Saturday, December 17, 2011

Financial Panic Sweeps Europe As The Head Of The IMF Warns Of A “1930s Depression”

Financial Panic Sweeps Europe As The Head Of The IMF Warns Of A “1930s Depression” by The American Dream


"Right now, this is the situation in Europe….

-Most EU governments are drowning in toxic levels of debt

-Bond yields have risen dramatically this year and this has caused borrowing costs for most EU members to soar

-In an attempt to get debt under control, governments all over Europe are implementing brutal austerity measures and this is causing European economies to slow down substantially

-There is a tremendous lack of confidence in the European financial system at this point and this is causing a massive credit crunch

-The credit crunch is causing the money supply to drop significantly in almost every nation in the EU

-Major banks all over Europe are massively overleveraged and are on the verge of failing

This is all so similar to what we saw back during the early 1930s.

...

If you can believe it, approximately 20 percent of all bank deposits in Greece have been withdrawn since the start of 2011.

Europe is in a massive amount of trouble. The euro is dropping like a rock and the European financial system is paralyzed by panic and fear.

It is going to take a miracle to prevent a massive financial collapse from happening in Europe in 2012."


Revised 12-30-11. Added the following:

The Number One Catastrophic Event That Americans Worry About: Economic Collapse by The Economic Collapse

"So the truth is that Americans should be very concerned about an economic collapse.

It is coming and it is going to be very painful."




Bill


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Goodbye, Iraq

Goodbye, Iraq by Robert Dreyfuss

"After eight and half years, the United States is leaving behind a nation and a society that has been utterly devastated by the misguided and illegal war. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, and an entire generation of children is scarred and traumatized. Iraq’s infrastructure and its industry were destroyed. And in place of Saddam Hussein is Maliki, a religious Shiite fundamentalist with close ties to Iran who is fast building an authoritarian regime.

But that’s not good enough for neoconservatives and many Republicans, who want to expand and continue the war and the American presence.

...

In the Christian Science Monitor, describing the experiences of the Khafaji family, Scott Peterson reminds us of the almost unimaginable losses suffered by Iraqis, many of whom blame the United States for their trauma even if some of the deaths were caused by Iraqis, including the resistance:

Iraq’s fragile social fabric has been shredded by the kinds of bombings, killings, torture, and upheavals that afflicted so many like the Khafaji family—whether at the hands of Sunni extremists like Al Qaeda, Shiite militias, or US and Iraqi forces. While the US lost more than 4,500 soldiers—and spent nearly $1 trillion—the human toll on the Iraqi side is virtually unquantifiable and unimaginable, with estimates of the number of people who perished in the years of insurgency and sectarian civil war reaching into the hundreds of thousands.
"

It boggles the mind to consider that the evil forces behind the invasion of the Middle East aren't being put on trial for their crimes.


Revised 12-15-11


The Iraq War Disaster by Raed Jarrar

"... The U.S.-Iraqi war that started in 1990 has destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure and damaged the Iraqi social fabric. Iraq is far from having a functional democratic government. It is the fourth most corrupt country in the world according to Transparency International, and Baghdad is the worst city in the world according to Mercer’s 2011 Quality of Living rankings. One million Iraqis have been killed in the last eight years alone, and another 5 million displaced. Millions of others have been injured and traumatized for life. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have been killed and wounded, and hundreds of thousands are back home with mental injuries. Iraq and the U.S. lost hundreds of billions of dollars because of the conflict.

...

But ending the occupation does not end the U.S. moral and legal obligations to compensate Iraq and Iraqis for the crimes and mistakes committed in the last two decades. In addition, holding U.S. officials who caused this mess legally accountable will help achieve U.S.-Iraqi reconciliation, and it will send a strong message to future U.S. politicians that they will be held accountable."


And Was the Mission Accomplished? by Patrick J. Buchanan

"Yet the disaster that may still befall us in Iraq has not in the least inhibited the war hawks who, even now, are advancing identical arguments for a new war, on Iran, a country three times the size of Iraq."

I'm surprised that Pat Buchanan - and other insightful writers - have yet to explore another angle: that the multi-billion dollar embassy, the last remnant of the much hated empire that wrought so much agony, death and destruction to the people of Iraq, will come under siege - something like a modern day Alamo. When you really think about it, how else can it turn out?

What is the right thing to do, before things get much worse in the Middle East?

Start with putting the people behind the invasion on trial for war crimes. At the same time commit to a massive effort on the part of the American people to help the people of Iraq recover from the disaster wrought upon them by that gang and their minions.

America is in a state of decline largely because we've lost our moral compass. It's not too late and we still have a choice: we can restore that sense of morality - or we can fall into the abyss. How will we know when the free-fall starts? It will be around the time they launch one more war in the Middle East, regardless of which country.

Revision: added the link below

Left Behind: Iraqis Who Helped US Occupation Forces Fear Revenge Attacks


Bill

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The real definition of Terrorism

The real definition of Terrorism By Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald, one of the brightest and best thinker/writers of our time, articulates what (I imagine) so many of us feel about the definition of terrorist but can't quite put into words.

"In other words, if the U.S. invades and occupies your country, and you respond by fighting back against the invading army — the ultimate definition of a “military, not civilian target” — then you are a . . . Terrorist."


Bill

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The truth is what it ought to be

I'm a big fan of Phantom of the Opera, and I was just thinking about one of my favorite quotes from the music of the play, which says "... that the truth is what it ought to be"

That's one of those phrases that's hard to get out of your mind, once it's planted. Reminds of a philosophy professor telling the freshman class that they will not be able to unlearn what they are about to learn, so tread carefully.

Truth is the key and most interesting word of the phrase, of course.

All my life, I've searched for truth. Sometimes at great expense, and sometimes it was perhaps just ordinary curiosity about things.

What's happened, to my astonishment, is that the longer I live, the more I see the gulf between the truth as I've learned it, and the world around me. Looks to me like most people are actually programmed. Maybe not as far gone as the Manchurian Candidate, but when I argue with someone over some fact and I know he's quoting Fox News (and that's just one, ask Phil Donohue about that), and he really believes those lies and distortions, and what that person is close to me for some reason, it really hurts.

Well - so, you know what I do out of that frustration? I write. Mostly on paper for future reference, and I suppose blog entries. I've been in forums, with fellow employees in the corporate world, and software developers in the consulting world, and I've learned from these experiences, which I'll also write about one day.


Bill

Iran

The boys who cry “Holocaust” The same neocon hawks who lied us into Iraq are using the ultimate argument-stopper to push war with Iran By Gary Kamiya

"When hawks begin beating the drums for war in the Middle East, Israel is usually a big reason why. That was true in the run-up to the war in Iraq, and it is doubly true with the current hysteria over Iran. Despite disingenuous claims to the contrary, the only reason the U.S. is even talking about war with Iran is Israel. As the invaluable M.J. Rosenberg, who knows the working of the Israel lobby as only a former card-carrying member can, notes, “It is impossible to find a single politician or journalist advocating war with Iran who is not a neocon or an AIPAC cutout. (They’re often both.)”

Ever since the International Atomic Energy Agency released its overhyped, old-news report on Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s amen corner in the U.S. has been loudly calling for war.

If American politics did not contain an enormous blind spot, no one would pay any attention to what these discredited ideologues have to say. The Iraq war they championed turned out to be one of the biggest foreign-policy disasters in U.S. history. Their ignorant and Islamophobic view of the Middle East is as breathtaking as their bland willingness to commit America to yet another ruinous war against a Muslim country, this time one four times larger than Iraq and with more than twice as many people. They have a demonstrated track record of complete failure.

Yet these incompetent militarists are still taken seriously. And the reason is simple: They purport to be supporters of Israel. In American politics, you can get away with even the most cracked war-mongering as long as you claim to be “pro-Israel.” And the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for anything having to do with Israel is the Holocaust."

The lunatic solution: attack Iran

A reasonable solution: get rid of all nukes in the Middle East (and then keep going ...)

What do you think will actually happen?

The media and Iran: familiar mindlessness A new Post story relies on anonymous government sources to spout the latest Persian-Hitler fear-mongering By Glenn Greenwald

"What is just as clear is that America’s vaunted Watchdog Media is no impediment to this continuous chest-beating, fear-mongering and demonization effort. Quite the opposite: just as they did in the run-up to the attack on Iraq, they are (with some rare exceptions) eagerly assuming their actual role as subservient, uncritical amplifiers of government messaging, and will dutifully serve that function wherever this road leads."

Glenn Greenwald is a great thinker and an excellent writer, but he seems to miss the bigger picture here: the same people who control Congress also control the media. To say this gang is "Zionist-heavy" is an understatement.



Where's the music?
------------------

Have you wondered why there aren't any anti-war songs on the charts, or a single series anti-war movie (with a vast amount of truth as fodder) in the theaters? If you're old like me you'll remember the 60's and that it was quite the opposite in music and movies. Have we changed? I would have throught we'd have become more peaceful, but quite the opposite has actually occured. Mind-numbing when you think about it, that ownership of the air waves, the big screen and -- too soon -- the Internet could actually be so dominated, so controlled by these interests that they can twist not only the truth but people's minds as well. I know too many people who watch Fox News (clear here for an interesting story about Fox News.


Bill

The Obama Deception

The New York Times Calls The Obama Deception “An Antigovernment Film” by Saman Mohammadi

Scroll down to the 2nd video on this page, below "Watch The Obama Deception:"

The title introduces the topic well enough, and clearly makes the case for Obama being nothing more or less than a public face for the same money people who have hugely advanced the police state and desperate poverty afflicting so many people here and around the world today, among other evils. They are the robber barons.

Alex Jones makes a good case documenting who they are, as well as the evils of demagogues who arise from the ashes to make matters considerably worse.

We're not going to find or get a "strong leader", nor do we want one.

What we want, what we need, is a money-free election process that will allow us first to build and prioritize a list of issues we care about, and second to elect people from among us most willing and capable to tackle the issues and solutions we do badly need. And we need to hold them accountable for their actions.

Can we do this before it's really too late? I'm hopeful but skeptical.

Bill

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Crisis in Afghanistan

A crisis of trust and cultural incompatibility by McClatchy

"A study of mutual perceptions of Afghan National Security Force Personnel and U.S. Soldiers in understanding and mitigating the phenomena of ANSF-Committed Fratricide Murders"

I can't imagine a more damning report of the state of affairs between our soldiers and the people of Afghanistan. I say this from experience, having lived and fought with the Vietnamese Regional Forces (RF's) in Vietnam in 1967-8. Reading this report and comparing it with my experience, I'm actually shocked at how bad Afghanistan is compared to Vietnam. I didn't it was possible for a situation to be so much worse.

What the heck are we doing in Afghanistan, anyway?

Okay, standing back and looking at the big picture of the military invasion of the Middle East (which is what has really been happening), Afghanistan was a convenient launching point for the larger plan, the invasion and seizure of military authority in the Middle East. Afghanistan was simply the most arguable case used by the warmongers to get their invasion launched. As history has recorded, Afghanistan was dropped like a hot potato early on as the invasion moved on to one of it's larger targets, Iraq, and the real power centers of the Middle East.

Then, as history has also recorded, the invasion of Iraq didn't go so well, and the day finally came when the troops had to be withdrawn. The warmongers weren't about to let our troops come home, because they knew - and we know - that once the troops are brought home from the Middle East, nobody will be able to send them back, so they parked them in Afghanistan, to keep them busy while they whipped up the next phase of their grand invasion plan, apparently targeting Iran. And, to spread things out, as is now being reported, they are also deploying some troops in Africa as well - gotta find enough to keep them busy until the next phase of the planned invasion can be launched. That step today is focused on Iran, but it may change. What wouldn't change is this: they - the warmongers - are not - ever - going to call it quits and give up their primary objective, which again is to establish military authority in the Middle East. Israel demands this of us, their minions.

Bill

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

"Nuclear Option" Against Iran's Economy Paves Way for War

"Nuclear Option" Against Iran's Economy Paves Way for War By Kate Gould

An excellent review of the status of the major push underway to start a war with Iran.

Note: Iran will give up their nuke program if Israel does the same. Gotta wonder why this otherwise well-informed article doesn't mention this, given it's a game changer. If we really want peace, non-proliferation treaty is the way to go. Continue to course and it will mean more war.

Is anyone else wondering how long our military can make life miserable for millions of people before they get really, really mad and find some way to strike back? I'm amazed it's been this long. But then, the warmongers love more war, so maybe a strike back didn't happen (yet) because they don't want to provoke people with trillions to spend on killing them.

I guess a question of some hour is going to be "will those millions of enemies we've created around the world find a way to strike us back?" Or is the question "when"?

Can we stop the madness now, or is it too late?

Can you say: ELECTION CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM to everyone who will listen?

Bill

Federal debt tops $15 trillion

Federal debt tops $15 trillion By Stephen Dinan

You may not know this, given all the attention paid to far more trivial matters, but think about this:

"Mr. Obama is averaging a debt increase of more than $1.5 trillion a year during his term in office, compared with an average of $612.4 billion for Mr. Bush and $192.5 billion a year under President Clinton."

And there's the matter of the trillions of dollars in junk paper from the mortgage ripoff still in the system.

And pouring untold billions into their lost-cause crusade for military authority in the Middle East

And all those jobs shipped overseas that made some very greedy people very wealthy while leaving America with what may come to depression-level unemployment with millions of people earning less then the cost of basic living.

Click here for a chart showing the National debt.

Update: See this article: 1 Through 30 – The Coming U.S. Financial Crisis By The Numbers

Update 2: See The Hubris of Attacking Syria by Doug Bandow

"Moreover, America no longer can afford to fight all the wars promoted by Washington’s ivory-tower warriors. Uncle Sam is broke. The national debt is $15 trillion. Social Security and Medicare account for around $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities. A host of other liabilities loom large.

Economist Laurence Kotlikoff figures that the American government’s total debts and unfunded liabilities total $211 trillion. Added to this is the cost of Washington’s outsize military budget—half of the world’s spending, double the real outlays of a decade ago, ..."

What to do?

Support Occupy Wall Street! Get the message through to them that election campaign finance reform is a solution to many problems. There are very smart people in America that are willing and able perform for public service and not the special interests and corporations. We need to find them and get them in office without delay.

And if we're going to regain any sense of justice, we need to be putting some very big crooks in jail.


Bill

Saturday, November 12, 2011

U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler

Veterans Day: Thanks but No Thanks by Tim Kelly

On veteran's day, let's remember the words of a real hero: USMC General Butler:

"Eighty years ago, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, lamenting his career, said,

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Butler expanded on his thoughts in “War Is A Racket,” a book describing how the U.S. military is often used, not to defend the country, but to advance the narrow interests of the political and financial elite. Although his book was concerned primarily with America’s entry into World War I, the general’s conclusions could be applied to all American wars of the past century"


Bill

Friday, November 11, 2011

Why the Washington Post won’t fire Jennifer Rubin

Why the Washington Post won’t fire Jennifer Rubin By Glenn Greenwald

Do you remember Helen Thomas? I really, really liked her. If you know about her and how they disposed of her, you likely already know of the degree of control the Zionists have over our information supply, the so-called "mass media".

You may be aware that the way it works is simple: you either talk pro-Israel in the news, or you don't talk at all.

They ran Helen Thomas off the road like she were a wild dog. She was anything but. If I had to make a short list of people I most admire, she'd surely be on it.

But I've know this for too long, since age 15 and my involvement in the local (Long Island NY) small town newspaper publishing industry, when the owner spoke about using an alias name because it sounded more Jewish, and the Jews controlled the newspapers, and he wanted the work, so he twisted his name around, did the appropriate bowing down, and got the work (which, in truth, paid my salary).

That event sparked a curiosity that led me to wonder how widespread the control over the newspaper industry was. Well, to make a longer story short, I've discovered it's far deeper then most people realize. People watch, for example, Fox News not because they are good at what they do (report the news), but because they sensationalize the news, which is enticing to most people (evidentally). The problem with Fox News (and all of Murdoch's "news" channels/papers) is that Murdoch sold out long ago to the Zionist project, and he's not the only one. In fact, there isn't any competition left. Their soldiers have bought or infiltrated just about all of the "news" organizations in America.

This is how Americans were duped into invading the Middle East, this is why NONE of criminals behind the Mortgage scam went to trail or jail, it's why we're headed for very depressing economic times, and it's why we're standing around with our fingers up our asses as Israel directs a deeper American military commitment for their crusade to achieve Israel's "security".

I've talked about discovering this control over our information supply with others, many times over the years, but always to no avail. They thought I was being an "anti-semite" because that is how they are trained to think by our information supply.

I am "anti" alright, but not towards any group for it's religion, although it makes me a true believer in separation of church and state, we must get our sense of morality from somewhere, and that can't be the state or the propaganda machine that is our information supply, the mass media.

There is a battle for religious influence over the American mind, and you can see it every time you see a cross hanging out of a criminals shirt in some movie, you can see it every time a bad-priest story makes the headlines - unlike any act of goodness, no matter how good), and you can see it in our undying support for our staunch ally, our best friend, that bastion of democracy in the Middle East: Israel.

-----------------

Back to the topic: evidently Glenn Greenwald, who I have been following for some time now with the highest regard for his research, thinking and writing ability, is acknowledging this problem with a force and clarity only he can muster.

"What’s particularly remarkable is that Pexton is admitting (albeit wanting it kept secret) what any honest observer knows to be true: that there is a very high likelihood — I’d say absolute certainty — that Rubin would have been fired had she promoted a post like this about Jews and Israelis rather than Arabs and Palestinians."

Essentially, what Glenn is saying in this excellent article is that while Helen Thomas was fired for a minor negative reference to Israel, people like Jennifer Rubin and Rachel Abrams can spew anti-Palestinian hatred without any check or balance whatsoever. This is more then a double standard, once you think about what can happen when a nation's information supply is hostage to a given "religious" mentality. I wonder if there is an ounce of religion in the Zionist mentality, who feed us with mantras such as "thou shall not kill - except preemptively when you're scared". And even that way of putting it is too shallow, because the truth is that it's all about winning, owning and controlling. That's what the (so far) 60+ year long crusade in the Middle East is all about.

Now the genie is out of the bottle. The invasion they wanted and made happen happened. In effect they bet our farm on their invasion and mission to establish military authority in the region. It didn't work. It failed. We just don't know it yet (well, not everyone anyway).

But they're not finished. They are currently trying to spark a war with Iran - or are they? Maybe this whole Iran thing is just a cover-up for something else in the works. Whatever it is, it will NOT be a withdrawal of our military from the area, even if they have to send them into Africa, they wouldn't be coming home en masse as we want them to.

Will they make the war bigger before quitting? Of course.

What would a bigger war look like? It was be mechanized, automated, because even with the number of troops in the area today, they are not enough to defeat all of the countries on the hit list.

So, what does a warmonger do? Hey - there are all those Big Guns carried around by the Air Force and Navy, and even the Army has tactical nukes they can shoot out of field cannons.

That's what happens. Get it escalated to the point where people can be psyched to support "anything to win" and then we have no choice but to roll out some of the bigger guns.

----------

We need a simple "fits on a license plate" solution. The OWS comes close, but they need to focus. This is why I believe that election reform is the key, the lynchpin, the war to hit the core of the problem with a solution that will solve other problems. If we can elect real patriotic Americans into office, one of their first tasks will be to bust up the mass media empires into hundreds of pieces and let Americans sort out the best of the competitors. Today there is no competition, it's under lock and key. It's owned. It's controlled to a degree, by Zionists and minions like Murdoch.


Think: ELECTION REFORM!


Bill





















. When working at Prodigy I launched and pursued a campaign to

Extreme Poverty Is Now at Record Levels

Extreme Poverty Is Now at Record Levels -- 19 Statistics About the Poor That Will Absolutely Astound You by Michael Snyder

"Tonight, there are more than 20 million Americans that are living in extreme poverty. This number increases a little bit more every single day.

...

Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four."


Following the list of gruesome statistics ...

"Sadly, we don't hear much about this on the nightly news, do we?

This is because the mainstream media is very tightly controlled."



Bill

Thursday, November 10, 2011

An All-American Nightmare: This Is What Defeat Looks Like

An All-American Nightmare: This Is What Defeat Looks Like By Tom Engelhardt

"How about a moment of silence for the passing of the American Dream? "

Tom Englehardt is an excellent writer, and this article speaks for itself.


Also see Mr. Fish's Cartoons: Red Menace

Bill

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

There’s Nothing Idealistic About the One-State Solution

There’s Nothing Idealistic About the One-State Solution by Jonathan Cook

Please read this outstanding argument for a (one-state) solution to America's - and the world's - biggest problem: the gang of fanatical lunatics running Israel.

"The reality is that the elites that run Israel have everything to lose should the occupation fall. That is why they have invested every effort in integrating the occupied territories into Israel and making a “real” peace deal impossible. The occupation and its related industries are the source of their moral legitimacy, their political survival and their daily enrichment.

That is also why they are twisting in agony at the prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear arsenal to rival their own. At that point, the occupation begins to expire and their rule is finished."

Not asking you to read this because you or I care about Israel - I don't, but I do care about America, and we've got to do something to solve that problem before it further consumes us.

Jonathan Cook makes the case for a one-state solution, which I believe most reasonable people would agree with.

"In short, however one assesses it, the promotion of a one-state solution can serve only to hasten the demise of the Israeli elites who oppress the Palestinians. So why waste so much breath opposing it?"

But to make that happen, something has to change in America. I believe election campaign finance reform is the best choice, if we can change only one thing. By removing the money, and thus the power the elite have over the system as it exists today, we can plant seeds for a government that truly represents us.

This isn't just an academic argument any longer. We need to make this happen before those warmongering nutcases make things much worse. Tell your family and friends, and if you know anyone in the Occupy movement, that our primary objective should be to remove money from the election process. It can be done. Computers, the Internet and dedicated software developers are capable of giving us an election system we can be proud of, and one that actually works. Elections need to be about the issues, not race, gender and other superficial nonsense. This being the case, that we can decide on candidates by their stand on the issues, and then being held accountable for their actions relative to the issues, we can finally get the warmongering gorilla off our backs and all kinds of good things can start to happen.

For example, our representatives will know right out of the gate that busting up the media conglomerates will dilute the propaganda machine - which has so effectively duped America into supporting the military invasion of the Middle East, not to mention keeping those responsible for the Wall Street ripoff out of jail.

Smack yourself on the head America, and then get busy on election reform!


Bill

Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy

Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy: If We Want a Chance at a Decent Future, the Movement Here and Around the World Must Grow By Noam Chomsky

The following is just a snippet of what Noam Chomsky has to say about what's happened and is happening with the American economy. As usual, he's the man when it comes to understanding the essence of the situation. I've noticed over time that virtually every article/lecture he writes/gives is always more in-depth and profound then it's title, and I'm sure you'll notice the same thing as you read this one.


"In the 1930s unemployed “working people” could anticipate realistically that the jobs are going to come back. If you’re a worker in manufacturing today -- and the unemployment level in manufacturing today is approximately like the Depression -- if current tendencies persist, then those jobs aren’t going to come back. The change took place in the '70s. There are a lot of reasons for it. One of the underlying reasons, discussed mainly by economic historian Robert Bernard, who has done a lot of work on it, is a falling rate of profit. That, with other factors, led to major changes in the economy -- a reversal of the 700 years of progress towards industrialization and development. We turned to a process of deindustrialization and de-development. Of course, manufacturing production continued, but overseas (it’s very profitable, but no good for the workforce). Along with that came a significant shift of the economy from productive enterprise, producing things people need, to financial manipulation. Financialization of the economy really took off at that time.

....

The 1970s set off a kind of a vicious cycle that led to a concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector, which doesn’t benefit the economy. Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power, which, in turn, arrives to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle. The physical policies such as tax changes, rules of corporate governance, deregulation were essentially bipartisan. Alongside of this began a very sharp rise in the costs of elections, which drives the political parties even deeper than before into the pockets of the corporate sector.

A couple years later started a different process. The parties dissolved, essentially. It used to be if you were a person in Congress and hoped for a position of committee chair or a position of responsibility, you got it mainly through seniority and service. Within a couple of years, you started to have to put money into the party coffers in order to get ahead. That just drove the whole system even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector and increasingly the financial sector--a tremendous concentration of wealth, mainly in the literally top 1/10th of 1 percent of the population."


I'll stop copy/pasting now and hope you'll read the entire article yourself. Moreover, I hope you'll become a fan of this most intelligent and well-informed person. If you aren't aware, he's a professor at M.I.T., and in my opinion one of the luminaries who make that school so prestigious.


Bill

Sunday, November 6, 2011

US Debt clock

Interesting and disgusting debt clock here.


Bill

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Too Big to Jail

Too Big to Jail By Robert Scheer

"Rubin’s destructive impact on the economy in enabling these giant corporate banks to run amok was far greater than that of swindler Bernard Madoff, who sits in prison under a 150-year sentence while Rubin sits on the Harvard Board of Overseers, as chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and as a leader of the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project."

Don't skip the reader comments, some are as useful as the article itself.

The bottom line is that this article asks a very important question: why aren't any of the people who robbed America blind indicted or in jail? Not a one, so far.

When you think about it, how many things are more important to us then justice?

One Nation, Gone Awry By William Pfaff

"One percent of the American population receives income equivalent to the other 99 percent put together."

Please read this well informed article


Bill

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

IBM's Watson, a most dramatic advance going too unnoticed

One of the most, significant advances ever in the field of computing is going on, and it's not getting the kind of attention it deserves. The advance is in the form of IBM's Watson program.

First it beat the best Jeopardy players, now today we read that it beat Harvard and M.I.T. as well and is now making the rounds through other universities.

"On Monday, at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Big Blue’s Watson supercomputer took on a team from the prestigious B School and a second from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Harvard’s Jeopardy team held its own and briefly had the lead. The MIT team, not so much. And in the end, Watson took home the trophy, just as it did when playing two human Jeopardy champs on national television earlier this year."

We know of the utility of Google and other search engines, but I suspect not too many see what's happening here and the significance of Watson on the "information age" scene. In the (near, it seems) future, we wouldn't so much turn to Google as Watson for answers to our questions.

"There have been four waves of technological innovation that disrupted the labor market over the last two and a half centuries starting with the Industrial Revolution, and we’re beginning the fifth, said IBM Chief Economist Martin Fleming. “We’re now beginning to enter into, in my view, a period where the economy is beginning to open up opportunities for the deployment of very significant innovation … We’re going to see many new industries get created, radical new technologies being deployed, but being deployed in the context of new business models,” he said."

Thomas Watson, IBM's founder, put it well in one word: "Think".


Bill

Monday, October 31, 2011

A New Declaration of Independence

A New Declaration of Independence By Alex Pareene

"The weight of the 1 Percent has become intolerable. How can we take our country back? Here's a fresh draft"


Not a bad start


Bill

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Iraq War’s Lessons Lost on US

Iraq War’s Lessons Lost on US by Ramzy Baroud

"It might take us years to truly understand the magnitude of what has since transpired in Iraq. Death and destruction have hovered over the country, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands, sending millions into exile and millions more have been classified by U.N. agencies as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP). It was a horror show that cannot be captured with the language of reason, but every moment of it was experienced by millions of ordinary people, punished severely for a crime they never committed."


Bill

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Occupy Wall Street Job # 1: election campaign reform

At some point the mission for the OWS movement will have to be clearly defined.

Supporters need to know exactly what they are supporting (they are totally tired of the BS propaganda machine), and the establishment needs to know exactly what defeated them.

It's gotta fit on a license plate, as has been said of movement anthems.

Can we distill the list of issues to one?

Yes.

That single issue is election campaign reform.

By removing money from the process, which can be done (I'll explain my own design in a follow-up post, but I have no doubt there are other, better designs), we can replace the entire Washington establishment with knowledgeable and public service oriented people who truly represent the best interests of the people of this country. Without being beholden to this or that special interest, our representatives can actually represent our best interests. We need highly educated people because we need their knowledge. What we must divest ourselves of is the greedy special interests who planted their candidates (minions) in positions of power.

If Obama taught us anything, it's the degree to which politicians today can lie to get into office and bear no accountability nor suffer any consequences whatsoever for having done so. Bush brought this to new heights, but Obama put him to shame. The fact that he continues to live in the White House today is proof positive that he is the veritable poster child for this reality.

What we have today is alien to the spirit and letter of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. And it's getting worse, possibly headed to worse on a scale we can't even imagine. It's critically important to understand that they have the power today and they have no intention whatsoever of losing it. It things to get worse and they feel threatened with losing the power, they may very well launch what's left of it (actually, the worst of it, the Big Guns).

What is this power that they have and we must take away?

It's the power to have launched a military invasion of the Middle East for the purpose of seizing and establishing military authority in the region. This plan is being implemented by the Zionist soldiers and their hired hands in Washington and Wall Street. Perhaps you've seen or read of the death and destruction for so many innocent people they've caused so far. That's nothing compared to what will happen if the pull down the Big Guns.


Bill

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

What We Can Learn from Germany: How Countries With Publicly Owned Banks Do Better Than America

What We Can Learn from Germany: How Countries With Publicly Owned Banks Do Better Than America By Ellen Brown

"Publicly owned banks were instrumental in funding Germany's "economic miracle" after the devastation of World War II. Although the German public banks have been targeted in the last decade for takedown by their private competitors, the model remains a viable alternative to the private profiteering being protested on Wall Street today."


Bill

Cambodia's Khmer Rouge trial to start next month

Cambodia's Khmer Rouge trial to start next month by Associated Press

""Many Cambodians have waited more than 30 years for this day, where those accused of being part of the Khmer Rouge leadership who designed the policies that allegedly lead to crimes throughout Cambodia are being put on trial," tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said"

The question of this, our hour is when will Bush and the Neocon gang be put on trial for war crimes involving the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and the Middle East?


Bill

Monday, October 17, 2011

Why Obama is targeting Iran

War and the Return of Populism Why Obama is targeting Iran by Justin Raimondo

"A war, at this moment in time, would amount to the equivalent of the TARP program for American politicians: it would bail them out of a world of trouble. Which means: war with Iran is a near certainty. The only question is when."


Bill

Friday, October 14, 2011

Beyond the Battlefield: As Wounded Veterans Struggle To Recover, Caregivers Share The Pain

Beyond the Battlefield: As Wounded Veterans Struggle To Recover, Caregivers Share The Pain by David Wood

"Given that Bryan volunteered to serve his country and came home wounded, Cheryl said, it's "hard not to feel bitter, enraged, cheated, lied to and left high and dry." "

Read this article for well expressed insight into the nature of the people who hijacked our government's foreign policy. Not only did they launch a massively criminal invasion of the Middle East for their own interests, they treat the casualties like this.

If this article doesn't do it, then what does it take to get people to do something? America has hundreds of millions of people. How could we let an evil sliver of our population do this to us and our country?

Every single action they've taken with American foreign policy in the Middle East has been an utter failure, and it was all based on lies and deceit. But this, the treatment of our children who they ate up and spit out is the most disgraceful act of all. Let's make no mistake about one thing: they are a pack of merciless killers.


Bill

Thursday, October 13, 2011

OWS revisited

OWS: Are Mindless Americans Falling Prey to the Collectivist Trap? by Patrick Henningsen

Interesting and informative article that starts with a critique on the "people's microphone" system used by the OWS protesters.

Next is another aspect of great interest: where the money comes from. CIA?

Then the (all too expected!) bombshell:

"If you take into account the level by which the Occupy Wall Street movement has already been co-opted by the ‘progressives’ and the Democratic Party, and endorsed whole-heartedly by staunch globalists within the US power-structure like Ben Bernanke, President Obama and Nancy Pelosi, this writer believes strongly that OWS will likely morph into a permanent left wing counter-weight to the now Republican co-opted Tea Party movement.

The movement may have grown organically, but as we saw with Ron Paul’s initial Tea Party spark in 2007, once a movement’s political gravity reached a certain stage, the establishment quickly deploys its professional agitators, political operatives and mainstream media gate keepers in order to control its motion and shepherd its evolution. Already, the mainstream media have injected the talking point which most Americans are already parroting, that is: “America’s Occupy Movement is the Democrats’ equivalent to the Tea Party”."


Bill

Tavis Smiley

I'm really developing a like for this guy. Tonight's show highlighted poverty and the food shortage felt by so many people across America.

"Thus, one in five children in the United States lives in poverty. Almost half of these children (9.3 percent) live in extreme poverty"

It's a national disgrace and we should all be ashamed of letting capitalism eat our democracy. We're way past time to take it back.

And, you know, those at the top - they are in a world of their own and aren't even listening to anything we have to say. Sure, they have many soldier minions well versed to go into attack mode whenever someone starts shining lights at the bosses, but you know, their thinking is just so wrong that how could they NOT call attention to themselves by people of any decent level of education and even rudimentary awareness of the world around us.

See this article "OWS Protester Proclaims ‘The Jews Control Wall St.’ In Zuccotti Park Rant and the reader responses to see an example of what I said above about the soldiers coming out.

And be sure to check out Tavis Smiley's Poverty Tour ... and think about it. I've seen a few of his other shows and he's one of those rare voices on TV. Reminds me a little of Bill Moyers who was removed from the screen.



Bill

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Real Story of How Israel Was Created

The Real Story of How Israel Was Created by Alison Weir

The scope and significance of this article by Alison Weir goes far beyond what the title suggests. The totality of the picture painted by Alison (which I confirm with my years of study and thousands of papers by people I've come to trust and respect), will astonish, I suspect, many millions people who simply don't know these things. The facts are that America is buried in debt, rapidly becoming a nightmare police state, in a military quagmire in the Middle East, and gaining the scorn of the world for this nightmarish behavior.

Make no mistake about it, the American empire is crumbling as we speak. We can't manage the national debt, and we can't win - or even get out of - the military invasion of the Middle East. The Zionists, having played the key role in getting the invasion launched, and given their present attitude, will not tolerate anything but success. For it not to succeed, i.e. military withdrawn, aka failure, Israel will be all alone and surrounded by it's many enemies.

The good news that can come of this is that, rather then ruling the Middle East, the Zionists will have to bury their hatred, declare all of Israel/Palestine a united democracy, and learn to live in peace with their neighbors.

The bad news is that I (and many people, I suspect) am an optimist. I keep thinking "it will get better" - somehow. But it hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse, steadily, and the decline started long before the invasion of the ME, but certainly since that fateful day.

Every American should read Alison's essays - and think about it. Then talk with family and friends. DO SOMETHING!

There's another important, related piece by Alison, The History of Israel-US Relations which is on her website, which contain other writing and research.

Reading material on this subject is piled high on the internet. Google "neocon video" to find some websites with video presentations, but for the most thoughtful material there's no substitute for reading. Alison Weir's papers are a very good start. From there, do some searches and follow your curiosity.


Bill

Friday, October 7, 2011

Occupy Wall Street: 'We're Mad As Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore'

Occupy Wall Street: 'We're Mad As Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore' By David Morris

"The 2011 Academy Award for best documentary went to Inside Job, a searing indictment of Wall Street. Its director, Charles Ferguson, told the audience, “Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong.”

Seven hundred Wall Street protestors were arrested in a single day. They were disrupting traffic. The CEOs of Wall Street firms disrupted the lives of hundreds of millions."


Bill

Monday, October 3, 2011

#OccupyWallStreet - clips

Educating #OccupyWallStreet Protesters: The 5 Essential Facts by Saman Mohammadi

"The Occupy Wall Street protesters have breathed life into America’s on-the-ground political scene. They deserve our praise and they need our support. But, they also need a little education.

It is arrogant for protesters to think they understand how the world financial system works just because they saw the documentary “Inside Job” by Charles Ferguson. The situation is more complicated and complex than what is portrayed in that film, or any single film. It is good to watch many documentaries that have different viewpoints.

...

There is no point in slashing the arm of the financial dragon when the evil heart is left intact. In order to create true reform in Washington and restore the U.S. constitution the illegal and corrupt Federal Reserve System must be destroyed."


Occupy Wall Street Hijacked by Special Interests – Alex Jones Emergency Broadcast by Alex Jones

"Alex Jones will gives a special broadcast today on the Occupy Wall Street protests that have been swelling for weeks. His worst concerns have been confirmed about the true nature of who has been steering the demonstrations."

Bill

Is the War on Terror a Hoax?

Is the War on Terror a Hoax? by Paul Craig Roberts

"In the past decade, Washington has killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans millions of Muslims in six countries, all in the name of the “war on terror.” Washington’s attacks on the countries constitute naked aggression and impact primarily civilian populations and infrastructure and, thereby, constitute war crimes under law. Nazis were executed precisely for what Washington is doing today.

Moreover the wars and military attacks have cost American taxpayers in out-of-pocket and already-incurred future costs at least $4,000 billion dollars – one third of the accumulated public debt – resulting in a US deficit crisis that threatens the social safety net, the value of the US dollar and its reserve currency role, while enriching beyond all previous history the military/security complex and its apologists.

Perhaps the highest cost of Washington’s “war on terror” has been paid by the US Constitution and civil liberties. Any US citizen that Washington accuses is deprived of all legal and constitutional rights. The Bush-Cheney-Obama regimes have overturned humanity’s greatest achievement – the accountability of government to law."


The Day America Died: The only Future for Americans is a Nightmare by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

"Many expected President Obama to re-establish the accountability of government to law. Instead, he went further than Bush/Cheney and asserted the unconstitutional power not only to hold American citizens indefinitely in prison without bringing charges, but also to take their lives without convicting them in a court of law. Obama asserts that the US Constitution notwithstanding, he has the authority to assassinate US citizens, who he deems to be a “threat,” without due process of law.

In other words, any American citizen who is moved into the threat category has no rights and can be executed without trial or evidence.

...

But what Awlaki did or might have done is beside the point. The US Constitution requires that even the worst murderer cannot be punished until he is convicted in a court of law.

...

As civilian and military leaders have been telling us for years, the war on terror is a 30-year project. After such time has passed, the presidency will have completed its transformation into Caesarism, and there will be no going back.

Indeed, as the neoconservative “Project For A New American Century” makes clear, the war on terror is only an opening for the neoconservative imperial ambition to establish US hegemony over the world.

...

Readers ask me what they can do. Americans not only feel powerless, they are powerless. They cannot do anything. The highly concentrated, corporate-owned, government-subservient print and TV media are useless and no longer capable of performing the historic role of protecting our rights and holding government accountable. Even many antiwar Internet sites shield the government from 9/11 skepticism, and most defend the government’s “righteous intent” in its war on terror. Acceptable criticism has to be couched in words such as “it doesn’t serve our interests.”

Voting has no effect. President “Change” is worse than Bush/Cheney. As Jonathan Turley suggests, Obama is “the most disastrous president in our history.” Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who stands up for the Constitution, but the majority of Americans are too unconcerned with the Constitution to appreciate him.

To expect salvation from an election is delusional. All you can do, if you are young enough, is to leave the country. The only future for Americans is a nightmare."



Bill

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Internet firms co-opted for surveillance: experts

Internet firms co-opted for surveillance: experts By Georgina Prodhan

We knew this was coming, but maybe we didn't know how fast and furious is would happen.


" "(Reuters) - Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information they gather proves irresistible to law enforcement agencies, Web experts said this week."

...

Demands from governments for Internet companies to hand over user information have become routine, according to online privacy researcher and activist Christopher Soghoian, who makes extensive use of freedom-of-information requests in his work.

"Every decent-sized U.S. telecoms and Internet company has a team that does nothing but respond to requests for information," Soghoian told Reuters in an interview.

Soghoian estimates that U.S. Internet and telecoms companies may receive about 300,000 such requests in connection with law enforcement each year -- but public information is scarce.

While U.S. courts are obliged to publish reports on wire-tapping of telephone lines, no similar information is required to be made public with respect to the Internet -- which grew up after the laws on electronic communications were passed."


Bill

Saving the Rich, Losing the Economy

Saving the Rich, Losing the Economy by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

"Economic policy failed for three reasons: (1) policymakers focused on enabling offshoring corporations to move middle class jobs, and the consumer demand, tax base, GDP, and careers associated with the jobs, to foreign countries, such as China and India, where labor is inexpensive; (2) policymakers permitted financial deregulation that unleashed fraud and debt leverage on a scale previously unimaginable; (3) policymakers responded to the resulting financial crisis by imposing austerity on the population and running the printing press in order to bail out banks and prevent any losses to the banks regardless of the cost to national economies and innocent parties."



Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes From Insiders


" #1 George Soros: “Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation.” "

...

#11 Ann Barnhardt, head of Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.: “It’s over. There is no coming back from this. The only thing that can happen is a total and complete collapse of EVERYTHING we now know, and humanity starts from scratch. And if you think that this collapse is going to play out without one hell of a big hot war, you are sadly, sadly mistaken.”


Bill

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Rachel Maddow Questions Legality Of Anwar al-Awlaki Killing

Rachel Maddow Questions Legality Of Anwar al-Awlaki Killing

Of course there are legal questions about the killing of an American citizen without due process!

Commentary: An unasked question

There's an angle to all this that wants to be discussed, and seems on the tip of someone's tongue, yet never comes out: they killed this guy because they say he's one of the top 3 most dangerous people in the world, that he's encouraged people to kill Americans and deserves summary execution. If you've been watching TV or reading the papers, you've seen the arguments.

What you may not have seen is an unasked question: let's say we kill the top 3 today, then the next top 3 the day after, and so on. How many top 3's are there out there, and how many are being recruited by the killings?

How many people in this world of 6 billion, with over 1 billion being Muslim, hate Americans? Is that number growing or lessening?

Without any more examination, it must be clear that we'll be killing people for generations to come. Even if we kill 3,000 people who hate us a week, it will take a year to kill less then 1% of a population that size.

And, at exactly what point does the blowback start? Does anyone know? Seems to me that having sown so much hatred for us among so many people, it's only a matter of time before we're attacked again. Perhaps in a big way, for some of us.

The invasion of Iraq, alone, killed - murdered - hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The pain of the survivors reaches across the Middle East, all the way to Palestine, so these extra-judicial murders are merely pints of gas on a raging fire.

And now innocent people are being murdered by robots in the sky. Not just a few, thousands of them have been built. Maybe they cover thousands of miles each day? Think about how would you feel if one of those machines flew over your neighborhood? Would you cower - for how long? - or would you join some army to make them go away, for good?

We're at least a decade into the "might makes right" handling of the hatred we've sown with Muslims over our one-side backing of Israel and the bullying of nations throughout the Middle East, and of treating Arabs/Muslims with less respect then they demand. The disgraceful treatment of the Palestinians has been going on for decades and it's nothing less then American's disgrace and shame. It's not hard to understand why a growing number of people in the Middle East and perhaps around the world would hate us.

We've got no shortage of enemies, and with each passing day and more people killed in our name, by the Neocon war on terror, the list only grows. We can kill them by the truckload, hourly, and there will be another truckload. We simply can't kill them all. We slaughtered some 3 million people in Vietnam, and they still kept coming. Was that a lesson to anyone? And Pakistan alone has over 160 million people.

It's insanity - that's what we're looking at with this country's behavior in the Middle East - all in our name. When will Americans accept that might does NOT make right, and an eye for an eye will only make us all blind (Ghandi).

Further thinking will lead one to wonder if the people who seized America's media and political strings (among others!), the NeoCon gang and their tentacles, are actually crazy. Perhaps gifted in some ways, but loony as a hatter in another. It's possible.

Or, perhaps they have a twisted plan to keep escalating until something Big pops to gives them the excuse to pull out the Big Guns and kill their enemies by the millions.

Maybe they rationalize as vital for the security of Israel, or even a globally necessary population control? Regardless, they are on a mission to establish military authority in the Middle East. They argue that while we still have the advantage and power to wipe out our enemies without a M.A.D. response, we should use it. Reading the NeoCon PNAC Statement of Principles provides some insight into the workings of the mind that thinks this way, and the one that has already duped us into the launching of that invasion.


Bill

Friday, September 30, 2011

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality By Glenn Greenwald

"When Awlaki’s father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were “state secrets” and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts. He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner. When Awlaki’s inclusion on President Obama’s hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that “it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing.” "

Absence of Evidence: The Progressive Policy of Imperial Murder by Chris Floyd


"The president of the United States murdered two American citizens this morning. He had some nameless functionary -- who was sitting comfortably and safely at a computer console somewhere on a well-guarded, probably secret military base -- push a button. A missile was then fired from a robot drone buzzing maleovently in the sky over Yemen. The missile then murdered two American citizens who -- let it be carefully noted -- had not even been charged with a crime, much less tried and convicted in a court of law of any offense.

...

But they were not charged -- and were never going to be charged -- with any crime that would have brought their cases into the judicial system. The whole point of these high-profile murders was to establish, yet again, the "right" -- and the power -- of the U.S. president to kill anyone on earth, including American citizens, at his arbitrary command.

...

This is not just the usual partisan amnesia, this is not just moral blindness: it is active, open, undeniable complicity with evil."



Bill

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Retention Periods Of Major Cellular Providers

ACLU Releases Justice Department's 'Retention Periods Of Major Cellular Providers' Document


Some more chipping away at whatever semblance of privacy we still have. This article talks about how phone providers are keeping track of us. Excuse me but how did they get this right to supersede our right to privacy?

You see where this is heading, right?


"A few data points from the sheet were known outside law enforcement circles, but wireless carriers have not been open about their policies. They aren't required to keep the data, and they keep the same information for varying lengths of time. Some don't keep data at all that other companies store. For instance, it says T-Mobile USA doesn't keep any information on Web browsing activity. Verizon, on the other hand, keeps some information for up to a year that can be used to ascertain if a particular phone visited a particular Web site.

According to the sheet, Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Virgin Mobile brand keeps the text content of text messages for three months. Verizon keeps it for three to five days. None of the other carriers keep texts at all, but they keep records of who texted whom for more than a year.

The document says AT&T keeps for five to seven years a record of who text messages whom _and when, but not the content of the messages. Virgin Mobile only keeps that data for two to three months.

The carriers don't have recordings of calls, but keep information about calls that are made and received for at least a year."


Bill

Friday, September 23, 2011

A President Who is Helpless in the Face of Middle East Reality

A President Who is Helpless in the Face of Middle East Reality by Robert Fisk

" ... should have no trouble this evening in besting Barack Hussein Obama's pathetic, humiliating UN speech on Wednesday in which he handed US policy in the Middle East over to Israel's gimmick government."


Why America and France clash on Palestine by Michael Goldfarb

The following quotes are not in context of this topic's title, but very noteworthy in context of providing yet another astonishing example of how the people want one thing and the rulers do other - with abandon and without any accountability.

"Asked "Do you think that the Palestinians have a right or do not have a right to their own state?" Eighty-four percent of Germans, 82 percent of the French and 66 percent of Britons answered yes. Around 5 percent said no, the rest were undecided.

Asked, "Do you think your government should vote in favor or against the U.N. resolution supporting recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, 76 percent of Germans, 69 percent of French and 59 percent of Britons said vote in favor. Once again, the bulk of the other responses were undecided."

Bill

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Why the Middle East Will Never Be the Same Again

Why the Middle East Will Never Be the Same Again by Robert Fisk

"Should we say "poor old Obama", as I have done in the past? I don't think so. Big on rhetoric, vain, handing out false love in Istanbul and Cairo within months of his election, he will this week prove that his re-election is more important than the future of the Middle East, that his personal ambition to stay in power must take first place over the sufferings of an occupied people. In this context alone, it is bizarre that a man of such supposed high principle should show himself so cowardly. In the new Middle East, in which Arabs are claiming the very same rights and freedoms that Israel and America say they champion, this is a profound tragedy.

US failures to stand up to Israel and to insist on a fair peace in "Palestine", abetted by the hero of the Iraq war, Blair, are responsible. Arabs too, for allowing their dictators to last so long and thus to clog the sand with false frontiers and old dogmas and oil (and let's not believe that a "new" "Palestine" would be a paradise for its own people). Israel, too, when it should be welcoming the Palestinian demand for statehood at the UN with all its obligations of security and peace and recognition of other UN members. But no. The game is lost. America's political power in the Middle East will this week be neutered on behalf of Israel. Quite a sacrifice in the name of liberty..."


Bill

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Weinstein is ignoring the evidence

Weinstein is ignoring the evidence By John Glaser

"As Michael Scheuer, former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA, wrote, “These attacks are meant to advance bin Laden’s clear, focused, limited and widely popular foreign policy goals,” namely ending U.S. aid to Israel, ending support of Arab dictators and withdrawing troops from their lands."

This is just one quote from this article that every American should read and think about.


30 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is About To Go Into The Toilet from The Economic Collapse

"If you think the U.S. economy is bad now, just wait for a few months. Things are about to become absolutely nightmarish."

These 2 articles are compelling reading, and they are totally inter-related: if we didn't invade the Middle East, none of this would be true today.


Bill

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Social Security is not in any crisis

Noam Chomsky on How the Military Is Bankrupting Us and Why Corporate Interests Want to Destroy Public Programs By Noam Chomsky and Aaron Mate and Amy Goodman

A bit lengthy quote follows, but every word is worth the space:

"NOAM CHOMSKY: Social Security is not in any crisis. I mean, the trust fund alone will fully pay benefits for, I think, another 30 years or so. And after that, taxes will give almost the same benefits. To worry about a possible problem 30 years from now, which can incidentally be fixed with a little bit of tampering here and there, as was done in 1983—to worry about that just makes absolutely no sense, unless you’re trying to destroy the program. It’s a very successful program. A large number people rely on it. It doesn’t pay munificently, but it at least keeps people alive, not just retired people, but people with disabilities and others. Very low administrative costs, extremely efficient, and no burden on the deficit. The effort to try to present the Social Security program as if it’s a major problem, that’s just a hidden way of trying to undermine and destroy it.

Now, there has been a lot of opposition to it since the 1930s, on the part of sectors of extreme wealth and privilege, especially financial capital. They don’t like it, for several reasons. One is that for the rich, it’s meaningless. For anyone who’s had a fairly decent income, it’s a tiny addition to your retirement but doesn’t mean much. Another is, if the financial institutions and the insurance companies can get their hands on this huge financial resource—for example, if it’s privatized in some way or vouchers— that’s a huge bonanza. They’ll have trillions of dollars to play with, the banks, the investment firms and so on.

But I think, myself, that there’s a more subtle reason why they’re opposed to it, and I think it’s rather similar to the reason for the effort to pretty much dismantle the public education system. Social Security is based on a principle. It’s based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat. And that’s a notion you have to drive out of people’s heads. The idea of solidarity, sympathy, mutual support, that’s doctrinally dangerous. The preferred doctrines are just care about yourself, don’t care about anyone else. That’s a very good way to trap and control people. And the very idea that we’re in it together, that we care about each other, that we have responsibility for one another, that’s sort of frightening to those who want a society which is dominated by power, authority, wealth, in which people are passive and obedient. And I suspect—I don’t know how to measure it exactly, but I think that that’s a considerable part of the drive on the part of small, privileged sectors to undermine a very efficient, very effective system on which a large part of the population relies, actually relies more than ever, because wealth, personal wealth, was very much tied up in the housing market. That was people’s personal wealth. Well, OK, that, quite predictably, totally collapsed. People aren’t destitute by the standards of, say, slums in India or southern Africa, but ver many are suffering severely. And they have nothing else to rely on, but the pittance that they’re getting from Social Security. To take that away would be just disastrous."

Bill

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The "Dancing Israelis" FBI Report - Debunked

The "Dancing Israelis" FBI Report - Debunked

This article can be found on the Whatreallyhappened website:

"The FBI concluded they were innocent of covert or overt operations in the U.S. and did not have foreknowledge. It can be seen that the FBI’s NS-2C Unit of its “National Security Division” out of FBI HQ in Washington, DC, ordered FBI Newark to call off their investigation into the five Israelis and hand them over to the INS. The evidence uncovered by the FBI proves that the Israelis knew what was going to happen, so Newark ignored that and came up with the politically motivated conclusion.

The FBI documents Sections 1 to 6 were recently obtained under FOIA and made available by the blogger andie531 from WUFYS.com, and I include transcripts of the best parts.

This is the strongest proof yet of Israel’s central role in 9/11."

The report is very lengthy. From the conclusion at the end:

"Denying Israel's role in 9/11 is like denying the fact that the Sun heats the earth. There needs to be a truly independent investigation into the events of 9/11, that bases its conclusions on the facts and the evidence rather than political considerations such as whether the principals of the study will keep their jobs. President Obama must fire his treacherous Zionist so-called "aides" and indict them on charges of treason - however many favors they claim to have done him, conduct his own independent research, reverse the transfer of trillions of dollars from the American people to crooked bankers, and abolish all foreign aid to Israel forthwith."

A reader comment:

"This is an extremely methodical and thorough analysis of the 911 Israeli-Washington DC high treason and mass murder and arson for profit crimes, focusing on the dancing Israeli Mossadniks who were celebrating the attacks on the WTC towers and had their camera equipment set up BEFORE THE ATTACKS STARTED!!!"


Bill

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Lessons of two wars: We will lose in Iraq and Afghanistan

Lessons of two wars: We will lose in Iraq and Afghanistan By Stephen M. Walt

A sad, but accurate and correct, commentary on the state of the invasion of the Middle East.

One thing about the reader comments is that Zionist protagonists are still coming up with clever things to say to obfuscate the situation.

It's a funny thing about words and language, that people can argue absolutely anything. Tell an arguer that the sky is blue and he'll jump all over it to prove it's not blue at all.

In order to understand and sort out the truth of matters, to the extent it can be done at all, one has to think and discern the underlying, fundamental attitude of the arguer. In the case of the military invasion of the Middle East, the Neocon/Zionist arguments for launching the invasion, the attitude was to protect and advance Israel's interests, although this was never publicly stated and had to be discerned by deduction, it was true then and remains true to this day.

America has been massively duped by this gang, and the sooner we realize this and boot them out of power, the sooner we can begin to make amends for the damage they've caused.

Which brings me to the next article of note:

Rick Perry and the Neocons by Philip Giraldi


"During the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Israeli military officers and diplomats had free access to Feith’s offices and those of his boss, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Both had been investigated earlier in their careers on suspicion of passing secrets to Israel — Feith in 1982, Wolfowitz in 1978. Analysts working for Feith who were not uncritically supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship were weeded out. Feith’s sympathies were scarcely secret. In 2003, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice commented after a Feith presentation, “Thanks, Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we’ll invite the ambassador,” while Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson described Feith “as a card-carrying member of Likud.” "


Pew Research Evidence Corporate Media Connived to Ignore Ron Paul by Kurt Nimmo

Look at the chart leading this article

"Ron Paul’s message of liberty and restoration of the republic is so unpopular with the corporate media, they decided to spend more time and effort covering Donald Trump, who is not even a candidate. He also trails far behind Sarah Palin, who is not a candidate."


Ron Paul may not be perfect, but he's nailed foreign policy, and those Americans who listen to him support him enthusiastically. But he's bucking the system, and for that he's paying the usual price - as you can so plainly see by the chart and the story in this article.



Bill




Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Americans Don't Realize Just How Badly We're Getting Screwed ...

Americans Don't Realize Just How Badly We're Getting Screwed by the Top 0.1 Percent Hoarding the Country's Wealth By David DeGraw

"Given modern technology and wealth, American citizens should not be living in poverty. The statistics demonstrate that we now live in a neo-feudal society. In comparison to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population, who are sitting on top of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth, we are essentially propagandized peasants.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to get by, while tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within a small fraction of the population, is a crime against humanity."


Bill

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up

Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up by Alison Weir

I have written the following response to Alison Weir's article. I've posted it here because I don't wish to have something I've spent hours (indeed, years) preparing to slide into oblivion after the short life span of a comment to an article. This matter is far too important for such a fate.

Alison:

Looking at reader comments so far, it appears that people responding to this article have either missed the point you're making, or they don't want to talk about it.

Bill Moyers and Tavis Smiley discussed this very effect tonight on Smiley's program. Moyers spoke about a recent study that concluded people will simply ignore facts that don't match their beliefs. This very situation is a perfect example of this effect.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart Alison, for having the courage to write about the linkage between politics and media. I presume you are well aware of the dearth of people willing to discuss these facts and their consequences, no matter how crucially important they are to our country and the world.

Zionist power is not only the elephant in America's living room, but the most destructive force that ever existed. Zionist philosophy, partially expressed in the Neocon PNAC Statement of Principles and the teachings of Leo Strauss - now implemented - has already brought America to it's knees and now threatens to get unimaginably worse if we can't stop them. It's an incredible and bizarre story, but it's true. People have shunned me for saying it over the years, but these days it's taken on a ring of truth that can no longer be ignored.

For decades I've observed the situation you describe in depth: the massive degree of control the Zionists have over Congress and our information supply (being the mass media in all it's forms), and, of course, banking. Perhaps there are other areas similarly controlled, but these are the major players I've identified.

I've argued, intensely on occasion, about my concern for this power with anyone who would listen, only to discover people would not listen, no matter how well the case was presented. I've been ostracized by family, friends and co-workers not over the truth of the argument, but because they simply didn't want to hear it. But knowledge is a strange thing, because once you know something, you can't unlearn it. This particular knowledge has tormented me for years.

Some people are saying that only a revolution will oust the gang running Washington (and I'm throwing the media in because they are 2 sides of the same coin, the propaganda machine and the politicians).

I believe I have a better solution. Since I'm in the technology arena, I see it can be used to develop a money-free election system using the Internet and open source programmers around the world. Such a system will allow voters to first develop the list of issues that really matter to them, it would allow anyone to be a candidate for office, it would collect candidate and voter positions on the issues, and then help the voter to match his/her interests with the candidates, based on the issues.

The underlying premise is that we have no shortage of great people who are more then willing to do the right thing as our representatives - but the election system we have today actually keeps them from running. We need to reverse this situation as quickly as we possibly can.

As it happens, I have the knowledge, experience and skills to create the system I envision, and if I live long enough, and it's not done by someone else, I plan to do exactly this. I will relish demonstrating my program to folks at M.I.T. (my favorite college) while I ask they why they haven't done it or better.

Please keep talking until people start to listen. People like you, Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman, Chris Hedges, and others are smarter and better writers then I. I know because I have been presenting on exactly this problem for decades now and have been stone-walled at every turn. It's hurt employment and self-employment tremendously, even family relations. But I simply cannot turn my back on "fact based knowledge", as Bill Moyers put it tonight.

I'm going to take the liberty to feel somewhat vindicated by your article, which pinpoints a very specific application of this control and clearly begs questions about other applications. A short list of other dupings of the America people include from the USS Liberty, Rachel Cory, Gaza, etc., and then there is the Whopper, the Big Kahuna, the most disastrous thing that ever happened to America: the military invasion of the Middle East.


Update: See The war without end is a war with hardly any news coverage by John Hanrahan for a similar story, this one on (the lack of) war reporting in Afghanistan, which includes links to further stories.

"The Pew Charitable Trust reported in January that for all of 2010 only 4 percent of the news hole in the nation’s newspapers was devoted to war news originating either in Afghanistan or the United States. (The ongoing war in Iraq fared even worse, with 1 percent coverage in 2010.)

More recently, in a July 18-24 survey, the Afghanistan war scored so low in coverage that it didn’t show up on the chart, meaning it was below 3 percent, after being at 5 percent the previous week. "
Bill

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The economy: the real choices

The S&P Downgrade By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS


"What I have explained can be comprehended within existing ways of thinking. Within this way of thinking, as the debt ceiling imbroglio made clear, the policy choices are between eliminating Social Security and Medicare or eliminating wars and low tax rates on the mega-rich in order to eliminate the annual budget deficits that are threatening the dollar’s exchange value and enlarging the national debt.

...

Spending must be reined in, and the only obvious chunk of spending that can be cut without throwing millions of Americans into the streets is the wars."



Bill

Our Troops do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So

Our Troops do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So by Jesse Richard

"There is no honor in volunteering to go anywhere in the world and kill anybody you are told to, without question, without historical background and without verifying the stated reasons for doing so."

Economists, Experts: US Is Bankrupt, Second Severe Recession Imminent by Steve Watson

“It seems to me it’s physically, humanly impossible for the U.S. to ever pay off its debt ,” Rogers said. “They can roll it over and continue to play the charade, but the U.S. is bankrupt.”

Rogers’ opinion was seemingly echoed by ratings agencies S&P and Moody’s today, as they warned that the US could be downgraded again before 2013.

S&P Executive John Chambers told Fox News that a partial reason for Friday’s downgrade was due to the fact that the US political system has proven itself to be “dysfunctional”.

“I think that’s a good word.” Chambers said. “We got to a position where we were within ten hours of having a major cash flow problem. This is not what happens in other countries.”

“Even before the financial crisis, the fiscal path was unsustainable: an ageing population combined with extravagant social security commitments suggested either the need for massive tax increases or draconian spending cuts,” said King.


Bill

Friday, August 5, 2011

So many lies

The Decision to Bomb Hiroshima By GAR ALPEROVITZ

Read this story for a relatively simple and straight-forward account of one of the greatest stories the American people have ever been duped about.

Now consider the military invasion of the Middle East and it's inevitable course, and ponder which is the greater crime.


Bill

Thursday, August 4, 2011

When did the American empire start to decline?

When did the American empire start to decline? By Stephen M. Walt

"But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of "regional transformation." Instead of preserving a regional balance of power, or containing Iraq and Iran simultaneously, the United States was now going to use its military power to topple regimes across the Middle East and turn those countries into pro-American democracies. This was social engineering on a scale never seen before. The American public and the Congress were unenthusiastic, if not suspicious, about this grand enterprise, which forced the Bush administration to wage a massive deception campaign to get them on board for what was supposed to be the first step in this wildly ambitious scheme. The chicanery worked, and the United States launched its unnecessary war on Iraq in March 2003. "


Bill

Rick Perry Abuses His Office for Israel

Rick Perry Abuses His Office for Israel by Philip Giraldi

This article tears into Rick Perry (gov of Texas).

It ends with:

"I have to question how a man of so little moral character as Rick Perry gets to be governor of a large state in the first place, but that is perhaps a discussion for another place and another time. If the people of Texas were seriously concerned about the Constitution and civil liberties, they would remove him from office for his attempt to criminalize the actions of a group of innocent citizens. When a government believes itself to be empowered to go after its own people on trumped-up charges, watch out. When it does so on behalf of a foreign government, all kinds of warning flags should be going up. That no one in the media or punditry seems to care is a tribute to the grip that Israel and its friends have over politics in the United States. And that is precisely why I and other contributors to Antiwar.com keep raising the issue of Israel. Its tight embrace and the policies that it forces on the sheep in Washington are central to what is wrong with us as a nation. Until we loosen that hold, we will continue to stumble and fall, and we will have the presidents that we deserve, possibly including Rick Perry."


From reader responses:

- "What Motivated the 9/11 Hijackers? See testimony most didn't!:
http://tinyurl.com/911motivation "

- "One has to read former Republican Congressman Paul Findley's 'They Dare to Speak Out' (the third edition) book as well. And 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy' by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (scroll down to the link for the Dutch documentarty at: http://tinyurl.com/mearsheimer)"

Bill

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

War and Debt

War and Debt By MICHAEL HUDSON

"The present rise in U.S. Treasury debt results from two forms of warfare. First is the overtly military Oil War in the Near East, from Iraq to Afghanistan (Pipelinistan) to oil-rich Libya. These adventures will end up costing between $3 and $5 trillion. Second and even more expensive is the more covert yet more costly economic war of Wall Street against the rest of the economy, demanding that losses by banks and financial institutions be passed onto the government balance sheet (“taxpayers”). The bailouts and “free lunch” for Wall Street – by no coincidence, Congress’s number one political campaign contributor – cost $13 trillion."


Imperial Psychosis: We Pour Trillions into Empire While Gutting Programs Americans Depend On
By Tom Engelhardt

"Put another way, for months Americans have been focused on raising that debt ceiling, as onscreen countdown clocks ticked away to disaster. In the process, few have asked the obvious question: Isn’t it time to lower America’s war ceiling?"

Meet the Right-Wing Hatemongers Who Inspired the Norway Killer By Max Blumenthal

In case you're wondering where Anders Hans Breivik got his insane ideas.


Bill

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Ron Paul: "We Will Default Because The Debt Is Unsustainable"

Ron Paul: "We Will Default Because The Debt Is Unsustainable"

If you care about America at all, you'll really want to hear Ron Paul speak for 5 minutes about the national debt; what they are doing about it, and what they should be doing about it.


Bill