Ottoman empire— are now destined for the dustbin of history. The fracturing remnants of Syria and Iraq cannot be fused back together by means of lethal deposits of metal and chemicals delivered by tomahawks and F-16s.
So let the region rearrange itself without Washington’s unwelcome meddling and mayhem. If Turkey and an independent Kurdistan can make mutually acceptable political and economic arrangements, which are already well-advanced, so be it. If the Shiite south in Iraq and the Alawite/Shiite southwest in Syria break-off from their present Europe-bequeathed boundaries and form independent regimes, how does that jeopardize the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE and Spokane WA?
And, yes, if the Islamic State temporarily manages to coalesce within the Sunni lands of the Euphrates Valley and the upper Tigress why is that really a national security threat which requires launching an unwinnable war, a new round of hostility to America in the Islamic world and the blowback of legions of jihadi with a score to settle?
Now that you know about the Yazidis, did you ever hear of the Sheitaat tribe of Sunnis who inhabit the minor oil province around Deir al-Zor in northeastern Syria? There appear to be about 100,000 members of that sect in the region and they have been declared apostates by the medieval butchers who run ISIS:
Hundreds of members of the Sheitaat clan have been executed after their tribe refused to submit to Islamic State. The entire tribe have been deemed “hostile apostates” by the group, an offshoot of al Qaeda that has declared a “caliphate” in the territory it holds.
Islamic State has declared the Sheitaat tribe “an unbelieving sect” that should be fought as if they were infidels, according to a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the Syrian war.
At least 700 hundred members of the tribe have already been executed, the Observatory reported on Aug. 16.
Another 1,800 are still missing after being detained by Islamic State, according to the Observatory, which gathers information from all sides in the Syrian war. Its efforts to pledge allegiance to Islamic State have been rebuffed.
Pictures of the bodies of men apparently slain by Islamic State fighters in Sheitaat areas are surfacing every day, said Rami Abdelrahman, founder of the Observatory. “We have repeatedly expressed concerns about extermination,” he said.
“It is the first time that the Islamic State has used these (religious) concepts against an entire tribe,” he said.
Three Sheitaat villages seized by Islamic State have been designated as a military zone, the rebel and another activist from the area said. The clan’s property and livestock have also been seized, another person from the area said.
Islamic State has declared that no truce is possible with the Sheitaat, that its prisoners can be killed, and its women are unfit for marriage, according to the Observatory.
“We’re still seeing Islamic State trucks loaded up with furniture and rugs from Sheitaat homes in those villages, which are now totally abandoned,” said one person from the area contacted by internet link, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Islamic State has started to use house demolitions as a punishment. A video posted over the weekend shows what appears to be the detonation of a rural home as the narrator, who identifies himself as from Islamic State, explains that the home belongs to Sheitaat “apostates”.
Why would you believe that a viable state can be built in today’s world on the tactics of Genghis Kahn? The Islamic State, such as it is, is not rich, does not have enough oil to make a difference, will soon be bogged down in the insuperable problems of governance by the sword and will flounder on the impoverished economics of the dusty villages and desert expanse which comprise its natural territory. And it will eventually mobilize its neighbors—-Turkey, Hezbollah, the rump regime of Assad’s Alawite Syria, Kurdistan, the Shiite alliance of Iran and lower Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia and the oil sheikdoms—to contain its external ambitions.
So Washington should call off the bombers and get out of harm’s way. The American Imperium has failed and the prospect of bombing both sides of an irrelevant non-country’s ancient tribal wars ought, at last, to make that much clear.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/08/bombs-away-over-syria-washington-has.html#more
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Better than pouring ice water over your head...
Proof That People Are Reversing ALS, Lou Gehrig's
Heather Callaghan
Activist Post
I mentioned the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in a recent article highlighting the social guiding that came with all the "disease awareness" we've been involuntarily immersed in via the media in the last few weeks. ALS meaning Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” meaning in short, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. Those challenged during the campaign were compelled to dump a bucket of ice water on their heads while video recording and challenging three more people to do the same, or else pay $100 to ALS research for the cure.
As Dr. Scott Graves points out in "Why I'm Not Participating in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge," it's been 60 years of funneling money into cancer research - with what results? According this the ALS Association, it "has received $62.5 million in donations compared to $2.4 million during the same time period last year..." From the Ice Bucket Challenge alone...can you believe that?
One of my friends had this to say:
For those doing ice bucket challenges for ALS, here is some relevant information you should know. The National Institute for Health allocated $40 million dollars for ALS research in 2014. It allocated $39 million in 2013. In 2012 it allocated $44 million. Over a 3 year period $123 million was allocated to ALS research by the NIH.
Is it reasonable to presume throwing more money at the problem is going to solve it?
Then Nick Brannigan, in his newest article, "Boycott the Ice Bucket Challenge and Truly Support Those with ALS," reminds us of a few reasons not to simply "throw money." Whereas I was rubbed the wrong way by the public shaming/humiliation aspect of the campaign, he demonstrates that the ALS Association supports research that is unusually cruel to animals - again with what results? It translates into drugs that are often not effective in humans, and the ones currently available might slow down the deterioration but not reverse the disease. Furthermore, I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see his information about dietary recommendations for ALS patients that are rife with processed junk and sugar. It reminded me of the time someone I know researched recipes through a large cancer society only to find a chocolate milkshake recipe with encouragement to indulge.
But the most encouraging reason to boycott such campaigns is the fact that people are reversing this and other neurodegenerative diseases naturally. Unfortunately, a campaign to get that important and potentially life-saving information out to the public at large has been shadowed by a giant ice bucket.
I stand in agreement with Nick, that if you are interested in truly helping those with ALS, please consider helping to sponsor the making of this new documentary about people who did not accept the death sentence prognosis, to show others real hope, and provide real-time tangible results for them.
As Coco Newton said in the preview:
How can anybody graduate from hospice and still be alive today if they haven't done something really dramatic other than the conventional medical system?
Link:
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/proof-that-people-are-reversing-als-lou.html#more
Heather Callaghan
Activist Post
I mentioned the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in a recent article highlighting the social guiding that came with all the "disease awareness" we've been involuntarily immersed in via the media in the last few weeks. ALS meaning Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” meaning in short, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. Those challenged during the campaign were compelled to dump a bucket of ice water on their heads while video recording and challenging three more people to do the same, or else pay $100 to ALS research for the cure.
As Dr. Scott Graves points out in "Why I'm Not Participating in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge," it's been 60 years of funneling money into cancer research - with what results? According this the ALS Association, it "has received $62.5 million in donations compared to $2.4 million during the same time period last year..." From the Ice Bucket Challenge alone...can you believe that?
One of my friends had this to say:
For those doing ice bucket challenges for ALS, here is some relevant information you should know. The National Institute for Health allocated $40 million dollars for ALS research in 2014. It allocated $39 million in 2013. In 2012 it allocated $44 million. Over a 3 year period $123 million was allocated to ALS research by the NIH.
Is it reasonable to presume throwing more money at the problem is going to solve it?
Then Nick Brannigan, in his newest article, "Boycott the Ice Bucket Challenge and Truly Support Those with ALS," reminds us of a few reasons not to simply "throw money." Whereas I was rubbed the wrong way by the public shaming/humiliation aspect of the campaign, he demonstrates that the ALS Association supports research that is unusually cruel to animals - again with what results? It translates into drugs that are often not effective in humans, and the ones currently available might slow down the deterioration but not reverse the disease. Furthermore, I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see his information about dietary recommendations for ALS patients that are rife with processed junk and sugar. It reminded me of the time someone I know researched recipes through a large cancer society only to find a chocolate milkshake recipe with encouragement to indulge.
But the most encouraging reason to boycott such campaigns is the fact that people are reversing this and other neurodegenerative diseases naturally. Unfortunately, a campaign to get that important and potentially life-saving information out to the public at large has been shadowed by a giant ice bucket.
I stand in agreement with Nick, that if you are interested in truly helping those with ALS, please consider helping to sponsor the making of this new documentary about people who did not accept the death sentence prognosis, to show others real hope, and provide real-time tangible results for them.
As Coco Newton said in the preview:
How can anybody graduate from hospice and still be alive today if they haven't done something really dramatic other than the conventional medical system?
Link:
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/proof-that-people-are-reversing-als-lou.html#more
Please share!!!
KIEV PURCHASED HUNGARIAN T-72 TANKS TO FRAME RUSSIA!
A couple of weeks ago, Ukraine bought some old T-72's from Hungary for 8,500 dollars each, their value as scrap metal. Now Ukraine does not use the T-72, it uses the later t-80 and t-84. But Russia still uses the T-72.
Did Ukraine buy these tanks to plant near the border and frame Russia for an invasion?
These photos were made in NyÃregyháza railway station on August 2. Train headed to Záhony and crossed the state border to the Ukraine.
UPDATE: Yes, that was the plan. Today the BBC (Buggering British Children), the news network that reported the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 twenty six minutes BEFORE it actually happened, is showing photos of T-72s painted with Russian markings in Eastern Ukraine and insisting this is proof of a Russian invasion.
Please post this information everywhere you see the story that "Russian" tanks have been found in eastern Ukraine.
Link:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/
A couple of weeks ago, Ukraine bought some old T-72's from Hungary for 8,500 dollars each, their value as scrap metal. Now Ukraine does not use the T-72, it uses the later t-80 and t-84. But Russia still uses the T-72.
Did Ukraine buy these tanks to plant near the border and frame Russia for an invasion?
These photos were made in NyÃregyháza railway station on August 2. Train headed to Záhony and crossed the state border to the Ukraine.
UPDATE: Yes, that was the plan. Today the BBC (Buggering British Children), the news network that reported the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 twenty six minutes BEFORE it actually happened, is showing photos of T-72s painted with Russian markings in Eastern Ukraine and insisting this is proof of a Russian invasion.
Please post this information everywhere you see the story that "Russian" tanks have been found in eastern Ukraine.
Link:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/
Use it or lose it...
Tanks on the Streets? Police Required to Use Military Equipment within a Year or Return It
Noel Brinkerhoff
The militarization of America’s police forces has been the result of federal policy that not only provides the means to give men-in-blue the same tools as combat soldiers, but in fact requires law enforcement to “use it or lose it” when it comes to military equipment.
Specifically, the Department of Defense’s 1033 program—which funnels all kinds of military surplus goods to police—has a provision that clearly says that any participating law enforcement agency must use its equipment within one year of receiving it. If they don’t, they have to give it up.
This from the state of Missouri’s “application to participate” in 1033: “Property obtained under this SPO must be placed into use within one (1) year of receipt, unless the condition of the property renders it unusable, in which case the property can be returned to the nearest DLA Disposition Services Site. If property is not put into use by the LEA (law enforcement agency) within one (1) year, the State/LEA must coordinate a transfer of property to another LEA or request a turn-in to return the property to the nearest DLA Disposition Services Site.”
Another problem with the Pentagon’s decision to shower police forces with military hardware is that it’s not accompanied by training, Amanda Taub noted at Vox.
Kara Dansky, a senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, who wrote the organization’s report on police militarization, told Taub she was unaware “of any training that the government provides in terms of use of the equipment,” or of “any oversight in terms of safeguards regarding the use of the equipment by the Defense Department.”
While SWAT teams from large police departments train with their equipment regularly, small-town forces often don’t have the resources to spare officers for such exercises. Thus, often the only time they use the surplus equipment is during an emergency.
Link:
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/tanks-on-the-streets-police-required-to-use-military-equipment-within-a-year-or-return-it-140826?news=854075
Noel Brinkerhoff
The militarization of America’s police forces has been the result of federal policy that not only provides the means to give men-in-blue the same tools as combat soldiers, but in fact requires law enforcement to “use it or lose it” when it comes to military equipment.
Specifically, the Department of Defense’s 1033 program—which funnels all kinds of military surplus goods to police—has a provision that clearly says that any participating law enforcement agency must use its equipment within one year of receiving it. If they don’t, they have to give it up.
This from the state of Missouri’s “application to participate” in 1033: “Property obtained under this SPO must be placed into use within one (1) year of receipt, unless the condition of the property renders it unusable, in which case the property can be returned to the nearest DLA Disposition Services Site. If property is not put into use by the LEA (law enforcement agency) within one (1) year, the State/LEA must coordinate a transfer of property to another LEA or request a turn-in to return the property to the nearest DLA Disposition Services Site.”
Another problem with the Pentagon’s decision to shower police forces with military hardware is that it’s not accompanied by training, Amanda Taub noted at Vox.
Kara Dansky, a senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, who wrote the organization’s report on police militarization, told Taub she was unaware “of any training that the government provides in terms of use of the equipment,” or of “any oversight in terms of safeguards regarding the use of the equipment by the Defense Department.”
While SWAT teams from large police departments train with their equipment regularly, small-town forces often don’t have the resources to spare officers for such exercises. Thus, often the only time they use the surplus equipment is during an emergency.
Link:
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/tanks-on-the-streets-police-required-to-use-military-equipment-within-a-year-or-return-it-140826?news=854075
" Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again, but this time its “regime change” objective has been expanded to include both sides!"
Bombs Away Over Syria! Washington Has Gone Stark Raving Mad
Written by David Stockman
America’s spanker-in-chief is at it again—threatening to bomb Syria owing to the uncivilized actions of its inhabitants. And when it comes to Syria, Washington avers that there are punishable malefactors virtually everywhere within its borders.
Exactly one year ago Obama proposed to take Bashar Al Assad to the woodshed because he had allegedly unleashed a vicious chemical attack on his own citizens. That was all pretext, of course, because even the CIA refused to sign-off on the flimsy case for Assad’s culpability at the time — a reluctance corroborated since then by the considerable evidence that hundreds of Syrian civilians were murdered during a false flag operation staged by the rebels with help from Turkey. The aim of the rebels, of course, was to activate American tomahawk missiles and bombers in behalf of “regime change”, which was also the stated goal of the Obama Administration.
Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again, but this time its “regime change” objective has been expanded to include both sides! In 12 short months what had been the allegedly heroic Sunni opposition to the “brutal rule” of the Assad/Alawite minority has transmuted into the “greatest terrorist threat ever”, according to the Secretary of Defense.
So Obama has already unleashed the drones and surveillance apparatus to identify targets of attack that will help bring down a regime in northern and eastern Syria— the so-called Islamic State — which did not even exist a year ago. And a regime that is now armed to the teeth with America’s own latest and greatest weaponry as previously supplied to the disintegrated Iraqi army and the Syrian rebels trained by the CIA in Jordan.
Adding to this blinding farce is the warning of Syria’s Foreign Affairs minister that Obama should please to request permission before he rains destruction from the sky on the Opposition — that is, the opposition to the very same Damascus regime which the White House has vowed to eradicate. Needless to say, the Washington apparatus is having nothing to do with aiding the enemy of its new enemy:
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday tried to tamp down the notion that action against the Islamic State group could bolster Assad, saying, “We’re not interested in trying to help the Assad regime.” However, he acknowledged that “there are a lot of cross pressures.
In fact, there is apparently an option emerging from the bowels of the war machine that calls for an odd/even day plan to bomb both sides, thereby making clear that Washington is an equal opportunity spanker. Apparently, whether you use a 12th century sword or 20th century attack helicopter as a means of rule, you will be bombed by the “indispensable nation”, as Obama put it, adding that “no other nation can do what we do”.
Well, that involves some “doing”. According to AP, it appears that Syrian airstrikes are imminent, but could be carried out under the odd/even day plan:
In an effort to avoid unintentionally strengthening the Syrian government, the White House could seek to balance strikes against the Islamic State with attacks on Assad regime targets.
Is any more evidence needed that Washington has gone stark raving mad than even the possibility that such an absurd option could be under consideration? Has not the imperial city on the Potomac become so inured to its pretensions of global hegemony and to instant resort to deployment of its war machine that any semblance of rationality and coherence has been dissolved?
Indeed, in the context of Syria’s fractured and riven tribal, religious and political splinters how could anyone in their right mind think that a bombing campaign without boots on the ground will accomplish anything other than function as a potent recruiting tool for ISIS, and a generator of jihadist blowback for years to come. By the same token, the White House’s polling machine surely documents that an outright Iraq-style invasion of the Islamic State is overwhelmingly opposed by the American people, and rightly so.
Accordingly, the silly, hapless man in the Oval Office stumbles forward, apparently unaware that he’s not merely playing video games during his sojourns in the Situation Room. Indeed, the make-believe “nuanced” bombing options that are likely to be ground out by the national security machinery are destined to fail and drag Washington ever deeper into the violent cauldron of Mesopotamia and the Levant. The trillions of treasure wasted, the millions of lives lost and the venomous tribal enmities resulting from Washington’s misbegotten ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan provide all the proof that is needed.
The fact is, the artificial states created by the Sykes-Picot map drawn up by the French and British foreign offices in 1916 — as they carved up the Ottoman empire — are now destined for the dustbin of history. The fracturing remnants of Syria and Iraq cannot be fused back together by means of lethal deposits of metal and chemicals delivered by tomahawks and F-16s.
So let the region rearrange itself without Washington’s unwelcome meddling and mayhem. If Turkey and an independent Kurdistan can make mutually acceptable political and economic arrangements, which are already well-advanced, so be it. If the Shiite south in Iraq and the Alawite/Shiite southwest in Syria break-off from their present Europe-bequeathed boundaries and form independent regimes, how does that jeopardize the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE and Spokane WA?
And, yes, if the Islamic State temporarily manages to coalesce within the Sunni lands of the Euphrates Valley and the upper Tigris why is that really a national security threat which requires launching an unwinnable war, a new round of hostility to America in the Islamic world, and the blowback of legions of jihadi with a score to settle?
Now that you know about the Yazidis, did you ever hear of the Sheitaat tribe of Sunnis who inhabit the minor oil province around Deir al-Zor in northeastern Syria? There appear to be about 100,000 members of that sect in the region and they have been declared apostates by the medieval butchers who run ISIS:
Hundreds of members of the Sheitaat clan have been executed after their tribe refused to submit to Islamic State. The entire tribe have been deemed “hostile apostates” by the group, an offshoot of al Qaeda that has declared a “caliphate” in the territory it holds.
Islamic State has declared the Sheitaat tribe “an unbelieving sect” that should be fought as if they were infidels, according to a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the Syrian war.
At least 700 hundred members of the tribe have already been executed, the Observatory reported on Aug. 16.
Another 1,800 are still missing after being detained by Islamic State, according to the Observatory, which gathers information from all sides in the Syrian war. Its efforts to pledge allegiance to Islamic State have been rebuffed.
Pictures of the bodies of men apparently slain by Islamic State fighters in Sheitaat areas are surfacing every day, said Rami Abdelrahman, founder of the Observatory. “We have repeatedly expressed concerns about extermination,” he said.
“It is the first time that the Islamic State has used these (religious) concepts against an entire tribe,” he said.
Three Sheitaat villages seized by Islamic State have been designated as a military zone, the rebel and another activist from the area said. The clan’s property and livestock have also been seized, another person from the area said.
Islamic State has declared that no truce is possible with the Sheitaat, that its prisoners can be killed, and its women are unfit for marriage, according to the Observatory.
“We’re still seeing Islamic State trucks loaded up with furniture and rugs from Sheitaat homes in those villages, which are now totally abandoned,” said one person from the area contacted by internet link, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Islamic State has started to use house demolitions as a punishment. A video posted over the weekend shows what appears to be the detonation of a rural home as the narrator, who identifies himself as from Islamic State, explains that the home belongs to Sheitaat “apostates”.
Why would you believe that a viable state can be built in today’s world on the tactics of Genghis Kahn? The Islamic State, such as it is, is not rich, does not have enough oil to make a difference, will soon be bogged down in the insuperable problems of governance by the sword and will flounder on the impoverished economics of the dusty villages and desert expanse which comprise its natural territory. And it will eventually mobilize its neighbors—-Turkey, Hezbollah, the rump regime of Assad’s Alawite Syria, Kurdistan, the Shiite alliance of Iran and lower Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia and the oil sheikdoms—to contain its external ambitions.
So Washington should call off the bombers and get out of harm’s way. The American Imperium has failed and the prospect of bombing both sides of an irrelevant non-country’s ancient tribal wars ought, at last, to make that much clear.
Link:
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/august/27/bombs-away-over-syria!-washington-has-gone-stark-raving-mad.aspx
Written by David Stockman
America’s spanker-in-chief is at it again—threatening to bomb Syria owing to the uncivilized actions of its inhabitants. And when it comes to Syria, Washington avers that there are punishable malefactors virtually everywhere within its borders.
Exactly one year ago Obama proposed to take Bashar Al Assad to the woodshed because he had allegedly unleashed a vicious chemical attack on his own citizens. That was all pretext, of course, because even the CIA refused to sign-off on the flimsy case for Assad’s culpability at the time — a reluctance corroborated since then by the considerable evidence that hundreds of Syrian civilians were murdered during a false flag operation staged by the rebels with help from Turkey. The aim of the rebels, of course, was to activate American tomahawk missiles and bombers in behalf of “regime change”, which was also the stated goal of the Obama Administration.
Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again, but this time its “regime change” objective has been expanded to include both sides! In 12 short months what had been the allegedly heroic Sunni opposition to the “brutal rule” of the Assad/Alawite minority has transmuted into the “greatest terrorist threat ever”, according to the Secretary of Defense.
So Obama has already unleashed the drones and surveillance apparatus to identify targets of attack that will help bring down a regime in northern and eastern Syria— the so-called Islamic State — which did not even exist a year ago. And a regime that is now armed to the teeth with America’s own latest and greatest weaponry as previously supplied to the disintegrated Iraqi army and the Syrian rebels trained by the CIA in Jordan.
Adding to this blinding farce is the warning of Syria’s Foreign Affairs minister that Obama should please to request permission before he rains destruction from the sky on the Opposition — that is, the opposition to the very same Damascus regime which the White House has vowed to eradicate. Needless to say, the Washington apparatus is having nothing to do with aiding the enemy of its new enemy:
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday tried to tamp down the notion that action against the Islamic State group could bolster Assad, saying, “We’re not interested in trying to help the Assad regime.” However, he acknowledged that “there are a lot of cross pressures.
In fact, there is apparently an option emerging from the bowels of the war machine that calls for an odd/even day plan to bomb both sides, thereby making clear that Washington is an equal opportunity spanker. Apparently, whether you use a 12th century sword or 20th century attack helicopter as a means of rule, you will be bombed by the “indispensable nation”, as Obama put it, adding that “no other nation can do what we do”.
Well, that involves some “doing”. According to AP, it appears that Syrian airstrikes are imminent, but could be carried out under the odd/even day plan:
In an effort to avoid unintentionally strengthening the Syrian government, the White House could seek to balance strikes against the Islamic State with attacks on Assad regime targets.
Is any more evidence needed that Washington has gone stark raving mad than even the possibility that such an absurd option could be under consideration? Has not the imperial city on the Potomac become so inured to its pretensions of global hegemony and to instant resort to deployment of its war machine that any semblance of rationality and coherence has been dissolved?
Indeed, in the context of Syria’s fractured and riven tribal, religious and political splinters how could anyone in their right mind think that a bombing campaign without boots on the ground will accomplish anything other than function as a potent recruiting tool for ISIS, and a generator of jihadist blowback for years to come. By the same token, the White House’s polling machine surely documents that an outright Iraq-style invasion of the Islamic State is overwhelmingly opposed by the American people, and rightly so.
Accordingly, the silly, hapless man in the Oval Office stumbles forward, apparently unaware that he’s not merely playing video games during his sojourns in the Situation Room. Indeed, the make-believe “nuanced” bombing options that are likely to be ground out by the national security machinery are destined to fail and drag Washington ever deeper into the violent cauldron of Mesopotamia and the Levant. The trillions of treasure wasted, the millions of lives lost and the venomous tribal enmities resulting from Washington’s misbegotten ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan provide all the proof that is needed.
The fact is, the artificial states created by the Sykes-Picot map drawn up by the French and British foreign offices in 1916 — as they carved up the Ottoman empire — are now destined for the dustbin of history. The fracturing remnants of Syria and Iraq cannot be fused back together by means of lethal deposits of metal and chemicals delivered by tomahawks and F-16s.
So let the region rearrange itself without Washington’s unwelcome meddling and mayhem. If Turkey and an independent Kurdistan can make mutually acceptable political and economic arrangements, which are already well-advanced, so be it. If the Shiite south in Iraq and the Alawite/Shiite southwest in Syria break-off from their present Europe-bequeathed boundaries and form independent regimes, how does that jeopardize the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE and Spokane WA?
And, yes, if the Islamic State temporarily manages to coalesce within the Sunni lands of the Euphrates Valley and the upper Tigris why is that really a national security threat which requires launching an unwinnable war, a new round of hostility to America in the Islamic world, and the blowback of legions of jihadi with a score to settle?
Now that you know about the Yazidis, did you ever hear of the Sheitaat tribe of Sunnis who inhabit the minor oil province around Deir al-Zor in northeastern Syria? There appear to be about 100,000 members of that sect in the region and they have been declared apostates by the medieval butchers who run ISIS:
Hundreds of members of the Sheitaat clan have been executed after their tribe refused to submit to Islamic State. The entire tribe have been deemed “hostile apostates” by the group, an offshoot of al Qaeda that has declared a “caliphate” in the territory it holds.
Islamic State has declared the Sheitaat tribe “an unbelieving sect” that should be fought as if they were infidels, according to a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the Syrian war.
At least 700 hundred members of the tribe have already been executed, the Observatory reported on Aug. 16.
Another 1,800 are still missing after being detained by Islamic State, according to the Observatory, which gathers information from all sides in the Syrian war. Its efforts to pledge allegiance to Islamic State have been rebuffed.
Pictures of the bodies of men apparently slain by Islamic State fighters in Sheitaat areas are surfacing every day, said Rami Abdelrahman, founder of the Observatory. “We have repeatedly expressed concerns about extermination,” he said.
“It is the first time that the Islamic State has used these (religious) concepts against an entire tribe,” he said.
Three Sheitaat villages seized by Islamic State have been designated as a military zone, the rebel and another activist from the area said. The clan’s property and livestock have also been seized, another person from the area said.
Islamic State has declared that no truce is possible with the Sheitaat, that its prisoners can be killed, and its women are unfit for marriage, according to the Observatory.
“We’re still seeing Islamic State trucks loaded up with furniture and rugs from Sheitaat homes in those villages, which are now totally abandoned,” said one person from the area contacted by internet link, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Islamic State has started to use house demolitions as a punishment. A video posted over the weekend shows what appears to be the detonation of a rural home as the narrator, who identifies himself as from Islamic State, explains that the home belongs to Sheitaat “apostates”.
Why would you believe that a viable state can be built in today’s world on the tactics of Genghis Kahn? The Islamic State, such as it is, is not rich, does not have enough oil to make a difference, will soon be bogged down in the insuperable problems of governance by the sword and will flounder on the impoverished economics of the dusty villages and desert expanse which comprise its natural territory. And it will eventually mobilize its neighbors—-Turkey, Hezbollah, the rump regime of Assad’s Alawite Syria, Kurdistan, the Shiite alliance of Iran and lower Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia and the oil sheikdoms—to contain its external ambitions.
So Washington should call off the bombers and get out of harm’s way. The American Imperium has failed and the prospect of bombing both sides of an irrelevant non-country’s ancient tribal wars ought, at last, to make that much clear.
Link:
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/august/27/bombs-away-over-syria!-washington-has-gone-stark-raving-mad.aspx
"he U.S. national-security state needs crises — perpetual crises, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Korea, or other places faraway from American shores. Crises are the lifeblood of the national-security state. They help remind Americans that the Cold War-era national-security state apparatus that was grafted onto our governmental system is still necessary to America’s survival as a nation. Without perpetual crises, Americans might start asking why they still need a national-security state apparatus, along with its power, influence, and ever-increasing tax-funded budgets."
How to Provoke a Crisis
by Jacob G. Hornberger
There is no one more capable at provoking a crisis than the U.S. national-security establishment. They are absolute experts at doing so. They have to be. Their survival and ever-increasing tax-funded bounty depends on it.
Consider, for example, a recent altercation between a U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet near the coast of Japan.
According to an article in the New York Times, U.S. officials filed a formal complaint with China accusing the Chinese fighter pilot of approaching so close to the American spy plane that their wingtips were only 30 feet apart. Then the pilot did a roll to expose the weaponry on his plane.
The Chinese rejected the complaint and pointed out that the U.S. military’s frequent surveillance flights near China were risking an accident.
Notice something important about this particular crisis and, for that matter, virtually all of the U.S. foreign-policy crises: They almost always occur “over there” and hardly ever over here near the United States. That is, they involve U.S. military or CIA forces doing something provocative in or near foreign lands rather than foreign forces coming over here and doing something provocative in or near the United States.
Of course, U.S. officials always play the innocent in these faraway crises. For example, in the latest crisis with China, U.S. officials would point out that their surveillance planes are operating in international waters, which, they would say, they have a right to do under international law.
But that’s not the point. The point is that no one likes to be spied on, especially by some foreign regime. Just ask all the people who have been spied upon by the NSA, including those in foreign governments that are considered allies of the United States.
Imagine if China, Russia, Syria, Cuba, or Iran began flying surveillance planes along the east or west coasts of the United States, including taking pictures of U.S. military bases, planes, and weaponry. Wouldn’t that provoke one great big crisis, one that might even involve a mobilization of troops and other preparations for war? Even if those countries responded that they were operating their spy planes in international waters, the response of U.S. military and CIA officials would be: “Get out of here immediately and go home.”
So, why would it surprise anyone that China would react the same way when it comes to American spy planes flying along China’s coast?
Actually, I doubt it surprises anyone, especially those within the U.S. national-security establishment. After all, don’t forget that a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. Navy spy plane collided near China in 2001, a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and caused the American plane to make a forced emergency landing on a Chinese island.
So, why do it? Why fly spy planes near China when you know what the reaction is going to be? Because the U.S. national-security state needs crises — perpetual crises, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Korea, or other places faraway from American shores. Crises are the lifeblood of the national-security state. They help remind Americans that the Cold War-era national-security state apparatus that was grafted onto our governmental system is still necessary to America’s survival as a nation. Without perpetual crises, Americans might start asking why they still need a national-security state apparatus, along with its power, influence, and ever-increasing tax-funded budgets.
Link:
http://fff.org/2014/08/25/how-to-provoke-a-crisis/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
There is no one more capable at provoking a crisis than the U.S. national-security establishment. They are absolute experts at doing so. They have to be. Their survival and ever-increasing tax-funded bounty depends on it.
Consider, for example, a recent altercation between a U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet near the coast of Japan.
According to an article in the New York Times, U.S. officials filed a formal complaint with China accusing the Chinese fighter pilot of approaching so close to the American spy plane that their wingtips were only 30 feet apart. Then the pilot did a roll to expose the weaponry on his plane.
The Chinese rejected the complaint and pointed out that the U.S. military’s frequent surveillance flights near China were risking an accident.
Notice something important about this particular crisis and, for that matter, virtually all of the U.S. foreign-policy crises: They almost always occur “over there” and hardly ever over here near the United States. That is, they involve U.S. military or CIA forces doing something provocative in or near foreign lands rather than foreign forces coming over here and doing something provocative in or near the United States.
Of course, U.S. officials always play the innocent in these faraway crises. For example, in the latest crisis with China, U.S. officials would point out that their surveillance planes are operating in international waters, which, they would say, they have a right to do under international law.
But that’s not the point. The point is that no one likes to be spied on, especially by some foreign regime. Just ask all the people who have been spied upon by the NSA, including those in foreign governments that are considered allies of the United States.
Imagine if China, Russia, Syria, Cuba, or Iran began flying surveillance planes along the east or west coasts of the United States, including taking pictures of U.S. military bases, planes, and weaponry. Wouldn’t that provoke one great big crisis, one that might even involve a mobilization of troops and other preparations for war? Even if those countries responded that they were operating their spy planes in international waters, the response of U.S. military and CIA officials would be: “Get out of here immediately and go home.”
So, why would it surprise anyone that China would react the same way when it comes to American spy planes flying along China’s coast?
Actually, I doubt it surprises anyone, especially those within the U.S. national-security establishment. After all, don’t forget that a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. Navy spy plane collided near China in 2001, a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and caused the American plane to make a forced emergency landing on a Chinese island.
So, why do it? Why fly spy planes near China when you know what the reaction is going to be? Because the U.S. national-security state needs crises — perpetual crises, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Korea, or other places faraway from American shores. Crises are the lifeblood of the national-security state. They help remind Americans that the Cold War-era national-security state apparatus that was grafted onto our governmental system is still necessary to America’s survival as a nation. Without perpetual crises, Americans might start asking why they still need a national-security state apparatus, along with its power, influence, and ever-increasing tax-funded budgets.
Link:
http://fff.org/2014/08/25/how-to-provoke-a-crisis/
Obama worse than Bush...
Barack Hussein Obama: Manchurian Candidate And Trojan Horse, Warmonger And Deceiver
by Michael Thomas
Let’s get something out of the way for all the partisan readers and Obamabots who will NOT like this graphic portrayal of the current US President.
George W. Bush was perhaps the worst president in US History. His eight year term in office clearly marked a new low point in American history. By unlawfully and deceitfully invading both Iraq and Afghanistan, he set the entire world on a course toward World War III. His entirely bogus War On Terror was as contrived as it was an ongoing policy of state-sponsored terrorism against the non-white, non-Christian world.
In the end, W. Bush will be known as the occupant of the White House who triggered the real Clash of Civilizations after outright stealing two national elections. So determined were the Neo-Cons to push the world into a WWIII scenario that they found in George W.Bush a mean-spirited, narrow-minded and self-absorbed individual who could be easily manipulated into doing just about anything Dick Cheney et al. told him to do.
Oh, yes, one last thing — and it represents a HUGE difference between George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama. Please forgive our candor but the following short exposition is quite purposeful in making an extremely important point.
Screen Shot 2014-08-23 at 12.02.30 PM As follows:
Everyone knew deep down inside that W. Bush was unfit for presidential duty and quite a dangerous dolt.
He, himself, knew he was a dunderhead.
We all knew he was a dunderhead.
The entire world knew he was a dunderhead.
He knew that we knew, that he was a dunderhead.
We knew that he knew, that he was a dunderhead.
And so on and so on … … …
What’s the point?
W. Bush was really only being himself … which is exactly why they selected him to push the planet into a never-ending War on Terror.
He clearly possessed all the qualities of someone who would think nothing of destroying whole nations. In this way, he was the perfect dupe in which his blatant prejudices, stunning ignorance and complete lack of compassion could be used to kill and torture perceived enemies the world over. By publicly declaring an Axis of Evil out there in his world of boogeymen, he failed to realize that it was the USA, UK and Israel which constituted the real Axis of Evil.
Is it now clear that we have no political alignment with either left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican?!
Now let’s shine the spotlight on Barack Obama. Here’s a guy who was pushed onto a different world stage as the bringer of ‘Hope and Change’ in the midst of the terrible despair and depression brought about by W. Obama cajoled and bamboozled us, conned and beguiled us (not the whole US, but many). His is an ongoing act of extraordinary deceit and deception. To those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, however, he was an obvious charlatan. And every move he has made since his first inauguration has corroborated these quite hapless observations … which are especially unfortunate for the American people!
What’s the point?
On the face of it W. Bush was not the shrewd deceiver that Obama has been from the very start. W was a cheat; he faked his Christianity, he boldly stole two elections in broad daylight; he allowed himself to be played by his controllers at every turn. However, he was completely transparent in all of this unseemly and sordid presidential behavior. In a word, he was a great embarrassment to his country and throughout the whole community of nations.
Obama, on the other hand, presented himself as a peacemaker, and advocate for a new global order marked by brotherhood and harmony. He was also presented by his handlers as a happy go lucky kind of guy, always smiling his big toothy smile as though he just won his high school class presidency. Never a care, never a worry in the world, all the while his policies and lack thereof are substantially contributing to the very demise of civil society. When he’s not tearing apart the moral fabric of society at home, he’s destroying defenseless nations large and small on the sly with his CIA, NSA DIA agents
Obama also shamelessly accepted a Nobel Peace Prize that he never deserved; never earned in any way. On the contrary, he not only intensified the criminal and barbaric CIA drone assassination program, he has literally restarted the Cold War with Russia. Only because Russia has taken the right side in so many other raging conflicts around the planet, Obama has reacted by actually transforming the newly revived Cold War into a very Hot War.
As a matter of fact, through his actions and inactions, as well as the by initiatives taken by many of the czars throughout his Adminstration, Obama has successfully brought the world right to the brink of World War III. Something W didn’t even do.
How do you spell D E C E P T I O N ?! We spell it: O B A M A.
How does a Noble Peace Prize (NPP) winner send his State Department Undersecetary and CIA Director to Kiev with the explicit purpose of executing a full blown coup d’état and then sleep with the NPP trophy under his pillow at night?
How does Obama then back a murderous and illegitimate, Neo-Nazi and Fascist government in Kiev that has turned the full force of its military on civilian populations (Russian speakers, of course) all over the Eastern Ukraine?
How does the president of the United States of America then do everything in his power to deny urgent and desperately needed humanitarian aid to the same civilians who have been shellshocked back into the stone Age?
Not a pretty picture at all. The peace-loving world is now mortified on a daily basis by the leadership (and lack thereof) of this fraudulently Nobel-awarded president.
Just In Case You Haven’t Been Watching
A sitting USA President starts yet another war on a series of patently false pretexts, and walks around as though he has taken the moral high ground. All the while Vladimir Putin thoughtfully responds to every bellicose overture and premeditated provocation from the US/UK/EU/NATO Juggernaut, doing his level best to prevent a full blown WWIII from breaking out on his fence line — which is just what the Western Powers have intended to do from the very beginning of this CIA-coordinated, MI6-conceived, MOSSAD-executed black operation.
So successful have they (TPTB*) been at selling war with Obama as their primary pitchman, that even the anti-war left has given up in America. While the college kids are glued to their smartphones instagramming their latest lewd selfie, their once ‘fearless’ leader is turning the Military-Industrial Complex loose … just about everywhere on Planet Earth.
*TPTB = The Powers That Be
When’s the last time you saw a real college anti-war protest … anywhere in America?! Yeah, right, that’s how successful this slick warmonger has thoroughly co-opted the entire peace movement. Again, how do you spell D E C E I V E R … of the very highest order.
Where Bush conducted more executions than any other governor in Texas history, Obama has outright murdered more people around the world via drone assassinations — who have not even been convicted of any crime against the USA — than any other president in US history. All of this lawless and criminal conduct has been conducted in the name of every American citizen, using tax dollars paid by every one of us.
The Ukraine Disaster Exposes The Barry Sotero Imposter Like No Other
Back to Obama’s unparalleled fiasco and blatant deceptions in the Ukraine. If the American people do not step up to the plate and bring about an immediate end to the flagrant killing of innocents by US proxies and mercenies operating all over the Eastern Ukraine, this nation will have HELL to pay.
If you haven’t already, take a close look at all the moves and maneuvers that the Obama Administration have taken to thwart a good faith peace process in the Ukraine. Take a closer look at the number of times they have sabotaged the ceasefires and ended the lulls in fighting. Each time Kiev did stop shooting was only to let the smoke clear enough in order to determine where next to aim their bigger guns.
Then there was the shoot down of the Malaysian Airliner MH17 by the Ukraine military. Obama & Company, knowing full well how this false flag operation went down, set to blame Russia and the rebels with obviously fabricated evidence and false testimony. Throughout the entire MH17 Obama proved himself incapable of telling the truth. He couldn’t even state the generally known facts around the case … … … to save his own life.
http://themillenniumreport.com/2014/08/boeing-777-was-downed-by-ukrainian-mig-29-romanian-expert-says/
When his lips are moving, he’s lying through his teeth.
Has there ever been an American president who has so consistently spoken with forked tongue to those who inhabit both his domestic reservation, as well as those who live in his offshore ‘colonies’ across the planet. Obama’s form of Pax Americana is don’t do as I do, but do as I say. In the Ukraine he has exposed himself for the serial prevaricator and habitual warmonger that he has become.
Every time he has made a pronouncement about the Ukraine conflict or Russia’s role in it, he has done nothing but spewed known falsehoods and misleading statements. It’s as though he simply does not know how to tell the truth. Many a qualified professional, in fact, have labelled his normal speech and speeches, pronouncements and responses as reflecting nothing short of pathological lying. So much so has this pattern become ingrained in his presidential behavior that even his Democratic stalwarts are abandoning him in droves.
As a constitutional lawyer, this type ongoing contemptible conduct is all the more depraved, dangerous and deplorable. Because of his contrived air of authority in very weighty constitutional matters now confronting the Republic, he has betrayed so many of his blindly loyal minions. It is this particular dynamic in particular which is bringing the nation to wreck and ruin. Especially where it concerns inciting a full scale war with Russia has Obama crossed every single line, never to be trusted again within the realm of international affairs.
Conclusion:
Obama needs to be IMPEACHED … as soon as the Republicans take control of the Congress in November. Obama must be impeached and tried in the Senate for the many high crimes and misdemeanors that he is guilty of, beginning with his posting of a fraudulent birth certificate on an official White House website.
Barack Obama also needs to be tried in the International Criminal Court at The Hague for war crimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, and Somalia, as well as an accomplice to war crimes in Palestine and the Ukraine, at the very least. Obama also needs to be held accountable as an accomplice in the commission of genocide in both Palestine and the Ukraine. Conspiracy to wage war by proxy and US-paid mercenaries is another obvious crime which has been perpetrated throughout almost six years of this Administration.
Until the world sees Barack Hussein Obama taking up permanent residence in Leavenworth with a dunce hat upon his head as he sits in the corner of his cell … … …
Michael Thomas
August 23, 2014
StateoftheNation2012.com
Author’s Note:
In that we harbor no political persuasion of any kind, we are able to more objectively and clinically evaluate the person and presidency of Barack Obama. While we chose to only take up his actions regarding the current war in the Ukraine, we fully acknowledge that there are many other serious instances of criminal conduct, lawlessness and treasonous behavior on his part. However, more than any other initiative that he has taken on the world stage, it is the Ukraine which lays bare his now transparent perfidy, malfeasance and deception.
The world cannot bear another year of such anarchic and lawless, immoral and depraved ‘leadership’.
Conclusion: Obama needs to be IMPEACHED … as soon as the Republicans take control of the Congress in November. Obama must be impeached and tried in the Senate for the many high crimes and misdemeanors that he is guilty of, beginning with his posting of a fraudulent birth certificate on an official White House website. Barack Obama also needs to be tried in the International Criminal Court at The Hague for war crimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, and Somalia, as well as an accomplice to war crimes in Palestine and the Ukraine, at the very least. Obama also needs to be held accountable as an accomplice in the commission of genocide in both Palestine and the Ukraine. Conspiracy to wage war by proxy and US-paid mercenaries is another obvious crime which has been perpetrated throughout almost six years of this Administration. Until the world sees Barack Hussein Obama taking up permanent residence in Leavenworth with a dunce hat upon his head as he sits in the corner of his cell … … … Michael Thomas August 23, 2014 StateoftheNation2012.com Author’s Note: In that we harbor no political persuasion of any kind, we are able to more objectively and clinically evaluate the person and presidency of Barack Obama. While we chose to only take up his actions regarding the current war in the Ukraine, we fully acknowledge that there are many other serious instances of criminal conduct, lawlessness and treasonous behavior on his part. However, more than any other initiative that he has taken on the world stage, it is the Ukraine which lays bare his now transparent perfidy, malfeasance and deception. The world cannot bear another year of such anarchic and lawless, immoral and depraved ‘leadership’.
Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/barack-hussein-obama-manchurian-candidate-and-trojan-horse-warmonger-and-deceiver/
by Michael Thomas
Let’s get something out of the way for all the partisan readers and Obamabots who will NOT like this graphic portrayal of the current US President.
George W. Bush was perhaps the worst president in US History. His eight year term in office clearly marked a new low point in American history. By unlawfully and deceitfully invading both Iraq and Afghanistan, he set the entire world on a course toward World War III. His entirely bogus War On Terror was as contrived as it was an ongoing policy of state-sponsored terrorism against the non-white, non-Christian world.
In the end, W. Bush will be known as the occupant of the White House who triggered the real Clash of Civilizations after outright stealing two national elections. So determined were the Neo-Cons to push the world into a WWIII scenario that they found in George W.Bush a mean-spirited, narrow-minded and self-absorbed individual who could be easily manipulated into doing just about anything Dick Cheney et al. told him to do.
Oh, yes, one last thing — and it represents a HUGE difference between George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama. Please forgive our candor but the following short exposition is quite purposeful in making an extremely important point.
Screen Shot 2014-08-23 at 12.02.30 PM As follows:
Everyone knew deep down inside that W. Bush was unfit for presidential duty and quite a dangerous dolt.
He, himself, knew he was a dunderhead.
We all knew he was a dunderhead.
The entire world knew he was a dunderhead.
He knew that we knew, that he was a dunderhead.
We knew that he knew, that he was a dunderhead.
And so on and so on … … …
What’s the point?
W. Bush was really only being himself … which is exactly why they selected him to push the planet into a never-ending War on Terror.
He clearly possessed all the qualities of someone who would think nothing of destroying whole nations. In this way, he was the perfect dupe in which his blatant prejudices, stunning ignorance and complete lack of compassion could be used to kill and torture perceived enemies the world over. By publicly declaring an Axis of Evil out there in his world of boogeymen, he failed to realize that it was the USA, UK and Israel which constituted the real Axis of Evil.
Is it now clear that we have no political alignment with either left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican?!
Now let’s shine the spotlight on Barack Obama. Here’s a guy who was pushed onto a different world stage as the bringer of ‘Hope and Change’ in the midst of the terrible despair and depression brought about by W. Obama cajoled and bamboozled us, conned and beguiled us (not the whole US, but many). His is an ongoing act of extraordinary deceit and deception. To those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, however, he was an obvious charlatan. And every move he has made since his first inauguration has corroborated these quite hapless observations … which are especially unfortunate for the American people!
What’s the point?
On the face of it W. Bush was not the shrewd deceiver that Obama has been from the very start. W was a cheat; he faked his Christianity, he boldly stole two elections in broad daylight; he allowed himself to be played by his controllers at every turn. However, he was completely transparent in all of this unseemly and sordid presidential behavior. In a word, he was a great embarrassment to his country and throughout the whole community of nations.
Obama, on the other hand, presented himself as a peacemaker, and advocate for a new global order marked by brotherhood and harmony. He was also presented by his handlers as a happy go lucky kind of guy, always smiling his big toothy smile as though he just won his high school class presidency. Never a care, never a worry in the world, all the while his policies and lack thereof are substantially contributing to the very demise of civil society. When he’s not tearing apart the moral fabric of society at home, he’s destroying defenseless nations large and small on the sly with his CIA, NSA DIA agents
Obama also shamelessly accepted a Nobel Peace Prize that he never deserved; never earned in any way. On the contrary, he not only intensified the criminal and barbaric CIA drone assassination program, he has literally restarted the Cold War with Russia. Only because Russia has taken the right side in so many other raging conflicts around the planet, Obama has reacted by actually transforming the newly revived Cold War into a very Hot War.
As a matter of fact, through his actions and inactions, as well as the by initiatives taken by many of the czars throughout his Adminstration, Obama has successfully brought the world right to the brink of World War III. Something W didn’t even do.
How do you spell D E C E P T I O N ?! We spell it: O B A M A.
How does a Noble Peace Prize (NPP) winner send his State Department Undersecetary and CIA Director to Kiev with the explicit purpose of executing a full blown coup d’état and then sleep with the NPP trophy under his pillow at night?
How does Obama then back a murderous and illegitimate, Neo-Nazi and Fascist government in Kiev that has turned the full force of its military on civilian populations (Russian speakers, of course) all over the Eastern Ukraine?
How does the president of the United States of America then do everything in his power to deny urgent and desperately needed humanitarian aid to the same civilians who have been shellshocked back into the stone Age?
Not a pretty picture at all. The peace-loving world is now mortified on a daily basis by the leadership (and lack thereof) of this fraudulently Nobel-awarded president.
Just In Case You Haven’t Been Watching
A sitting USA President starts yet another war on a series of patently false pretexts, and walks around as though he has taken the moral high ground. All the while Vladimir Putin thoughtfully responds to every bellicose overture and premeditated provocation from the US/UK/EU/NATO Juggernaut, doing his level best to prevent a full blown WWIII from breaking out on his fence line — which is just what the Western Powers have intended to do from the very beginning of this CIA-coordinated, MI6-conceived, MOSSAD-executed black operation.
So successful have they (TPTB*) been at selling war with Obama as their primary pitchman, that even the anti-war left has given up in America. While the college kids are glued to their smartphones instagramming their latest lewd selfie, their once ‘fearless’ leader is turning the Military-Industrial Complex loose … just about everywhere on Planet Earth.
*TPTB = The Powers That Be
When’s the last time you saw a real college anti-war protest … anywhere in America?! Yeah, right, that’s how successful this slick warmonger has thoroughly co-opted the entire peace movement. Again, how do you spell D E C E I V E R … of the very highest order.
Where Bush conducted more executions than any other governor in Texas history, Obama has outright murdered more people around the world via drone assassinations — who have not even been convicted of any crime against the USA — than any other president in US history. All of this lawless and criminal conduct has been conducted in the name of every American citizen, using tax dollars paid by every one of us.
The Ukraine Disaster Exposes The Barry Sotero Imposter Like No Other
Back to Obama’s unparalleled fiasco and blatant deceptions in the Ukraine. If the American people do not step up to the plate and bring about an immediate end to the flagrant killing of innocents by US proxies and mercenies operating all over the Eastern Ukraine, this nation will have HELL to pay.
If you haven’t already, take a close look at all the moves and maneuvers that the Obama Administration have taken to thwart a good faith peace process in the Ukraine. Take a closer look at the number of times they have sabotaged the ceasefires and ended the lulls in fighting. Each time Kiev did stop shooting was only to let the smoke clear enough in order to determine where next to aim their bigger guns.
Then there was the shoot down of the Malaysian Airliner MH17 by the Ukraine military. Obama & Company, knowing full well how this false flag operation went down, set to blame Russia and the rebels with obviously fabricated evidence and false testimony. Throughout the entire MH17 Obama proved himself incapable of telling the truth. He couldn’t even state the generally known facts around the case … … … to save his own life.
http://themillenniumreport.com/2014/08/boeing-777-was-downed-by-ukrainian-mig-29-romanian-expert-says/
When his lips are moving, he’s lying through his teeth.
Has there ever been an American president who has so consistently spoken with forked tongue to those who inhabit both his domestic reservation, as well as those who live in his offshore ‘colonies’ across the planet. Obama’s form of Pax Americana is don’t do as I do, but do as I say. In the Ukraine he has exposed himself for the serial prevaricator and habitual warmonger that he has become.
Every time he has made a pronouncement about the Ukraine conflict or Russia’s role in it, he has done nothing but spewed known falsehoods and misleading statements. It’s as though he simply does not know how to tell the truth. Many a qualified professional, in fact, have labelled his normal speech and speeches, pronouncements and responses as reflecting nothing short of pathological lying. So much so has this pattern become ingrained in his presidential behavior that even his Democratic stalwarts are abandoning him in droves.
As a constitutional lawyer, this type ongoing contemptible conduct is all the more depraved, dangerous and deplorable. Because of his contrived air of authority in very weighty constitutional matters now confronting the Republic, he has betrayed so many of his blindly loyal minions. It is this particular dynamic in particular which is bringing the nation to wreck and ruin. Especially where it concerns inciting a full scale war with Russia has Obama crossed every single line, never to be trusted again within the realm of international affairs.
Conclusion:
Obama needs to be IMPEACHED … as soon as the Republicans take control of the Congress in November. Obama must be impeached and tried in the Senate for the many high crimes and misdemeanors that he is guilty of, beginning with his posting of a fraudulent birth certificate on an official White House website.
Barack Obama also needs to be tried in the International Criminal Court at The Hague for war crimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, and Somalia, as well as an accomplice to war crimes in Palestine and the Ukraine, at the very least. Obama also needs to be held accountable as an accomplice in the commission of genocide in both Palestine and the Ukraine. Conspiracy to wage war by proxy and US-paid mercenaries is another obvious crime which has been perpetrated throughout almost six years of this Administration.
Until the world sees Barack Hussein Obama taking up permanent residence in Leavenworth with a dunce hat upon his head as he sits in the corner of his cell … … …
Michael Thomas
August 23, 2014
StateoftheNation2012.com
Author’s Note:
In that we harbor no political persuasion of any kind, we are able to more objectively and clinically evaluate the person and presidency of Barack Obama. While we chose to only take up his actions regarding the current war in the Ukraine, we fully acknowledge that there are many other serious instances of criminal conduct, lawlessness and treasonous behavior on his part. However, more than any other initiative that he has taken on the world stage, it is the Ukraine which lays bare his now transparent perfidy, malfeasance and deception.
The world cannot bear another year of such anarchic and lawless, immoral and depraved ‘leadership’.
Conclusion: Obama needs to be IMPEACHED … as soon as the Republicans take control of the Congress in November. Obama must be impeached and tried in the Senate for the many high crimes and misdemeanors that he is guilty of, beginning with his posting of a fraudulent birth certificate on an official White House website. Barack Obama also needs to be tried in the International Criminal Court at The Hague for war crimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, and Somalia, as well as an accomplice to war crimes in Palestine and the Ukraine, at the very least. Obama also needs to be held accountable as an accomplice in the commission of genocide in both Palestine and the Ukraine. Conspiracy to wage war by proxy and US-paid mercenaries is another obvious crime which has been perpetrated throughout almost six years of this Administration. Until the world sees Barack Hussein Obama taking up permanent residence in Leavenworth with a dunce hat upon his head as he sits in the corner of his cell … … … Michael Thomas August 23, 2014 StateoftheNation2012.com Author’s Note: In that we harbor no political persuasion of any kind, we are able to more objectively and clinically evaluate the person and presidency of Barack Obama. While we chose to only take up his actions regarding the current war in the Ukraine, we fully acknowledge that there are many other serious instances of criminal conduct, lawlessness and treasonous behavior on his part. However, more than any other initiative that he has taken on the world stage, it is the Ukraine which lays bare his now transparent perfidy, malfeasance and deception. The world cannot bear another year of such anarchic and lawless, immoral and depraved ‘leadership’.
Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/barack-hussein-obama-manchurian-candidate-and-trojan-horse-warmonger-and-deceiver/
Scamming the public...
The Truth Behind Social Media-Driven Donation Campaigns
Tactic often used to scam well-meaning people
Anthony Gucciardi & Mikael Thalen
While hospitality and charity remain a cornerstone of American society, a recent history of social media-driven donation campaigns show the tactic has often been used to scam well-meaning people.
Although more than $94 million in donations have been raised through the viral “ice bucket” social media campaign, the actual amount going towards the non-profit ALS Association’s research is strikingly different.
According to the ALS Association’s own 2014 financial breakdown, only 27 percent of funds make their way to researching a cure for the disease. Despite its non-profit status, six figure salaries are bestowed upon the group’s top 11 executives.
As Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo points out in his breakdown of the ice bucket phenomenon, even the smaller portions spent on research for ALS are actually going towards pharmaceutical interventions and the pharmaceutical industry at large.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation, known for its pink ribbon breast cancer campaign, has received similar condemnation as well after the company’s expenditures were found to be less than charitable. According to Charity Navigator, the company’s 2010 revenue reached nearly $312 million. Of that, only 20 percent was used for research, with former CEO and president Hala G. Moddelmog making as much $550,000 per year.
“Komen receives over $55 million in annual revenue from corporate sponsorships, from such health-minded companies as Coca Cola, General Mills, and KFC,” noted AlterNet’s Emily Michelle. “Buy a bucket of junk food, and pretend as though you’re helping to save lives while you slowly take your own.”
Following the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the “Hope for Haiti” telethon brought countless celebrities out to raise awareness and funds for those hit hardest in the country. Shortly after, it was learned that much of the cash would be given to several foundations such as one run by former presidents Bush and Clinton. Donations were also funneled to United Nations operations as well as foundations with absurdly high administrative costs.
Most famously, the Kony 2012 campaign ran by the Invisible Children organization, was allegedly used to gather funds for children affected by Joseph Kony, war lord and leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda.
Called ”misleading” and “dangerous” by former Yale political science professor Chris Blattman, Invisible Children only used $2.8 million of $8.8 million raised to directly help Ugandan children according to a 2010-2011 expenditure report.
Beyond the financial aspect, further research revealed the campaign to be part of an undeniable attempt to create support for military intervention into Africa.
Although Kony 2012 did eventually experience a major backlash from the public, the attempt to push war through social media campaigns has only continued. A video published earlier this year entitled “I am a Ukrainian” attempted to push the American public into supporting US policy in the region after so called “grass roots” protests arose in the country.
“The origins of the video are not quite as ‘grass roots’ as is portrayed. The clip was produced by the team behind A Whisper to a Roar, a documentary about the ‘fight for democracy’ all over the world, which was funded by Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco,” Infowars writer Paul Joseph Watson noted. “The ‘inspiration’ behind the documentary was none other than Larry Diamond, a Council on Foreign Relations member. The Council on Foreign Relations is considered to be America’s ‘most influential foreign-policy think tank’ and has deep connections with the U.S. State Department.”
Evidence indicating that protesters were being paid and armed by the US as they called for deeper involvement with the European Union only raised suspicions over the group’s legitimacy.
Amid all of the social media madness when it comes to charitable organizations like Susan G. Komen and now the ALS Association, it remains true that the key element necessary for real change is the spread of information. And when financial abilities allow for it, supporting real charities with a proven track record of directly supporting its stated goals with the bulk of its financial power.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-truth-behind-social-media-driven-donation-campaigns.html
Tactic often used to scam well-meaning people
Anthony Gucciardi & Mikael Thalen
While hospitality and charity remain a cornerstone of American society, a recent history of social media-driven donation campaigns show the tactic has often been used to scam well-meaning people.
Although more than $94 million in donations have been raised through the viral “ice bucket” social media campaign, the actual amount going towards the non-profit ALS Association’s research is strikingly different.
According to the ALS Association’s own 2014 financial breakdown, only 27 percent of funds make their way to researching a cure for the disease. Despite its non-profit status, six figure salaries are bestowed upon the group’s top 11 executives.
As Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo points out in his breakdown of the ice bucket phenomenon, even the smaller portions spent on research for ALS are actually going towards pharmaceutical interventions and the pharmaceutical industry at large.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation, known for its pink ribbon breast cancer campaign, has received similar condemnation as well after the company’s expenditures were found to be less than charitable. According to Charity Navigator, the company’s 2010 revenue reached nearly $312 million. Of that, only 20 percent was used for research, with former CEO and president Hala G. Moddelmog making as much $550,000 per year.
“Komen receives over $55 million in annual revenue from corporate sponsorships, from such health-minded companies as Coca Cola, General Mills, and KFC,” noted AlterNet’s Emily Michelle. “Buy a bucket of junk food, and pretend as though you’re helping to save lives while you slowly take your own.”
Following the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the “Hope for Haiti” telethon brought countless celebrities out to raise awareness and funds for those hit hardest in the country. Shortly after, it was learned that much of the cash would be given to several foundations such as one run by former presidents Bush and Clinton. Donations were also funneled to United Nations operations as well as foundations with absurdly high administrative costs.
Most famously, the Kony 2012 campaign ran by the Invisible Children organization, was allegedly used to gather funds for children affected by Joseph Kony, war lord and leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda.
Called ”misleading” and “dangerous” by former Yale political science professor Chris Blattman, Invisible Children only used $2.8 million of $8.8 million raised to directly help Ugandan children according to a 2010-2011 expenditure report.
Beyond the financial aspect, further research revealed the campaign to be part of an undeniable attempt to create support for military intervention into Africa.
Although Kony 2012 did eventually experience a major backlash from the public, the attempt to push war through social media campaigns has only continued. A video published earlier this year entitled “I am a Ukrainian” attempted to push the American public into supporting US policy in the region after so called “grass roots” protests arose in the country.
“The origins of the video are not quite as ‘grass roots’ as is portrayed. The clip was produced by the team behind A Whisper to a Roar, a documentary about the ‘fight for democracy’ all over the world, which was funded by Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco,” Infowars writer Paul Joseph Watson noted. “The ‘inspiration’ behind the documentary was none other than Larry Diamond, a Council on Foreign Relations member. The Council on Foreign Relations is considered to be America’s ‘most influential foreign-policy think tank’ and has deep connections with the U.S. State Department.”
Evidence indicating that protesters were being paid and armed by the US as they called for deeper involvement with the European Union only raised suspicions over the group’s legitimacy.
Amid all of the social media madness when it comes to charitable organizations like Susan G. Komen and now the ALS Association, it remains true that the key element necessary for real change is the spread of information. And when financial abilities allow for it, supporting real charities with a proven track record of directly supporting its stated goals with the bulk of its financial power.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-truth-behind-social-media-driven-donation-campaigns.html
"How much of what we see today can be explained by racial discrimination? This is an important question because if we conclude that racial discrimination is the major cause of black problems when it isn't, then effective solutions will be elusive forever."
Blacks Must Confront Reality
By Walter E. Williams
Though racial discrimination exists, it is nowhere near the barrier it once was. The relevant question is: How much of what we see today can be explained by racial discrimination? This is an important question because if we conclude that racial discrimination is the major cause of black problems when it isn't, then effective solutions will be elusive forever. To begin to get a handle on the answer, let's pull up a few historical facts about black
Americans.
In 1950, female-headed households were 18 percent of the black population. Today it's close to 70 percent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children lived with the biological mother and father. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. Herbert Gutman, author of "The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925," reports, "Five in six children under the age of six lived with both parents." Also, both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.
A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia found that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families (composed of two parents and children). What is significant, given today's arguments that slavery and discrimination decimated the black family structure, is the fact that years ago, there were only slight differences in family structure among racial groups.
Coupled with the dramatic breakdown in the black family structure has been an astonishing growth in the rate of illegitimacy. The black illegitimacy rate in 1940 was about 14 percent; black illegitimacy today is over 70 percent, and in some cities, it is over 80 percent.
The point of bringing up these historical facts is to ask this question, with a bit of sarcasm: Is the reason the black family was far healthier in the late 1800s and 1900s that back then there was far less racial discrimination and there were greater opportunities? Or did what experts call the "legacy of slavery" wait several generations to victimize today's blacks?
The Census Bureau pegs the poverty rate among blacks at 28.1 percent. A statistic that one never hears about is that the poverty rate among intact married black families has been in the single digits for more than two decades, currently at 8.4 percent. Weak family structures not only spell poverty and dependency but also contribute to the social pathology seen in many black communities — for example, violence and predatory sex. Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it's 22 times that of whites. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Coupled with being most of the nation's homicide victims, blacks are also major victims of violent personal crimes, such as assault, rape and robbery.
To put this violence in perspective, black fatalities during the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and all wars since 1980 (about 8,200) come to about 18,500, a number that pales in comparison with black loss of life at home. Young black males had a greater chance of reaching maturity on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan than on the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Newark and other cities.
The black academic achievement gap is a disaster. Often, black 12th-graders can read, write and deal with scientific and math problems at only the level of white sixth-graders. This doesn't bode well for success in college or passing civil service exams.
If it is assumed that problems that have a devastating impact on black well-being are a result of racial discrimination and a "legacy of slavery" when they are not, resources spent pursuing a civil rights strategy will yield disappointing results.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/08/blacks-must-confront-reality.html
By Walter E. Williams
Though racial discrimination exists, it is nowhere near the barrier it once was. The relevant question is: How much of what we see today can be explained by racial discrimination? This is an important question because if we conclude that racial discrimination is the major cause of black problems when it isn't, then effective solutions will be elusive forever. To begin to get a handle on the answer, let's pull up a few historical facts about black
Americans.
In 1950, female-headed households were 18 percent of the black population. Today it's close to 70 percent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children lived with the biological mother and father. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. Herbert Gutman, author of "The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925," reports, "Five in six children under the age of six lived with both parents." Also, both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.
A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia found that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families (composed of two parents and children). What is significant, given today's arguments that slavery and discrimination decimated the black family structure, is the fact that years ago, there were only slight differences in family structure among racial groups.
Coupled with the dramatic breakdown in the black family structure has been an astonishing growth in the rate of illegitimacy. The black illegitimacy rate in 1940 was about 14 percent; black illegitimacy today is over 70 percent, and in some cities, it is over 80 percent.
The point of bringing up these historical facts is to ask this question, with a bit of sarcasm: Is the reason the black family was far healthier in the late 1800s and 1900s that back then there was far less racial discrimination and there were greater opportunities? Or did what experts call the "legacy of slavery" wait several generations to victimize today's blacks?
The Census Bureau pegs the poverty rate among blacks at 28.1 percent. A statistic that one never hears about is that the poverty rate among intact married black families has been in the single digits for more than two decades, currently at 8.4 percent. Weak family structures not only spell poverty and dependency but also contribute to the social pathology seen in many black communities — for example, violence and predatory sex. Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it's 22 times that of whites. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Coupled with being most of the nation's homicide victims, blacks are also major victims of violent personal crimes, such as assault, rape and robbery.
To put this violence in perspective, black fatalities during the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and all wars since 1980 (about 8,200) come to about 18,500, a number that pales in comparison with black loss of life at home. Young black males had a greater chance of reaching maturity on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan than on the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Newark and other cities.
The black academic achievement gap is a disaster. Often, black 12th-graders can read, write and deal with scientific and math problems at only the level of white sixth-graders. This doesn't bode well for success in college or passing civil service exams.
If it is assumed that problems that have a devastating impact on black well-being are a result of racial discrimination and a "legacy of slavery" when they are not, resources spent pursuing a civil rights strategy will yield disappointing results.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/08/blacks-must-confront-reality.html
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
"A better financial system is possible, and here’s how it would work..."
A World Without Fractional Reserve Banks and Central Planning
Excerpted From The Money Bubble: What To Do Before It Pops by James Turk and John Rubino:
In a very real sense, it is fractional reserve banking and not money itself that is the root of so many of today’s evils. Whenever fractional reserves are permitted, the banking system – including the one that exists today throughout the world – comes to resemble a classic Ponzi scheme which can only function as long as most people don’t try to get at their money.
A Better System
Now, is this critique of the current monetary system just impotent ideological whining over something that, like the weather, can’t be changed? Or could fractional reserve banking and the resulting need for economic central planning actually be replaced by something better? Specifically, how could a banking system without fractional reserve lending accommodate depositors’ demand that their money be there when they want it and borrowers’ desire for 30-year mortgages which would tie up those deposits for decades? And could this market operate without the need for government oversight and management?
The answer to that last question is yes. A better financial system is possible, and here’s how it would work:
First, today’s commercial banks would split into two types. “Banks of commerce” would take deposits and keep them safe for a fee, like the goldsmiths of old. “Banks of credit” would pay interest on deposits and lend out depositor money, but would have to match the duration of deposits with the duration of loans. Deposits that can be withdrawn anytime (a checking account for instance) could only be used to fund a loan which the bank can “call” on demand, while longer-term deposits (say a 5-year CD) would be matched to longer-term loans like a business term loan or 5-year mortgage. Really long-term loans like 30-year mortgages would be funded with deposits for which the bank would have to pay up in order to convince a depositor to part with his or her money for such a long time.
The resulting mortgage would carry a high enough rate to provide the bank with a small profit, which would make 30-year mortgages both expensive and hard to get. But the case can be made that they should be hard to get. Buying a house – or anything else that requires capital for extremely long periods – should require a hefty down payment, other liquid assets as collateral and a solid income stream. This coverage would give the bank the ability to foreclose and realize more than the value of the loan, which would protect its ability to repay its depositors, thus making depositors more willing to tie up their money for long periods.
Such a society would be a lot less prone to excessive debt accumulation and inflation, bank runs would be far less frequent and government deposit insurance would be much less necessary. It would, in short, be a saner world in which individuals managed their own finances, saved with confidence and borrowed only for highly-productive uses, while two sharply-differentiated types of banks facilitated wealth protection and real wealth creation rather than paper trading.
Today’s investment banks and hedge funds, meanwhile, would be set free to speculate with their investors’ money to their hearts’ content, making fortunes when they succeed and collapsing when they fail, with no public stake in either outcome. They would be seen as high risk/high reward propositions and their customers and investors would participate with eyes wide open. No entity would be “too big to fail” because the banking system would be insulated from the vicissitudes of more volatile investment markets.
Central banks in such a 100-percent reserve world would either be completely unnecessary or serve a sharply-defined, very limited function of issuing paper currency 100-percent backed by gold/silver reserves and standing ready to exchange one for the other upon request. No need to be a lender of last resort because the banking system is sound and stable. No need to intervene in currency markets to fool citizens into treating valueless paper as a savings vehicle because paper, as a warehouse receipt for real assets, will have intrinsic value. Booms and busts would be fewer and less devastating, reducing the need for government programs in response. Debt levels would be miniscule by today’s standards, and therefore easily serviced from profitable activities. This hypothetical world, in short, is more modest and far more sustainable. All in all, it’s an attractive, completely feasible vision.
Link:
http://investmentwatchblog.com/a-world-without-fractional-reserve-banks-and-central-planning/
Excerpted From The Money Bubble: What To Do Before It Pops by James Turk and John Rubino:
In a very real sense, it is fractional reserve banking and not money itself that is the root of so many of today’s evils. Whenever fractional reserves are permitted, the banking system – including the one that exists today throughout the world – comes to resemble a classic Ponzi scheme which can only function as long as most people don’t try to get at their money.
A Better System
Now, is this critique of the current monetary system just impotent ideological whining over something that, like the weather, can’t be changed? Or could fractional reserve banking and the resulting need for economic central planning actually be replaced by something better? Specifically, how could a banking system without fractional reserve lending accommodate depositors’ demand that their money be there when they want it and borrowers’ desire for 30-year mortgages which would tie up those deposits for decades? And could this market operate without the need for government oversight and management?
The answer to that last question is yes. A better financial system is possible, and here’s how it would work:
First, today’s commercial banks would split into two types. “Banks of commerce” would take deposits and keep them safe for a fee, like the goldsmiths of old. “Banks of credit” would pay interest on deposits and lend out depositor money, but would have to match the duration of deposits with the duration of loans. Deposits that can be withdrawn anytime (a checking account for instance) could only be used to fund a loan which the bank can “call” on demand, while longer-term deposits (say a 5-year CD) would be matched to longer-term loans like a business term loan or 5-year mortgage. Really long-term loans like 30-year mortgages would be funded with deposits for which the bank would have to pay up in order to convince a depositor to part with his or her money for such a long time.
The resulting mortgage would carry a high enough rate to provide the bank with a small profit, which would make 30-year mortgages both expensive and hard to get. But the case can be made that they should be hard to get. Buying a house – or anything else that requires capital for extremely long periods – should require a hefty down payment, other liquid assets as collateral and a solid income stream. This coverage would give the bank the ability to foreclose and realize more than the value of the loan, which would protect its ability to repay its depositors, thus making depositors more willing to tie up their money for long periods.
Such a society would be a lot less prone to excessive debt accumulation and inflation, bank runs would be far less frequent and government deposit insurance would be much less necessary. It would, in short, be a saner world in which individuals managed their own finances, saved with confidence and borrowed only for highly-productive uses, while two sharply-differentiated types of banks facilitated wealth protection and real wealth creation rather than paper trading.
Today’s investment banks and hedge funds, meanwhile, would be set free to speculate with their investors’ money to their hearts’ content, making fortunes when they succeed and collapsing when they fail, with no public stake in either outcome. They would be seen as high risk/high reward propositions and their customers and investors would participate with eyes wide open. No entity would be “too big to fail” because the banking system would be insulated from the vicissitudes of more volatile investment markets.
Central banks in such a 100-percent reserve world would either be completely unnecessary or serve a sharply-defined, very limited function of issuing paper currency 100-percent backed by gold/silver reserves and standing ready to exchange one for the other upon request. No need to be a lender of last resort because the banking system is sound and stable. No need to intervene in currency markets to fool citizens into treating valueless paper as a savings vehicle because paper, as a warehouse receipt for real assets, will have intrinsic value. Booms and busts would be fewer and less devastating, reducing the need for government programs in response. Debt levels would be miniscule by today’s standards, and therefore easily serviced from profitable activities. This hypothetical world, in short, is more modest and far more sustainable. All in all, it’s an attractive, completely feasible vision.
Link:
http://investmentwatchblog.com/a-world-without-fractional-reserve-banks-and-central-planning/
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
10 George Orwell Quotes that Predicted Life in 2014 America
By Justin King
George Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era. Some of his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of understanding an enlightened mind can have about the future.
1) “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
Though many in the modern age have the will to bury their head in the sand when it comes to political matters, nobody can only concern themselves with the proverbial pebble in their shoe. If one is successful in avoiding politics, at some point the effects of the political decisions they abstained from participating in will reach their front door. More often than not, by that time the person has already lost whatever whisper of a voice the government has allowed them.
2) “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
Examining the nightly news in the run up to almost any military intervention will find scores of talking heads crying for blood to flow in the streets of some city the name of which they just learned to pronounce. Once the bullets start flying, those that clamored for war will still be safely on set bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of the carnage while their stock in Raytheon climbs.
3) “War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”
It’s pretty self-explanatory and while it may be hard to swallow, it’s certainly true. All it takes is a quick look at who benefited from the recent wars waged by the United States to see Orwell’s quip take life.
4) “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”
My most prized books are a collection of history books from around the world. I have an Iraqi book that recounts the glory of Saddam Hussein’s victory over the United States in 1991. I have books from three different nations claiming that one of their citizens was the first to fly. As some of the most powerful nations in the world agree to let certain facts be “forgotten,” the trend will only get worse. History is written by the victor, and the victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
5) “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Even without commentary, the reader is probably picturing Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. The revolutions of the future will not be fought with bullets and explosives, but with little bits of data traveling around the world destroying the false narratives with which governments shackle their citizens.
6) “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
Make no mistake about it; if an article does not anger someone, it is nothing more than a public relations piece. Most of what passes for news today is little more than an official sounding advertisement for a product, service, or belief.
7) “In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer…”
In every conflict, it is not the side that can inflict the most damage, but the side that can sustain the most damage that ultimately prevails. History is full of situations in which a military “won the battles but lost the war.”
8) “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
Haditha. Panjwai. Maywand District. Mahmudiyah. These names probably don’t ring a bell, but it is almost a certainty that the reader is aware of the brutality that occurred in Benghazi. The main difference is that in the first four incidents, those committing the acts of brutality were wearing an American flag on their shoulder.
9) “Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”
Everyday there is a new form of censorship or a new method of forcing people into self-censorship, and the people shrug it off because it only relates to a small minority. By the time the people realize their ability to express disapproval has been completely restricted, it may be too late. That brings us to Orwell’s most haunting quote.
10) “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Once the people are indoctrinated with nationalistic beliefs, and the infrastructure to protect them from some constantly-changing and ever-expanding definition of an enemy is in place, there is no ability for the people to regain liberty. By the time all of the pieces are in place, not only is opportunity to regain freedom lost, but the will to achieve freedom has also evaporated. The reader will truly love Big Brother.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/no_author/10-george-orwell-quotes/
By Justin King
George Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era. Some of his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of understanding an enlightened mind can have about the future.
1) “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
Though many in the modern age have the will to bury their head in the sand when it comes to political matters, nobody can only concern themselves with the proverbial pebble in their shoe. If one is successful in avoiding politics, at some point the effects of the political decisions they abstained from participating in will reach their front door. More often than not, by that time the person has already lost whatever whisper of a voice the government has allowed them.
2) “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
Examining the nightly news in the run up to almost any military intervention will find scores of talking heads crying for blood to flow in the streets of some city the name of which they just learned to pronounce. Once the bullets start flying, those that clamored for war will still be safely on set bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of the carnage while their stock in Raytheon climbs.
3) “War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”
It’s pretty self-explanatory and while it may be hard to swallow, it’s certainly true. All it takes is a quick look at who benefited from the recent wars waged by the United States to see Orwell’s quip take life.
4) “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”
My most prized books are a collection of history books from around the world. I have an Iraqi book that recounts the glory of Saddam Hussein’s victory over the United States in 1991. I have books from three different nations claiming that one of their citizens was the first to fly. As some of the most powerful nations in the world agree to let certain facts be “forgotten,” the trend will only get worse. History is written by the victor, and the victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
5) “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Even without commentary, the reader is probably picturing Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. The revolutions of the future will not be fought with bullets and explosives, but with little bits of data traveling around the world destroying the false narratives with which governments shackle their citizens.
6) “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
Make no mistake about it; if an article does not anger someone, it is nothing more than a public relations piece. Most of what passes for news today is little more than an official sounding advertisement for a product, service, or belief.
7) “In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer…”
In every conflict, it is not the side that can inflict the most damage, but the side that can sustain the most damage that ultimately prevails. History is full of situations in which a military “won the battles but lost the war.”
8) “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
Haditha. Panjwai. Maywand District. Mahmudiyah. These names probably don’t ring a bell, but it is almost a certainty that the reader is aware of the brutality that occurred in Benghazi. The main difference is that in the first four incidents, those committing the acts of brutality were wearing an American flag on their shoulder.
9) “Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”
Everyday there is a new form of censorship or a new method of forcing people into self-censorship, and the people shrug it off because it only relates to a small minority. By the time the people realize their ability to express disapproval has been completely restricted, it may be too late. That brings us to Orwell’s most haunting quote.
10) “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Once the people are indoctrinated with nationalistic beliefs, and the infrastructure to protect them from some constantly-changing and ever-expanding definition of an enemy is in place, there is no ability for the people to regain liberty. By the time all of the pieces are in place, not only is opportunity to regain freedom lost, but the will to achieve freedom has also evaporated. The reader will truly love Big Brother.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/no_author/10-george-orwell-quotes/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)