Wednesday, December 31, 2008

When good people do nothing ...

For some insight into what's happening in Palestine, from Truthdig

Chris Hedges' Party to Murder

and Robert Fisk's "Leaders Lie, Civilians Die, and Lessons of History Are Ignored"

And Justin Raimondo's "Israel's Constant Crisis"


Is it time yet to say 'shame on us'?

More likely we all already feel the shame, but helpless to do anything about it.

I'm reminded of a couple I once met in my travels, who lived as kids in Dresden, Germany in the 30's, and how they wanted me to understand they really had no options as their world was controlled and then destroyed.

They, in turn, could not understand what I tried to explain to them: that the miracles of technology are being used to implement population control on a scale larger then anything they experienced. For their sake, perhaps it's just as well they didn't understand.


Bill

Monday, December 29, 2008

Justin Raimondo and the politics of the Gaza Massace

The Politics of the Gaza Massacre by Justin Raimondo is a vitally important presentation.

We must stop this behavior. Our survival, and especially the world we are passing to our kids and their kids depends very much on what happens in the ME. And it ain't looking good.

Fact is, the direction was obvious from the day our military was launched on Iraq. Our farm was bet on the objective of securing authority in the ME, not so much for our oilmen and MI Complex guys, but as an 'existential' matter as declared by Israel's warmongers. Most people refused to accept, or even think about, the true nature and scope of that operation. Truth is that once our military was committed, there would be no turning back. This is why there was no plan for withdrawal - there wasn't going to be a withdrawal. Of course, that could only happen with a clear and sustainable military authority. Anything less and the word "Alamo" should come to mind.

Some of us did some reading up on the history of occupiers in the ME during the psych-up for the invasion. Seems too few of us did this little study, but for those who did, they learned that the occupier of a ME Muslim country has always been rejected and ousted by the occupied. Sometimes it takes longer then others, but the mission is clear and even unspoken: the occupier must go.

And that they (that is, us) will. Sooner or later. It's not a question of "if", but "when".

The bigger issue, what needs to matter most to us, is America's image in the world, because a world who doesn't care much for us may not be very helpful when we're attacked again. And we need the world's help because when this whole terrorism issue is resolved, it will be so by virtue of recognition that it's a police, and not a military, problem. One of the Big Lies perpetrated on us throughout the years of that invasion/occupation is the intense suffering we've caused so many completely innocent people.

On the prospect of another attack here - consider that the warmongers love attacks! Attacks get them all pumped up and manning the money hoses.

We get to pay - in blood, tears, money and the future of our country.

And the real kicker is that this (the neocon/aipac/mic/media) gang pulled all this off with such stealth that most people aren't even aware of their role. Thankfully we still have freedom of speech and the Internet. People like Justin Raimondo, Juan Cole and many others have emerged and are using it to present the side of the story that far too few people are aware. Yes, I have cross-checked and verified what these folks have to say (and you can do the same with some research).

It really is wake-up time! We're at a cross-roads again. We can be smart or we can be dumb. It's clear to me, and it should be clear to you, that dumb is to be arrogant and belligerent in such a dangerous world, and that's without even considering opportunities lost by their obsessions.

You may think "war doesn't scare me" and maybe cheered the Decider's "bring it on" speech, but I speak from experience to say that living in a state of war is so terrible and tragic that you will soon forget all of the bravado.

After all these years of the Iraqi occupation, we should by now be a lot more sober and far more conscious of the position we're in: the farm has been bet on gaining authority in the ME, and as this screw continues to turn, at some point, our fearless rulers are going to seize some excuse to convince us they have to choose between utter defeat (of their authority gambit), and using the big guns. Which do you think they will choose?

Wake up! Didn't Mumbai reminds us that it really takes just a handful of dedicated and determined people to pull off serious destruction. We Americans have millions of enemies now, thanks to that invasion. What do you think the odds are that some small groups will emerge? To say the least, the odds are stacked against us.

What to do? Back Vincent Bugliosi's call for a prosecutor to try Bush for murder. Such a trial will invariably put the spotlight onto the gang, and it will become clear they belong on trial for conspiring and defrauding Americans to war. Let's hope there is at least one prosecutor in this country with the guts to take this stand. I thought Patrick Fitzgerald would go for it, but for some reason he's obviously declining.

On Patrick Fitzgerald, here's an article on the subject: "But the good news in all of this is that Fitzgerald gets it. He sees into the ugly, greedy, oozing heart of the NeoCon kleptocracy, its mafia-like structure and the all-too-cozy overlap between the war party and the profiteers, and it pisses him off"

You may want to pass this link to Justin's article to your family and friends. The URL is http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13965 or click here

I've got to get back to work, but I'll keep posting links to significant articles on the big picture of what's really happening over there until we solve it.


Bill











Bill

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Can you tell the difference between truth and clever bullshit?

With Bush (i.e. the Neocon's public face), it's always clever arguments.

Take for example his clever response to the shoe throwing incident: that it's a sign of a healthy democracy at work.

Right. Sounded good, didn't it?

But how about the brutal beating that the healthy democracy administered to the shoe thrower, i.e. the reality of the "healthy democracy" our troops have killed and died for?

It's all silver-tongue, highly clever, lawyer-speak bullshit.

When American troops pull out of Iraq, an Iran influenced/controlled Shiite controlled theocracy will take over, period. And all that death and destruction will have been for naught. One thing you can bet on, though: our information supply will be burning more clever words repeated over and over until it's burned into our already-numb unconscious minds to convince us of the righteousness of our great cause in invading and destroying so many lives in Iraq and the ME.

The invasion of Iraq wasn't an invasion of Iraq in the first place, it was a Neocon planned gambit to seize authority in the region, starting with Iraq.

From When Neocons Ruled Washington: "Why Iraq? Going back to the origins of the Likud Party in the early 1970s, Sniegoski shows how the Israeli right has consistently advocated destabilising the Middle East so as to leave its opponents powerless and ensure Israeli security"

There was no plan for withdrawal because there wasn't going to be a withdrawal - that is what the permanent bases and the largest embassy in the world where really all about. This plain and simple truth is written all over the wall - but it's obfuscated by clever bullshit administered by clever bullshiters.


Bill

Saturday, December 20, 2008

The Madoff scandal

Don't know if you've been following the Madoff $50 billion scandal, but it's essentially a case where greedy, corrupt people who thought they were connected with an insider (they figured he must have been doing something illegal - i.e. insider trading - to get such high rates of return on their investments, because prudent people who looked into it, including his competitors, figured he was doing something illegal) all got burned because he was really operating a Ponzi scheme.

This story is a metaphor for what's turning America's core from golden to rotten: greedy, belligerent, arrogant, warmongering crooks who have been robbing us blind at every opportunity and are now operating on an unimaginable scale.

To be sure, capitalism is based on greed, so it's working as expected. The problem is that the counterweight, the opposing force that was supposed to defend us against the excesses of capitalism, has itself been eaten by this machine using a very simple device: campaign finance.

This isn't anything new. It's been going on forever, but what is new is the scale, magnitude and depth of the consequences - has flown off the charts.

What are we doing about it? We're electing people who say they are going to do something about campaign finance reform - evidently without realizing or caring that the people we are electing and trusting with this task are the very people who have used campaign contributions to get elected. That is, we've been trusting the foxes to guard the hen house. This is exactly why nothing actually changes.

When someone does take note and speaks up, what happens? First comes a few tons of clever bullshit that usually disposes of the opposition. If that doesn't work, the operators just dig a little into their dossier-mountain for some dirt (who is without sin?) and turn it over to their media wing who then puffs whatever the dirt is completely out of proportion and pile-driver pounds the message into the unconscious minds of people who trust their information supply. This is how it works. Why do you think that genuinely good people (Dennis Kucinich being an excellent example) who would have actually served America, were buried and crushed by the very election process we trusted would help us?

What really kills me is that even I can solve the core problem, therefore I have absolutely no doubt that hundreds of thousands or even millions of much more learned people also know what to do, yet nobody is actually doing anything! Is it that the power of our enemies-within has grown so formidable and deeply entrenched that we are all truly helpless?

On the off-chance that you may not be aware of solutions, I will write them up as time permits (I too am on the treadmill of working overtime just to survive).

Excuse my passion, but I speak for our country and people - including friends of mine - whose lives have been destroyed by the powers that are sucking America into the abyss.


Bill

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Fear as embraced by the warmonger and fear of the warmonger.

This is a particularly important article.

Not that it's content is anything new for those of us who have actually contemplated this subject, but because it speaks to the biggest problem we face when discussing - or attempting to discuss - it: the dichotomy between fear as embraced by the warmonger and fear of the warmonger.

Too often in speaking on this subject over the years, I've found myself feeling like I'm sending messages of fear to people, and for that reason I've held back and bit my tongue even though my gut is screaming otherwise.

If any of this isn't clear, I'll try to summarize it by saying this: the warmongers have not only suckered us (America and friends) into invading the Middle East for the purpose of establishing (their) authority in the region, they have fueled more then enough hatred for us then we can live with.

Justice. Again and again I will use this word in talking about what we need to do, because if there is one word that can summarize the solution to our massive problem, it is the application of justice as perceived not only by us but the rest of the world as well.

How do we achieve justice? Let's start by putting the people responsible for the duping of America and the launching of that invasion on trial for the monstrous war crimes they have committed in our name.

And we really can't waste a lot of time getting this done. It's the core reason for the gloom that's eating America alive. Nobody wants to connect the dots, but if you think the massive, debt-driven spending for their war has nothing to do with our economic woes, you really should think about it again.

What can you do? 1st and foremost, stop looking at the TV and print "news" as information and start seeing it for what it really is: propaganda that is too often owned, controlled or influenced by the warmongers. At the very least, seek out other sources of information - the Internet is still uncontrolled, so use it to contrast what the propaganda-programmers are telling you, and then you can form better and more useful opinions.


Bill

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Stories worth reading, 12-6-08

Two stories today that speak very loudly

"The evidence suggests that American policy under Barack Obama will be a continuation of the neoconservative foreign policy of the Bush administration, given a human face."


Afghanistan, Another Untold Story

A must read: The prosecution of George W. Bush for murder


Bill

Friday, November 14, 2008

A new breed of editors - sign me up

In the early 90's, before the Internet came online with AOL, I worked at Prodigy, which was an attempt to create what would have been a centralized Internet using IBM computers. The "news" content of the service was to be provided by mainstream players, but there would be many bulletin boards for 'members' as well.

I took issue with how mainstream "news" was going to be center stage and theorized/prophesied the emergence of a new breed of editors who would bring us the "news" from an entirely different perspective, without the biased control of the media barons. I argued that over time, people would gravitate to editors of their choice, based on their own interests and concerns, that is a propaganda-free news service.

I also imaged that each article published should contain a tiny red dot which members could click to go behind the scenes of the article, reply to the author, discuss the article with others, find related articles, etc.

This line of thinking became a popular subject on the employee bulletin board, and eventually management and the President of the company took interest.

As it happened, AOL and the Internet emerged, and the Prodigy approach was essentially overrun by AOL and the Internet approach. IBM and Sears tried to catchup, but it was too late. So they sold Prodigy and we were given generous packages.

I've since passed the time doing contract work and building my own software product. I understand that what's left of Prodigy has merged with Yahoo.

Over these years, I had joined and participated with an email based programmer's support group. The group has an OT posting section where "off topic" subjects are discussed. After 9/11 the war became the big, most talked about subject. Perhaps I'll post an account of my experience and the more profound lessons learned in this regard, but for now I'll just say that it moved me from that world into blogging, albeit at a snail's pace because I have much to do with my business.

It's going to be hard to find the time to do this, but I am motivated because I strongly believe that we-the-people have no choice but to stand up the tyranny that has been feeding on our government for so long and is becoming more dangerous by the day. We must stop them, and that means you and I have to get our acts together. The Internet is what (all) we have - so let's use it.

Starting this blog, I initially thought to use it to write opinions. Having spent countless hours doing so already for the email list, I have a pile of prepared material.

But then I thought that maybe a better way to do this is to become one of the new breed of editors myself. I had never thought about it this way, but every day I do read websites that I've culled on the Internet over the years, and I do come across articles that I very strongly agree with, none of which find their way into the mainstream media. Since my blog can be used to post links to these articles, and maybe with some comments, I'm thinking to draw synergy from others and also help others by saving them the time to do the research themselves (the point of the new breed of editor).

As should be very evident, I am totally against the military invasion of the Middle East. I sincerely believe that invasion was the worst foreign policy disaster America has ever been suckered into, and I am determined to do my role to stop it.

I have ideas on how to do that, but I've discovered others are thinking along the same lines.

So, without further ado, let the synergy begin!

The Vietnam Exposé That Wasn't

The point of this article is that we killed civilians indiscriminately and en masse. I know this to be true, because for months I lived with the Vietnamese in an area deemed a 'free fire zone', with the obvious implication and result.

An added comment is to point to the ignoble role played by the media, as described in this article.


Bill

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Obama and the Neocons

On Obama's foreign policy, here are two articles that everyone should read, but I fear too few will: Obama's Neocon in Residence and Conned Again?

In the 1st article, Philip Giraldi provides facts that can be checked, notably some names of people in positions of power and their connections and common interest. More importantly, for the curious, an article like this is actually a thread that can be followed to the other pieces of the puzzle.

When the haze clears from the smoke surrounding the Obama ascendancy, we will notice that the drive for military authority in the ME has advanced, not abated. People are voting for what they want Obama to be, not what he actually is. While this charade is going on, our real rulers, the Neocons, the gang who sets American foreign policy and therefore the stage our world operates on, don't give a hoot what color or background the President comes from. What matters to them is that he bows to their power.

For the researcher, much has been said about the Neocon gang's members and objectives. What seems to have escaped deserved notice is the depth of their commitment. Many members of this gang are "soldiers of Israel", whose primary mission is to nullify whatever they perceive to be "existential threats" to their beloved Israel. They reason that since they cannot live under any other authority, they must be the authority. And whatever the price, the American people will pay it.

Their mission is all or nothing, a bet our farm enterprise. Details like letting genies, such as the concept of pre-emptive war, out of bottle are part of an acceptable price, as is garnishing nukes and even using them as they deem necessary. It's good for Israel to have nukes, but it's neighbors cannot, and we Americans are guaranteeing this.

I fear that by the time enough people come to realize our duping is into an advanced stage, we may not have a chance to do anything about it. How's that? Another terrorist attack on America and we'll have martial law of some degree. Likely this will mean sedition laws and a clamping down on the Internet. Enemies of the state will be purged, and the Internet cleared of their writing.

The tools to control the internet are being tested in China now. Once tested, the same programming can be re-used. Consolidation and editorial control of TV, print and Hollywood media has wiped out any hope for uncontrolled speech in our information supply. This leaves the Internet as our only real hope, but a clampdown will snuff its flame as fast as we can say "what happened?"

What we need are new and better inventions to use the power of the Internet to construct an opposing force able to stand up to this gang. Any ideas?

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Bush Doctrine in Ruins

"The Bush Doctrine in Ruins" here -> http://www.tomdispatch.com/

is a must read. Not because it's so negative, but because it makes the case for action to do something before it gets even worse. If we all, the whole country, stomped our foot at the same time, we're 300 millions strong, and that alone can shake Washington. I have no doubt that if everyone shared the passion Tom Engelhardt - and many others, and certainly I - feel about this, something would be done tomorrow. What are people thinking? How can they know this stuff and do nothing? Are we a nation of sheep? I think ...


Bill