FRONT PAGE - Archive File - 06-16-08 to 10-29-08
My
assessment of American politics today
A
quote...."October 28, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse - -- On one side
of our struggle is normal American imperialist conservatism represented
not by McCain, but by Obama. These are the forces of the old
constitutional business republic which the USA has been for some two
hundred years. (We euphemistically call this elite business republic a
"democracy" which of course it is not. A democracy is a republic where
the free members of society exercise the authority of government. This
is not the USA in which government has always represented business,
capital, the owning or ruling class, never the vast majority of people
in society, the people.) -- On the other side of this political contest
are forces that can be described with justice in many different terms:
the extreme right, corporatist, Wall St. thieves and black mailers,
thugs, international pirates, the military-industrial complex,
militarists, the prison-industrial complex, totalitarians, liars, or
fascists."
What Do
They Have
to Do to Lose Your Vote? -The Trail of Broken Promises
A
quote...."Watching the Democrats in the final weeks of the presidential
election has been a lesson in revisionist history. While they lament
the terrible crimes perpetrated against the American people by George
Bush and vow to keep fighting for our rights, they conveniently gloss
over the fact that they have no standing to make such claims. Indeed,
the Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, have actually voted with
President Bush’s agenda, making them complicit in his acts, not valiant
opponents defending our liberties."
The Elections and
the
Responsibility of the Intellectual to Speak Truth to Power
A
quote...."The presidential elections in the US, once again, provide an
acid test of the integrity and consequential conduct of US
intellectuals. If it is the duty and responsibility of the public
intellectual to speak truth to power, the recent statements of most of
our well-known and prestigious public pundits have failed miserably.
Instead of highlighting, exposing and denouncing the reactionary
foreign and domestic policies of Democratic Party candidate Senator
Barack Obama, they have chosen to support him, 'critically, offering as
excuses that even 'limited differences’ can result in positive
outcomes,and that 'Obama is the lesser evil’ and 'creates an
opportunity for a possibility of change.’
It's
All Caught on Videotape Colin Powell, Not Qualified for Government
Service
A
quote...."Barack
Obama would like to bring Colin Powell into his new administration. But
Americans consider Powell only marginally more credible than how the
rest of the world views him, and the rest of the world thinks he lies
like a rug. Powell either wholeheartedly backed the biggest crime thus
far this century, or he secretly opposed it but worked to make it
happen anyway. I'm not sure which is worse, but either disqualifies him
for future office." -- Also posted at
CounterPunch
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We
Have Met the Terrorists....And They Are Us - 10-27-08 - mpg
When
Will They Stop Pretending? - 10-25-08 - mpg
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What
“incredibly tough” foreign policy actions is Obama preparing?
False Flag Warning -
Gulf of Tonkin Redux Warning -- A quote..."In remarks made over
the weekend in Seattle, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph
Biden warned that Barack Obama, if elected president, would be
compelled to take deeply unpopular actions in both domestic and foreign
policy within months of taking office." -- For more on this issue see....They're
Going to do "It" Again
America
Loses Its Dominant Economic Role
A quote...."The
banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets
and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into
recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is coming to an end and US
military might is ebbing. Still, this is no time to gloat. -- There are
days when all it takes is a single speech to illustrate the decline of
a world power. A face can speak volumes, as can the speaker's tone of
voice, the speech itself or the audience's reaction. Kings and queens
have clung to the past before and humiliated themselves in public, but
this time it was merely a United States president. -- Or what is left
of him." -- If only it would lead to
a graceful end of the New Roman Empire and the restoration of the
United States of America. But it won't, the wealthy elites who
have
totally insulated themselves from the economic calamity that will
result from their ongoing and ceaseless attempts to prop up this unholy
empire will not stop until the entire system collapses. It's the
way
they think, it's in their blood, and it’s what they are. - mpg
A
political farce, not a debate
A
quote...."Wednesday’s nationally televised encounter between Barack
Obama and John McCain was less a debate than a ritualized episode of a
peculiarly American form of political theater. -- The two candidates,
both multi-millionaire representatives of the upper crust of American
society, shared the stage with another multi-millionaire, an aging TV
anchorman who confined the subjects and questions to the banal and
predictable, excluding anything that would call into question the
overarching right-wing framework of the discussion. (Where in this
debate, for instance, was there a question on the latest figures
showing that 28 countries have a lower infant mortality rate than the
US, or on the growth in the number of working poor, or on the plunge
towards bankruptcy of state and local governments?)"
Zero: An Investigation Into 9-11
Prt1 - Prt2
- Prt3
- Prt4
- Prt5
- Prt6
-Prt7
- Prt8
- Prt9
- Prt10
- Prt11
Videos --
(YouTube - aprox 10 min each - Added: July 26, 2008)
A quote...."ZERO: An Investigation into 9/11, has one central thesis -
that the official version of the events surrounding the attacks on 9/11
can not be true. This brand new feature documentary from Italian
production company Telemaco explores the latest scientific evidence and
reveals dramatic new witness testimony, which directly conflicts with
the US Government's account." -- For
more on this issue see....9/11
& It's Fallout - Videos
9/11
Blueprint for Truth presented by Architect Richard Gage, AIA
(Google - 120 min - Oct 31, 2007)
Video - From the
history file - A quote...."Oct 31, 2007 -- 9/11
Blueprint for Truth: The Architecture of Destruction Commercial
architect Richard Gage (founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11
Truth) presents a watertight case for controlled demolition of the
three steel-building collapses at the World Trade Center, New York on
9/11/01. Includes physicist Steven Jones' updated evidence of thermite.
Gage's website, www.ae911truth.org,
is rapidly drawing building and engineering professionals to the 9/11
movement." -- See also....Speaking
Engagements -- For more on this
issue see....9/11
- WTC7 & 9/11
& It's Fallout - Videos
Keynesianism's
Last Stand
A quote...."
The new Keynesianism is Keynesianism for bankers. The logic of the new
version is this:
1. Banks lend to businesses.
2. Banks lend to other banks.
3. Loss of confidence by bankers regarding bankers has shut down the
international credit markets.
4. Governments must run deficits to bail out banks.
5. Central banks should expand the monetary base to liquify frozen
banking assets.
6. Banks will then lend to businesses.
7. Businesses will employ workers (consumers).
8. Any government money to consumers will be minimal.
This is the Keynesian version of
what used to be ridiculed by liberals as trickle-down economics.
It is hailed today as the solution to the credit crisis. The $700
billion bailout of the banks in the United States and the weekend
bailout of European banks by European governments constitute the
largest Keynesian stimulus package in history. But it was a stimulus of
a unique kind: to bail out banks.. -- bold/underline by
website editor.
-- This is totally spot on point,
tax the little guy, or worse, since he doesn't have any money, borrow
from everyone, than give the money to the big guys....it's
voodoo-reaganomics all over again. - mpg
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The
God That Failed: The 30-Year Lie of the Market Cult
A
quote...."Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by the global
financial crash -- or rather, by the reaction to it -- is the
staggering, astonishing, gargantuan amount of money that the
governments of the world have at their command. -- In just a matter of
days, we have seen literally trillions of dollars offered to the
financial services sector by national treasuries and central banks
across the globe. Britain alone has put $1 trillion at the disposal of
the bankers, traders, lenders and speculators; and this has been
surpassed by the total package of public money that Washington is
shoveling into the financial furnaces of Wall Street and the banks.
These radical efforts are being replicated on a slightly smaller scale
in France, Germany, Italy, Russia and many other countries.
The
Crushing Potential of Financial Derivatives
Financial Alert --
A quote...."George Soros, one of the world's foremost
investor-speculators, has said many times that he stays away from
financial derivatives because “no one understands them”. In the world
of finance, derivatives might be comparable to the theoretical study of
linear particle acceleration in nuclear physics. Such theories appear
to be “understood” mainly based on current assumptions accepted in
academic circles, often with little provable working knowledge of how
such currently-held theories might ultimately manifest themselves over
the long run in the real world. The problem with assumptions is that
they generally change…often sooner than we think."
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The
True Axis of Evil - 10-10-08 - mpg
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Behind
the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power
Some
quotes...."There is serious ground to believe that US Goldman Sachs ex
CEO Henry Paulson, as Treasury secretary, is not stupid. There is also
serious ground to believe that he is actually moving according to a
well-thought-out long-term strategy. Events as they are now unfolding
in the EU tend to confirm that. As one senior European banker put it to
me in private discussion, ‘There is an all-out war going on between the
United States and the EU to define the future face of European
banking.’" -- "Knowing that at a certain juncture the pyramid of
trillions of dollars of dubious subprime and other high risk home
mortgage-based securities would come falling down, they apparently
determined to spread the so-called ‘toxic waste’ ABS securities as
globally as possible, in order to seduce the big global banks of the
world, most especially of the EU, into their honey trap." -- See also....Debt
Doesn't Matter When the Rubes Pay 02-29-08 - mpg
Just think about it this way,
the "Savings & Loan" crisis of 1982
and the fall of the US housing market (caused by the exact same
financial mechanics as has occurred in the current crisis, debt
instruments like junk bonds, etc., unsupported by any real
underlying economic assets or fundamentals) took about two and a half
years to reach bottom and resulted in 800 bank failures. This
crisis, which is greater by an order
of magnitude or two, is only one year old and has so far
resulted in
just 10 bank failures....we have a very, very, long way to go.
- mpg
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The
Kingdom of Leprosy - 10-07-08 - mpg
The
Dollar's Spike - 10-06-08 - mpg
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Dennis
Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal
A quote...." The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on
the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for
air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was
murdered by the Democratic Party. -- We are on our own. And don’t
expect any help from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who lobbied hard for
the bill and voted for it. Ignore their rhetoric. Look coldly at the
ballots they cast against us. We, as citizens, have only a handful of
representatives left in Washington, most of whom were left sputtering
in rage and frustration on the House floor. The sad irony is that some
of them were Republican."
The
New American Century: Cut Short By 92 Years
A
quote...."02/10/08 'ICH" -- - America's time as a superpower is coming
to an end. The financial crisis was just the last straw. Whatever good
faith was left after the invasion of Iraq, the shrugging off of
international treaties and the shameless disregard for human rights, is
now gone. The United States has polluted the global economic system
with worthless mortgage-backed securities and, by doing so, has pushed
6 billion people closer to a long and painful recession. That's not
something that can be easily forgiven."
Three-Card
Capitalists: The Financial Disappearing Act of 2008
A
quote...."The financial markets are in a crisis of confidence because
the US government is debasing its currency and stiffing its creditors.
Uncle Sam is a deadbeat and the world knows it. The world is worrying
what to do about the useless paper it's holding. That's what the panic
is about. -- It's a strange day when Barry Goldwater and the Chinese
Communists are in agreement ....And they are both right." -- For more on this issue see....Debt
Doesn't Matter When the Rubes Pay 02-29-08 - mpg
The
Current
Crisis: A Socialist Perspective
A
quote...."The fundamental relationship between capitalist states and
financial markets cannot be understood in terms of how much or little
regulation the former puts upon the latter. It needs to be understood
in terms of the guarantee the state provides to property, above all in
the form of the promise not to default on its bonds – which are
themselves the foundation of financial markets' role in capital
accumulation."
The
Facts Speak For Themselves -
posted at 911Truth dot Org
A quote...."Before
I begin, I would like to say that theorizing about what happened on
9/11, when you're not being given answers to your questions about that
day by the people who SHOULD be able to do so, is PERFECTLY normal. As
is suspecting that the reason these answers aren't being given is
"sinister" in nature. As Ray McGovern said, "for people to dismiss
these questioners as "conspiratorial advocates", or "conspiratorial
theorists"... that's completely out of line because the... The
questions remain because the President who should be able to answer
them, WILL NOT." When you think about everything this Administration
has done in almost 8 years, the idea that they might not be giving us
the answers we seek because of something "sinister" is not crazy. In
fact, it's the most logical conclusion one can come to at this point.
After seven plus years of obfuscation, spin, lies, and cover-ups
regarding the 9/11 attacks, it is unavoidable to think that criminal
complicity is the reason why."
A
Nation of Jerks? Culpably Accepting of Basic Dishonesty and of
Unscrupulous Big Shots
A
quote...."For it is quite easy to discount the suffering of Iraqis,
Somalis, Afghanis, or earlier, the Vietnamese, along with the poor half
of mankind who live on less than two dollars a day, but quite difficult
to stomach discomfort of Americans in America. And so this complete
bailout of corporations and banks becomes a 'real damn shame'. Its just
too close to home. -- However there is something silly about Americans
belatedly directing their outrage solely at its elected government
leaders and their corporate finance buddies, as if Americans nationwide
were pure and innocent children victimized by a big bad world; if
America is big and bad, it is Americans that have made it that way."
Robert
Fisk: ‘The Middle East Is Not a Complex Place’ - Telling it like it is. - mpg
Video Interview - A
quote...."Truthdig interviews Robert Fisk -- The acclaimed journalist
stopped by our offices this week, where he told Truthdig Editor Robert
Scheer that the Middle East is a lot less puzzling than it’s made out
to be: “It’s we who are there, not the other way round. ... It’s not
our land. It’s not our religion. Our soldiers are in the Muslim world
and they should not be there.”
The
Happening - Also telling it like
it is. - mpg
A quote...."It
seems like a belabored point, but there is just no escaping it.
Mainstream media continues to be the most critical ( and probably the
most accessible ) impediment to the evolution of the species. The
American ( and global ) populous remain physiologically corralled by
the mock reality the media delivers, which makes any attempt to impart
or understand the truth extremely difficult. -- The problem is that
once you are part of the lie, you are part of the lie. This is why I
repeatedly stress the importance of being honest with oneself at all
times. It’s not a matter of being caught in the lie, it’s the fact that
the lie will catch you. It is inescapable because you have made it part
of your reality. As long as you choose to live by that lie that you
have accepted, you have to support ( and do ) whatever is necessary to
sustain that lie. -- This country is up to its neck ( actually well
over its head ) in lies, and Obama has unfortunately accepted several
of them."
How
Economic Crises Are Overcome - Their Assets; Our Debts
A quote...."Keynes’
message about the least painful way to bring about the necessary
redistribution of economic resources sufficient to get the economy
expanding profitably is set out in his “General Theory,” where he
underscores that inflation is the safest way to lower wage workers’
consumption and their portion of production. Direct wage cuts, he
cautions, would turn the workers against their employers. Significant
injection of government spending into industrial production, rather
than into the production of “consumer goods,” results in
inflation.
The price of daily necessities goes up due to shortages or rationing,
and the real value of workers’ wages goes down. (Milton Friedman has
also advocated inflation as a most efficient tool for redistribution of
economic resources and increasing profitability.)"
European
reactions to the financial crisis -- Covering their tracks and
distancing themselves from the US -- A quote...."The
call for a form of “regulated capitalism—that can prevent risky
speculative transactions, cutting down to size the power of finance
capital and giving priority again to production and trade—runs like a
thread through the comments and statements of the press and politicians
of all stripes. But it is an illusion. -- The clock of history cannot
be rewound. The cancer-like growth of finance capital is not simply the
result of wrong decisions by individuals. Greed and criminal intentions
have certainly contributed, but these are rooted in social conditions
that can only be overcome through a revolutionary transformation of
society. -- The deregulation of the financial markets, which began
approximately 30 years ago, was the reaction of the capitalist class
worldwide to the economic crises and class warfare of the 1960s and
1970s. The abolition of existing regulations and the development of new
forms of speculation served to overcome falling profit rates. They were
accompanied by non-stop attacks on the rights and living standards of
the working class, and with an aggressive foreign policy that took on
an increasingly military direction." -- For more on this issue see....Effective
Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07 - mpg
Let's Play
"WALLSTREET BAILOUT" The Rules Are... Rep Kaptur
(YuTb - 5 min 35
sec - Sept. 22, 2008) -- Must View
Video - Action Alert -- She's
outstanding!! - Everybody who sees this video, please post
it and pass it on! - mpg
Coming
Attractions: War Without End, Amen
A quote...."While
our national leaders quibble and carp over just how much public money
they should ladle out to Wall Street's den of thieves, and how many
people should be in charge of divvying up this vast pork pie (one guy
at Treasury? a panel of Establishment worthies? a couple of goobers in
Congress?), the real business of the American empire -- war and rumors
of war -- goes on without let or hindrance. -- Even now, the masters of
war down at Hell's Bottom -- the fetid swamp where they planted the
Pentagon way back when -- are laying plans for decades of "persistent
conflict" against a host of targets: the poor, the young, the
desperate, the deprived, the Chinese, the Russians -- and the American
people."
America
Pays the Piper, Big Time
A quote...."After a
28-year binge of drunken optimism and blind nationalism – often
punctuated by chants of “USA, USA!” and “We’re No. 1!” – Americans are
waking up with a painful hangover, facing a grim “morning in America,”
not the happy vision that Ronald Reagan famously sold them on.
The
Mugging of
America
A
quote...."If our business leaders and government leaders had learned
from the LTCM collapse and NASDAQ collapse, we would not be
experiencing this current crisis. Instead, Wall Street, Alan Greenspan,
George Bush’s administration, and Congress attempted to put off the
pain of recession by encouraging more risk taking by companies and
citizens. We are now reaping what they have sown."
Quo
Vadis, America?
A
quote...."Contemporary America is rather like an overdosed crack addict
sprawled face-down in the gutter. For decades, our economy has been
smoking the heady drug of cheap credit, which served to "stimulate
demand" and produce pleasurable but artificial booms. Unfortunately,
each boom was followed by an inevitable bust as the credit-fueled
bubbles burst – first in internet stocks, and now in real estate. --
Like every addict who finally "hits the bottom," America now faces a
stark choice: Do we suffer through a violent, shaking withdrawal, or do
we turn away from the painful rigors of "going clean" and reach for the
bong one last time?"
E
pluribus hokum or When the gamblers bail out the casino
A
quote...."Paulson's dreadful scheme will become law, because Americans
love their bankers. The bankers enable their collective gambling habit.
Think of America as a town with one casino, in which the only economic
activity is gambling. Most people lose, but the casino keeps lending
them more money to play. Eventually, of course, the casino must go
bankrupt. At this point, the townspeople people vote to tax themselves
in order to bail out the casino. Collectively, the gamblers cannot help
but lose; individually they nonetheless hope to win their way out of
the hole.
Americans are so deep in the hole that they might as well keep putting
borrowed quarters into the one-armed bandit. They have hardly saved
anything for the past 10 years. Instead, they counted on capital gains
to replace the retirement savings they never put aside, first in tech
stocks, then in houses. That hasn't worked out."
Grasping
at Straws
Financial Warning - A
quote...."21/09/08 "ICH" -- - On Friday morning, Senator Christopher
Dodd, the head of the Senate Banking Committee, was interviewed on
ABC's “Good Morning America.” Dodd revealed that just hours earlier at
an emergency meeting convened by Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, lawmakers were told
that "We’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of
our
financial system.” Dodd added somberly, that in his three decades of
serving in public office, he had "never heard language like this.”
Paulson
Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle
A quote...."If Wall
Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of
the American public--all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and
damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take
a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called
"responsible opinion." If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become
a transforming event in American politics--exposing the deep
deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous
anger and popular rebellion. As I have been saying for several months,
this crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political
parties, take your choice."
Is
This the Stake Through Neoliberalism's Heart? It Should Be, But ...
A quote...."By all
rights, this last crisis has brought us to the crossroads where
neoliberalism should be buried with a stake through its heart. We’ve
had thirty years worth of deregulation – the loosening of government
supervision. This has been the neoliberal mantra preached by both major
parties, the whole of the establishment press and almost every
university economics department in the country. It is central to the
current disasters. And if you want to identify symbolic figures in the
legislated career of deregulation, there are no more resplendent
culprits than the man at McCain’s elbow, Phil Gramm, and the man
standing at Obama’s elbow at his press conference, Robert Rubin."
Impacts
of the Financial Crisis: The U.S. Is Becoming an Impoverished Nation
A quote...."But
even though all the attention has been focused on “Wall Street”; i.e.,
financial institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with
Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley,
Washington Mutual, and AIG—with more to come—none of these would have
gotten into so much trouble without the nation’s banks having acted to
leverage speculative investments with money they themselves generated
as electronic ledger entries. - And it’s the banks—or at least some of
them—that may be the next to go. - You see, the catastrophe was
accomplished with money lent on margin. Only a small fraction of
funding by investment banks, mortgage companies, brokerages, equity
funds, hedge funds, commodities futures speculators, etc., comes from
actual investor capital. The rest—up to ninety-seven percent, in the
case of commodities futures contracts—is credit self-created by the
banks."
The
Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis Shattering the
Glass-Steagall Act
A quote...."If
you're looking for a major cause of the current banking meltdown, you
need seek no farther than the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act."
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$1.3
Quadrillion and Counting - 09-18-08 - mpg
Who
the Heck do They Think They're Fooling? - 09-15-08 - mpg
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Creative
Destruction: The Solid
Core Behind the Financial Crisis
A quote....."Fed’s
$85 Billion Loan Rescues Insurer (NY Times)
"The bailout [of American
International Group]... effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while
protecting bad investments made by A.I.G. and other institutions it
does business with."
"Do you get it now? The rich and
powerful spend years making foolish deals in a market they rigged with
the connivance of utterly corrupted politicians on both sides the
aisle; their fraudulent scheme finally collapses, exposing them to some
of the most horrific financial losses in history....and YOU will have
to pay for it. For generations. Not only directly, with the tax money
straight from your pocket, but even more so in the further degradation
of national life: infrastructure, services, programs, amenities that
will be starved or abandoned as even more of the government's money is
poured out to shield the wastrel elite from suffering the consequences
of their own rapacious folly."
An Open
Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan - America is Now Rome
A quote...."When I
was baptized I continued to carry my history; but one identity was
sloughed off in the water and a new one born out of it. I write this
open letter to troops, brothers and sisters -- of all branches -- who
profess the faith of Christ. I write you to ask that you remember your
baptism, because at that baptism you declared your renunciation of
evil. * The big preposition Note the preposition. I didn't say faith in
Christ, I said faith of Christ. Christian is a diminutive term; it
means "little Christ." To be a Christian is not to merely have faith in
Christ. That's too easy, and Jesus of Nazareth was not about easy. To
be Christian is to aspire to have the faith of Christ. Christ's call is
not to go along with the program, say the magic words, then be rescued
from death. Christ did not merely command belief. Christ commands you
to follow him. That command does not wait until death for it to become
effective in your life. "Love your enemy." This is not an etching at
some altar that you visit; it is your path laid before you by the
footsteps of Christ in this world."
The
Baby Killers
A quote...."I
keep promising myself not to mention the wars for these reasons: the
invaders couldn't care less about their crimes or their critics, my
friends think I've become a ranting bore and many of today's citizens
have more pressing worries than the serial massacres of toddlers in
badlands. Bad stuff keeps happening. It keeps being denied. And is soon
forgotten. -- From the very first days of the 2001 invasion of
Afghanistan, the U.S. air force has specialised in dropping bombs on
family compounds supposedly containing "militants". Often they are not
at home, unlike the women and children and elderly, whose bodies are
eventually spread on the ground in preparation for a mass burial, while
the Pentagon issues a curt "regret". Then it bombs the funeral. It's
happened more than once. Another target is wedding parties. Back in
July 2002, snug in their AC-130 bombers, American pilots wiped out a
celebration in Uruzgan province, killing 48 civilians - mostly women
and children - and injuring 117 locals. It's happened more than once."
9/11
and the “American Inquisition”
A
quote...."Today’s “Global War on Terrorism” is a modern form of
inquisition. It has all the essential ingredients of the French and
Spanish inquisitions. -- Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying
out a Worldwide preemptive war to ” protect the Homeland” are used to
justify a military agenda. -- “The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is
presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values
and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest,
guided by strategic and economic objectives." -- Also posted at AmericanEveryman
Twenty-Six
Things We Now Know Seven Years After 9/11
A quote...."Each
year around the anniversary of 9/11, I summarize what we ordinary
citizens have learned since that awful day in 2001. This is the seventh
annual look backwards, a 2008 update that contains new information and
surmisings about those horrific events and what followed."
FABLED ENEMIES - Part1
- Part2
- Part3
- Part4
- Part5
- Part6
- Part7
- Part8
- Part9
- Part10
- (YouTube - aprox. 10
min to 11 min each - Added: August 31, 2008)
A quote...." Seven years after 9/11, the supposed mastermind behind the
attacks is still at large, and the nation is entrenched in multiple
wars in the Middle East. - Is Bin Laden the evil behind the attack or a
mere front man in a larger picture, a Bogeyman? - We are told we are
fighting a War on Terror, and that the Terrorists hate us for our
freedom. If that is the case, why do our leaders take more and more of
those freedoms away every day? - 10 part documentary by Jason Bermas
and Alex Jones release date September 1st, 2008." -- For more on this issue see....9/11
& It's Fallout - Videos
Afghan
Massacre - The Convoy of Death - (Google Video - 50 min - Apr
10, 2006)
A
quote...."Produced and directed by Irish filmmaker and former BBC
producer Jamie Doran, the film tells the story of thousands of
prisoners who surrendered to the US military's Afghan allies after the
siege of Kunduz. According to the film, some three thousand of the
prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for
transport to Sheberghan prison. When the prisoners began shouting for
air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing
many of them. The rest suffered through an appalling road trip lasting
up to four days, so thirsty they clawed at the skin of their fellow
prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open
wounds. Witnesses say that when the trucks arrived and soldiers opened
the containers, most of the people inside were dead. They also say US
Special Forces re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead
into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried. Now, up
to three thousand bodies lie buried in a mass grave."
EXCLUSIVE:
Democrats Pre-Authorized Use of Force at RNC
Must Read (for the outrage) -
A
quote...."Explosive News: Democrats' Collaboration at Republican
National Convention Exposed. Secret meetings authorized excessive use
of force. -- We know the stories of police abuse, mass arrests,
targeting journalists, street medics, use of rubber bullets, plastic
bullets, wooden baton rounds, mace, tear gas, tasering and other
differently lethal methods of crowd control in St Paul and Minneapolis
this week. What is not known is how the local Democratic Party and
other so called progressive elected officials collaborated with
authorities in the past weeks and months before the RNC Convention in
St Paul, giving them legal authority for their excesses and abuses of
power."
The
Falling
Land
A
quote...."There is, apparently, to be no end to our falling. No bottom
to the pit of moral nullity through which we keep plunging, no act of
evil which we will not accept, and countenance, and even cheer."
Clash
in the Caucasus: Rolling Back The "Unipolar" World
A
quote...."10/09/08 "ICH" -- - For the past week, Dick Cheney has been
traveling through the Caucasus trying to drum up support for punitive
action against Russia for its role in the recent fighting in South
Ossetia. The Vice President vowed that the Moscow's action "will not go
unanswered". Cheney is determined to establish the United States as the
regional "cop on the beat", taking charge of all security operations
through it's cat's paw, Nato. Neither the Kremlin nor the EU are paying
much attention to Cheney's fulminations. The negotiations for the
security arrangements and the withdrawal of Russian troops are being
conducted without US involvement. "
9/11
and the “War on Terrorism”: Facts and myths
A quote...."This is
the talk, the article notes, in Dubai, in Algiers, in Riyadh, and in
Cairo. A Syrian man living and working in the United Arab Emirates told
the Times, “I think the U.S. organized this so that they had an excuse
to invade Iraq for the oil.” -- This kind of thinking, the Times tells
us “represents the first failure in the fight against terrorism — the
inability to convince people here that the United States is, indeed,
waging a campaign against terrorism, not a crusade against Muslims.” --
For more regarding the utter
and complete mendacity of the Times, see.....US
Support of Terror
“Modern
Debt Peonage”?
A quote...."The
best that this weekend’s bailout can do is to postpone the losses on
bad mortgage debts. But this is a far cry from actually restoring the
ability of debtors to pay. Mr. Paulson talks about more lending to
support real estate prices. But this will prevent housing from falling
to levels that people can afford without running deeper and deeper into
mortgage debt. Housing prices are still way, way above the traditional
definition of equilibrium – prices whose carrying charges are just
about equal to what it would cost to rent over time."
Is it the 1930s all
over again? By William Bowles
A quote...."The parallels
with the situation in Europe prior to the
outbreak of WWII surely cannot be avoided, for not only do we have an
economic crisis that closely resembles the ‘29 Crash in its magnitude,
the US-engineered invasion of South Ossetia could very well be a
prelude to more dangerous provocations on the part of the US, in much
the same way that German support for the fascist coup in Spain served
as a testing ground not only for Hitler’s military machine but also to
sew chaos and to test the reactions of two of the leading imperialist
powers of the time, Britain and France. For what they all shared was a
hatred of Bolshevism and ultimately, that’s what WWII was really all
about, the destruction of the Soviet Union." -- Also psoted at Uruknet -- For more on this issue see....Effective
Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07 - mpg
A
Major War: Not Just Rumors
A quote...."The
most stable model of international relations that is both historically
recurrent and structurally repeatable in the future is the balance of
power system in which no single great power is either physically able
or politically willing to seek hegemony. This model was prevalent from
the Peace of Westphalia (1648) until Napoleon, from Waterloo until
around 1900, and from Versailles until 1933....." -- "If
one of the
powers becomes markedly stronger than others and if its decision-making
elite internalizes an ideology that demands or at least justifies
hegemony, the inherently unstable system of asymmetrical multipolarity
will develop. In all three known instances—Napoleonic France after
1799, the Kaiserreich from around 1900, and the Third Reich after
1933—the challenge could not be resolved without a major war."
Russia,
Europe and USA: Fundamental Geopolitics
A quote...."As
details of the larger strategic picture emerge over what is at stake in
the Georgia and larger Caucasus crisis, it is becoming clearer that
Moscow is not determined to roll back the borders of Stalin and the
Cold War of 1948. What Putin and now Medvedev have begun is a process
of defusing the highly dangerous NATO expansion, led by the Washington
warhawks since the end of the Cold War in 1990."
Rebel
Yell: Resistance and Renaissance in the Age of Terror
A quote...."The
"War on Terror" is a brutal and criminal enterprise launched by George
W. Bush and fully supported by John McCain and Barack Obama, both of
whom have pledged not only to continue its deadly operations but to
expand them to new killing fields. Iran, Pakistan, Russia's "soft
underbelly" in the Caucasus – these and other regions have been moved
into the cross-hairs of the voracious war machine that drives the
foreign policy of both parties. And of course, the countless "covert
ops" carried out by the plethora of secret armies and agents of
Washington's hydra-headed "security organs" will likewise continue
unabated. -- Three nations have already been destroyed (or driven
into
further ruin) by the Terror War: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. More
than a million innocent people have been murdered, either by direct
military action by American forces and Washington's various proxy
armies and hired killers, or indirectly, in the savage internal
conflicts spawned by the vast state terror of invasion and occupation."
Putin interview With CNN ~ Part 1/3 ~ Part
2/3 ~ Part
3/3
Putin interview With ARD ~ Part
1/3 ~ Part
2/3 ~ Part
3/3
(YouTube - aprox. 10
min each - Added: August 30,
2008)
Videos - A
quote re: CNN...."His famous interview from 28.08.08, which has never
been
shown in full anywhere except Russia. Will CNN show it to americans?"
Putin's
Ruthless Gambit - The Bush Administration Falters in a Geopolitical
Chess Match
A quote...."Many
Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the
Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western
democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin's
jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the
age-old ethnic politics of southeastern Europe, with assorted
minorities using contemporary border disputes to settle ancient
scores." -- Also posted at ICH
Super
Imperialism
A quote...."29/08/08
"ICH" -- As I
explained in Super Imperialism, [Google, Amzn, GGB, B&N , PlutoPrs -- Special Note: some of these
are the 2003 edition, some are the NEW Aug 2008 edition] central
banks in other countries buy
dollars not because they think dollar assets are a “good buy,” but
because if they did NOT recycle their trade surpluses and U.S. buyout
spending and military spending by buying U.S. Treasury, Fannie Mae and
other bonds, their currencies would rise against the dollar. This would
price their exporters out of dollarized world markets. So the United
States can spend money and get a free ride. -- The solution is
(1)
capital controls to block further dollar receipts, (2) floating tariffs
against imports from dollarized economies, (3) buyouts of U.S.
investments in dollar-recipient countries (so that Europe and Asia
would use their central bank dollars to buy out U.S. private
investments at book value), (4) subsidized exports to dollarized
economies with depreciating currency, and similar responses that the
United States would adopt if it were in the position of a
payments-surplus country. In other words, Europe and Asia would treat
the United States as its Washington Consensus boys treat Third World
debtors: buy out their raw materials and other industries, their export
plantations, and their governments. -- *Michael Hudson* -- For more on this issue see....Effective
Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Russia
- Just Relax! - 08-25-08 - mpg
9/11
the Sequel - Return of the
Jihadi - 08-23-08 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Economic
Cycles and Political Trends in the United States
A
quote...."Sometimes we measure these cycles from bottom to bottom, and
sometimes from top to top. For the 10-year cycle (the Juglar cycle), it
often coincides with normal recurring recessions. In the U.S., there
were recessions, for example, in 1969, in 1973-75, in 1980 and 1981-82,
in 1990-91 and in 2001, most of them within about a 9-10 year interval.
According to this cycle, there could be a somewhat severe recession in
2010-11, possibly following the slowdown or recession expected to occur
this year. -- What is of interest is that the real estate cycle or
housing cycle (the Kuznets cycle) is also scheduled to bottom in this
period. This is a cycle of about 12 years of price increase and of 5 or
6 years of price decline. The previous cycle, from top to top went from
1987 to the spring of 2005. A bottom would therefore be normal in
2010-11 and a future top around 2023." - -For more on this issue see....Effective
Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
The
US is After Europe Too! - 03-23-08 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Rumours of War by
William Bowles - Destabilisation is the name of the ‘game’
A quote...."And
it’s not as if the US doesn’t have an awful lot of experience of
invading and occupying foreign lands, they’ve been at it for centuries.
- Thus to say that the US ‘miscalculated’ or ‘didn’t think it through’
is not only laughable but an insult to our intelligence. - We can only
conclude that following the occupation, the US had no intention of
rebuilding Iraq and indeed as I’ve pointed out, the US is on record as
saying that it’s not in the business of ‘nation-building’, so, what is
the ‘Plan’?"
Can
India save the world?
A quote...."If both
America and Europe lose confidence in their ability to compete, how can
they remain custodians of the rules that ensure fairness and equity? To
be fair, humanity should thank both first for creating the 1945
rules-based order at the end of World War II. To understand how
visionary the Western founding fathers of this order were, just
contrast what they did after World War II with what was done after
World War I. After World War I, the world order forced Germany and
Japan to go to war as they tried to expand their political and economic
space. After World War II, both Germany and Japan significantly
expanded their political and economic space without going to war."
Diebold
Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
Video - Spectacular
satire - It's not that funny when you think about
it, but the video sure is. It is FLAWLESSLY done. If it was
on your TV you'd think it was a conventional faux-news broadcast
until what they were saying actually started to register. - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
What
Ben Bernanke Said - 03-18-08 - mpg
Al
Qaeda - Always There for the US Elites - 03-09-08 - mpg
Living
Next Door to the Crazies - 03-06-08 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
This
war on terrorism is bogus - The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal
pretext to use force to secure its global domination -- A
quote...."We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax
Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald
Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb
Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of
staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was
written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project
for the New American Century (PNAC)."
The Next War
Will Pay for Itself
A quote..."You may
think it a strange statement at first – but there is little to no doubt
that the next war will pay for itself. It is just as true that the
present unlawful, undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will pay for
themselves. War pays! That’s one reason it’s so damned popular.
America Loves
Peace? Odd, Since We're Always at War
A
quote...."Americans love to think that we're a peaceful people and that
we fight wars only when we must. -- Unfortunately, you can
count in
nanoseconds how long those assertions hold up when exposed to such
insidious commie dirty tricks as the application of logic or the
examination of empirical history."
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Debt
Doesn't Matter When the Rubes Pay - 02-29-08 - mpg
Africa
- the Next Target - 02-28-08 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
9/11
is the Litmus Test
A quote...."There is one thing that defines everyone over the course of
these early years of this new century. That thing is the 9/11 attack.
Everyone in government and every field of endeavor the world over is
defined by their position on this event. It is not necessary to know
the truth. It is only necessary to know the extent of the lies in order
to define any leader in any position anywhere in the world. By what
they have said and by what they have not said, one can accurately judge
who is an enemy of the people’s of the world. One can accurately
determine who is a tool of the psychopaths or one of them.
-- Think about what you allow yourself to know. Think about what
you pass by; ignore, deny and defend ...that defines you. It defines
the degree of your personal courage, your relationship to the truth,
your values, your principles and what you will pass on to your children
and everyone you meet. It tells you in that place where your conscience
must once have lived whether you are a hypocrite and a fool or whether
something greater still lives within you."
Crusade of Surge and Siege.....
Barbarians
At the Gates - Part Four
Inside
the Fires of Imperialism - Part Three
Cages
of Conquest - Hear No Evil, See No Evil - Part Two
Homeland
Born and Bred - Part One
A quote from Part
Three...." 26/02/08 "ICH" -- - This Crusade is a neoliberal
one, designed to inject American style debauched democracy and corrupt
capitalism into the Middle East. This Crusade, this invasion and
occupation, this folly into mass murder and mass destruction, this
criminal enterprise to appease the gods of greed and of the Almighty
Dollar, is an ideological struggle initiated by the masters of
neoliberal economics, who, together with those enamored with American
Manifest Destiny, have for decades decimated the lives of the people
who inhabit this condemned region."
Causes
and Consequences of Our Foreign Policy in the Middle East and What It
Means for Americans --
A
quote...."The following is the text of a speech given at Virginia Tech
on February 12, 2008. -- I want to thank the Libertarians at Virginia
Tech, the Political Science Club and the Institute for Humane Studies
for the kind invitation to speak to you tonight."
Financial
Crisis: Asset Securitization-- The Last Tango - Endgame: Unregulated
Private Money Creation --
A
quote...."What
had emerged going into the new millennium after the 1999 repeal of
Glass-Steagall was an awesome transformation of American credit markets
into what was soon to become the world’s greatest unregulated private
money creation machine."
Traffic
Jam On The Highway To Hell
A quote...." I used
to think Americans had been whipped by 9-11 terror confusion into some
sort of national stupor. That's not so. We're trapped in a massive
spiritual paralysis. Normal people are simply not equipped to deal with
remorseless psychopaths. We were not prepared to come face to face with
evil, nor to be manipulated by lies and controlled through stark fear.
Our refusal to address the mounting list of Bush-Cheney war crimes
could be because we cannot force ourselves to admit our "one nation
under God" spies upon its citizens, imprisons them without due process,
engages in grotesque acts of torture and delights in mass murder. And
so we stand here on the precipice of our own destruction, waiting for
evil to run its course." -- "Evil never runs its course.
With each
success, it grows stronger, more ghastly and, like Dick Cheney, emerges
a bit more from the shadows. Never doubt for a minute that these
unfeeling creatures are not evil. They are incapable of compassion, of
empathy, of mercy. Their eyes are on the prize of One World rule, and
they will have it in spite of -- or as a result of -- all the chaos and
carnage it takes to achieve it. There are no "Imps of the Perverse"
among them who will be so overcome with guilt they will break from the
pack and run through the populace shrieking, "We're guilty! We did it! We are
murderers!"
Waving
Goodbye to Hegemony
A
quote...."Turn on
the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 1999.
Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to
intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world
America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and
Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It’s as if the
first decade of the 21st century didn’t happen — and almost as if
history itself doesn’t happen. But the distribution of power in the
world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of
George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant,
despite them. Maybe the best way to understand how quickly history
happens is to look just a bit ahead."
The
New New World Order: A First-Strike NATO Über Alles
A quote...."The Lords of
the West have called upon their elder
chieftains of war to chart a course that will preserve their power and
preeminence in the face of an ever-more uncertain future. The answer? A
meaner, leaner NATO, openly committed to a nuclear first-strike
strategy and stripped of all the "consensus" garbage that has sometimes
hampered the organization's American bosses."
Going
Bankrupt - Why the debt crisis is now the greatest threat to the
American republic
A quote...."The
military adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common
with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both
groups of men thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room,"
the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at
Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon
outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how
to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination."
The Fraud of
Bushenomics: They’re Looting the Country
A quote...."A
more realistic -- and less idealistic -- view of
Bushenomics is that the Bush administration and its cronies came at the
economy with the attitude of oilmen."
- They inherited a vastly wealthy country.
- They looked at it like the oil under the Alaskan
wilderness. They craved to pump it out, turn it into cash
and grab as much of that cash as possible.
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
The
Green Light 01-16-08 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
VIDEO:
This is
What A Police State Looks Like
A
quote...."In Portland, the cops get up close and personal for the crime
of exercising the First Amendment." -- See also....Police
State
Why
is Iran Still in the Cross-Hairs? - Clues from the Project of a New
American Century
A
quote...."[T]here are still quite a few neoconservatives who want to
go after Iran under these unbelievable conditions." 3 - The question
is, why? One popular theory holds that the push for war is all about
oil; but many countries have oil, and we don't normally invade them to
get their assets. Why go to war for Iran's oil when we can just buy it?"
9/11
and the incompetence excuse: Could a bunch of sociopathic screw-ups
really pull off the crime of the century? -- A
quote...."Many who
deny government complicity in 9/11/01 maintain that some of the best
evidence against official involvement in the crime of the century lies
in the Bush administration's unbroken record of sheer incompetence, an
argument bolstered by the perception that key members of the
administration, notably The Commander Guy, spent that entire day
running around like headless chickens."
AFRICOM:
The Recolonization of Africa by Uncle Sam
A quote...."The
spirit of John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps, a civilian program without any
ties to the U.S. military or intelligence community designed to help
steer newly-emergent nations, mostly in Africa, to self-sufficiency and
development, is officially dead. - George W. Bush's Africa Command
(AFRICOM) not only places oil and global military strategy as the
number one and two goals of America's Africa policy but places the
State Department's assistance program for Africa firmly under Pentagon
control."
The
Bipartisan Consensus on U.S. Military Spending
A quote...."Our military spending exceeds the rest of the world's
spending combined, and we spend almost 10 times what the second-place
country, China, spends. "Only" about $150 billion of the total U.S.
amount is attributable to the two active wars we're fighting, in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Thus, even if one wants to excludes those amounts, the
basic picture remains the same. Nor do these amounts include the
billions of dollars in military aid we give to fund the armies of other
countries, such as Israel and Egypt, which alone comprise substantial
portions of those countries' defense budgets."
Gates Led
Realist Resurgence in 2007
A quote...."2007
will likely go down in US history as the year in which the balance of
power in the long-running struggle between hawks and realists in the
administration of President George W. Bush shifted decisively in favor
of the latter."
Iran is still on the agenda, just not right now. - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
The
Butcher's Apron
A quote...." The
real difference between the parties is minuscule but significant. The
Democrats have become the party of traditional imperialism spearheaded
by Brzezinski, Holbrooke, Albright and the other guardians of Empire.
These are the master-puppeteers who operate behind the scenes for their
well-heeled benefactors. Their focus is mainly on Central Asia;
controlling resources from the Caspian Basin, “pacifying” Afghanistan,
rallying the EU to a greater role in NATO, and continuing the
apocryphal “war on terror” into infinity. It's the Great Game redux.
The Republican Party has become the party of neoconservatives. Their
operational plan is “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the
Realm”. It aligns the US with the foreign policy objectives of Israel's
Likud Party. The focus is balkanizing the Middle East, undermining Arab
nationalism, installing US-Israeli client regimes, and controlling the
regions prodigious natural resources. It is a straightforward strategy
for regional hegemony.
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
The
Slow Play Option - 12-11-07 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Put
Option On America - Part 1
A quote...."The
entire American political establishment is so rotten the stench wafts
around the world. Why is it that Americans seem among the least aware
that the radical changes needed for America to regain its Constitution,
and survive as a Republic, will never happen within our rotted-out
system? All the tinkering and primping, lying, killing and pimping
masquerading as hope aren’t touching the core problem." -- Part II &
Part
III
Getting
Past ‘Oh!’: Why Americans Misunderestimate the Depravity of the
President They Hate -- A quote...."Bush is
incompetent and Iraq is likely the greatest foreign policy blunder in
two-plus centuries of American history. But to say that - and
particularly to say that alone - does not truly do justice to either
disaster, Bush or his war. The truth about this president and his
motives for war are far, far uglier than the words ‘incompetence’ or
‘mistake’ imply."
Bully of the
Playground: How Washington Makes - Enemies Abroad and Undermines
Freedom at Home -- A quote...."
On June 4, 2007, Ted Galen Carpenter gave the following Speech at FFF’s
conference Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil
Liberties. The speech can viewed below in its entirety. Ted Galen Carpenter is vice
president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Dr. Carpenter is the author of seven books and the editor of ten books
on international affairs.
Why
America's Currency Is the World's Problem
A
quote...."The ailing US economy seems to be driving the exchange rate
of the dollar inexorably downward, with serious consequences for the
global economy. Politicians and central bankers are looking on
helplessly as the economic outlook worsens by the day and European
companies rack up huge losses."
Consensus
Against
Neoliberal Washington Consensus
A
quote...."DAR ES
SALAAM, Nov 28 (IPS) - One thing is clear from debates at the third
Helsinki Process conference, underway here: there is agreement among
economic development experts, civil society representatives and
government officials attending the meeting that the neoliberal
Washington consensus is not a solution to the problems of developing
countries, but rather one of the causes of these problems."
The Algebra of
Occupation
A
quote...."In 1805, the French army out maneuvered, outsmarted, and
outfought the combined armies of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz.
Three years later it would flounder against a rag-tag collection of
Spanish guerrillas."
The
U.S. Congress Legislates Genocide Of The Mind
A
quote...."11/17/07 "ICH" -- A close reading within an historical
context – keeping especially in mind the Patriot Act and the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 and Presidential Executive Orders, pursuant to
which the government has engaged in massive surveillance of its own
citizens, as well as detentions, extraordinary renditions,
assassinations, and torture – leads me to the following conclusions:
· This is a
“Thought Crime” bill of the type so often discussed in an Orwellian
context.
· It
specifically targets the civilian population of the United States.
· It defines
“Violent Radicalization” as promoting any belief system that the
government
considers to be extremist.
· “Homegrown
Terrorism” and “Violent Radicalization” are defined as thought crimes.
· Since the bill
does not provide a specific definition of extremist belief system, it
will
be whatever the government at any
given time deems it to be.
A few extracts of the Bill are presented below to show you its tone or
“flavor.”
See also....Thinking
for yourself is now a crime
See also....The
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: A Tutorial in Orwellian Newspeak
See also....Civil
Libertarians Warn of 'Patriot Act Lite'
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
America's
Invisible Empire
A
quote...."The American imperial empire has remained largely
invisible: only very recently have Americans just begun to learn about
their imperial history. But information about empire is fragmented and
extensively filtered and the American public remains by and large
unaware of the reality and costs of empire. Until empire is placed on
the public agenda, it can never be effectively criticised or made an
object of basic policy change. -- David Ludden --
Averting
World
War III, Ending Dollar Hegemony And US Imperialism
A
quote...."David
Ludden’s article ‘America’s Invisible Empire’(4) sums up the problem of
the world’s most recent empire with remarkable clarity. Constituting
itself at a time when decolonisation was well under way and other
empires were disintegrating, US imperialism could never openly speak
its name. Initially, it disguised itself as the defender of democracy
against communism; when the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the pretext
became the “war against terror”. National security and national
interest were invoked as the rationale for global dominance."
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Despotism
(1946) Encyclopedia Brittanic...(Google - 9m 56s - Feb 22, 2006) @ ICH
A
quote...."Measure how a society ranks on a spectrum stretching from
democracy to despotism. Explains how ... all » societies
and nations can be measured by the degree that power is concentrated
and respect for the individual is restricted. Where does your
community, state and nation stand on these scales?"
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
A
Remarkable Achievement - 10-17-07 - mpg
Go
Build Your Neo-Roman Empire - Just Leave Us Out Of It - 10-14-07 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
The
"Great Game" Enters the Mediterranean: Gas, Oil, War, and Geo-Politics
[Part II of a series see Part
I] -- Some
quotes...."
It is no mere chance that before the upcoming summit in Tehran that
three important post-Soviet organizations (the Commonwealth of
Independents States, the Central Security Treaty Organization, and the
Eurasian Economic Community) simultaneously held meetings in
Tajikistan. Nor is it mere coincidence that the SCO and CSTO have
signed cooperation agreements during these meetings in Tajikistan,
which has effectively made China a semi-formal member of the CSTO
alliance. It should be noted that all SCO members are also members of
CSTO, aside from China."
"Two blocs are starting to manifest themselves in similarity to the
geographic boundaries of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and
Mackinder’s Islander versus Continental scheme; a Eurasian-based bloc
and a naval-based, oceanic bloc
based on the fringes of Eurasia as well as North America and
Australasia. The latter bloc is NATO and its network of regional
military alliances, while the former is the reactionary
counter-alliance formed by the Chinese-Russian-Iranian coalition as its
nucleus."
Take a guess at which "bloc" started this whole thing in the first
place, the MIOC
elites of this country initiated their plans for "global dominance"
more
then twenty years ago. The "Eurasians" are belatedly forming a
defensive
alliance to combat their efforts. Viewed against this context, the sweeping
vastness of it all,
setting up and murdering three thousand Americans must have been
considered a bargain, just peanuts, or chump change by this nation's
MIOC
elites and those who continue to support their plans.
It was a price they were all
perfectly willing to pay.
This is the true "clash of civilizations" and it's about time that we
as a
people put a stop this madness...before time runs out for all of
us. – mpg
For more on this see....White
Man's Burden - 12-20-06 - mpg
==========
========= ========== ========== =========== ======
You
Can STILL Vote to Stop the Madness 10-07-07 - mpg
Brother
can You Spare a Few Hundred Billion More? 10-07-07- mpg
The
Strength of the New Roman Empire 10-07-07 - mpg
The
Great Pretenders 09-22-07 - mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Fascist
America, in 10 easy steps
From the
history
file - A quote...."From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows
there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy
constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his
administration seem to be taking them all"
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
Economic
Crisis: The U.S. Political Leadership Has Failed
A
quote...."As the
2007 economic collapse picks up speed, it’s time to take a hard look at
the performance of the U.S. national political leadership in meeting
some of their most fundamental responsibilities. It’s time to face the
fact of serious failure over the last quarter century."
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
The
Two Methods Which Lead to the Same End - 08-25-07 -mpg
========== ========= ========== ========== =========== ======
No
Light, Just Tunnel: The Bipartisan Guarantee of Continuing War in Iraq
A
quote....Most
people persist in believing that the Bush Administration has
"mishandled" or "bungled" the war in Iraq, when in fact they have
achieved almost
all of their goals.
(A reality that we have examined here,
here
and here,
among other places.) They have vastly enriched their cronies. They have
installed a U.S. military presence in Iraq. They have expanded the
size, power and scope of the armed forces and the intelligence services
(which now have their own secret armies) beyond the wildest dreams of
the most hawkish Cold War militarist. They have not only gutted the
Constitution but proved that you can get away with it -- an invaluable
lesson for dictators to come. And, as noted, they have committed the
American Establishment to continuing the radical course they have set
in motion -- because the Establishment will never allow the election of
any candidate who would seek to institute the rollback of the empire
and the restoration of genuine constitutional government. Especially as
the latter would entail bringing justice to the war makers and the war
profiteers, all of them honored stalwarts of the Establishment."
==========
========= ========== ========== =========== ======
They
STILL can't say the words
- 07-28-07 - mpg
Hitler
Would Have Sympathized - 05-26-07 - mpg
The
Method - 05-07-07 - mpg
Effective
Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07 - mpg
========== ========= ==========
========== =========== =======
Pork
and Piggy Banks: U.S. Defense Contractor Campaign Contributions and
Political Influence -- Multiple
Resources
- A quote...."Total U.S. Department of Defense prime contracts
increased from $144.6 billion in FY 2001 to $294.9 billion in FY 2006,
a 103.9 percent growth, according to a report by William D. Hartung and
Frida Berrigan of the World Policy Institute. The five
largest—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics,
and Raytheon—
received
a total of $84 billion in defense contracts in FY 2006."
Check out
Halliburton's 1,325.2% percent increase in government contracts from
2001-2006 !! - mpg
========== ========= ==========
========== =========== =======
War
Profiteering and the Concentration of Income and Wealth in America
posted
04-13-07 - A quote...."Critics
of the recent U.S. wars of choice have long argued that they are all
about oil. "No Blood for Oil" has been a rallying cry for most of the
opponents of the war. - It can be demonstrated, however,
that there
is another (less obvious but perhaps more critical) factor behind the
recent rise of U.S. military aggressions abroad: war profiteering by
Pentagon contractors. - Frequently invoking dubious
"threats to our
national security and/or interests," these beneficiaries of war
dividends, the military–industrial complex and related businesses whose
interests are vested in the Pentagon’s appropriation of public money,
have successfully used war and military spending to justify their
lion’s share of tax dollars and to disguise their strategy of
redistributing national income in their favor."
The
Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending - PDF
- or in
HTML
A quote...."There has been relatively little attention paid to the Iraq
War's impact on the U.S. economy. It is often believed that wars and
military spending increases are good for the economy. This is not
generally true in most standard economic models. In fact, most models
show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses,
such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic
growth and reduces employment."
========== ========= ==========
========== =========== =======
Ghawar
is Dead - Long Live PNAC 03-07-07 - mpg
Sour 9/11
Grapes - 02-22-07 - mpg
========== ========= ==========
========== =========== =======
From
Afghanistan to
Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil
Excellent
sumation
regarding many aspects of the "Great Game" - A quote....The oil
wars are abject failures. The Project for a New American Century
wanted, in a fantasy of retrograde imperialism, to remove Saddam
Hussein from power.
President George Bush launched an overt act of military aggression to
do so, at a cost of more than 3,000 American lives, hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi lives, and half a trillion dollars. In the process
he has exacerbated the threats from international terrorism, ravaged
the Iraqi culture, ruined their economy and their public services, sent
thousands of Iraqis fleeing their country as refugees, created a
maelstrom of sectarian violence, dangerously destabilized the Middle
East, demolished the global prestige of the United States, and defamed
the American people.
========== ========= ==========
========== =========== =======
Chalmers
Johnson: Republic or Empire
Audio Interview By Jeff Blankfort PDF
A
quote...."Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback and Sorrows of Empire,
discusses the build-up of the US empire based on Keynesian military
spending, its conflicts with the concept of the US as a republic, and
its inevitable downfall."
See also HTML
========== ========= ==========
========== =========== =======
Petrocurrencies
and the Emerging Multi-Polar World - (PDF file)
Major
Summation of the "Great Game"
A quote...."This essay is
intended to inform others of the challenges and choices that are
directly ahead. Three decades of wasteful US fiscal and energy policies
have placed the US at risk for an economic downturn of considerable
depth and duration, and we are woefully unprepared as a nation to
reduce our fossil-fuel consumption. Unfortunately, recent US foreign
policies are exacerbating global tensions and could lead to even worse
warfare than the Bush years have already wrought. Their must be no
misunderstanding — global resource warfare will ultimately leave even
the so-called “winner” in a ruined state of energy deprivation along
with economic and moral bankruptcy."
========== ========= ==========
========== =========== =======
The
Flipping of Iraq - Interruptus 12-14-06 - mpg
The
Litvinenko Assassination & the Flipping of Iraq 11-24-06
Fruits
from the Poisonous Tree 12-08-06 - mpg
Thirty
Five Acts to
Restore Americans' Rights 11-10-06 - mpg
One
Real Solution for Demorcracy 11-04-06 - mpg
The Nuclear Game
11-04-06 - mpg
The 236 Gang -
blog 10-08-06 -mpg
=========== ========== =========== =========== ===========
PNAC
ring leader William Kristol confronted on 9/11
Must see video. It appears there are a lot of people out there
who are really, really angry because they don't believe in what
this country's "mass media" or "government" or "elites" have had to say
about 9/11.
Hey, what's the big deal about almost three thousand Americans being
set-up for death by this nation’s wealthy patrons? It's not like
the guys in the video got killed
Hey, that's right..... maybe they don't want themselves, their
families, their kids or their communities being targeted for the next
"Pearl Harbor style event" when the rich in this country get the itch
to make a little more money.
========= ========== ========== ========== ========== ====
Strangers
In the Night 10-04-06 -mpg
November
Warning 10-01-06 - mpg
The
Scourge of the Wealthy - Deflation / The Balm of the Wealthy - War
09-30-06 - mpg
Texas
Five Card Draw or Texas Hold'em(up) 09-27-06 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== =========
09-26-06
MPG
Connect the Dots.
Follow the Money
Truth is the Enemy of the State
Those Who do not Learn From History are Doomed to Repeat It.
Knowledge is Power
The Truth Shall Set You Free
Olbermann's
special commentary on Clinton vs Fox
911
press for truth
Please Watch These Videos.....if you wish to be Free.
========== ========== ========== ========== ==========
The
Empty Vessel 09-20-06 - mpg
ABC and
the
"Great Game" 9/11 and the Swift-Boating of Truth 09-10-06 - mpg
We'll
Make Them an Offer They Can't Refuse 09-06-06 - mpg
The
CONversation 09-04-06 - mpg
========== ========== ========== ========== ===========
The Big Lie Continues
09-02-2006
MPG
Clinton,
9/11 and the Facts
ABC, one of America's corporate
"mass media" infotainment conglomerates
intends to air a mini-series on September 10 and 11th about 9/11 that
blames the entire event on
the president………. President Clinton that is.
What a surprise....
for all
those who support the truth, for all those
who suffered and who continue to suffer, this is the sort of stuff that
they will continue to shove
down your throats as long as you let them.
How about a truth
day?
How about two? During the 10th and 11th I propose everyone turn
off your TV's, stop reading your newspaper's, stop listening to your
radio's and get on the web. Find out what is really going on in the
world. Step outside, get some fresh air.....read a book.
Who knows, maybe
you'll
like it and never watch a commercial broadcast,
read a commercial newspaper, or listen to a commercial radio program
again. Now wouldn't that be nice.
For my take on this
issue
see - "abysmally
stupid"
blog
========== ========== ========== ========== ===========
End of
the
Game 08-11-06 - mpg
Israel
Marches to the Drums of PNAC 07-16-06 - mpg
How
Not to Follow the Money - The Sequel 07-12-06 - mpg
How
Not to Follow the Money 06-24-06 - mpg
The Cold War
Never Stopped 07-06-06 - mpg
The
Innocent get Punished; The Guilty (Rich) go Free 07-04-06 - mpg
Got
Passport? - 07-01-06 - mpg
=========== =========== =========== =========== ==========
Something Humorous
posted 06-30-2006
MPG
The case of the Miami Seven
Jon Stewart takes a look at the case known to many as "The Miami
Seven." He examines the careful and decisive evidence told to us by
Alberto Gonzales.
Click here to view
While watching this hilarious video I was struck by Aberto Gonzales’s
performance, he looked slightly crazy in a sort of craven, servile way
and I swear he almost spoke with a lisp. I couldn’t
quite place were
I’d seen such mannerisms before until it suddenly struck me, he’s Igor
in Frankenstein. “Yeth mathter I’ll do anything for you my
mathter, who do you want me to kill my mathter?”
Yeah…… that’s him.
Also, it’s been out there for a while, but for those who haven’t seen
it yet, watch Stephen Colbert as
he roasts, toasts, and Julian fries President Bush and the White
House Press Corps at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner.
End.
=========== =========== =========== =========== ==========
posted 06-20-2006 MPG
Music Against the War
Instead of reading protests about the unfolding tragedy engulfing the
world,
here's a little music to help one protest. It's music to
stir
the heart and
gives one courage to appose all the evil that is out
there.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11924.htm
Jackson Browne Solo Acoustic Vol. 1
"Lives
In The Balance" (Exclusive Video)
From Jackson Browne Solo
Acoustic, Vol. 1
An animated editorial by Andrew Thomas
http://www.jacksonbrowne.com/
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/best_of_youtube/2006/04/
pink_dear_mr_president_live_on.html
Pink "Dear
Mr. President" Live on MTV TRL April 22, 2006 (Video)
From Pink performing her
much-anticipated anti-Bush anthem "Dear Mr. President" live in Times
Square, on MTV's TRL.
http://www.pinkspage.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwc5YSAc-7g
"Not Ready
to Make
Nice" (Video)
From Dixie Chicks
http://www.dixiechicks.com/
http://www.eslbee.com/cobaq/ballads/protest_song_lyrics.htm#War
"War"
-- Streaming Audio
From Jonatha Brooke
http://jonathabrooke.com/index.php
http://anon.salon.speedera.net/anon.salon/mp3s/billybragg031303.mp3
"The
Price of Oil" -- Streaming Audio
Music and Lyrics by Billy Bragg,
2002
http://www.billybragg.co.uk/
http://www.eslbee.com/cobaq/ballads/protest_song_lyrics.htm#Ladder
"Jacob's
Ladder" (Not in My Name) -- Streaming Audio
by Chumbawamba
http://www.chumba.tv/music.asp
A LIST OF SITES WITH WAR PROTEST SONGS
http://www.salon.com/ent/music/review/wmd/2004/09/01/25/
http://www.topplebush.com/music.shtml
http://www.benfrank.net/nuke/Free_Peace_mp3s.html#new
http://www.protest-records.com/mp3/index.html
http://indymedia.all2all.org/news/2003/04/58267.php#websites
Some Articles :
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0604/p11s01-almp.html
Protest
song is back - with a vengeance
Christian Science Monitor
from the June 04, 2004 edition
http://www.salon.com/ent/music/review/wmd/2004/09/01/25/
Crank the volume
Where
are the new Marleys and Lennons?
Download the 25 best protest anthems today -- for free --
Salon Mag - Sept. 1, 2004
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20060428_the_nation_protest/
Songs
of Protest
TruthDig
Posted on Apr 28, 2006
End. MPG
=========== =========== =========== =========== ==========
A
Prescient Fictitious Interview - Transcript - Goodwill Hunting -
06-16-06
=========== =========== =========== =========== ==========
center table