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?
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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