Serial Killer Heads CIA

 called the CIA the president’s private army. Imperial Rome had its praetorian guard. It served and protected emperors.

CIA rogues work the same way. They do lots more than that. Extrajudicial killing is prioritized. Much that goes on is secret. Unaccountability keeps Congress and ordinary people uninformed.

Johnson said US presidents have “untrammeled control of the CIA.” It’s “probably (their) single most extraordinary power.”

It puts them beyond checks and balances. What’s constitutionally mandated doesn’t exist.

CIA originally had five missions. Four dealt with collection, coordination and dissemination of intelligence.

The fifth is vague. It lets agency operatives “perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may direct.”

This mandate turned “CIA into the personal, secret, unaccountable army of the president.” Doing so prioritizes lawless covert operations.

They include overthrowing democratically elected governments, assassinating heads of state and key officials, propping up friendly despots, snatching individuals for “extraordinary rendition,” treating them harshly in torture prisons, and using drones as instruments of state terror.

CIA is more active than ever, said Johnson. It’s mostly a global Mafia hit squad. It’s incompatible with democracy.

Its “bag of dirty tricks (reflects) a defining characteristic of the imperial presidency.”

Its “unchecked power” threatens freedom. Its existence “shorten(s) the life of the American republic.” It “menace(s) democratic rule.”

On March 8, rogue senators approved John Brennan. They did so 63 – 34. He’s new CIA chief. Voting followed Rand Paul’s filibuster. After 13 hours, he caved.

He omitted explaining what’s most important. He refused to condemn drone killing. He ignored Brennan’s previous and current role. He focused solely on killing Americans. He stressed doing it domestically.

He took issue with Attorney General Eric Holder. He wrote Paul. He said it’s OK to kill Americans domestically under “extraordinary” circumstances.

A brief follow-up letter assuaged Paul, saying:

“It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ “

“The answer to that question is no.”

He lied. So did Press Secretary Jay Carney. He said Obama “has not and would not use drone strikes against American citizens on American soil.”

Targeted assassinations reflect official US policy. They’re longstanding. They occur worldwide. No one’s safe anywhere. Heads of state are vulnerable. So are US citizens.

A bathroom break ended Paul’s filibuster. Serial killer Brennan now heads CIA. He’s Obama’s maestro of murder. His mandate is kill, kill, kill. Expect him to take full advantage. No one’s safe anywhere.

In January, the New York Daily News headlined “Pull back the curtain on drones,” saying:

“Brennan, more than any other single official, represents” Washington’s lethal drone policy.

“No politically appointed official in US history has played such a prominent role in killing so many people outside of a war zone as John Brennan.”

He was heavily involved in Bush/Cheney’s torture policy. A classified Senate Intelligence Committee report includes lawless interrogation practices.

Committee chairwoman Diane Feinstein (D. CA) called it “one of the most significant oversight efforts in the history of the United States Senate, and by far the most important oversight activity ever conducted by this committee.”

“The report uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight.”

“I….believe this report will settle the debate once and for all over whether our nation should ever employ coercive interrogation techniques such as those detailed in this report.”

She added that creating “longterm, clandestine ‘black sites’ and (using) ‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes.”

Neither she nor other congressional members do anything to stop them. They continue aggressively under Obama. Feinstein knows but won’t say.

Straightaway in office, Obama planned to name Brennan CIA head. At the time, The New York Times called it “politically difficult” to do so.

He chose Leon Panetta and David Petraeus instead. Michael Morell twice served as acting head. On March 8,  Brennan took office.

Most Democrats support him. So do some Republicans. Congressional profiles in courage are few and far between. They’re practically non-existent.

 said “the the Senate has recognized in John the qualities I value so much – his determination to keep America safe, his commitment to working with Congress, his ability to build relationships with foreign partners, and his fidelity to the values that define us as a nation.”

He added that CIA’s now headed by one of its own. Under Brennan, Murder, Inc. elevates to a higher level. He reflects ideological extremism. He’s comfortable committing state terror.

Appointing him sanitizes crimes of war and against humanity. They’re too grave to ignore. Committing them is official US policy.

Expect drone wars to continue. They’ll expand worldwide. So will targeted assassinations.

Rule of law principles don’t matter. Imperial priorities take precedence. Counterterrorism takes no prisoners.

State-sponsored terror’s in good hands with John Brennan. Obama authorized him to kill.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at . His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html – Visit his blog site atwww.sjlendman.blogspot.com . 

Source: ICH

Another Giveaway To The Banksters

Obama, Housing And The Next Big Heist…

For those who missed President Obama’s latest giveaway to the Bank Mafia, we’ll repeat what he said here. This is an excerpt from Tuesday’s State of the Union Speech:

“Part of our rebuilding effort must also involve our housing sector. Today, our housing market is finally healing from the collapse of 2007. Home prices are rising at the fastest pace in six years, home purchases are up nearly 50 percent, and construction is expanding again.

But even with mortgage rates near a 50-year low, too many families with solid credit who want to buy a home are being rejected. Too many families who have never missed a payment and want to refinance are being told no. That’s holding our entire economy back, and we need to fix it. Right now, there’s a bill in this Congress that would give every responsible homeowner in America the chance to save $3,000 a year by refinancing at today’s rates. Democrats and Republicans have supported it before. What are we waiting for? Take a vote, and send me that bill. Right now, overlapping regulations keep responsible young families from buying their first home. What’s holding us back? Let’s streamline the process, and help our economy grow.”

First of all, whenever you hear a politician talk about “streamlining the process”, run for cover. The term is a right-wing formulation that means “remove all the rules which inhibit profitmaking”. Naturally, Wall Street’s favorite son, President Hopium, is more than comfortable with the expression and uses it to great effect. But what are the rules that Obama wants to eliminate, that’s the question?

Obama answers that himself when he says: “Too many families with solid credit who want to buy a home are being rejected.”

This is pure baloney. Borrowers with good credit who can meet the standard down payment requirement (usually 10 percent) can secure financing without too much trouble. The problem is that the banks don’t want to be limited to creditworthy applicants alone, because there aren’t enough creditworthy applicants interested in buying a house. That’s why they want Obama to loosen regulations on “government insured” mortgages so they can lend money to anyone they want knowing that Uncle Sam will pay the bill when the loans go belly-up. That is what this is all about; Obama wants congress to slap their seal of approval on a new regime of crappy loans that will eventually be dumped on US taxpayers. Here’s the story from Bloomberg:

“U.S. Realtors and mortgage bankers say they’re hoping President Barack Obama’s call for streamlining mortgage rules will lend new momentum to efforts to prevent imposing a strict minimum down payment for home loans.

… bankers and real estate agents …are angling for changes to a proposed regulation requiring lenders to keep a stake in risky loans say they hope Obama’s comments will help their cause.

At issue is the so-called Qualified Residential Mortgage rule, which six banking regulators including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve are aiming to complete this year. The regulators drew protests in 2011 when they released a preliminary draft requiring lenders to keep a stake in mortgages with down payments of less than 20 percent and those issued to borrowers spending more than 36 percent of their income on debt…(“Housing Industry Pins Hopes on Obama to Soften Down-Payment Rule, Bloomberg)

Can you believe this hogwash? Regulators are asking the banks to retain a lousy 5% of the value on high-risk mortgages (so they can cover the losses in the event of another meltdown) and the stinking bankers are whining about it! Unbelievable. In other words, they’re being asked to put some “skin in the game” so they can pay off defaulting loans when they blow up the financial system again, and they don’t want to do it. The banks are fighting so-called “risk retention” tooth and nail, because they don’t want to tie up their capital. Imagine if your insurance company ran its business the same way? So, then your house burns down, and the claims agent tells you, “Sorry, Mr Jones, we can’t pay your claim because all our money is tied up in structured investment vehicles and dodgy debt instruments.” Are you okay with that?  But that’s what the banks are doing, and they’re doing it because they want to be leveraged “N”th-degree to maximize profits. Besides, they know from experience, that when the system goes down again, the USG will ride to the rescue and pay off their debts. So why hold capital?

Keep in mind, that the banks can lend whatever amount they want to whomever they want. No one is stopping them. But if they want the government to guarantee the loan (or if they want government financing), they have to follow certain rules. And the rules have to be clear because the banks have shown that they can’t be trusted. Here’s more from Bloomberg:

“Housing industry participants want the regulators writing QRM to drop the down payment requirement and raise borrowers’ allowable debt load to 43 percent, essentially setting the same requirements in both the QM and QRM rules.” (Bloomberg)

This is so stupid it boggles the mind. “No, Mr Bankster, Uncle Sam will not guarantee your putrid loan if the applicant can’t come up with a measly down payment or if his monthly payments exceed the standard 36 percent of income to debt.” This is so tiresome. There’s no point in putting people into loans that they can’t repay. We tried that. It doesn’t work.

Now ask yourself this: Why are the banks so adamantly opposed to what-they-call the “stringent down payment requirement”? Down payments have been SOP for decades. A 10 or 20 percent down is an indication that a borrower is responsible enough to set aside some of his income for the future, which reflects positively on his creditworthiness. It’s also an indication that the borrower is not going to cut-and-run at the first sign that prices are falling. Stakeholders typically stay with the ship even after it’s hit the iceberg, which helps to stabilize the market and prevent prices from falling off a cliff. The banks know this, which is why they typically demand a down payment on loans that are NOT guaranteed by the government. It’s only when the government’s on the hook for the loss that they don’t give a rip.

Bloomberg again: “Groups including the Mortgage Bankers Association have been warning about the impact of rulemaking in an already tight market.”

Now there’s a surprise. So bankers hate rules and regulations? Really? And they also think its terrible that borrowers need to have decent credit scores to qualify for “government backed” loans? Will wonders never cease. Well they won’t have to wait much longer, will they, because Obama has promised to loosen those “onerous” rules so they can get back to business and start fleecing people like the good old days.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the banks have figured out what many analysts have known all along; that low rates, mortgage modifications, and massive private investment (speculation) are not going to be enough to reflate prices and generate another housing bubble. No way. It’s going to take a total breakdown in lending standards so the banks can, once again, provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to anyone who can sit upright and scratch his John Hancock on a mortgage app. That’s what it’s going to take to erase the 30% loss in the value on the stockpile of garbage mortgages the banks still hold on their balance sheets.

Here’s Obama again:

“Too many families who have never missed a payment and want to refinance are being told no. That’s holding our entire economy back, and we need to fix it. Right now, there’s a bill in this Congress that would give every responsible homeowner in America the chance to save $3,000 a year by refinancing at today’s rates. Democrats and Republicans have supported it before. What are we waiting for? Take a vote, and send me that bill.”

So Obama doesn’t just want to loosen regulations for new home buyers (No down payment, high debt-to-income ratio), he also wants to help refinance underwater homeowners who’ve been making their monthy payments regularly. But why? After all, the administration’s aggressive mortgage modification program (HAMP) is already providing low-interest refis for people who are as much as 125% LTV (underwater) What’s different about this program?

Ahh, that’s where it gets interesting. Here’s the scoop from Bloomberg:

“The U.S. Treasury Department and members of Congress are preparing to move forward with plans to expand government-backed refinancing programs to underwater homeowners whose loans are packaged in private-label securities.” (“U.S. Mortgage Refinancing Push Said to Advance in Congress”, Bloomberg)

“Private label”? So now the USG is going to guarantee the mortgages the banks concocted in their boilerrooms that didn’t even conform to standards that would allow them to be financed by Fannie and Freddie? That’s what Obama is pushing for? Yeegads! Here’s more from Bloomberg:

“Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, is drafting a bill modeled on a proposal he outlined last year to set up a federal trust to purchase or guarantee refinanced mortgages….

The trust, as described in Merkley’s earlier proposal, would provide relief to borrowers with privately owned loans and probably would be set up under the oversight of an existing housing agency. If Congress doesn’t pass such a measure, the Treasury is drafting a plan to step in to pay for rate modifications for those homeowners.” (Bloomberg)

What? So if Congress doesn’t approve the bailout, then the Treasury will implement the plan anyway? Is that it? That doesn’t sound very democratic.

Bloomberg again:

“Under that option, the government would pay the difference between the new and original interest rates to the owners of the loans for five years. Investors in private-label securities have sometimes objected to mortgage modifications because of concerns their income could be reduced.” (Bloomberg)

Wait a minute. Shouldn’t the investors or the banks take the haircut instead of taxpayers? After all, whose fault is it that 5 million families have lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007 and 11 million homeowners are presently underwater? Not the taxpayer. Let the responsible parties bear the costs. That’s the way the system is supposed to work, right?

And Merkley’s proposal is just one two bills now awaiting congressional action. The other is the Boxer-Menendez bill which “promises lenders they won’t be forced to absorb the loss on refinanced loans that default.” (Bloomberg) Great. So, while the Boxer-Menendez bill will not refi loans that are not backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (no “private label” loans) it will move (an estimated) one million high-risk mortgages off bank balance sheets and onto the public’s ledger. This is how the free market capitalism works in the US today; all the profits go to Wall Street and all the red ink goes to Main Street.

Obama doesn’t care if struggling homeowners get a break on their refis or not. It’s all a joke. He’s just helping his bank buddies cut their losses while they set the stage for their next big heist.

The Linchpin Lie: How Global Collapse Will Be Sold To The Masses

In our modern world there exist certain institutions of power.  Not government committees, alphabet agencies, corporate lobbies, or even standard military organizations; no, these are the mere “middle-men” of power.  The errand boys.  The well paid hitmen of the global mafia.  They are not the strategists or the decision makers.

Instead, I speak of institutions which introduce the newest paradigms.  Who write the propaganda.  Who issue the orders from on high.  I speak of the hubs of elitism which have initiated nearly every policy mechanism of our government for the past several decades.  I am talking about the Council On Foreign Relations, the Tavistock Institute, the Heritage Foundation (a socialist organization posing as conservative), the Bilderberg Group, as well as the corporate foils that they use to enact globalization, such as Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Carlyle Group, etc.

Many of these organizations and corporations operate a revolving door within the U.S. government.  Monsanto has champions, like Donald Rumsfeld who was on the board of directors of its Searle Pharmaceuticals branch, who later went on to help the company force numerous dangerous products including Aspartame through the FDA.  Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have a veritable merry-go-round of corrupt banking agents which are appointed to important White House and Treasury positions on a regular basis REGARDLESS of which party happens to be in office.  Most prominent politicians are all members of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization which has openly admitted on multiple occasions that their goal is the destruction of U.S. sovereignty and the formation of a “one world government” or “supranational union” (their words, not mine).

However, one organization seems to rear its ugly head at the forefront of the most sweeping mass propaganda operations of our time, and has been linked to the creation of the most atrocious military methodologies, including the use of false flag events.  I am of course referring to the Rand Corporation, a California based “think tank” whose influence reaches into nearly every sphere of our society, from politics, to war, to entertainment.

The Rand Corporation deals in what I would call “absolute gray”.  The goal of the group from its very inception was to promote a social atmosphere of moral ambiguity in the name of personal and national priority.  They did this first through the creation of “Rational Choice Theory”; a theory which prescribes that when making any choice, an individual (or government) must act as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at an action that maximizes personal advantage.  Basically, the ends justify the means, and moral conscience is not a factor to be taken seriously if one wishes to be successful.

Hilariously, rational choice theory has been attacked in the past by pro-socialist (collectivist) critics as “extreme individualism”; a philosophy which gives us license to be as “self serving” as possible while feeling patriotic at the same time.  In reality, the socialists should have been applauding Rand Corporation all along.

What Rand had done through its propaganda war against the American people was to infuse the exact culture of selfishness needed to push the U.S. towards the socialist ideal.  At the onset of any communist or national socialist society (sorry socialists, but they do indeed come from the same collectivist mindset), the masses are first convinced to hand over ultimate power to the establishment in order to safeguard THEMSELVES, not others.  That is to say, the common collectivist man chooses to hand over his freedoms and participate in totalitarianism not because he wants what is best for the world, but because he wants what is best for himself, and he believes servitude to the system will get him what he wants with as little private sacrifice as possible (you know, except for his soul…).

The psychologist Carl Jung notes in his observations of collectivism in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia that most citizens of those nations did not necessarily want the formation of a tyrannical oligarchy, but, they went along with it anyway because they feared for their own comfort and livelihoods.  Many a German supported the Third Reich simply because they did not want to lose a cushy job, or a steady paycheck, or they liked that the “trains ran on time”.  Socialism is by far the most selfish movement in history, despite the fact that they claim to do what they do “for the greater good of the greater number”.

Rand also used Rational Choice Theory as a means to remove questions of principle from the debate over social progress.  Rational Choice propaganda commonly presents the target audience with a false conundrum.  A perfect example would be the hardcore propaganda based television show ‘24’ starring Kiefer Sutherland, in which a government “anti-terrorism” agent is faced with a controlled choice scenario in nearly every episode.  This choice almost always ends with the agent being forced to set aside his morals and conscience to torture, kill, and destroy without mercy, or, allow millions of innocents to die if he does not.

Of course, the real world does not work this way.  Life is not a chess game.   Avenues to resolution of any crisis are limited only by our imagination and intelligence, not to mention the immense number of choices that could be made to defuse a crisis before it develops.  Yet, Rand would like you to believe that we (and those in government) are required to become monstrous in order to survive.  That we should be willing to forgo conscience and justice now for the promise of peace and tranquility later.

This is the age old strategy of Centralization; to remove all choices within a system, by force or manipulation, until the masses think they have nothing left but the choices the elites give them.  It is the bread and butter of elitist institutions like Rand Corporation, and is at the core of the push for globalization.

In my studies on the developing economic disaster (or economic recovery depending on who you talk to) I have come across a particular methodology many times which set off my analyst alarm (or spidey-sense, if you will).  This latest methodology, called “Linchpin Theory”, revolves around the work of John Casti, a Ph.D. from USC, “complexity scientist” and “systems theorist”, a Futurist, and most notably, a former employee of Rand Corporation:

http://www.viennareview.net/vienna-review-book-reviews/book-reviews/john-casti-an-optimist-of-the-apocalypse

Casti introduces his idea of “Linchpin Theory” in his book “X-Events:  The Collapse Of Everything”, and what I found most immediately striking about the idea of “Linchpin Events” was how they offered perfect scapegoat scenarios for catastrophes that are engineered by the establishment.

Linchpin Theory argues that overt social, political, and technological “complexity” is to blame for the most destructive events in modern human history, and it is indeed an enticing suggestion for those who are uneducated and unaware of the behind the scenes mechanics of world events.  Casti would like you to believe that political and social tides are unguided and chaotic; that all is random, and disaster is a product of “chance” trigger events that occur at the height of a malfunctioning and over-complicated system.

What he fails to mention, and what he should well know being a member of Rand, is that global events do not evolve in a vacuum.  There have always been those groups who see themselves as the “select”, and who aspire to mold the future to their personal vision of Utopia.  It has been openly admitted in myriad official observations on historical events that such groups have had a direct hand in the advent of particular conflicts.

For instance, Casti would call the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria an “X-event”, or linchpin, leading to the outbreak of WWI, when historical fact recalls that particular crisis was carefully constructed with the specific mind to involve the U.S.

Norman Dodd, former director of the Committee to Investigate Tax Exempt Foundations of the U.S. House of Representatives, testified that the Committee was invited to study the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as part of the Committee’s investigation. The Committee stated:

“The trustees of the Foundation brought up a single question.  If it is desirable to alter the life of an entire people, is there any means more efficient than war…. They discussed this question… for a year and came up with an answer: There are no known means more efficient than war, assuming the objective is altering the life of an entire people.  That leads them to a question: How do we involve the United States in a war.  This was in 1909.” 

So, long before the advent of Ferdinand’s assassination, plans were being set in motion by globalist interests to draw the U.S. into a large scale conflict in order to “alter the life, or thinking, of the entire culture”.  When a group of people set out to direct thinking and opportunity towards a particular outcome, and the end result is a culmination of that outcome, it is obviously not coincidence, and it is definitely not providence.  It can only be called subversive design.

In the economic arena, one might say that the collapse of Lehman Bros. was the “linchpin” that triggered the landslide in the derivatives market which is still going on to this day.  However, the derivatives market bubble was a carefully constructed house of cards, deliberately created with the help of multiple agencies and institutions.  The private Federal Reserve had to artificially lower interest rates and inject trillions upon trillions into the housing market, the international banks had to invest those trillions into mortgages that they KNEW were toxic and likely never to be repaid.  The Federal Government had to allow those mortgages to then be chopped up into derivatives and resold on the open market.  The ratings agencies had to examine those derivatives and obviously defunct mortgages and then stamp them AAA.  The SEC had to ignore the massive fraud being done in broad daylight while sweeping thousands of formal complaints and whistle blowers under the rug.

This was not some “random” event caused by uncontrolled “complexity”.  This was engineered complexity with a devious purpose.  The creation of the derivatives collapse was done with foreknowledge, at least by some.  Goldman Sachs was caught red handed betting against their OWN derivatives instruments!  Meaning they knew exactly what was about to happen in the market they helped build!  This is called Conspiracy…

One might attribute Casti’s idea to a sincere belief in chaos, and a lack of insight into the nature of globalism as a brand of religion.  However, in his first and as far as I can tell only interview with Coast To Coast Radio, Casti promotes catastrophic “X-Events” as a “good thing” for humanity, right in line with the Rand Corporation ideology.  Casti, being a futurist and elitist, sees the ideas of the past as obsolete when confronted with the technological advancements of the modern world, and so, describes X-event moments as a kind of evolutionary “kickstart”, knocking us out of our old and barbaric philosophies of living and forcing us, through trial by fire, to adapt to a more streamlined culture.  The linchpin event is, to summarize Casti’s position, a culture’s way of “punishing itself” for settling too comfortably into its own heritage and traditions.  In other words, WE will supposedly be to blame for the next great apocalypse, not the elites…

I might suggest that Casti’s attitude seems to be one of general indifference to human suffering in the wake of his “X-Events”, and that he would not necessarily be opposed to the deaths of millions if it caused the “advancement” of humanity towards a particular ideology.  His concept of “advancement” and ours are likely very different, though.  I suspect that he is well aware that X-Events are actually tools at the disposal of elitists to generate the “evolution” he so desires, and that evolution includes a collectivist result.

With almost every major economy on the globe on the verge of collapse and most now desperately inflating, taxing, or outright stealing in order to hide their situation, with multiple tinderbox environments being facilitated in the Pacific with China, North Korea, and Japan, and in the Middle East and Africa with Egypt, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Mali, etc., there is no doubt that we are living in a linchpin-rich era.  It is inevitable that one or more of these explosive tension points will erupt and cause a chain reaction around the planet.  The linchpin and the chain reaction will become the focus of our epoch, rather than the men who made them possible in the first place.

Strangely, Casti’s theory was even recently featured in an episode of the ABC mystery/drama show “Castle”, called “Linchpin” (what else?), in which a writer turned detective uncovers a plot by a “shadow group” to use the research of the innocent Dr. Nelson Blakely (apparently based on Casti) to initiate a collapse of the U.S. economy by assassinating the ten-year-old daughter of a prominent Chinese businessman, triggering a dump of U.S. Treasuries by China and fomenting WWIII:

http://www.alterna-tv.com/castle/xevents.htm 

Now, I think anyone with any sense can see where this is going.  Casti and Rand Corporation are giving us a glimpse into the future of propaganda.  This is what will be written in our children’s history books if the globalists have their way. The fact that Linchpin Theory is featured in a primetime television show at all is a testament to Rand Corporation’s influence in the media.  But, as for the wider picture, are the trigger points around us really just a product of complex coincidence?

Not a chance.

Each major global hot-spot today can easily be linked back to the designs of international corporate and banking interests and the puppet governments they use as messengers.  Casti claims that “X-events” and “linchpins” cannot be accurately predicted, but it would seem that they can certainly be purposely instigated.

The globalists have stretched the whole of the world thin.  They have removed almost every pillar of support from the edifice around us, and like a giant game of Jenga, are waiting for the final piece to be removed, causing the teetering structure to crumble.  Once this calamity occurs, they will call it a random act of fate, or a mathematical inevitability of an overly complex system.  They will say that they are not to blame.  That we were in the midst of “recovery”.  That they could not have seen it coming.

Their solution will be predictable.  They will state that in order to avoid such future destruction, the global framework must be “simplified”, and what better way to simplify the world than to end national sovereignty, dissolve all borders, and centralize nation states under a single economic and political ideal?

Is it the Hegelian Dialectic all over again?  Yes.  Is it old hat feudalism and distraction?  Yes.  But, I have to hand it to Casti and Rand Corporation; they certainly have refined the argument for collectivism, centralization, technocracy, slavery, moral relativism, and false-flag dupery down to a near science.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

A $14 Trillion Extortion For A Global Warming Scam

The latest megalomaniacal threat from the financial globalists wants to saddle the world economy with a cost of trillions of dollars that benefits favorite corporatists. The phony global warming cult has a core purpose. Their objective is to drive down the standard of living for non-elites and prevent the use of fossil fuel energy. The fallacious science used to create a disinformation scare for politically unsophisticated “True Believers” is a direct result of transnational money manipulators. The Davos crowd sponsors the educational and media institutions that trump up junk research and manufacture idealistic solutions.

Make no mistake about it, the Davos Elites Enjoys the Global Depression, and love corporate welfare. They greatly profit from government subsidized “Green” ventures, which drive up energy costs and line the pockets of compadre companies, under the control of the financial barons. As the rest of us struggle to survive, pronouncements declare an every greater burden to bear. Note the ominous future in Davos Report Calls For Additional $14 Trillion To Restrain Global Warming.

“The world must spend an additional $14 trillion on clean energy infrastructure, low-carbon transport and energy efficiency to meet the United Nations’ goal for capping the rise in average global temperatures, according to a World Economic Forum report released on Monday.”

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon states the globalist viewpoint.

“Economic growth and sustainability are inter-dependent, you cannot have one without the other, and greening investment is the pre-requisite to realizing both goals.”

What can be expected from these “greening investment” projects? In order to anticipate future plans, a comprehensive understanding of the past and present shady business practices is crucial.

Examine the industrial wind and solar model in detail. The Washington Post reports in, Sting operations reveal Mafia involvement in renewable energy, is just the tip of the iceberg.

“The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming that huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and a market bubble ripe for fraud. China-based Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel maker, last month said it would need to restate more than two years of financial results because of allegedly fake capital put up to finance new plants in Italy. The discoveries here also follow “eco-corruption” cases in Spain, where a number of companies stand accused of illegally tapping state aid.

Because it receives more sun and wind than any other part of Italy, Sicily became one of Europe’s most obvious hotbeds for renewable energies over the past decade. As the Italian government began offering billions of euros annually in subsidies for wind and solar development, the potential profitability of such projects also soared — a fact that did not go unnoticed by Sicily’s infamous crime families.

Roughly a third of the island’s 30 wind farms — along with several solar power plants — have been seized by authorities. Officials have frozen more than $2 billion in assets and arrested a dozen alleged crime bosses, corrupt local councilors and mafia-linked entrepreneurs. Italian prosecutors are now investigating suspected mafia involvement in renewable-energy projects from Sardinia to Apulia.”

The in-depth analysis, Big Wind Energy Subsidies: A Hurricane of Carnage, Cronyism and Corruptionis a good primer on the way plungers game the system and pay off politicians at the taxpayers’ expense.

“Lewis “Lew” Hay, III is executive chairman of NextEra Energy, Inc., and it is estimated by Forbes, that CEO “Hay earns nearly $10 million in total compensation from NextEra.” Despite the fact that Hay was actually a “major political contributor to Sen. John McCain in 2008,” he quickly learned which side his power company could generate the title of the “Third Largest Recipient of DOE Risky Loans.” Hay too joined wealthy Democratic donorson Obama’s  in 2011, along with the other two I have tackled in this series, “Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Job Council” –– Jobs Czar, Jeffrey Immelt CEO of General Electric has raked in $3 billion and counting, meanwhile John Doerr, along with his “climate buddy” Al Gore’s, VC firm Kleiner Perkins is tied to at least $10 billion of stimulus funds. Both General Electric and Doerr were key contributors to what went into the 2009 Stimulus.

No matter how you slice it, whether we are sending money abroad or fueling corporate welfare here in the United States as well as the egregious practice of crony capitalism, the 2009-Recovery act is a lie, a travesty and a scam, favoring wealthy financial backers of President Obama and the Democratic Party as well as those with influential political connections to both. And with a president that’s dead set on pushing a fierce and radical climate change agenda and funding green energy with taxpayer money, no matter the long list of failures, there is no end in sight to this green corruption scandal.

Besides NextEra Energy taking full advantage of the federal production tax credit (PTC), we now can confirm that the Bank of Obama has rewarded this conglomerate of a power company, and his millionaire job council buddy Lewis Hay, with two large DOE loans ($2.3 billion); one large stimulus smart-grid grant ($200 million); and six 1603 stimulus grants totaling $398.5 million. Thus NextEra’s green tab is on its way to $3 billion of taxpayer money, and that’s not factoring in the PTC.”

With this background and sorry record of corruption to build upon, the World Economic Forum at Davos sets the agenda for the global economy.

Davos 2013: Green Governance To ’Save the World’ is all about enacting their Agenda 21 authoritarianism. Elizabeth Leafloor from RedIceCreations.com writes:

“The WEF suggests a crisis of leadership and debt are some of the biggest challenges facing the world, and that ’global governance’ is the key to stabilization. Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, said: ‘We need proper global governance that has the necessary tools, power and energy to create a more level playing field at the international level.’

At the end of the day, a push for increased global governance and an environmental agenda is on the table for Davos 2013, under the banner of ’Resilent Dynamism’:

“Mr. Klaus Schwab (WEF Founder and executive chairman) said that the world is seeing “a new reality of sudden shocks and prolonged global economic malaise, particularly in major economies experiencing economic austerity”. He also mentioned, “Future growth in this new context requires dynamism – bold vision and even bolder action.

Either attribute – Resilience or Dynamism – alone is insufficient, as leadership in 2013 will require both”.

The “Greening” leadership translates into forcing upon the world a “Cap and Trade” dictatorship. The Calderon bandits that sip champagne from their Swiss chateau want to extend their aristocratic bondage upon a gullible public. The proper dictum is “Save the World” from the New World Order elites.

Read the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act – S. 2191, for the vision of the controlled carbon-trading scheme.

“The L-W CSA allows covered facilities to satisfy up to 15% of their compliance obligation with specific domestic offsets. An additional 15% can be covered using international emission allowances. Unlimited banking is allowed and owners and operators of covered facilities can borrow up to 15% of their annual compliance obligation from future years. The L-W CSA also creates a Carbon Market Efficiency Board to monitor the carbon trading market and implement specific cost relief measures, including increased borrowing and use of offsets.”

What a boondoggle for the consumer and a windfall for organized crime. If you worry about mob infiltration into this extortion racket, you had better focus on the true mafia; namely, the globalist plutocrats.

If the disclosed goal is to extract $14 Trillion from the distressed world economies, one can only reasonably conclude that the surreptitious objective is to widen the income gap between the ultra-rich and the peons. People pay the costs of taxation exploitation. The privileged elites view the masses as useless eaters, destined to be herded into pens of servitude.

The fake global warming panic is pure political propaganda, used to bolster a guilt complex to justify insider theft. A Cap and Trade ploy is designed to push up the costs of fossil fuel with full knowledge that “Greening Dreams” are no substitutes to real energy.

Research projects into technological alternative sources, based upon efficiency and reliability standards are valid. However, allowing governmental cronyism to impose limits on cheap energy, distorts the marketplace. The Davos crews of corporatist gangsters fly into their feast on private jets. The sycophant media reporting by the business toadies that attend the gala celebration of global autocracy should be indisputable evidence that the globalist own the public relations spin.

Even so, such distorted coverage does not blind those who understand the true nature of the planetary struggle. The monopolist plan for adding unwarranted tolls on your family budget, sold as a noble necessity, will only accelerate the systematic impoverishment of your economic existence.

Oligarch Fight LIVE!

An Entertainment…

Who said the filthy rich are good for nothing? Their antics are very entertaining! The Nouveau Riche have always been notorious headline-providers, and the newest crop of Russian oligarchs make the robber barons of previous generations look timid and colorless. As money ages, it becomes anaemic; divided and subdivided by careful lawyers into a maze of corporate entities. New money is still good fun; they pull their stunts right in public, and they don’t pull their punches. These hometown heroes fill the vacuum left by the maharajas and sheiks in a way that our drab bureaucrats never could; they parade their Humvee Jeeps through the Moscow crouds, as sure and proud as the Indian kings who once rode their battle elephants in the jungle.

They are more powerful and less restrained in their choice of action than ever were Scorsese’s Mafia dons. Brutal, unscrupulous, overriding, often overreaching, these are characters made for a Shakespearean drama. They are lawless; they freely trample upon other people until somebody finally tramples upon them. They are full-bloodied villains or generous benefactors, or both. Their habit of using London as their litigation headquarters has given their other habits an international audience.

Recently two mighty tycoons, Berezovsky and Abramovich, jousted in a London court for the prize of billions — and incidentally disclosed how they stripped the Russian public of its most valuable assets during Yeltsin’s privatization regime. These courtroom warriors do not flinch at revealing their base crimes to achieve victory; in this case another Neoliberal myth has been destroyed, and another dark chapter in Russian history has been illuminated.

The looting of a country is heavy fare; the public hungered for some light farce. The Polonsky vs. Lebedev case came to the fore, publicized internationally via the London court system. This is the hilarious story of a media mogul and a real estate baron who go full smackdown on live TV. Only the mighty pen of Nikolai Gogol, the mid-19^th century Russian author of The Squabble  (You can read the plot here) could have done it justice; he might have called it Why Alexander Lebedevich Punched Sergei Polonovich, but you’ll have to bear with my humble efforts.

BelleNews gives us a blow by blow description of the live smackdown action:

1. In front of an astonished studio audience, Alexander Lebedev (the Russian mogul) rains a series of blows onto the head of SergeiPolonsky (the real-estate baron), knocking him off his chair. This is during a TV debate on the global economic crisis.
2. Images of the dramatic scene, which have been posted on YouTube, show Lebedev losing control and standing over Polonsky in a threatening manner.
3. Polonsky appears to attempt to calm him down and Lebedev takes his seat once more.
4. After few seconds, without warning, as Polonsky gently pats him on the arm, Lebedev again decides it’s time to let his fists do the talking.
5. Lebedev suddenly hits Polonsky several times on the side of the head, sending him sprawling to the floor.
6. Polonsky stands back up, seemingly unharmed, and the two men stare hard at each other as studio flunkies defuse the situation.

Note: Alexander Lebedev is one of the richest men in the world, with a fortune that’s estimated to be in the region of $3.1 billion.

In fact, Polonsky and Lebedev are two mid-sized Russian tycoons; neither of them could buy Minnesota cash on the nail. They could have become great pals, toasting each other’s successes in turn; for both are given to real estate development, both love swimming, both wear casual more often than formal, both are rather vain, and both are facing a sharp decline in their fortunes. But instead they have come to blows, for they are doomed to be opposing characters. Which is the protagonist and which the antagonist? None.

Sergei Polonsky is forty, a young man as tycoons go, the first post-Soviet generation of Russian businessmen. He is still big and broad like the Blue Beret commando he once was, but years of soft living have robbed him of his waist; now he looks more like a jolly, well-fed dolphin. His lady friend is a prominent businesswoman by her own right, and a swimming champion.

Alexander Lebedev is 12 years older; his was the generation that privatised the USSR. He is a shape-shifter; he has modernized his appearance over the years from a hard-muscled, disciplined, business-suit-wearing ex-KGB-man into a metrosexual guitar player with an alluring haircut, light shirts and blue jeans. He traded in his old Soviet-era wife for a newer, more camera-friendly model.

Lebedev lives in downtown Moscow, in a former Scout Youth Club built in glorious Stalinesque imperial style with columns and portico, and transformed – after its privatisation – into a minor manor, with an Olympic-size swimming pool where he spends much of his time. He escapes the Moscow autumnal gloom at his Cote d’Azure villa and in his London mansion.

Polonsky lives in a futuristic penthouse, perched like a ship’s bridge atop a skyscraper with a 360° view, high above Moscow. He designed and built the skyscraper and his own apartment himself, being an architect by education and profession. He spends his weekends floating in a converted barge, moored just beyond the city limits, in the company of a tame racoon, doingchi kung – Chinese meditation practice – and voraciously reading arbitrarily-chosen books. In winter he drives a slim, high-tech sled pulled by snow-white blue-eyed huskies; in summer he glides through the deeps on a sea-bob, or hang-glides over blissful hills.

Lebedev built a resort in Crimea; he lavished his generosity on the city, restoring the historic Chekhov theatre, but he prefers to spend his time in London, hobnobbing with Harry Potter’s creator, Ms Rowling, Sir Elton John and other worthies. He plays guitar, and supports DDT, a Russian rock group. He also owns a quality British newspaper, The Independent, as well as a tabloid, the Evening Standard, and the Russian Novaya Gazeta.

Polonsky, in contrast, has built himself a fortress of solitude, a stone and glass castle rising from the waves of a lonely island off the shores of Sihanoukville, not far from Alain Delon’s home in remote Cambodia. He meets with Sufi teachers, receives instructions from Zen monks and chi gung adepts. He is into esoteric knowledge and mystic experiences.

The two men are from very different cities and backgrounds. Lebedev grew up a child of privilege; his father was a professor of the prestigious Foreign Service School. As a young man he joined the KGB and the Communist Party. He graduated from his father’s school, proceeded into the KGB college, and then entered the diplomatic service. He was stationed at the Soviet Embassy in Kensington, London; his assignment: stop the money fleeing Russia.  In eight years he learned the ropes, and with the fall of the USSR the gamekeeper turned poacher.

Lt.-Col. (KGB) Lebedev left the service in 1992 and used his professional insider knowledge of Soviet debts to make a fortune and direct fleeing money to safe havens.  Not many Russians knew the banking system like he did. There was a lot of money that could be made by a person with the right connections: he bought cut-rate loans cheap and cashed them in at full value with a friendly Treasury official. He made a deal with Gazprom that made the Russian state two hundred millions poorer and himself and his collaborators that much richer. He befriended Victor Chernomyrdin, then Prime Minister, and Chernomyrdin channelled state funds into Lebedev’s recently-opened bank. Lebedev used his connections to capture positions in state-sponsored companies like Ilyushin and Aeroflot: the profits went to Lebedev, while the expenses went to the state.

Polonsky hailed from St Petersburg, of humble origin. He grew up as the USSR collapsed around him; he studied architecture, went into construction and building, hired Ukrainian builders while they were still inexpensive, and built himself into a real estate developer. He is proud of being a self-made man; he obtained nothing from the state, and never sought anything, he says. He did not privatise government factories, but instead established good connections with City Hall and catered to newly-prosperous Muscovites. He looks honest enough to buy a used car from, though such trustworthy guys do not become billionaires. People in the know say that he had to cut backroom deals with Mme Baturina, wife of the Moscow Mayor and one of the richest women in the world: no building was erected in Moscow without a nod from her.

Polonsky has tried to avoid politics; he professes a lack of knowledge and interest in things political. He is a builder, he says, no more. He puts his soul into huge projects spreading from Moscow to Switzerland and from London to Croatia. He is democratic in the Russian style: he mixes easily with all kinds of ordinary folks, but they’d better follow his orders or else.He is a petty tyrant, his (dismissed) employees say: he forbids texting during board meetings! Violators have their precious iPhones smashed against the wall (a feat I myself have only dreamed of). His ambitions lie in the spiritual sphere, and business often takes a back seat to his search for God.

Lebedev has a penchant for politics. He has tried on for size several political factions, varying from the ultra-nationalist Rodina (“Motherland”) to the socialist SR and to the ruling ER, being torn between political ambitions and the desire to make a fast buck. Sometimes the two go together.

In 1996, in the run-up to the fateful elections, Lebedev supported Boris Yeltsin, the then-president of Russia, a dissipated alcoholic who embezzled Russian national wealth and enriched the oligarchs. Lebedev’s bank was used by Yeltsin’s Treasury in order to channel state funds into piles of greenbacks all wrapped up for bribes. It was some of Lebedev’s cash that was seized by security in the infamous Case of the Xerox Paper Box, when an activist tried to carry out millions of dollars for Yeltsin’s bribe fund in a cardboard box. Lebedev did not shy away from this deed; he was rather proud of it, and even paid the dirt-digging magazine Kompromat(“Compromising Matters”) to produce a special issue containing a sanitised version of this, and other exploits.

Lebedev’s daring misdeeds inevitably attracted the attention of law enforcement, and a case against him was eventually drawn up by the State Attorney General. Lebedev, by his own boast, set the Attorney General up with two easy-going girls in a sauna, and filmed the frolics. The film has been broadcasted on a fellow oligarch’s private NTV channel and the Attorney General abruptly resigned.

Some people say that Lebedev was not responsible for the setup. If true, this speaks volumes. Might Mr. Lebedev think that bad publicity is much better than no publicity at all? The facts support the theory. Lebedev produced a book ominously entitled 666 or The Beast Is Born, full of prosaic smackdowns targeting nearly every public personality in Russia. He humbly refers to himself as the “ideal capitalist” and claims credit for these and other dashing criminal exploits.

Lebedev is always quick with an explanation as to why each crime was a good deed: it was either to save Russia from the clutches of the commies (he conveniently misplaces his own Party credentials), or to save the world from the KGB (again he is silent about his own history in the very same service). He openly despises Putin’s working class roots and rise to power. It galls him that they once had the same rank in the KGB. But the real reason behind Lebedev’s opposition is that Putin fearlessly prosecutes the oligarchs. Or is it “persecutes”?

Oligarchs have a persecution complex: any and all interference is unjust. They think of themselves as omnipotent, though they are only powerful, and they bristle against even the most minor efforts to curtail their power. Their money buys them power over life and death, but this power saps their mental health. They start to believe the hype offered by sycophants. They begin to reject trusted advisors. They end up alone and unhinged, pursued by the law. Too much power corrupts, and the Russian oligarchs have more power than any of Stalin’s satraps ever had.

Mr Putin does not approve of oligarchs meddling in politics. He does not punish them arbitrarily, nor does he rewrite the laws to target them. Putin’s Russia allows these tycoons to get away with many things, but it does draw the line at crime – sometimes. This is Putin’s great sacrilege; he holds the oligarchs accountable to the letter of the law. This level of independence comes as a great shock to them. They are getting whiplash trying to readjust after the total freedom of lapdog Yeltsin’s day. The oligarchs wistfully recall the days when they employed their powers over life and death with impunity, like viceroys of India in Clive’s time.

Alas, Mr Lebedev’s political ambitions have remained unfulfilled. He reduced his lofty goals to something more achievable, and decided to become the Mayor of Moscow. He failed. Worried now, he set his sights upon becoming the Mayor of Sochi (the Miami of Russia). Again, he failed. The sharks, sensing blood, began to circle. His dashing exploits belatedly began to attract the attention of the law, especially his alleged appropriation of $300 million in state bailout funds meant to shore up his bank. He accepted the money, but it soon became apparent that his bank’s coffers were empty, or rather stuffed with fictitious promissory notes. His dealings in the aircraft industry also have come under scrutiny and it appears that the state, the main shareholder, might have been swindled in a major way.

In response, the canny Mr Lebedev activated his long term insurance policy. If he were a Russian Jew, he would have claimed he was being attacked by authoritarian Russian anti-Semites; but Mr Lebedev is not a Russian Jew. Instead, Mr Lebedev claims he is being attacked by authoritarian KGB thugslike Mr Putin. This insurance was effective but expensive: for many years he had been forced to heavily subsidise the anti-Putin newspaper Novaya Gazeta, widely read in the central borough of Moscow and unheard of elsewhere. To influence the international set, he purchased two British newspapers and strenuously promoted his new image as a sort of Khodorkovsky: just another wealthy man victimized by Putin’s KGB thugs. He claimed that he was poisoned like Litvinenko, but he miraculously survived. The British were only too happy to cooperate with Lebedev’s propaganda campaigns; the establishment was (and is) willing to support any and all anti-Putin elements, including the Chechen separatists.

It was during his campaign for Moscow Mayor, that Mr Lebedev became aware of Mr Polonsky, who happened to be on good terms with the incumbent Mayor. At that time, Polonsky was busy erecting the tallest twin skyscrapers in Europe, the Federation Towers – the gem of Moscow City. Polonsky immediately became the next target for Lebedev’s hate: another low-caste self-made man, definitely not a pukka sahib. It was also an opportune moment for a quick and easy kill, because Polonsky’s star was falling fast.

Polonsky had gotten himself into trouble, as do all the oligarchs at one point or another. He was not thorough and he was not prudent. He rejected his trusted advisors and surrounded himself with yes-men. He believed his hunch instead of counting odds. He jumped into multimillion deals with a bow and a handshake, and his partners walked away with chunks of his empire. His dreams of samurai honour were shattered by modern Russian business pragmatism.

He relied upon his assistants, and they robbed him blind. The more he empowered them, the faster they would vamoose with his money. His vast capital (assessed at over three billion dollars at the peak) began to shrink precipitously; cash flow became a problem for him, he was over-extended and had difficulty completing his most ambitious projects. Ordinary people who invested in his projects had become justifiably angry.

It was at this moment that the cunning Lebedev unveiled his ingenuous device to break Polonsky. The media mogul spread a malicious (and apparently false) rumour that the foundations of Federation Towers had cracked. Polonsky was already on the defensive, now his back was against the wall. He invited Moscow journalists to come and look for themselves: they were allowed to roam freely some forty yards below the surface, trying to locate the crack, refusing to admit its absence. He offered a million roubles to anyone who could find it. Nobody found anything, but the rumour persisted, supported by Mr Lebedev and his newspapers.

Alone and unhinged, Polonsky began to claim that he himself invented the crack story in order to promote public awareness of the project. There were no buyers for this weird story. His projects continued to suffer setbacks, raiders continued to seize his developments, his companions continued to rob him blind. The crack story cracked his empire.

This is the backstory to the Oligarch Smackdown on live TV. It was ostensibly going to be about global economics. They had exchanged only a few words when Mr Polonsky brought up the painful subject of the crack. The whole world awaited Lebedev’s reply. He looked into the eyes of his victim. What did Mr Lebedev feel at that moment? Pride? Hatred? In any case, alone and unhinged, he rose and landed a few well-aimed jabs upon Polonsky’s jaw. The sitting ex-commando was knocked down, decisively proving the superiority of KGB training over that of Airborne Troopers. The programme was a global success; after delighting the viewers, who had been prepared for a dry recitation of global doom, it went on to become an all-time favourite on YouTube.

But the story did not end there. In face of millions who had watched the assault live, Lebedev denied he hit Polonsky. Standing just outside of the studio, Lebedev insisted stubbornly to the journalists: “I did not touch him; Polonsky assaulted me, because I am in opposition to Putin.” Yes, Lebedev is amazing: he is one man who is prepared to deny anything. Years ago, he had fought to ban gambling in St Petersburg, an ostensibly noble purpose. When it came out that his bank had heavily invested in the lotteries (the main competitor to gaming machines), Lebedev denied all motives of self-interest. Even after his own bank manager proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the strategy was Lebedev’s own idea, he continued to deny all knowledge with a straight face. I wonder if even James Bond could equal this feat.

During the race for the Moscow City Hall, Lebedev bought a newspaper (theMoscow Correspondent) and turned it into a fighting machine. They soon printed a scurrilous rumour that Mr Putin was involved in an extra-marital affair. Lebedev could not imagine that Putin would react as he did. Usually quite complacent to rumours, accusations and attacks, the President became furious. Fearing Putin’s fury, Lebedev immediately shut down the newspaper, fired the editor and said on air that the baseless article was created by the current Mayor of Moscow and inserted by the editor in return for a bribe. This brazen lie cost the editor his career; Lebedev never recanted.

Since his televised assault, Lebedev has been asked many times why he did it. Some of his explanations are so off the wall that one has difficulty believing he actually offered them as true statements. The palm probably should go to “I thought that I would become a popular hero because I struck out against that hateful oligarch”. This is rich coming from him. Polonsky seems genuinely at a loss to explain Lebedev’s behaviour. Not only has Lebedev refused to apologise, he is continuing to deny he even did it. Is he claiming the insanity defence? More likely he is claiming his rights of oligarchic power: the impunity defence.

Polonsky has not benefited from his public humiliation; in fact, the story only further injured his already suffering business reputation, and a project he had planned to do in London collapsed soon afterwards. It was for this reason that he brought civil charges against Lebedev in a London court, and retired to his Cambodian island, posting his daily catch of barracudas on the Facebook.

Almost a year had passed before the exceedingly slow-grinding mills of Russian criminal justice charged Mr Lebedev, but eventually the media baron was charged with “hooliganism” and “assault”. His lawyers claim that Lebedev had felt threatened and was forced to defend himself; Lebedev (with a straight face) claims that he is being persecuted by the bloody Putin regime for his “love of freedom”.  A bald-faced liar is always more entertaining than a talented ingénue, so we will not be too surprised if Mr Lebedev walks away with a slap on the wrist. Anyway, the bloody Putin regime is soft on the oligarchs. However, this Oligarch Smackdown is far from over. We await Mr Lebedev’s elevation to the voice of Russia’s conscience by his own British hacks!

War: The Ultimate Example of Bullying

At a local neighborhood meeting the other day, I made a comment that someone else didn’t like — and the next thing I knew this person was yelling at me Big Time.  Perhaps she thought that the sheer volume of her voice would bully me into keeping the real 411 to myself.  Not gonna happen.

I’ve been bullied all my life by all kinds of expert bullies.  I’ve been threatened by terrorists in Iraq, chased by North Korean border guards, issued death threats by the IDF — and, even worse, raised in a Republican town!  You can’t get much more bullied than that.  So now I never back down for anyone — let alone someone who merely raises his or her voice.

And so, at the meeting, I used my “outside voice” on that bully — a voice that makes even dogs and bats hide under the bed.  But did that make me feel any better?  No, not even close.  All I’d done was just to stoop to herlevel.  Not good.

Bullies are people who, when they can’t win their arguments by truth, reason or logic, then result to violence, intimidation, lies and extortion.  School-yard bullies use that technique.  And, on the national and international level, it is also used by the Mafia, Al Qaeda, Fox News, the IDF, the GOP, America’s new militarized police forces and our new massive highly-weaponized armies happily dreaming of world-wide “pre-emptive war” at the taxpayers’ expense.

So how do we protect ourselves against bullies?  Not sure.  Non-violent resistance is good — but losing one’s life in order to non-violently preserve one’s own self-respect is bad.

Strength in numbers is good (just look at what WalMart workers are achieving through their demonstrations) — but getting pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets by our new militarized police forces in the process is bad.

Raising our children to believe in Truth and Justice is good.  Bullying our children with spankings and other types of brutal actions of the strong against the weak is bad.  ANYONE can beat up a two-year-old.

Social media freedom and WikiLeaks are good.  Media distortion and censorship is bad.

And, according to Dave Lindorff, climate change is bad for most of us but might be hunky-dory for bullies.

When we decent folk stand up against bullies, no matter what it costs us, this makes us feel good about ourselves — but it also makes us feel bad because we have stooped to their level.  But as Jesus, Buddha, etc. once said, “There is more good in human beings than there is bad.”  And now, more than ever, it is time for the good part of our human nature to come out — and to stop kowtowing to bullies.  And to stop BEING bullies as well.

But I digress.

What I really want to talk about here is the very nature of “war” — where the strong intimidate the weak and the biggest bully takes all.   Unfortunately, it’s not the smartest or most creative or the kindest or the best or most hard-working person who takes it all — it’s the ones with the most weapons and the least shame.

In the last 65 years, America has become the biggest bully in the world.  I’m ashamed to say that — but it is true.  And all our super-macho armies and all our vainglorious wars, even the ones involving squabbling with other bullies over the same turf, don’t make us any better than what we really have become:  Bullies.

We try to teach our kids not to be bullies — and then we ourselves turn around and wave flags and cheer and support all kinds of brutal bullying done by America’s vast war machine, even though we have armed and equipped these bullies ourselves; at the expense of our own jobs, homes,infrastructure, schools, lifestyles, elders and kids.

A few million years ago, dinosaurs were the ultimate bullies and mammals were the ultimate victims — in a race between the strong and the meek.  But just look how things have turned out.  Seen any dinosaurs around lately?  I think not.

And who knows what new life-form will start evolving once our current human bullying “Masters of War” are extinct.

At the rate we are going — between the massive weapons races, the invasions and Occupations, the terrorism (state-sponsored and otherwise), the nuclear arsenals, whatever — it looks like the meek truly are going to inherit the earth.  Again.

California Dreaming: Bankruptcy, Pensions And Taxes

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System lives in the rarified air where financial magic somehow materializes to pay for their irrational exuberant pensions. When the drug high is over, the real world requires a harsh penalty for ebullient irresponsibility. The  reports:

“San Bernardino, a city of 210,000 about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, filed for bankruptcy protection on August 1. Since then, it has halted its bi-weekly, $1.2 million payment to Calpers, saying it wants to defer any payments to the fund until fiscal year 2013-2014. Calpers says the city is already $6.9 million in arrears since August 1.

The San Bernardino bankruptcy is fast emerging as a precedent-setting case over how creditors, especially Wall Street bondholders and insurers, are treated in a municipal bankruptcy, because never before has a city seeking bankruptcy halted payments to Calpers or threatened its historical primacy as a creditor.

Under Californian state law, the contract between Calpers and debtor cities is viewed as inviolate and has been treated as such by state courts. Unlike Calpers, other creditors have historically been forced to renegotiate or forgive debt to debtor cities.”

The concept of an inviolate obligation tied to public employee retirement payouts is asacred cow that needs purging from law and, more importantly from populace endorsement.

Notwithstanding, expressing such supportive government orthodoxy, that bastion of objective news as reported by the Sacramento Bee, writes on the pro taxation argument of Jerry Brown: California tax vote start of national tax hike sweep.

“Revenue means taxes, and certainly those who have been blessed the most, who have disproportionately extracted, by whatever skill, more and more from the national wealth, they’re going to have to share more of that.”

The Democratic governor’s remarks follow passage last week of Proposition 30, his initiative to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California’s highest earners.

According to Governor Brown the expanded role for government programs and, by inference, public employee unions, is never ending. Just ask the taxpayers who live in San Bernardino if they are paying enough. Next, ask the municipal bond creditors, who stand to lose significant capital from the forthcoming bankruptcy.

Defining the extent of the self-inflicted injury, California: Anatomy of an exploding government obligation, reveals an alarming example of the cold hard truth why the state is financially broke.

“A promise to pay a retiree’s health care coverage is essentially a kind of defined benefit plan, in which government pledges to cover a certain percentage of the cost of health insurance regardless of how much money it has actually set aside for this benefit. As the State Budget Task Force’s recent report on California explains, right now workers covered in California by this retirement benefit are earning credits that should be financed to the tune of $4.7 billion a year, if California is going to have enough money to pay off this obligation over the years.

But instead of pre-funding the benefit, California has chosen to pay for it on a pay-as-you-go basis, taking the cash for the health insurance premiums of retirees right out of its annual budget. Right now that’s only costing the state $1.7 billion annually because of the limited number of retirees who qualify for the benefit. But over time more and more workers will qualify, and those workers will live on average decades in retirement, swelling the rolls of those whom California must provide health coverage for.”

Where in the present distressed economy are there new corporate employment contacts that include defined benefit plans? The old name is a pension. In the corporate world, IRAs and 401 K are common. The dinosaur companies that accepted union contracts with future defined benefit obligations are out of business, either escaped offshore or are hanging on by their fingernails.

Why should government employees have a privileged position, when the realities of further municipal bankruptcies are growing daily? It seems that Governor Brown forgets his own rhetoric.

The rush to leave the state has Californians perplexed for solutions as long as the Sacramento progressive ‘pols’ refuse to challenge the public union mafia. Those who remain will bear an even higher tax burden to feather the nests of the most unproductive elements in society, namely government.Governor Brown preaches. “And everyone is going to have to realize that building roads is important, investing in schools is important, paying for the national defense is important, biomedical research is important, the space program is an indicator of the world leader – all that takes money”. Just maybe a bankrupt state and municipalities needs to reduce the size and scope of government itself.

Blood Is Their Argument: The Real Campaign Trail

“…for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument?” — Shakespeare, Henry V

Even as the presidential candidates meet in ersatz agon to spew their self-serving lies and scripted zingers in a “debate” on foreign policy, the real campaign — the campaign of blood and bone, of death and terror, being waged in Pakistan by the American government — goes on it all its horror.

This week, the Mail on Sunday — one of Britain’s most conservative newspapers — published a story outlining, in horrific detail, the true nature of the drone killing campaign begun by George W. Bush and vastly expanded by Barack Obama. Coming on the heels of a recent report (“Living Under Drones“) by teams at Stanford and New York universities on this ongoing war crime, the Mail on Sunday story brings the humanity of the victims — and the inhumanity of perpetrators — to the fore. The story concerns legal action being taken in Pakistan on behalf of families of drone-murder victims by Pakistani lawyer and activist Shahzad Akbar and the UK-based human rights group, Reprieve. As the MoS reports, two court cases have been filed that could “trigger a formal murder investigation into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes.”

The MoS quotes the Living With Drones report to set the context:

…Between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004. The report said of those, up to  881 were civilians, including 176  children. Only 41 people who had  died had been confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.

As the paper notes, full figures on the killings are hard to come by, due to the convenient fact that “the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists.” The true death count of civilians is almost certainly far higher.

So who are the thousands of people being slain by brave American warriors sitting at computer consoles on a military bases on the other side of the world? From the MoS:

The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters’ degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan. His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the  family’s guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2009.

Mr Khan said: ‘We are an educated family.  My uncle is a hospital doctor in  Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching. We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe. Zahinullah, who had been studying in Islamabad, had returned to the village to work his way through college, taking a part-time job as a school caretaker. ‘He was a quiet boy and studious – always in the top group of his class.’ Zahinullah also liked football, cricket and hunting partridges. Asif, he added, was an English teacher and had spent several years taking further courses to improve his qualifications while already in work. Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal, Pakistan’s national poet.

Well, that’s what they claim, right? No doubt the button-pushing drone “pilot” parked safely in his cushy padded chair back in Nevada could ascertain through the computer screen that the quiet student and the poetry-loving teacher were actually “active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm America,” to quote the Nobel Peace Laureate in the White House, in his only public acknowledgement of the drone campaign. Such miscreants, said the Laureate, are the only people everkilled by this “targeted, focused effort.”

Mr Khan, who had been working in Islamabad at the time, hurried back to the village when he got the news. This is what he found:

He got home soon after dawn and describes his return ‘like entering a village of the dead – it was so quiet.  There was a crowd gathered outside the compound but nowhere for them to sit because the guest rooms had been destroyed’.

Zahinullah, Mr Khan discovered, had been killed instantly, but despite his horrific injuries, Asif had survived long enough to be taken to a nearby hospital. However, he died during the night.

‘We always bury people quickly in our culture. The funeral was at three o’clock that afternoon, and more than 1,000 people came,’ Mr Khan said. ‘Zahinullah had a wound on the side of his face and his body was crushed and charred. I am told the people who push the buttons to  fire the missiles call these strikes “bug-splats”.

‘It is beyond my imagination how they can lack all mercy and compassion, and carry on doing this for years. They are not human beings.’

In this, however, Mr Khan is wrong, and therein lies the tragedy: the people who killed his brother and thousands of other innocents, and have carried on doing it for years, are indeed human beings — all too human. The lack of mercy and compassion they exhibit is one of our endemic human traits — and one that has been assiduously, relentlessly, deliberately — and profitably – cultivated for years by our bipartisan elites, who sow fear and hatred and dehumanization to advance their agenda of domination, playing upon — and rewarding — what is worst in our common human nature, while mocking, denigrating and punishing what is best.

One of the officials targeted in the lawsuit is former CIA general counsel John Rizzo. As the paper notes:

Mr Rizzo is named because of  an interview he gave to a US reporter after he retired as CIA General Counsel last year. In it, he boasted that he had personally authorised every drone strike in which America’s enemies were ‘hunted down and blown to bits’.

He added: ‘It’s basically a hit-list. The Predator is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head.’

That’s nice, isn’t it? Noble, worthy, honorable, isn’t it? Again, these are the mafia thug values being embraced, lauded, supported and reinforced at every turn by the most respectable figures throughout American politics and media, including of course the popular media, where TV shows and movies abound with tough guys “doing whatever it takes” to kill the dehumanized “enemy” and “keep us safe.”

The second case now before the Pakistani courts involves “signature strikes,” the policy of killing unknown people simply because you don’t like how they look or how they act. No evidence — not even false evidence, not even the thin scraps of rumor and innuendo and ignorance that constitute the overwhelming majority of “intelligence reports” — is required before the well-wadded Cheeto-chewer in Nevada crooks his finger and fires a drone. The MoS quotes a Pakistani official describing the signature strikes:

‘It could be a vehicle  containing armed men heading towards the border, and the operator thinks, “Let’s get them before they get there,” without any idea of who they are. It could also just be people sitting together. In the frontier region, every male is armed but it doesn’t mean they are militants.’

One such signature strike killed more than 40 people in Datta Khel in North Waziristan on March 17 last year. The victims, Mr Akbar’s dossier makes clear, had gathered for a jirga – a tribal meeting – in order to discuss a dispute between two clans over the division of royalties from a chromite mine.

Some of the most horrifying testimony comes from Khalil Khan, the son of Malik Haji Babat, a tribal leader and police officer. ‘My father was not a terrorist. He was not an enemy of the United States,’ Khalil’s legal statement says. ‘He was a hard-working and upstanding citizen, the type of person others looked up to and aspired to be like.

“What I saw when I got off the bus at Datta Khel was horrible,’ he said. ‘I immediately saw flames and women and children were saying there had been a drone strike. The fires spread after the strike. The tribal elders who had been killed could not be identified because there were body parts strewn about. The smell was awful. I just collected the pieces that I believed belonged to my father and placed them in a small coffin.’

…He added that schools in the area were empty because ‘parents are afraid their children will be hit by  a missile’.

This is another aspect of the drone campaign that I noted in a recent post here about the drone campaign: it is not just an illegal military operation, it is — and isdesigned to be — a terrorist campaign. It is meant to terrorize the population of the targeted regions, to keep the people there enslaved to fear and uncertainty, never knowing if the buzzing drone flying high and unreachable above their heads will suddenly spew out a Hellfire missile on their house, their school, their farm, their hospital, and blow them or their loved ones into unidentifiable shreds. It is a terrorist campaign — not a random attack here and there, not an isolated spasm of violence — but a continual, relentless, death-dealing campaign of terror designed to poison the daily lives of innocent people and force their cowed acquiescence to the dictates of domination.

II.
It goes without saying that this story, or the Living Under Drones report, or the abominable implications of the terrorist campaign were not discussed during the “debate” Monday night between the two clowns who are fighting for the chance to drench themselves in human blood for the next four years. (For the most thorough — and harrowing — consideration of these implications, including the electoral implications, see this powerful piece by Arthur Silber.) The fact that the drone campaign is actually one of the greatest threats to the national security of the American people will not impinge upon the “debate.” Why should it? Neither candidate is the least bit interested in the security of the American people. In fact, both are firmly committed to imposing the drone terror campaign on the American people themselves (as Silber, again, notes here).

In a recent article, Daniel Ellsberg — a courageous and worthy dissident for many decades — shocked many by cataloging the many war crimes and moral atrocities of the Obama Administration, then ending with a fervent rallying cry for us all to …. support Obama. (Vast Left has more on this.) Here, Ellsberg echoes a familiar argument during this election cycle, voiced more vehemently not long ago by another honorable campaigner, Robert Parry. My response to Parry thenapplies equally to Ellsberg now, and to all those good progressives who advocate a ‘reluctant’ but ‘realistic’ vote for Obama:

Parry believes he is preaching a tough, gritty doctrine of “moral ambiguity.” What he is in fact advocating is the bleakest moral nihilism. To Parry, the structure of American power — the corrupt, corporatized, militarized system built and sustained by both major parties — cannot be challenged. Not even passively, not even internally, for Parry scorns those who simply refuse to vote almost as harshly as those who commit the unpardonable sin: voting for a third party. No, if you do not take an active role in supporting this brutal engine of war and injustice by voting for a Democrat, then it is you who are immoral.

You must support this system. It is the only moral choice. What’s more, to be truly moral, to acquit yourself of the charge of vanity and frivolity, to escape complicity in government crimes, you must support the Democrat. If the Democratic president orders the “extrajudicial” murder of American citizens, you must support him. If he chairs death squad meetings in the White House every week, checking off names of men to be murdered without charge or trial, you must support him. If he commits mass murder with robot drones on defenseless villages around the world, you must support him. If he imprisons and prosecutes whistleblowers and investigative journalists more than any other president in history, you must support him. If he cages and abuses and tortures a young soldier who sought only to stop atrocities and save the nation’s honor, you must support him. If he “surges” a pointless war of aggression and occupation in a ravaged land and expands that war into the territory of a supposed ally, you must support him. If he sends troops and special ops and drones and assassins into country after country, fomenting wars, bankrolling militias, and engineering coups, you must support him. If he throws open the nation’s coastal waters to rampant drilling by the profiteers who are devouring and despoiling the earth, you must support him. If he declares his eagerness to do what no Republican president has ever dared to do — slash Social Security and Medicare — you must support him.

For Robert Parry, blinded by the red mist of partisanship, there is literally nothing — nothing — that a Democratic candidate can do to forfeit the support of “the left.” He can even kill a 16-year-old American boy — kill him, rip him to shreds with a missile fired by a coddled coward thousands of miles away — and you must support him. And, again, if you do not support him, if you do not support all this, then you are the problem. You are enabling evil.

I confess I cannot follow such logic. But in his article, Ellsberg compounds the puzzlement when he tries to clinch his case by citing Henry David Thoreau, of all people. Ellsberg writes:

I often quote a line by Thoreau that had great impact for me: “Cast your whole vote: not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.”  He was referring, in that essay, to civil disobedience, or as he titled it himself, “Resistance to Civil Authority.”

In other words, Ellsberg is using a call for resistance to civil authority to justify supporting a civil authority which he himself acknowledges is committing war crimes and destroying American democracy. Again, I find this “reasoning” unfathomable.

But I too often quote a line by Thoreau that has had a great impact for me. In fact, I would say that it encapsulates my entire political philosophy in this dirty, degraded Age of Empire:

“How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”

If only more of our compatriots would say the same.

Source: Chris Floyd

Turks, Cease Fire!

In the Middle Eastern corrida, the moment of truth is approaching fast. Assad’s Syria is running around the arena like a wounded bull, fraught and worn down by a year of cruel strife. Banderillas of mujaheeds stick out of his broken hide. The public, the Europeans, the Americans, the Gulf rulers call: Kill him! And the Turkish matador steps forward, pulling out his sword. His cannons rain death on Syrian slopes; fire and lead storm consumes the hills. Erdogan is preparing to deal last blow to his exhausted neighbour.

“Don’t do it, Erdogan! Desist!” – cry thousands of Turks demonstrating against the bloody war. Syria was a good neighbour of Turkey: Assad did not allow the Kurdish separatists to open the second front against the Turks, he delivered Ocalan to their hands, he did not turn the loss of Antioch into a national cause, he kept Israeli army at bay, he bore the brunt of war in Lebanon, supporting the brave warriors of Hezbullah. Post-Assad Syria will be worse for Turkey.

If Erdogan’s Janissaries will deal treachourous  strike to Syria, and cause its collapse, a terrible whirlwind will ensue, and it will engulf Turkey as well. Inevitable massacre of Syrian Christians by the mujaheeds with Turkish support will remind the world of so many forgotten Christian villages and cities smashed and depopulated by the victorious Turks. The ghosts of slaughtered Armenians and Greeks will emerge from the lanes of Smyrna and the shores of Van. From broken Syria, Kurdistan will definitely come to being, reducing Turkey to the size envisaged by the Versailles Conference.

Saudis will be the great winners of the war, not the Turks. The dream of Caliphate will be centered on the Gulf, not on the Bosphorus. With their own hands, the Turks prepare their own defeat.

Good relations with Russia will suffer immensely. Russia has called upon Turkey to restrain its actions and reminded of terrible responsibility to be born by the aggressor. Russia wants Syria to find its own way. Russia is the biggest trade partner of Turkey; thousands of Turkish engineers and technicians work in Russia, thousands of Russians holiday in Turkey.

Moreover, the relations of Russia and Turkey are important beyond practical mercantile considerations. These two great countries are heirs to one greatest Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire. The Ottomans inherited her main body that was broken in 1918 into many splinters; her most important offshoot, Russia inherited her spirit and faith. If you seek symmetry, think of the Western Roman Empire: her main body, Western Europe, was fragmented and is now in the process of being united, while her most important offshoot, the United States of America, inherited her imperial spirit.

Russians and Turks are very similar to each other; the Turks are “Russians in shalvars”, they say. Both nations went through modernisation and Westernisation, but preserved their own identity. Both nations passed through violent denial of faith from 1920s to 1990s, and rediscovered their religious leanings afterwards.

The Russians see the Turks as equal human beings and feel empathy to them. The leading Russian historian Lev Gumilev exalted the Russian – Turkic comradeship-in-arms that broke the wave of Western Crusades in 13-14th Centuries. In modern times Vladimir Lenin gave a hand in friendship to Mustafa Kemal and forfeited all Russian claims to defeated Turkey, for he expected Turkey to sustain its historical role of protector of the East. The Russians and the Turks must remain friends. If the Russians ask Erdogan “Do not do it!” he should listen. Instead, he grounded their plane.

The Russians are not obsessed with Bashar al Assad, nor is he their best friend. He came to power in year 2000, but his first visit to Moscow took place only in 2005, meanwhile he frequented Paris and London. Russian trade with Syria is not too big, either. Israeli PM Netanyahu promised Russian President Putin to protect Russian interests in Syria in case of the rebels’ victory. The Russians aren’t selfish; they insist on peaceful transformation, in accordance with Syrian people’s will, and they do object to the rape of Syria as envisaged by Saudis and the West.

The relations of Turkey with Iran will suffer. For Iran, Syria is an important partner, a window to the Mediterranean. Victory of pro-American forces in Syria will close the window. Iranians will be mighty upset with Turkey. It is not a good idea to spoil these relations.

The people of Turkey do not want war with Syria; even Turkish generals are not keen to unleash the dogs of war. Only pro-NATO Westernisers within Turkish leadership desire to overturn the legitimate government in Damascus. Other Turks remember that doing Western bidding never led Turkey – or Russia – to any good result.

I understand why the Turkish leaders decided to embrace and support the rebels a year ago: they were misled by the Western-cum-Gulf spin of Syrian government’s forthcoming speedy collapse, and they wanted to be on the winning side. But after the noisy media campaign, reality came and debunked the propheciers: despite billions of dollars wasted by Qatar, Saudis and the West, despite heaps of armaments transported through Turkish-Syrian border, the Assad regime stands fast and still enjoys enough popular support.

This is the right time for reassessment. In every game, there is a moment for it, when you decide not to throw good money after bad one. And reassessment started, with many Turks calling to write off the losses, stop supporting the rebels and try to restore normalcy under the good slogan “with neighbours – no problems”. The New York Times reported a few days before the flare-up of the U-turn in Turkish minds: people are disappointed with flow of unruly Syrian mujaheddin, with lawlessness, with flood of refugees, with growth of Kurdish resistance. Turks are known for their daring U-turns. In 1940, they sided with Germany being certain of the Reich’s victory, but in 1944 they understood that the USSR is winning, and changed sides. Now is the time to change sides, to go back to strict neutrality, to stop support of the rebels and seal the border, said the people to the New York Times reporter.

But people overseas who planned the Syrian Disaster, drew different conclusion of this turn of mind: they decided to speed up their operations and provoked the artillery exchanges. We do not know who aimed the mortars at the Turkish border villages: whether it was done by the Syrian Army in the heat of the battle, or by the rebels trying to trigger the war. The Turkish Yurt newspaper reported that the shots were fired from the NATO weapons recently given to the rebels by the Turks: “Erdogan’s Government Handed over the Mortars to Armed (Free Syrian Army) Groups in Syria which Shelled Akcakale Town” – they headlined. The ammunition was reportedly NATO ammunition 120 AE HE-TNT. Even the New York Times admitted that it’s unknown who’s responsible for mortars landing in Turkey. A German TV canal ZDF reported: mortars were launched from territory controlled by FSA fighters. A leaked video clip said they admitted responsibility for striking Akcakale and killing five Turkish nationals.

But it is possible that the shells were fired by the government troops who shot at the rebels and the Turkish villagers became innocent victims. Provided the Turks allow the rebels to operate freely on their territory, it is quite possible.

It is still not a good reason to begin war. Let us remember 2010, when the Israelis murdered mafia-style nine unarmed Turkish volunteers on board of Mavi Marmara. This was brutal murder at full daylight, filmed and undoubted. Erdogan threatened to send Turkish Navy to the shores of Palestine and relieve Gaza by force. Now, did he do it? No, he did not. Now he is brave to shoot at tired and devastated Syria; but why he was not brave enough to deal with Israel, like the Syrians did?

Now Israelis hope Erdogan will help the rebels to destroy Syria; they asked Turks to coordinate joint action with them. So instead of punishing Israel, Erdogan ends with doing Israel’s desire.

I remember snowy February 2003 in Istanbul, when I came to argue for banning the US army passage to Iraq. I told them that “the long standing Zionist plan is being realised. First, Iraq must be destroyed. After that, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, until all the former Ottoman Empire and its neighbours from Pakistan to Africa are turned into a Zone of Special Interests for Israel, policed by the Turks.

This plan was outlined by General Sharon many years ago, re-formulated by the Zionist Neo-cons Richard Perle and Douglas Feith in 1996, and is now upheld by the Wolfowitz Cabal, the people who run the US foreign policy. If it will be done, it will have been done with the connivance of Turkey, of its ‘Islamic’ government.

I am sorry for you, friends. You were shepherds of the Middle East, now you help the Wolves. You were the rulers of men, now you have become the servants of your masters. You were the protectors of Islam, now you are about to allow desecration of al-Aqsa Mosque.”

What I said then, became true; nothing good came out of Iraqi war. And now, I can say it again: nothing good will come out of Syria War.

The stories of multiple massacres are often just stories. Wikileaks published a Stratfor report saying: “most of the [Syrian] opposition’s more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue.”  And the events on the ground are  certainly not worse than whatever was done to Kurds in Turkey, and the Turks probably do not cherish a R2P intervention in their country.

My advice: do not try to finish off Syria, return to your policy of strict neutrality, cease fire and logistic support of the rebels. Let the Syrians sort out their problems themselves, without foreign intervention.

A Plan To Topple Hugo?

There’s no better time to read Cindy Sheehan’s heartfelt and galvanizing new book “Revolution, A Love Story” than today, just hours before Venezuela’s presidential elections. The author provides a riveting summary of Latin American history dating back to the Conquistadors focusing particular attention on Washington’s myriad interventions and the rise of the region’s second greatest protagonist, Hugo Chavez. Sheehan–who is a self-confessed Chavez admirer–opines that the charismatic Venezuelan leader “like Simon Bolivar before him, not only dreams of a united Latin America, but is showing the way.” Regrettably, the United States has repeatedly tried to derail Chavez’s reform agenda by funding anti-Chavez groups via non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that pretend to be working for human rights or democracy promotion. The real purpose of these US-funded saboteurs is to topple the democratically-elected Chavez. Barack Obama supports this type of subversion as enthusiastically as did his predecessor, George W. Bush. The only difference is that Obama is more discreet.

Here’s an excerpt from an article by author and attorney Eva Golinger with more of the details:

“In Venezuela, the US has been supporting anti-Chavez groups for over 8 years, including those that executed the coup d’etat against President Chavez in April 2002. Since then, the funding has increased substantially. A May 2010 report evaluating foreign assistance to political groups in Venezuela, commissioned by the National Endowment for Democracy, revealed that more than $40 million USD annually is channeled to anti-Chavez groups, the majority from US agencies….

Venezuela stands out as the Latin American nation where NED has most invested funding in opposition groups during 2009, with $1,818,473 USD, more than double from the year before….Allen Weinstein, one of NED’s original founders, revealed once to the Washington Post, “What we do today was done clandestinely 25 years ago by the CIA.” (America’s Covert “Civil Society Operations”: US Interference in Venezuela Keeps Growing”, Eva Golinger, Global Research)

In “Revolution, A Love Story” Sheehan provides a long list of Chavez’s achievements including a steep reduction in unemployment (from 12 percent in 1998 to 6.1 percent in 2010), a sharp rise in the minimum wage (which is the highest in Latin America), bigger pensions for retiring workers, an increase in literacy to 99.6 percent, universal health care, and a poverty-rate that is less than half of what it was when Chavez took office.

Naturally, the successes of Bolivarian Revolution have incensed Venezuela’s 1 percent who want to return to the golden era of plutocratic rule where the nation’s wealth was plundered by a Mafia of unelected oligarchs. It’s this amalgam of bandits to which Washington has hooked its wagon. Venezuela’s elites are expected to challenge the election results shortly after the ballots have been counted (on October 7) and Chavez is declared the winner. Whether the plan goes forward or not is anyone’s guess, but here’s what’s going on below the radar according to an article in Green Left titled “Venezuela: Ex-US ambassador outlines intervention plans”:

“In an extraordinary paper released in September, former US ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, outlined a range of military, financial and diplomatic measures that the US should be prepared to take against the Chavez government after the October 7 elections. In the paper, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, Duddy’s recommendations include that in the event of “an outbreak of violence and/or interruption of democracy” the US should use various means to “to communicate to the Venezuelan military leadership that they are obliged to uphold their constitution, respect human rights, and protect their country’s democratic tradition” and “organize a coalition of partners to limit an illegitimate Venezuelan administration’s access to government assets held abroad as well as to the international financial system”.

Isn’t this the same strategy that the State Department used in Egypt when Mubarak was deposed? Didn’t the US send signals to the Egyptian military that Washington would support them if they followed their instructions?

More from Green Left:

“In the paper… Duddy suggested the US “could also arrange for the proceeds of Venezuelan government–owned corporate entities to be held in escrow accounts until democracy is restored [and] … block access to [Venezuelan government owned] CITGO’s refining facilities in the United States and consider prohibiting [Venezuelan state] oil sales to the United States”.

So the administration plans to carry out an agenda dictated by big oil? Now there’s a surprise.

More from Green Left: “…there are obvious concerns that this fits neatly with the objectives of those inside the right-wing opposition in Venezuela who are planning for the non-recognition of the coming elections if, as expected, Hugo Chavez wins.

With polls showing strong leads for Chavez, a campaign is already under way by sections of the right-wing opposition coalition to present any electoral defeat as being down to Chavez-led fraud.”

Haven’t we seen this movie before? The CIA-funded opposition immediately appears on the streets of the capital in the thousands; sets up their tents, their food stalls, and their rock bands, while the western media films every minor skirmish, every act of police violence, every sign-waving protester decrying the brutal, repressive regime of…”fill in the blanks.” (Ukraine, Lebanon, Georgia etc) It’s all so tedious, but effective nonetheless. Toppling democratically-elected governments (“color-coded revolutions) has become Washington’s favorite pastime. Is that what’s in store for Hugo Chavez?

Keep in mind that, according to former US President Jimmy Carter, Venezuela’s electoral system is “the best in the world”. So we can be reasonably confident that the ballot-count will be fair and accurate. What we should be more concerned about is what happens after the votes have been tallied. That’s when the real trouble will begin.

The western media has been trying to create the illusion that the race between Chavez and right-wing challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski is close. It isn’t. The media is lying. Chavez is ahead by a wide-margin although you wouldn’t know it by reading the strumpet press. The polls currently show Chavez holding a 12% lead over his opponent. He also has a presidential approval rating of over 65 percent which means that, barring foul play, he should win in a landslide.

Here’s more from an article in Venezuelanalysis:

“In August 2012, the Japanese finance organisation, Nomura Holding published a client analysis stating that Hugo Chavez has a “large lead” against Henrique Capriles Radonski which they found “unlikely to be closed …before the October 7 election”. Likewise a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report earlier this year described “President Chavez’s commanding lead in the polls and high level of electoral support”.

This lead in the polls is undoubtedly linked to Venezuela’s expanding economy, which is growing at 6% per year, as well as new social policies which address the ongoing needs of Venezuela’s poor majority. For example in the past year alone 250,000 new social houses have been built, state pensions made available for all and the minimum wage increased by 30%. These follow the policies that have successfully delivered free healthcare and education for all, slashing poverty rates in recent years.”

As we noted earlier, Chavez’s opponent, Capriles Radonski, is a right-wing stooge who is committed to strengthening relations with Washington while implementing structural reforms that lower living standards. A leaked document linked to Radonski’s party, the MUD
(Roundtable of Democratic Unity), indicates that a change of leaders would result in more privatisations of public services and assets and an end to many of Chavez’s popular social programs. In other words, more welfare for corporate chieftans and more austerity for everyone else. Chavez referred to the secret document– called “the packetazo” –in a recent speech saying:

“Behind Capriles Radonski’s democratic mask is the most horrendous thing in politics. Behind his deceptive message of progress and social welfare is the most savage neoliberal capitalist package that has been known in Venezuela and Latin America.” Chavez said he would fight against the packetazo and “deliver a knock-out punch to neoliberalism which will never again be implemented in Venezuela.”

This is why Washington hates Chavez, because he’s raised living standards for the poor and given ordinary working people hope that they can break-free from US domination and the power of big money. Chavez summed it up like this in an interview with Cindy Sheehan who asked “Why do you think the Empire makes such a concerted effort to demonize you?”

Chavez answered: “Because the Empire is afraid that the people of the United States will find out the truth. …that a Bolivarian movement, or a Lincoln movement, or a movement of conscoius citizens could erupt in their own country and transform the system….

They fear the truth. They fear the contagious effect. They fear an awakening of the people in the United States. They fear a revolution in the United States.”

It will be interesting to see what Obama has up his sleeve. Will he support the will of the people and accept that Chavez has been chosen as president for another 6 years or launch another color coded revolution to implement regime change? Only time will tell. In the meantime, grab a copy of Sheehan’s “Revolution, A Love Story”. It’s a great read.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Believe it or not, I was thinking that my column of two weeks ago was my last column in which I would focus on Congressman Ron Paul–that was before the Republican National Convention in Tampa took place. I have never seen such a disgusting display of chicanery and duplicity in all of my life. So, in spite of the fact that I have written so much about The Greatest Congressman In US History (my title for Ron Paul), here I go again.

First, a report on Paul Fest: I was honored to be one of the featured speakers for the event, which drew thousands of Ron Paul supporters from all over the country. I was able to meet and speak with hundreds of these wonderful people, as they came up to me before and after I spoke.

Not only was I surprised at how many of these people read this column, but how many are watching our Sunday services that we livestream each Sunday afternoon. I am convinced that there are hundreds of thousands of patriot Christians who are fed up with mainstream churches and pastors, who are hungering and thirsting for patriot pastors who know what’s going on and are not afraid to speak the truth. Not able to find such pastors where they live, they are tuning in to our services on the Internet.

The service at Liberty Fellowship is broadcast live each Sunday at approximately 2:30pm Mountain Time. To access the service live this Sunday, go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/live-stream

To watch my archived messages online, go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/archives/category/video-messages

Next, the thought of Ron Paul no longer being our champion on Capitol Hill is extremely disconcerting! There is sadness in my heart at Dr. Paul’s departure from Congress that I don’t think I’ve ever felt. The only instance I can think of that comes close is when Helen Chenoweth of Idaho term-limited herself in order to fulfill her word of honor to her constituents. (It was even sadder to hear of her untimely death a few years ago.) But Dr. Paul’s absence in Congress will leave a void that is difficult to describe. Suffice it to say, as Congress is currently comprised, there is no one on Capitol Hill who comes close to taking his place. But it is the way that this champion of liberty was treated by the GOP establishment that has my blood boiling!

Anyone who has paid any attention to what the Republican Party has done to Ron Paul and his supporters must be thoroughly outraged at the injustice and injurious treatment inflicted, not only upon Ron and his followers, but also upon the integrity of a free and fair political process. In short, we don’t have a free and fair political process in America anymore! What we have is a Soviet-style political apparatus that thrives on manipulation, intimidation, and downright dishonesty.

The RNC was so blatantly manipulative and crooked that the Republican governor of Maine, Paul LePage, justifiably boycotted the convention–and the Maine Ron Paul delegation understandably all left in protest. The video tribute the RNC played at the convention in honor of Congressman Paul (while very good as far as it went) was shown in an attempt to placate Ron’s millions of supporters. However, in actuality it was the height of hypocrisy, as the RNC had pulled out every underhanded and unethical trick in the book in order to make sure that Ron Paul was never given a chance to prevail as the Republican nominee for President. Of course, the national propaganda press corps was a willing accomplice to the RNC destruction of Ron’s campaign.

But the establishment’s ultimate insult to the twelve-term congressman occurred as Ron Paul and his wife tried to leave Tampa using a private plane. Lew Rockwell posted this: “Ron, Carol, and one of their granddaughters left the GOP snake pit yesterday afternoon, but the State was not yet through with them. At the little airport in Clearwater, 8 TSA agents descended on them and ordered them not to board their private plane. First, the pilots, the airplane, and the passengers would have to be screened in great detail, because Romney might be nearby. After a long examination of the pilots and their credentials, the agents said they had to check the plane for explosives. One of the pilots noted that the plane, full of gas, was already a bomb. Then Carol Paul, who has a heart pacemaker, refused to be screened, and an aide started taking video of the whole rotten proceeding. At that point, the TSA backed down and let them through.”

Such is the way a totalitarian-state-in-the-making treats a 76-year-old congressman with more than two decades of seniority and three-time candidate for President of the United States! Welcome to the United Soviet Socialist America!

Now, with millions of so-called Christians and conservatives lining up in support of the phony conservative Mitt Romney, the American people are once again left with the choice of Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum. No, I don’t buy the “anybody-but-Obama” mantra, either! In many ways, an unprincipled, compromising pseudo-conservative Republican is worse than an obviously liberal Democrat. The patriots of 1776 had far more to fear from Benedict Arnold than they did King George. An enemy easily identified is much less formidable than one who marches in the uniform of an ally.

That being said, where do we go from here?

Regardless who is elected President in November, nothing will be done to stop, or even slow down, America’s lust for foreign entanglements and wars. And that means nothing will be done to stop or slow down the burgeoning police state that is enveloping our nation. By 2016, there won’t be many liberties left in this country, regardless which party captures the White House. That is an absolute certainty! With the approbation and blessing of both Romney and Obama, the police and warfare states–not to mention the size and growth of government–will continue to accelerate at an unprecedented scale.

At this point, I am going to borrow from notable researcher and analyst Joel Skousen. In my opinion, his analysis regarding the “Where are we going” question is absolutely spot on. Here I share with readers Skousen’s sagacity. My condensed version of his comments follows.

“1) The [American] people are no longer worthy of liberty. Americans as a whole are soft, materialistic and too content with life to fight, let alone recognize the loss of liberty. As long as they are allowed to go to church and buy what they want, they think they are free. But the noose is tightening. The youth are even softer, so the trend is in the wrong direction. Americans may still consider themselves a religious people, but religion, for the most part, doesn’t change their little bad habits, so at some point their religion is not leading to righteousness. They stop listening to the refining voice of conscience. Religious people don’t even honor the Sabbath anymore.

“To the Lord, listening to the personal promptings of conscience is where the real test of religiosity lies and most Christians are chronic violators of conscience in the ‘little things’ relative to weight control, nutrition, recreation choices, use of time and failure to discipline children. Trouble is, this callous disregard for the ‘still small voice’ leads to bigger problems and worse decisions. That is why immorality and divorce are high even among church goers. There are notable exceptions, but in general America is getting more unworthy to be saved by God.

“2) Americans are lazy about finding truth. Today, more than ever with the vast information on the web, the truth is out there (except for most of the deepest and darkest secrets of conspiracy), and if people don’t find it, something is wrong with them relative to the workings of conscience and self control. That’s my point. Far too many people have become immune to the faint warning signals that something is wrong, or if they do hear it, they are too busy searching for material welfare to care.

“[3] States have become corrupt too: It is only partially true that state and local governments are easier to reform than the federal government. All state governments have corruption problems and some states like California, Illinois and New York have corruption machines that rival the mafia. Most large cities are also totally corrupt inside. That said, some states are clearly less corrupt than others, but there is an establishment good ‘old boy network, closely allied with the liberal press in every major city that works together to make sure than no Ron Paul or free market revolutionary gains control.

“What about the God is in Control argument? Optimistic Christian conservatives always throw out the argument that ‘God is in Control’ and so we don’t have to worry. He has the power to change things. As a believer, I agree. He does have the power. But the real question is will He intervene to save us? And, is America worthy of being saved by God? I don’t think so anymore. That doesn’t mean all is lost for everyone, but it does point to us heading for a great period of tribulation and the loss of liberty at the national level as it morphs into the NWO. I’m a religious person, and keep my eyes open constantly searching for signs that God is intervening as he did in the nation’s founding– allowing a set of leaders to rise to positions of influence where they can turn the tide, or even allowing major financing to come to principled people so they can bypass the establishment media, or schools, and fund a national movement to renew America. Nothing has happened. The big money only goes to ineffective or mainstream causes. We do have ample numbers of great thinkers with ideals and principles as profound as America’s founders, but none have been allowed to rise in power. Ron Paul got the closest. Those ministers who have achieved great wealth and fame in televangelism have done so by singing the easy gospel that people want to hear. Those that have been granted access to the White House prayer breakfast meetings during the Bush administration were those who refused to speak up or criticize the big government or war agenda. All the real champions of freedom have been left on the sidelines. Ron Paul is the only one to even get close to a run at the presidency and he has been shut down–but not without building the movement. I’ve seen God’s hand helping to gather the remnant, but no indications of any real optimism toward beating the mammoth evil that is growing even faster than the Liberty Movement.

“Considering the overwhelming moral evil in our nation that burdens the Lord’s sense of justice, I think He is bound to let the sword of justice fall. You can’t just manufacture specific faith in a proposed event by hope only or wishful thinking. For specific faith in a hoped for event to be valid, you have to have the spiritual confirmation that it is the Lord’s will, and that must come from God and not rosy-eyed optimism. While the Lord might certainly want the nation to be saved, God himself cannot arbitrarily disregard the decree of justice upon which the universe operates. Only upon terms of repentance and change of heart can condemnation be averted, and I don’t see that happening. I’m keeping an open heart and mind that it might, but the signs aren’t good.”

But it is Skousen’s conclusion that truly speaks to my heart. He writes:

“We can still fight for liberty to gain a minority foothold within the nation–a resistance movement, if you will, even if we can’t win back the whole. But when you are dealing with a minority of good people, to exercise any power at all, you have to congregate together so that you have a majority in a region or local area. Our greatest problem in a losing battle of attrition is that we are spread out uniformly across the nation–dispersed in a sea of humanity where none of us constitute a majority.

“If there is any hope for liberty it will be because pockets of liberty and resistance form during the next war when government itself is busy saving itself and not targeting freedom-loving dissidents–yet. I think you’ll see the time, when crisis comes that the social unrest will drive people out of their current places and the Lord will inspire those who can listen to go to places of refuge where other like-minded people are also gathering. Some will be inspired to go to safe places before the crisis, and if you are one of those, heed the promptings.”

My take differs only slightly from Skousen’s: I believe when the crisis comes, people will not be able to relocate, which is why the Lord is inspiring people to relocate NOW, and why the gathering of eagles is already taking place here in Montana’s Flathead Valley and in other places.

To subscribe to Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (highly recommended), go to:

http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/

If my understanding of scriptures is close to accurate, one of the signs that God is giving a nation or people over to judgment is a dearth of principled leadership. Ron Paul’s departure from Congress–along with the way the Republican Party, the national media, and the American people as a whole, rejected his message of liberty and constitutional government–make it appear that judgment has already begun.

Torture In Palestine, Syria & Cleveland: Making It happen!

I recently attended a video presentation in Oakland given by a member of the Jenin Freedom Theatre, and while the speaker was describing various theater projects now being staged in Palestine, he also happened to mention several relatively unique types of psychological torture currently being implemented by Israeli corporatists and their enforcers in the occupied West Bank.

For instance, imagine that you are a Palestinian farmer and happily out plowing your land — when a bunch of rather nasty armed settlers come rampaging over the hill, beat you to a pulp and start building their own stuff on your property, right next to that old olive tree that has been shading your family since almost Christ’s birth.  And then imagine that some harsh-looking Israeli soldiers in full battle-gear also arrive on the scene in their Humvees and, rather than arresting all those evil “settler” perps who are busting your chops, they arrest YOU instead.  Okay, so it’s not fair or just or anything — but that’s life on the West Bank.  Live with it.

Then they drag you off to jail, don’t charge you with anything and hold you in indefinite detention for committing the extreme crime of plowing your own land.  Not exactly democratic or even nice — but you are used to it.  Hey, that’s life on the West Bank.

But then the Israeli corporatistas’ land-stealing goons start in to torture you too.  Well, okay.  That’s par for the course.  Tens of thousands of Palestinian farmers are being jailed and tortured regularly for the crimes of owning land and/or being Muslims or being Christians or being Jews — instead of just money-grubbing land-grabbers like Israel’s higher-up corporate mafia dudes.  But, hey.  That’s life on the West Bank.  Torture is torture.  Who needs all those fingernails.  You’ve got ten.  You can spare some.

But then Netanyahu’s corporatist goon-squad starts to carry this torture stuff a little bit too far.  First they show you photos of the corpses of your dead children — which totally freaks you out like even physical pain never possibly could.  Those are your dearly-loved babies lying there dead!  Your heart breaks.

And then someone else comes into your cell dressed like a doctor and informs you that you now have inoperable cancer, with only a few weeks left to live.  You’re stuck in this hell-hole and now you are gonna die here as well?  Good grief!

But then, when they finally release you months or years later (still without having been charged), you now discover that you never actually really had any cancer — and that your family is still very much alive.

But it’s really hard for you to just shrug this off too, saying, “Hey, that’s just life on the West Bank.”  Because it is not, not just “Life on the West Bank”.  It is mind-gaming sadistic torture of the worst kind.  And it’s not done in the name of Judaism either — because what kind of screwed-up religion would ever do something as truly ghastly as that!  It is done in the name of power and money and sadism only.

And that’s going too far.

And then it won’t be hard at all for you to imagine that these corporatista goons are no longer human.  But isn’t that the real purpose of good theater — like the Jenin Freedom Theatre?  To stir our imaginations?  And to motivate us to do better.

American and NATO powers-that-be seem to have been going a bit too far recently as well.  Lately, they have been paying squads of al Qaeda goons to gun down children in Houla so that the U.N. could blame these atrocities on Assad and then take over Syria. http://joequinn.net/2012/05/30/natos-civil-war-machine-rolls-into-syria/#more-359

“The more photos of dead children the better!” NATO corporatistas apparently instructed their al Qaeda goons while happily in pursuit of the Project for the New American Century’s wet-dream of capturing the entire Middle East — country by country.  Soon only Iran, Lebanon and possibly Egypt plus a few stragglers in Bahrain and Yemen will be left standing until they too knuckle under — and then everything over there will belong to the PNAC!

Not us.

And all this slaughter of innocents is now being happily paid for by blood-money that came from depriving American children of much of the important stuff that they also need to live.

And is anybody in America starting to get pissed off yet?

Or are we just going to wait until it is too late and it will be residents of Kansas City or Cleveland also being herded into prison cells, with our land stolen, suffering infinite detention and being shown photos of OUR dead family’s corpses.

Dontcha Really Miss The Old Soviet Union?

When the Berlin Wall came down back in 1989, we all breathed a big sigh of relief. At last the evil Soviet Union had finally been defeated and destroyed. But perhaps now, deep down inside, a lot of us are starting to wish that we could get it all back again — back to the good old days when our enemies would stand still in just one place so that we could take potshots at the old USSR with impunity and not constantly be afraid of shooting our own selves in the foot!

Back in the day, Americans worked for YEARS and spent BILLIONS of dollars trying to bring down the old Soviet Union. And then it finally happened — and the Soviet Union went bust. “But who can we have as an enemy now?” asked the Pentagon’s top brass and Wall Street corporatistas and weapons manufacturers everywhere. “We still gotta have an enemy or else Americans will never be scared enough to pay for our bombs.”

So the big cheeses on Wall Street and K Street and in the Pentagon all looked around and decided that Islam should be our next major foe.

But it coulda been anyone.

“Pentagon & Friends” could have declared war on just about anyone after the Soviet Union fell. Liberals, for instance. Or Mexicans. Or gays. Or unions. Or medical cannabis users. Or women. Or cancer patients. Or families. Oops, they’ve already done that. But “Pentagon Incorporated” picked Muslims as their first choice — because a lot of them had access to oil.

But then Muslims actually had the audacity to start fighting back. And “Pentagon United,” mistakenly thinking that War is the ultimate consumer and that one can never have enough enemies, started growing its enemies’ list even longer as well — just to be on the safe side. Now its list also contains the Occupy movement, “American Terrorists” (whatever they are) and the infamous 99% — as well as the usual suspects: Women and gays and Mexicans and cancer patients and liberals and families and medical cannabis users and unions. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/donna-smith/43448/fighting-the-real-enemy-cancer-in-america

And now K Street and Wall Street and the Pentagon have inadvertently created yet another big problem. Their ill-conceived plan to stage “Wars” on medical cannabis users and working people and cancer patients and women and (add a very long, long list here) has clearly backfired because now the “Pentagon Mafia” has added at least three to five billion more potential enemies to its list — both elsewhere in the world and right here at home; enemies who are now starting to get their ducks in a row in order to ready, willing and able to fight back.

“Pentagon & Friends” is now in big trouble because instead of having just a small self-contained “enemy” virus like the USSR to contend with, it now has to deal with a huge free-floating viral epidemic of “enemies,” an unstoppable deadly contagion that “Pentagon Unplugged” itself has created; one that has spread and spread and spread all over the world and here at home too.

I bet that the Pentagon and its allies are now probably starting to truly, sincerely wish that they could magically return to the good old days when all they had to fight was the old Soviet Union!

Further, instead of only having to fight a few Islamic fundamentalists in far-away places that nobody has even heard of, “Pentagon United” has now managed to piss off over one billion middle-of-the-road and even modern Muslims. That was a trick that was really hard to pull off — but “PentagonCon” somehow managed to do even that.

And then, of course, there are the additional three billion women, millions of liberals, a whole wide world of gays, all of Latin America and probably two billion Chinese and approximately 853,566,225 Africans that they managed to piss off as well. And also some Greeks.

That really took some doing but “Pentagon Incorporated” has managed to do it.

And now, instead of just doing some old-skool hatin’ on the Soviets who were all safely isolated in one spot east of the Danube and hemmed in by an Iron Curtain and a seemingly endless supply of vodka, the Pentagon, K Street, Wall Street, etc. now have to go around suspecting almost four-fifths of the world’s population and peeking into EVERYBODY’S shorts.

Wasn’t life a lot easier when no wars were being declared on most of the world’s tighty-whities — only on Khrushchev’s? Weren’t things far less confusing back in the day, when only the Kremlin was bad?

Dontcha really miss the old Soviet Union?

Of course, nowadays Russia still does have all kinds to evil oligarchs for us to be hatin’ on — but now America also has all kinds of evil oligarchs to be hatin’ on too.

Bring back the old USSR? Please!

Argentine Advice For Greece: ‘Default Now!’

Here in Argentina, when we watch the terrible things that are happening today in Greece, we can only exclaim, “Hey!! That’s exactly what happened in Argentina in 2001 and 2002…!”

A decade ago, Argentina too went through a systemic Sovereign Public Debt collapse resulting in social turmoil, worker hardship, rioting and street fights with the police.

Some months before Argentina exploded, then-President Fernando de la Rúa – forced to resign at the height of the 2001 crisis – had called back as finance minister the notorious pro-banker, Trilateral Commission member and Rockefeller/Soros/Rhodes protégée Domingo Cavallo.

Cavallo was the gruesome architect of Argentina’s political and economic capitulation to the US and UK when he was President Carlos Menem’s foreign minister and economy minister in the ’90s.

Menem and Cavallo are primarily responsible for Argentina’s signing of a formal Treaty of Capitulation with the UK/US after the 1982 Falklands War, opening up our economy to unrestricted privatization, deregulation and grossly excessive US Dollar-indebtedness, almost tripling our sovereign debt in a few short years (see my February 11, 2012 article British Laughter in the Falklands).

The Plan? Prepare Argentina for planned weakening, bankster take-over and collapse, so that a new weakening-takeover-collapse cycle could begin.   In 2001, Cavallo was back to finish his work…

During that very hot summer in December 2001, true to its Latin temperament, Argentina even had four (yes, 4!) presidents in just one week.  One of them, Adolfo Rodriguez Sáa, who only lasted three days, at least did one thing right, even if he did it the wrong way: he declared Argentina’s default on its sovereign debt.

All hell broke loose! The international bankers and IMF did everything they could to break Argentina’s back; global media pundits predicted all kinds of impending catastrophes. Debt default meant Argentina would have to weather the pain and agony alone, being cast out by the “international financial community”.

‘You’re not the boss of me!’

But no matter how bad it got, it would always be better to do that without the bankers, without the IMF’s, European Central Bank’s, US Fed’s and US Treasury’s “help”.  Better to sort out your mess on your own, than to have parasitic banker vultures carving out their pound of flesh from your nation’s decaying social and economic body.

And how bad did it get in 2002? A 40 per cent drop in GDP; 30 per cent unemployment; 50 per cent of the population fell below the poverty line; dramatic, almost overnight, devaluation against the US Dollar from 1 peso per dollar to 4 pesos per dollar (then it tapered down to 3 pesos per dollar); if you had a US dollar Bank account, the government forced you to change it into pesos at the rate of 1.40 pesos per dollar.

What did Argentina’s government do wrong?  In the months leading to collapse it bowed to all the bankers and IMF-mandated measures and “recipes”, which were actually the very cause of collapse: Argentina was loaned far more than it could pay back….  And the banker knew it!  This was described in our December 19, 2011 article, Argentina: Tango Lessons.

Successive governments since then have continued to be functional to banker interests by rolling over debt 30 to 40 years, aggregating huge interest and in 2006 paying the full debt to the IMF – almost US$10 billion in full, cash and in US dollars (sole entity given most-favoured creditor status).

Same vultures circling Greece

Today, Greece is confronted with a similarly tough decision.  Either it keeps its sovereignty, or it capitulates to the “Vulture Troika” – the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund – who work for the Bankers, not the People.

Not surprisingly, today we find that Greece too has a Trilateral Commission Rockefeller/Rothschild man at the helm: Lucas Papademos who is doing the same things Argentina did in 2001/2.

Argentina not only suffered Cavallo, but President De la Rúa himself was co-founder of the local Global Power Masters lobby, CARI – Argentine International Relations Council – local branch of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, networking with the Trilateral Commission / Bilderberg mafia.

Greece today should do what Argentina did a decade ago: better to endure pain and hardship, and sort out the mess made by your politicians in connivance with international bankers on your own, wielding whatever shred of sovereignty you still have than allowing the Banker Vultures sitting in Frankfurt, New York and London decide your future.

It’s the Neocolonial Private Power Domination Model, stupid!

Or do you think it’s just bad luck, bad judgment and coincidence that countries – Greece, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, Iceland, Ireland, Russia, Malaysia, Ukraine, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, France, even the US and UK – always borrow too much from the bankers and then “discover” that they cannot pay it back and that, symmetrically, the same bankers – CitiCorp, HSBC, Deutsche, Commerz, BNP, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorganChase, BBVA lend too much to countries and then “discover” they cannot collect?

No!  That is the very yellow-brick road that leads to the Emerald City of  “debt restructuring”, “debt refinancing”, and “sovereign debt bond mega-swaps” that snowball sovereign debt, spreading it over 20, 40 or more years into the future. That guarantees unimaginably colossal interest profits for the Mega-Bankers and for all those nice politicians, media players, traders and brokers, without whom that would not be possible.

This is a Model.  It must keep rolling and rolling and rolling… As this Monster Machine steams forwards, it completely tramples on, overruns, destroys, flattens and obliterates people, jobs, workers, health services, pensions, education, national security and just about everything human on its path.  Run by parasitic usurer technocrats, it does not care what it destroys because it has no ethics; no Christian, Muslim or Buddhist morals.  It only worships a greedy golden idol of money, money and more money.  This is 21st-century Money Power Slavery.

Three generations of Argentines saw hopes dashed and dreams thwarted by this Monster Machine, suffering the hardship, woes and humiliations that come when countries give up sovereignty.

Bring back the drach!

So, Greece: Just default on your “sovereign debt”!  Just revert to the drachma!  Just say “No, thanks!” to the German bankers and the Troika Vultures.

Please, Greece: just say “No!” to your Trilateral Commission president!

You will be setting a strong precedent for your European neighbours.  Like Spain, which is hurting so badly right now for similar reasons.  Like Italy, with its Trilateral Commission Prime Minister Mario Monti (also Trilateral’s European Chairman!).

Greece, the Cradle of Democracy, can teach the world a lesson in True Democracy by kicking these parasites out of the country, which will hopefully trigger kicking them out of Europe and one day, kicking them out of the global economy.

Because what Greece and Argentina and Italy and Spain suffer today is not True Democracy, but rather a distorted bastard imitation that systematically yields control to the Global Power Masters at the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg and Mega-Banking Overworld.  They run the whole “democracy show”, whereby all countries end up having “the best democracy that money can buy”… which is no democracy at all…

The Money Power juggernaut is steaming full speed towards us all.  If Greece falls, who’ll be next? Spain? Italy? Portugal? Argentina (yet again!!!)?

So what if Greece’s reverting to the drachma marks the beginning of the end for the euro?  Let Italy revert to the lira, Spain to the peseta, Portugal to the escudo…!  A National Currency is a key National Sovereignty factor.

All governments should understand that you either govern for the people and against the bankers; or you govern for the bankers and against the people.

Source: Adrian Salbuchi for RT

Top 10 Reasons Why The Mafia Is Better Than The State

Emily delivered the winning rant at the Soapbox Idol competition from Porcfest 2011. Porcfest is short for the Porcupine Freedom Festival which is held annually in NH by the Free State Project. The judges panel included Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio, Carla Gericke of the FSP, and Adam Kokesh of Adam Vs The Man.

Also known as the Top 10 Reasons Why the Mafia should replace the State.

freestateproject.org

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