Archive for the ‘war’ Category
Why So Many Mass Killings? Look in a Mirror
NB Commentary: Think about it. Whether real or contrived, the idea that it happens should cause one to pause and think. Why does this country thrive on this type of fanfare, violence, false flags, hoaxes or whatever you wish to call them? Over and over again, we see people die, or maybe not, killed or maybe not, but whatever the case may be, DEATH is the calling card and then the other is GUN CONTROL. Ironically, the Powers that Shouldn’t Be feel that if they do this enough times they will beat the public down so far they will cry for two things.
1. More protection from the PTB, which is ironically not being very protective
And
2. Gun Control, which these events just make the sale of guns skyrocket.
So what is the real agenda here? Do they do this to keep the stock market booming with the gun sales, the consumers fear purchases, the media hype and tons and tons of views while they parrot the same story? Somebody is getting over like a fat rat and these events are milking the public of their sensibilities and wreaking havoc on the mental, emotional and physical health of the populace.
Please read this article, it says it all. Whether these events are true or false, the fact that they even happen says a lot about the American Psyche.
1. More protection from the PTB, which is ironically not being very protective
Why So Many Mass Killings? Look in a Mirror
The Rise of the American-Muslim Totalitarian State
“The DOJ claims that in planning and waging the Iraq War, ex-President Bush and key members of his Administration were acting within the legitimate scope of their employment and are thus immune from suit,” chief counsel Inder Comar of Comar Law said. Source
CIA agent Robert Baer: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear — never to see them again — you send them to Egypt.” Source
“The report also shows that as many as 54 foreign governments reportedly participated in these operations in various ways, including by hosting CIA prisons on their territories; detaining, interrogating, torturing, and abusing individuals; assisting in the capture and transport of detainees; permitting the use of domestic airspace and airports for secret flights transporting detainees; providing intelligence leading to the secret detention and extraordinary rendition of individuals; and interrogating individuals who were secretly being held in the custody of other governments. Foreign governments also failed to protect detainees from secret detention and extraordinary rendition on their territories and to conduct effective investigations into agencies and officials who participated in these operations.
The 54 governments identified in this report span the continents of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America, and include: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.” Source
Muslim-Americans are living in a totalitarian police state with worsening harassment, profiling, and surveillance. The United States’ government may claim liberty and justice for all; however, in practice, towards Muslims, it exhibits all four major characteristics of a totalitarian state: a war on terror that targets Muslims abroad, a totalitarian police state at home, public executions by drones and gulags outside the rule of law, and a strong reliance on propaganda and political demagoguery.
In 2007, a politician who was vehemently against the human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay, explained what he would do about the torture camp if he ever became President:
American cinema and music have always been a remarkably effective means of whipping up xenophobic wartime sentiment. For example, the highest grossing war film in history, American Sniper, and President Obama’s favorite television show, Homeland, both engage in an overly broad generalization of Islam, and depict Muslims and terrorists in a way that is indicative of widespread Islamophobia in American culture.
precedent. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 effectively banned all Chinese immigration to the US. This racist law remained in place for five decades and required all Chinese to carry identification certificates or face deportation. When Trump endorsed identification cards to be worn at all times by American Muslims, his popularity jumped almost 3 percentage points. If Donald Trump’s policies are viewed by Americans as odious and un-American, then why has he consistently gained popularity after every anti-Muslim outburst?
America: Your Solidarity with Paris is Embarrassingly Misguided
America: Your Solidarity with Paris is Embarrassingly Misguided
Attack on Paris is an "Attack On Humanity?"
Attack on Paris is an “Attack on Humanity?”
I was just thinking to myself the other day, it’s been pretty quiet. I felt a shift in my person and said, it’s time for something to happen. And s u r enough. Now Paris is under martial law. 1500 soldiers? ?? Really???
Even Russia is using this as part of their Agenda to support their acts against Terroristic threats, especially since Syria was not invited to the talks about what is going on in Syria, so Iran said, I ain’t going and Russia is like well dang, if the major players ain’t gonna be there what’s the sense of me going. So we will just keep duking it out until we kill all the bastards! And for some strange reason even the US will not be there. HUH???
Paris, France…. Strictest gun laws in the world and terrorists can come in armed to the teeth and take out some 160 folks in various attacks around the city??
World and regional powers will discuss the Syrian peace process in Vienna on Saturday, as the world struggles to cope with the terrorist attacks in Paris. Islamic State, one of the key players in the Syrian conflict, claims responsibility for the crime.
“Without a doubt, what happened in Paris last night, cannot fail to affect the present atmosphere, and the negotiation process,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said.
*Syria Not Invited to Talks on Resolving Endless War* by Stephen Lendman On November 14, around 20 nations will meet in Vienna for more talks on resolving the long-running Syrian conflict – launched by Obama, intending to continue it until Assad is replaced by a US-controlled puppet. Late October talks accomplished nothing………..*US Rejects Russia’s Syrian Peace Proposal* by Stephen Lendman Throughout four-and-a-half years of conflict, Russia has gone all-out to resolve it diplomatically – in stark contrast to Washington, wanting endless war continued, no matter the devastating human toll. Obama bears full responsibility for horrific carnage and mass displacement, using ISIS and other takfiri terrorists, imported foot soldiers from scores of countries, supplemented since September 2014 by US air attacks on Syrian infrastructure and other government targets, aiming to replace Assad with a Western-controlled..*Hype Following Friday’s Likely Paris False Flag* by Stephen Lendman Unsurprisingly, Western media ignored what has all the earmarks of a well-planned false flag – Washington perhaps complicit with France. Maybe Israel was involved to justify its reign of terror on Palestine. The usual suspects were blamed (ISIS terrorists, of course) before the dust settled – the clearest indication of a Big Lie. A joint FBI/Department of Homeland Security statement said “(w)e will not hesitate to adjust our security posture, as appropriate, to protect the American people.” Expect harsher police… more »
“…through the Strong Cities Network that we have unveiled today, we are making the first systematic effort in history to bring together cities around the world to share experiences, to pool resources and to forge partnerships in order to build local cohesion and resilience on a global scale. Today we tell every city, every town and every community that has lost the flower of its youth to a sea of hatred – you are not alone. We stand together and we stand with you.
Don’t Thank Me for My Service, by Camillo Mac Bica
All my life I loved fireworks. I would go to the 4th of July display every year that I could. I would lie down on the ground and just take it all in. Then I read about the impact that they have on some veterans. I stopped going.
I think that veterans should be given every single thing they need to make it back to civilian life and then given anything they ask for. They go off and fight a rich man’s war and come back to very poor treatment and little consideration for their PTSD. High rates of domestic abuse, drugs and alcohol use, homelessness, poverty and suicide should not even be mentioned in the same sentence when speaking of a Veteran.
I am totally against the barbarism of war, but if these folks are going to go out there and cause all kinds of devastation to themselves and others for the benefit of the elite, then the elite should take care of them to the utmost degree!! Any country that does not take care of its veterans is truly degenerate and completely lacking of empathy, gratitude or compassion. And that’s what I have to say about that!!
Don’t Thank Me for My Service
the eight years I spent as a Marine, but for the 45 or so years following my discharge from the military that I have spent as an activist fighting for human rights and social justice and to end the insanity of war. Frankly, however, I would prefer that you just say hello, or fine day or other such nicety. You see, my activism all these years warrants no praise or merit, as it is not something I choose to do. Rather, I do it because I must, perhaps as penance for my culpability for the sacrilege of war. And if you truly want to demonstrate your good character, patriotism, and support for the troops and veterans, rather than merely mouth meaningless expressions of gratitude for something you don’t truly understand or care much about, do something meaningful and real. Do what is truly in the interest of this nation and of those victimized by war.
“how can we still have troops in other countries and we celebrate with “bombs”… it would be lovely if we decided not to do them in honor to our troops… That would be a great way to say THANK YOU!”
CAMILLO MAC BICA, PhD, is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is a former Marine Corps officer, Vietnam veteran, longtime activist for peace and social justice, and the coordinator of the Long Island Chapter of Veterans for Peace.
Links:
The Things They Cannot Say
More Than Human? The Ethics of Biologically Enhancing Soldiers
Fireworks, Triggers, PTSD, and Veterans
Petro-Politics = Russian military operation in Syria bolsters oil market, domestic stocks
NANA’S COMMENTARY
LOL, it’s all about the war, the fighting, the blood and the gore that makes the stocks rise and the blood boil in delirium. Funny how war makes the cash registers ring and the banksters happy, they don’t care who does it, just do it!! what a mad, mad, mad world we live in.
Not to mention this has gone on far too long and those folks are jumping ship, thousands at a time and finding their way into Europe.
And the reality is, when the war comes home, somebody says, wth??? We thought they would just kill them all off there, and have mass graves to bury them in, why are they escaping and why the hell are they coming here, hey wait a minute, nobody told us this would be the “blowback”!!! What the f*****k? And we all know they ain’t gonna go live with the Queen, nor is she gonna provide them a sovereign land to live on, even though she is the biggest land owner in the world, and she ain’t gonna roll over Beethoven and open up the Taj Mahal for them to hang out in, and forget it, tent cities all over Europe is an eyesore.
Forget the xenophobia, the antisemitism, the urban blight, the destruction of our way of life….? Keep they arses over thar where they belong (misspelling for emphasis). Hahahahah, I can’t stop laughing at this debacle. But funnier than that is the next stupid nation that sides with these war criminals, thinking they are gonna get more than crumbs from the pie. SMDH, when will they ever learn……???
Syrians waiting to cross into Turkey |
Russian military operation in Syria bolsters oil market, domestic stocks
Commentary: Is There A Hidden Psychosis Behind Police Brutality?
Police Shoot Two Unarmed Men 377 Times, In Car That Had Already Crashed
I always wondered about this connection between firearms and sex. Stay with me here. One day I had a dream as I was trying to figure out why rape and war go together. In this dream I was told that men shooting guns actually get sexually aroused and that once that happens they need to relieve themselves so they rape. It is also about power and control. If you look at the language used when describing sexual intercourse, you get words like “firing his shot”, “blasted” “busted” and various other metaphors for what it means when a man ejaculates. And then there are these synonyms: emission, ejection, discharge, release, expulsion.
So, we have in this story, a barrage of senseless bullets shooting up a car where clearly the men had to be dead long before 377 shots to their vehicle. Are we dealing more with sexually frustrated men who have to act in this manner? Are we dealing with men who ejaculate too quickly? Are we dealing with men who can’t seem to satisfy their partners and who feel so inept that by this obscene show of force they can, ejaculate over and over and over, hundreds of times without needing to stop and regroup? Are they insecure because after on orgasm it’s over for them, whereas by assaulting someone while wearing a badge they can “orgasm” over and over and over again?
I hadn’t thought about the sexual implications of war and police brutality in that way before. But It always appeared to me to have sexual overtones. When you watch how the police force suspects into handcuffs. Or how they “knock” you to the ground in a what appears to be sadomaschistic demonstration of dominance over someone they have rendered weak and helpless.
We keep looking at the sociopathic indicators that this type of behavior reveals, but I am wondering if we are missing an even deeper psychosis. Are we actually looking at folks who have sexual hangups, possibly sexual abuse and assault in their own history? Are we looking at a sexual perversion that can be shrouded in a uniform and a badge where a take down is imminent? Do these folks have a license to kill?? Or a license to rape, mentally, emotionally, physically and psychically?
I remember years ago noticing that weapons tend to resemble, in some way, the male phallic. From guns to to rockets to bombs they all look the same. The male phallic. Does this mean that there is an innate insecurity that men have about their manhood which is many instances is determined by their sexual prowess, however distorted this perception may be. What do bombs, guns etc. do? They penetrate, they explode, they ejaculate.
We have been living in an era of the Patriarchy for the past several thousand years. Male dominion over all life on Earth, particularly when looking at Male dominion in so many religions, politics, economics and social institutions around the world. It is expected that men should dominate! If a man does not carry that energy he is considered effeminate and a disgrace. Looking at our world we are seeing how this distortion has lead to more destruction and chaos since the days of the Gladiators.
The male principle in its desire to have dominion over all has become so distorted that the idea of freedom. peace, justice etc. is skewed and gleaned through the lens of destruction. Their creations have become destructive toys that hurt, maim and kill.
Frustrated, insecure and competitive men with killing toys are running our world and the consequences are devastating.
A Prison Nurse’s look at Sandra Bland’s Death, by Paul Spector
Excerpt: “In prison, infliction of mental and physical agony on helpless captives provides sexual pleasure to sick individuals. No penetration is needed, violent predators value power and control more. Sandra’s treatment, particularly isolation, are techniques found in CIA prisons and Guantanamo Bay. They are unbearable and leave no marks. The UN calls it torture.” Read More:
In my opinion, any editing of the information released to the authorities is suspect. In this video there is a shot you may want to check out. Sandra has a huge lump on her head that has been obviously photoshopped out. Here’s the link to that photo. http://www.conspiracyclub.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ne55be5a07.jpg
Why did they do that? I am still suspicious and I don’t think the person in the video of Sandra in a orange jumpsuit is Sandra, maybe another person from another time, maybe it’s staged, with no timestamp and no identifying info on this video it could have come from anywhere.
Proof that Sandra Bland’s Mug Shot Was Edited & Why: http://www.conspiracyclub.co/2015/08/02/sandra-blands-mug-shot-edit/
What Every Mental Health Professional Needs to Know About Sex By Stephanie Buehler
Police Shoot Two Unarmed Men 377 Times, In Car That Had Already Crashed
Police abuse doesn’t get much more flagrant than this. Recently dozens of Miami-Dade police officers filled Adrian Montesano’s vehicle with 377 bullet holes, shot from every imaginable angle.
The frenzied show of police force was described by witnesses as “chaotic” and “contagious” in nature.
The vehicle’s 2 occupants had been trying to surrender, but 23 police officers in total decided to act as judge, jury and executions, shooting up the car, the suspects and also neighboring houses, businesses, vehicles. Even fellow police officers were hit by the insane barrage of bullets from the high capacity magazines carried in triplicate by each officer.
The events began back in the early morning hours of December 10th, 2013, but questions about the massive show of police force have begun to mount in the community.
Adrian Montesano had already crashed, and his vehicle remained pinned between a utility pole and a tree after an earlier police pursuit around 5:00 a.m.
Dozens of officers aimed their M4 assault rifles, as well as high capacity handguns towards the from every angle, and for several minutes, they shot round after round into the unarmed suspects.
Anthony Vandiver witnesses the assault from his house. He ran upstairs to watch the whole thing unfold, from a perfect, unobstructed view.“They said, ‘put your hands up!’ And the guys were still moving after they shot, like maybe 50-60 times,” Mr. Vandiver told CBS-4 Miami. “And the guys tried to put their hands up, and as soon as they put their hands up, it erupted again.”
Read more: Counter Current News
Who Was Behind the Cyberattack on Sony?
Who Was Behind the Cyberattack on Sony?
by GREGORY ELICH
The cyberattack on Sony Pictures unleashed a torrent of alarmist media reports, evoking the image of North Korean perfidy. Within a month, the FBI issued a statement declaring the North Korean government “responsible for these actions.” Amid the media frenzy, several senators and congresspersons called for tough action. Arizona Senator John McCain blustered, “It’s a new form of warfare that we’re involved in, and we need to react and react vigorously.” President Barack Obama announced his administration planned to review the possibility of placing North Korea on the list of states sponsoring terrorism, a move that would further tighten the already harsh sanctions on North Korea. “They caused a lot of damage, and we will respond,” Obama warned darkly. “We will respond proportionally, and we’ll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.”
In the rush to judgment, few were asking for evidence, and none was provided. Computer security analysts, however, were vocal in their skepticism.
In its statement, the FBI offered only a few comments to back its attribution of North Korean responsibility. “Technical analysis of the data deletion malware used in the attack revealed links to other malware that the FBI knows North Korean actors previously developed,” it reported, including “similarities in specific lines of code, encryption algorithms, data deletion methods, and compromised networks.” The FBI went on to mention that the IP addresses used in the Sony hack were associated with “known North Korean infrastructure.” Tools used in the attack “have similarities to a cyberattack in March of last year against South Korean banks and media outlets, which was carried out by North Korea.”
The major problem with the evidence offered by the FBI is that it is self-referential, all of it pointing back to the 2013 attack on South Korean banks and media that was carried out by the DarkSeoul gang. At that time, without supplying any supporting evidence, the United States accused North Korea of being behind DarkSeoul. In effect, the FBI argues that because the U.S. spread the rumor of North Korean involvement in the earlier attack, and some of the code is related, this proves that North Korea is also responsible for the Sony hack. One rumor points to another rumor as ‘proof,’ rendering the argument meaningless.
The logical fallacies are many. To date, no investigation has uncovered the identity of DarkSeoul, and nothing is known about the group. The linking of DarkSeoul to North Korea is purely speculative. “One point that can’t be said enough,” emphasizes Risk Based Security, “is that ‘attribution is hard’ given the nature of computer intrusions and how hard it is to ultimately trace an attack back to a given individual or group. Past attacks on Sony have not been solved, even years later. The idea that a mere two weeks into the investigation and there is positive attribution, enough to call this an act of war, seems dangerous and questionable.”
Consider some of the other flaws in the FBI’s statement. The IP addresses that were hard-coded in the malware used in the Sony hack belonged to servers located in Thailand, Poland, Italy, Bolivia, Singapore, Cypress, and the United States. The FBI implies that only the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the formal name for North Korea) could have used these servers. The Thai port is a proxy that is commonly used in sending spam and malware. The same is true of the Polish and Italian servers. All of the servers used in the Sony attack have been previously compromised and are among the many computers that are widely known and used by hackers and spam distributors. Anyone with the knowhow can use them.
Whether or not these machines were used is another matter. Hackers often use proxy machines with phony IP addresses to mislead investigators. No hackers use their own computers to launch an attack. Vulnerable systems are hijacked in order to route traffic. For the FBI to point to IP addresses either reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of cybersecurity or a cynical attempt to deliberately mislead the public.
The Sony hack also bears similarities with the 2012 Shamoon cyberattack on computers belonging to Saudi Aramco. Those responsible for that attack have never been identified either, although the United States accused Iran without providing any evidence. Using the FBI’s logic, one could just as easily argue that the Sony hack was the work of Iran. One groundless accusation is used to buttress another. As evidentiary matter, it is worthless. It should also be recalled that in 1998, the United States blamed Iraq for the Solar Sunrise hack into Defense Department computers, only for it be ultimately revealed that it was the act of a few teenagers.
Nor do the similarities in code between the Sony hack and the earlier Shamoon and DarkSeoul attacks indicate a shared responsibility. Malware is freely available on the black market. Hackers operate by purchasing or borrowing, and then tweaking commonly available software, including both illegal and legal components. Code is shared among hackers on forums, and malware is assembled by linking various elements together.
One of the components used in the Sony cyberattack was the RawDisk library from EldoS, a commercial application that allows direct access to Windows hardware bypassing security. Anyone can legally purchase this software. There is nothing to tie it to the DPRK.
“There’s a lot of malware that’s shared between different groups, and all malware is built on top of older malware,” reports Brian Martin of Risk Based Security. “They’re also built on top of hacking tools. For example, you’ll find lots of malware that uses pieces of code from popular tools like Nmap. Does that mean that the guy who wrote Nmap is a malware author? No. Does it mean he works for North Korea? No.”
Robert Graham of Errata Security regards the evidence offered by the FBI as “complete nonsense. It sounds like they’ve decided on a conclusion and are trying to make the evidence fit.” Graham adds: “There is nothing unique in the software. We know that hackers share malware on forums. Every hacker in the world has all the source code available.”
Trojan-Destover, the malware used in the Sony cyberattack, included at least six components utilized earlier by Shamoon and DarkSeoul. “Even in such damaging scenarios, the cyber attacker’s tools are reused,” points out Sariel Moshe of CyActive. “For them, if it worked once, tweak it a bit and it will work again. The attack on Sony demonstrates quite clearly that this method works quite well.” Indeed, while Shamoon and DarkSeoul are the most commonly mentioned predecessors to the Sony hack, it is thought that this software has been used on several occasions in the past against multiple targets.
The software utilized in the Sony cyberattack is atypical for a nation state. “It’s a night and day difference in quality,” says Craig Williams of Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group. “The code is simplistic, not very complex, and not very obfuscated.”
Four files used in the attack were compiled on a machine set to the Korean language. That fact proves nothing, notes computer security analyst Chris Davis. “That is pretty weak evidence. I could compile malware code that used Afrikaans and where the timestamp matched JoBerg in about five seconds.” Any reasonably competent hacker would change the language setting in order to misdirect investigators. Had North Korean conducted this attack, it certainly would have taken the basic step of changing the language setting on the machine used to compile code.
What about North Korean resentment over Sony Picture’s tasteless lowbrow comedy, The Interview, which portrays the assassination of DPRK leader Kim Jong-un? It is doubtful that Americans would find themselves any more amused by a foreign comedy on the subject of killing a U.S. president than the North Koreans are by The Interview.
Among the emails leaked by the cyberattack on Sony was a message from Bruce Bennett of the Rand Corporation. Bennett was a consultant on the film and opposed toning down the film’s ending. “I have been clear that the assassination of Kim Jong-un is the most likely path to a collapse of the North Korean government,” he wrote, adding that DVD leaks of the film into North Korea “will start some real thinking.” In another message, Sony CEO Michael Lynton responded: “Bruce – Spoke to someone very senior in State (confidentially). He agreed with everything you have been saying. Everything.” Lynton was also communicating with Robert King, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues in regard to the film.
The Western media portray North Korean reaction to The Interview as overly sensitive and irrational, while U.S. officials and a Rand Corporation consultant saw the film as having the potential to inspire the real-life assassination of Kim Jong-un. The scene of Kim’s assassination was not intended merely for so-called ‘entertainment.’
The mass media raced to attribute the Sony hack to the DPRK, based on its reaction to the Sony film. A closer look at the cyberattack reveals a more likely culprit, however. The group taking responsibility for the hack calls itself ‘Guardians of Peace’, and in one of the malware files the alternate name of ‘God’sApstls’ is also used. In the initial attack, no reference was made to the film, nor was it mentioned in subsequent emails the attackers sent to Sony. Instead, the hackers attempted to extort money: “Monetary compensation we want. Pay the damage, or Sony Pictures will be bombarded as whole.”
In an interview with CSO Online, a person represented as belonging to Guardians of Peace said the group is “an international organization…not under the direction of any state,” and included members from several nations. “Our aim is not at the film The Interview as Sony Pictures suggests,” the hacker wrote, but mentioned that the release of a film that had the potential of threatening peace was an example of the “greed of Sony Pictures.”
For two weeks following the cyberattack, the media harped on the subject of North Korean culpability. Only after that point did the Guardians of Peace (GOP) make its first public reference to The Interview, denying any connection with the DPRK. Yet another week passed before the GOP denounced the movie and threatened to attack theaters showing the film.
It appears that the narrative of North Korean involvement repeated ad nauseam by the media and the U.S. government presented a gift to the hackers too tempting to pass up. The GOP played to the dominant theme and succeeded in solidifying the tendency to blame the DPRK, with the effect of ensuring that no investigation would pursue the group.
For its part, the Obama Administration chose to seize the opportunity to bolster its anti-North Korea policy in preference over tracking down the culprits.
There are strong indications that the cyberattack involved one or more disgruntled Sony employees or ex-employees, probably working together with experienced hackers. The malware used against Sony had been modified to include hard-coded file paths and server names. System administrator user names and passwords were also hard-coded. Only someone having full access with system administrator privileges to Sony’s computer network could have obtained this information.
The GOP could have hacked into the Sony system months beforehand in order to gather that data. But it is more likely that someone with knowledge of Sony’s network configuration provided the information. Arguing against the possibility that critical information had been siphoned beforehand through a hack, cybersecurity expert Hemanshu Nigam observes, “If terabytes of data left the Sony networks, their network detection systems would have noticed easily. It would also take months for a hacker to figure out the topography of the Sony networks to know where critical assets are stored and to have access to the decryption keys needed to open up the screeners that have been leaked.”
The most likely motivation for the attack was revenge on the part of current or former Sony employees. “My money is on a disgruntled (possibly ex) employee of Sony,” Marc Rogers of CloudFlare wrote. “Whoever did this is in it for the revenge. The info and access they had could have easily been used to cash out, yet, instead, they are making every effort to burn Sony down. Just think what they could have done with passwords to all of Sony’s financial accounts.”
Nation states never conduct such noisy hacking operations. Their goal is to quietly infiltrate a system and obtain information without detection. Sony had no data that would have been of interest to a nation state. Computer security blogger The Grugq wrote, “I can’t see the DPRK putting this sort of valuable resource onto what is essentially a petty attack against a company that has no strategic value.”
It would have been reckless for a North Korean team to draw attention to itself. Cybersecurity specialist Chris Davis says, “All the activity that was reported screams Script Kiddie to me. Not advanced state-sponsored attack.” Davis adds, “Well, the stupid skeleton pic they splashed on all the screens on the workstations inside Sony…is not something a state-sponsored attack would do…Would ANY self-respecting state-sponsored actor use something as dumb as that?” The consensus among cybersecurity experts is clear, Davis argues. “The prevalent theory I am seeing in the closed security mailing lists is an internet group of laid off Sony employees.”
Following his cybersecurity firm’s investigation, Kurt Stammberger of Norse echoes that view. “Sony was not just hacked. This is a company that was essentially nuked from the inside. We are very confident that this was not an attack master-minded by North Korea and that insiders were key to the implementation of one of the most devastating attacks in history.”
“What is striking here is how well they knew to exploit Sony’s vulnerabilities,” reports Nimrod Kozlovski of JVP Labs. “The malware itself is not creative or new; there are plenty of actors that could have manifested this particular attack.” The hackers “knew more about the company, Sony, and its vulnerabilities than they knew, or needed to know, about hacking.”
As an indication of the hacker’s real motivation, it should be noted that the first communications focused on a different issue than the Sony film. The content of an email sent by the GOP to the IDG News Service refers to Sony’s restructuring, in which thousands of employees lost their jobs: “Sony and Sony Pictures have made terrible racial discrimination and human rights violation, indiscriminate tyranny and restructuring in recent years. It has brought damage to a lot of people, some of whom are among us. Nowadays, Sony Pictures is about to prey on the weak with a plan of another indiscriminate restructuring for their own benefits. This became a decisive motive for our action.” In an email to The Verge, the GOP wrote, “We want equality. Sony doesn’t…We worked with other staff with similar interests to get in.”
Seeking to diffuse tensions, North Korea proposed to conduct a joint investigation with the United States into the Sony cyberattack. Predictably, the United States quickly rebuffed the offer. National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh arrogantly responded, “If the North Korean government wants to help, they can admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages this attack caused.” North Korea can hardly be expected to accept blame for an act it did not commit. But getting to the truth of the matter was the farthest thing from the Obama Administration’s mind. Similarly, U.S. officials are ignoring requests from cybersecurity experts to be allowed to analyze the Destover code. “They’re worried we’ll prove them wrong,” Robert Graham concludes.
The Obama Administration’s outrage over the Sony attack contains more than a small measure of hypocrisy. It was the United States that launched the Stuxnet attack that destroyed many of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. According to a Washington Post article published in 2013, the United States conducted 231 cyber operations throughout the world two years before. The National Security Agency, as is now well known, regularly hacks into computer networks, scooping up vast amounts of data. The GENIE program, the Post reported, was projected to have broken into and installed implants in 85,000 computers by the end of 2013. It was reported that GENIE’s next phase would implement an automated system that could install “potentially millions of implants” for gathering data “and active attack.” According to former deputy of defense secretary William J. Lynn III, “The policy debate has moved so that offensive options are more prominent now.”
Contrast the mild treatment the media gave to the recent large-scale hacks into Target, Home Depot and JP Morgan, in which millions of credit cards and personal information were stolen, with the coverage of the cyberattack on Sony Pictures. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that political considerations are driving the media furor over the latter case.
After six years in office, the Obama Administration has yet to engage in dialogue or diplomacy with North Korea. It prefers to maintain a wall of hostility, blocking any prospect of progress or understanding between the two nations.
Already, North Korean websites have been targeted by persistent denial of service operations. Whether the attacks were launched by a U.S. government cyber team or independent hackers inspired by media reports is not known. In any case, President Obama has already promised to take unspecified action against the DPRK. Actual responsibility for the Sony attack is irrelevant. Backed by media cheerleading, U.S officials are using the cyberattack as a pretext to ratchet up pressure on North Korea. Any action the Obama Administration takes is likely to trigger a response, and we could enter a dangerous feedback loop of action/counteraction.
Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Committee to Defend Democracy in South Korea and a columnist for Voice of the People. He is also one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language.
Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Committee to Defend Democracy in South Korea and a columnist for Voice of the People. He is also one of the co-authors ofKilling Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language.
War-Ebola-Environment-Health
What’s Behind the Ebola Crises and are U.S. Americans at Risk?
In an interview with Telesur’s The Global African, Johns Hopkins Infectious Disease Program co-director Taha E. Taha discusses the roots of the Ebola crisis and what can be done about it. Courtesy of Telesur – 2 hours ago
STOP THE KILLING TRAIN!
STOP THE KILLING TRAIN
author unknown
Many years back, moved by the first Gulf War, I wrote a piece with the above title, Stop the Killing Train. I am revisiting the same subject because, regrettably, the topic remains at the forefront even if the precipitating violence is different.
For the purpose of the exercise, please use your imagination.
Suppose a hypothetical god got tired of what we humans do to one another and decided that from January 1, 1991 onward all corpses unnaturally created anywhere in or by the hand of the “free world” would cease to decompose. Anyone dying for want of food or medicine, anyone hung or garroted to death, shot or beaten to death, raped or bombed to death, anyone dying unjustly and inhumanely for want of clean air or water or other necessities of life, would, as a corpse, persist without decomposing. The permanent corpse would then automatically enter a glass-walled cattle car attached to an ethereal train traveling monotonously across the U.S., state by state, never stopping. The hypothetical God would tirelessly display our achievements for us all to see.
One by one the corpses would divinely load onto the cattle cars. After every thousand corpses piled in a car, a new car would hitch up and begin filling in turn. Mile after mile the killing train would roll along, each corpse visible through the train’s transparent walls. We can suppose it fills at the rate of 200 new corpses a minute, or one new car every five minutes, day and night, without pause.
By the end of 1991, on its first birthday, the killing train would easily measure over 2,500 miles long. Traveling at 20 miles an hour it would take about five days to pass any intersection across the U.S. Imagine you are sitting at a railroad crossing. You watch this horror go past, 24 hours a day, for five full days. Every car contains 1,000 corpses, all clearly visible. This hypothetical God knows how to communicate so we can’t ignore reality.
By the year 2000, assuming no dramatic change in institutions and behavior, the train would stretch from coast to coast about seven times. It would take about six weeks from the time its engine passed the Statue of Liberty to when its caboose would go by. Would the God still wonder when pitiful, aspiring humanity would get the message?
By 2014 – you can safely just double the ugly statistics. Deaths accelerate, unless, of course, we had gotten the message. So, coast to coast it would stretch, about 14 times. Every corpse an indictment.
Think how a young child sometimes points to a picture in a book or magazine and asks for an explanation, “Tell me about a tree?” A car? A boat? Or a train? A big train? The killing train? Go ahead, try to answer that one. Perhaps that explains why this image isn’t, in fact, a common one on our TVs and in our never-ending streams of information.
Bad enough, way worse than bad enough, it could even get worse. Consider that climate change will before long start to wrack up even larger kill lists. But, of course, those dead would pile into the killing train too, since with only modest exceptions they too are preventable.
The killing train, in any event, no matter how each moribund commuter who need not have been on board got his or her ticket, is horrendous.
Imagine the lost opportunity and lost love. Imagine as well the network of negative influences that radiate from the unnecessary deaths displayed by the killing train stretching from coast to coast and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Consider the horrendous impact, not only on those on board, but on every person that any of those corpses ever loved or would have loved, fed or would have fed, taught or would have taught.
Who rides the killing train?
Certainly citizens of the “Third World,” selling their organs for food, selling their babies to save their families, suffering disappearances and starvation. They live in Brazil, the Philippines, El Salvador, but also New York. They enter the killing train, every day. It isn’t a peace train. It isn’t a justice train. It isn’t a love train. It is a killing train. Its current most bloody loading platform: Gaza. But don’t forget those who starve and die of preventable diseases in the Third World and in the first world too. All are onboard.
Is the gigantic sprawling disgusting image exaggerated? 10 million kids die yearly for lack of basic medical aid that the U.S. could provide at almost no cost in countries whose economies Exxon and the Bank of America have looted. Preventable death fills the killing train. To the sane, it is mass murder. The grotesque image I offer is actually understated.
Bloated diseased bodies are victims of murder just as surely as bullet-riddled bodies tossed into rivers by death squads, or shrapnel shredded bodies prone in the piles of blasted hospitals and homes. Denying medicine by out of reach pricing or preventable shortages is no less criminal than denying medicine by blowing up pharmacies and demolishing hospitals is no less criminal than supplying torture racks, stealing resources, and paving roads with bomblets. Bombing electric power stations and pulverizing hospitals enlarges the train. Deaths by starvation and disease are no less unnatural than those by bomblet and bullet, and enlarge the train.
Evolution has given humans the capacity to perceive, think, feel, and imagine. During war time—as now exists in so many places —if we get aroused to action we begin to see the whole train as it persists day in and day out. When this happens, what do we do about it? Do we become depressed? Cynical? Anguished? Cry? Daydream of Armageddon? Daydream of justice? Or do we hand out a leaflet?
Once we begin to see the killing train, how do we face the killing train? Part of me says these crimes are so grotesque, so inhumane, that the perpetrators deserve to die, now. A little tiny killing train for the killers and no more big killing train for everyone else. An eye for a million eyes. What other step makes more sense? Was this the hypothetical God’s plan?
But, of course, that’s not the way the world works. Yes, people give the orders. People wield the axes, withhold the food, pay the pitiful salaries, blow up the power stations, spew the garbage, lie, steal, cheat, obey – and produce corpses. But institutions create the pressures that mold the people.
When an institutional cancer spreads through the human patient, what kind of surgeon can cut it away? Is the imprint of accumulated repression so deep it can never be excised.
At first, becoming attuned to our country’s responsibility for the corpses stacked behind transparent cattle-car walls makes handing out leaflets, or writing essays, or arguing for peace with a co-worker, or urging a relative to think twice about paying taxes, or going to a demonstration, or sitting in, or doing civil disobedience, or even taking over a workplace, seem insignificant. But the fact is, these are the acts that the hypothetical God, tired of our behavior, would be calling for if she were to actually parade the “free world’s” corpses down our main streets in killing trains. These are the acts that can accumulate into a firestorm of informed protest that raises the cost of profiteering and domination, of war making and pollution so high that the institutions breeding such behavior start to buckle.
The fact is, when fighting a behemoth, “You lose, you lose, you lose, and then you win.” Every loss, understood properly to learn its lessons, is part of the process that leads to transforming institutions so that there can be no people as vile as Hussein or Bush, as Netanyahu or Obama. No more “Good Germans” or “Good Americans.” No more incinerated Jews or decapitated, starved, poisoned, starved, bulleted Palestinians.
War is invariably unjustly motivated. War is always horrendously harmful. War is an orchestrated atrocity that mandates our militant, unswerving opposition. But so too does exploitation, racism, sexism, the systematic deprivation of any one community at the hands of any other.
But even after the Gaza crimes of the little thug Israel and of its guardian angel the big thug, America, ends, the on-going U.S. war against “free world” people who it has consigned to ride the killing train will, if it continues, remain a enormous crime against humanity. The killing train transcends each separate war, inequity, and injustice, and ultimately, and this is, of course, the point – so must our opposition. The killing train is fueled by poverty, disease, starvation, indignity, death squads, racism, sexism, class division, bombs, and more bombs. The power plant of the death, destruction, and generalized deprivation is our basic institutions.
The institutions must become our target.
EBOLA OUTBREAK – Is it a FALSE FLAG ATTACK?
EBOLA OUTBREAK – Is it a FALSE FLAG ATTACK?
Posted by Nicole Bourbaki
A Liberian health official says the Ebola outbreak is now above the control of its government.
“Our government has declared this now as a humanitarian crisis that is above the control of the national government,” Tolbert Nyenswah, Liberia’s assistant minister of health, told CBS News.
More than 700 people have died in four western African nations during the largest Ebola outbreak ever, with over 320 known cases in Liberia alone. One American died while contracting the virus in Liberia. Two other American medical missionary workers also contracted Ebola.
Model State Emergency Health Powers Act “could turn governors into dictators” Federal health authorities could exercise authoritarian powers to control an Ebola outbreak if the deadly disease hits the United States under the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, legislation passed in the wake of 9/11 which attracted controversy at the time for its draconian scope.
With the Ebola outbreak in West Africa having been declared the worst in history by the World Health Organization, concerns are mounting that the disease could spread via international air travel. Asked whether the virus could arrive in the United States, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said, “It’s going to happen at some point.”
The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, drafted during the 2001 anthrax attacks, has since been adopted in whole or in part by 33 states. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warned that the legislation “could turn governors into dictators,” while constitutional lawyer Phyllis Schlafly labeled it “an unprecedented assault on the constitutional rights of the American people.”
Truth Raider Warns of Ebola False Flag The federal government already has the authority to round people up against their will Ebola Vaccines: Poor Market Potential and Lack of Subjects for Clinical Trials Holding Up Testing The most promising one is stuck in safety testing for the simple reason there is no money for a vaccine that has no market. Most big pharmaceuticals do not like to sink assets into developing any drug with low potential. That leaves the playing ground largely to the government and small, niche companies.
Western governments are now issuing alerts to doctors to be on the lookout for symptoms of the disease after an infected Liberian man was found to have traveled through a major transport hub in Nigeria. The World Health Organization has called the outbreak the worst on record, while Doctors Without Borders says the situation is “out of control.”
Back in April, the Department of Defense announced that it had deployed biological diagnostic systems to National Guard support teams across the U.S. in readiness for any potential Ebola outbreak.
An NHS doctor has urged the world to wake up to the growing threat of Ebola after risking his life working 24-hour hospital shifts trying to save pregnant women struck down by the disease.
If the worst Ebola outbreak in recorded history reaches the United States, federal law permits “the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease”. These individuals can be “detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary”. In other words, the federal government already has the authority to round people up against their will, take them to detention facilities and hold them there for as long as they feel it is “reasonably necessary”. In addition, as you will read about below, the federal government has the authority “to separate and restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill”. If you want to look at these laws in the broadest sense, they pretty much give the federal government the power to do almost anything that they want with us in the event of a major pandemic. Of course such a scenario probably would not be called “marital law”, but it would probably feel a lot like it.
War in Our Collective Imagination
By David Swanson
Remarks at Veterans For Peace Convention, Asheville, NC, July 27, 2014.
I started seeing graphics pop up on social media sites this past week that said about Gaza: “It’s not war. It’s murder.” So I started asking people what exactly they think war is if it’s distinct from murder. Well, war, some of them told me, takes place between armies. So I asked for anyone to name a war during the past century (that is, after World War I) where all or even most or even a majority of the dying was done by members of armies. There may have been such a war. There are enough scholars here today that somebody probably knows of one. But if so, it isn’t the norm, and these people I was chatting with through social media couldn’t think of any such war and yet insisted that that’s just what war is. So, is war then over and nobody told us?
For whatever reasons, I then very soon began seeing a graphic sent around that said about Gaza: “It’s not war. It’s genocide.” And the typical explanation I got when I questioned this one was that the wagers of war and the wagers of genocide have different attitudes. Are we sure about that? I’ve spoken to advocates for recent U.S. wars who wanted all or part of a population wiped out. Plenty of supporters of the latest attacks on Gaza see them as counter-terrorism. In wars between advanced militaries and poor peoples most of the death and injury is on one side and most of it — by anyone’s definition — civilian. This is as true in Afghanistan, where war rolls on largely unchallenged, as in Gaza, about which we are newly outraged.
Well, what’s wrong with outrage? Who cares what people call it? Why not criticize the war advocates rather than nitpicking the war opponents’ choice of words? When people are outraged they will reach for whatever word their culture tells them is most powerful, be it murder or genocide or whatever. Why not encourage that and worry a little more about the lunatics who are calling it defense or policing or terrorist removal? (Eight-year-old terrorists!)
Yes, of course. I’ve been going after CNN news readers for claiming Palestinians want to die and NBC for yanking its best reporter and ABC for claiming scenes of destruction in Gaza that just don’t exist in Israel are in fact in Israel — and the U.S. government for providing the weapons and the criminal immunity. I’ve been promoting rallies and events aimed at swaying public opinion against what Israel has been doing, and against the sadistic bloodthirsty culture of those standing on hills cheering for the death and destruction below, quite regardless of what they call it. But, as you’re probably aware, only the very most open-minded war advocates attend conventions of Veterans For Peace. So, I’m speaking here backstage, as it were, at the peace movement. Among those of us who want to stop the killing, are there better and worse ways to talk about it? And is anything revealed by the ways in which we tend to talk about it when we aren’t hyper-focused on our language?
I think so. I think it’s telling that the worst word anyone can think of isn’t war. I think it’s even more telling that we condemn things by contrasting them with war, framing war as relatively acceptable. I think this fact ought to be unsettling because a very good case can be made that war, in fact, is the worst thing we do, and that the distinctions between war and such evils as murder or genocide can require squinting very hard to discern.
We’ve all heard that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. There is a parallel belief that wars don’t kill people, people who misuse wars, who fight bad wars, who fight wars improperly, kill people. This is a big contrast with many other evil institutions. We don’t oppose child abuse selectively, holding out the possibility of just and good incidents of child abuse while opposing the bad or dumb or non-strategic or excessive cases of child abuse. We don’t have Geneva Conventions for proper conduct while abusing children. We don’t have human rights groups writing reports on atrocities and possible law violations committed in the course of abusing children. We don’t distinguish UN-sanctioned child abuse. The same goes for numerous behaviors generally understood as always evil: slavery or rape or blood feuds or duelling or dog fighting or sexual harassment or bullying or human experimentation or — I don’t know — producing piles of I’m-Ready-for-Hillary posters. We don’t imagine there are good, just, and defensible cases of such actions.
And this is the core problem: not support for bombing Gaza or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq or anywhere else that actually gets bombed, but support for an imaginary war in the near future between two armies with different colored jerseys and sponsors, competing on an isolated battlefield apart from any villages or towns, and suffering bravely and heroically for their non-murderous non-genocidal cause while complying with the whistles blown by the referees in the human rights organizations whenever any of the proper killing drifts into lawless imprisonment or torture or the use of improper weaponry. Support for specific possible wars in the United States right now is generally under 10 percent. More people believe in ghosts, angels, and the integrity of our electoral system than want a new U.S. war in Ukraine, Syria, Iran, or Iraq. The Washington Post found a little over 10 percent want a war in Ukraine but that the people who held that view were the people who placed Ukraine on the world map the furthest from its actual location, including people who placed it in the United States. These are the idiots who favor specific wars. Even Congress, speaking of idiots, on Friday told Obama no new war on Iraq.
The problem is the people, ranging across the population from morons right up to geniuses, who favor imaginary wars. Millions of people will tell you we need to be prepared for more wars in case there’s another Adolf Hitler, failing to understand that the wars and militarism and weapons sales and weapons gifts — the whole U.S. role as the arsenal of democracies and dictatorships alike — increase rather than decrease dangers, that other wealthy countries spend less than 10 percent what the U.S. does on their militaries, and that 10 percent of what the U.S. spends on its military could end global starvation, provide the globe with clean water, and fund sustainable energy and agriculture programs that would go further toward preventing mass violence than any stockpiles of weaponry. Millions will tell you that the world needs a global policeman, even though polls of the world find the widespread belief that the United States is currently the greatest threat to peace on earth. In fact if you start asking people who have opposed every war in our lifetimes or in the past decade to work on opposing the entire institution of war, you’ll be surprised by many of the people who say no.
I’m a big fan of a book called Addicted to War. I think it will probably be a powerful tool for war abolition right up until war is abolished. But its author told me this week that he can’t work to oppose all wars because he favors some of them. Specifically, he said, he doesn’t want to ask Palestinians to not defend themselves. Now, there’s a really vicious cycle. If we can’t shut down the institution of war because Palestinians need to use it, then it’s harder to go after U.S. military spending, which is of course what funds much of the weaponry being used against Palestinians. I think we should get a little clarity about what a war abolition movement does and does not do. It does not tell people what they must do when attacked. It is not focused on advising, much less instructing, the victims of war, but on preventing their victimization. It does not advise the individual victim of a mugging to turn the other cheek. But it also does not accept the disproven notion that violence is a defensive strategy for a population. Nonviolence has proven far more effective and its victories longer lasting. If people in Gaza have done anything at all to assist in their own destruction, it is not the supposed offenses of staying in their homes or visiting hospitals or playing on beaches; it is the ridiculously counterproductive firing of rockets that only encourages and provides political cover for war/ genocide/ mass murder.
I’m a huge fan of Chris Hedges and find him one of the most useful and inspiring writers we have. But he thought attacking Libya was a good idea up until it quite predictably and obviously turned out not to be. He still thinks Bosnia was a just war. I could go on through dozens of names of people who contribute mightily to an anti-war movement who oppose abolishing war. The point is not that anyone who believes in 1 good war out of 100 is to blame for the trillion dollar U.S. military budget and all the destruction it brings. The point is that they are wrong about that 1 war out of 100, and that even if they were right, the side-effects of maintaining a culture accepting of war preparations would outweigh the benefits of getting 1 war right. The lives lost by not spending $1 trillion a year in the U.S. and another $1 trillion in the rest of the world on useful projects like environmental protection, sustainable agriculture, medicine and hygiene absolutely dwarf the number of lives that would be saved by halting our routine level of war making.
If you talk about abolishing war entirely, as many of us have begun focusing on through a new project called World Beyond War, you’ll also find people who want to abolish war but believe it’s impossible. War is natural, they say, inevitable, in our genes, decreed by our economy, the unavoidable result of racism or consumerism or capitalism or exceptionalism or carnivorism or nationalism. And of course many cultural patterns interact with and facilitate war, but the idea that it’s in our genes is absurd, given how many cultures in our species have done and do without it. I don’t know what — if anything — people usually mean when they call something “natural” but presumably it’s not the provocation of suicide, which is such a common result of participating in war, while the first case of PTSD due to war deprivation has yet to be discovered. Most of our species’ existence, as hunter-gatherers, did not know war, and only the last century — a split-second in evolutionary terms — has known war that at all resembles war today. War didn’t used to kill like this. Soldiers weren’t conditioned to kill. Most guns picked up at Gettysburg had been loaded more than once. The big killers were diseases, even in the U.S. Civil War, the war that the U.S. media calls the most deadly because Filipinos and Koreans and Vietnamese and Iraqis don’t count. Now the big killer is a disease in our thinking, a combination of what Dr. King called self-guided missiles and misguided men.
Another hurdle for abolishing war is that the idea rose to popularity in the West in the 1920s and 1930s and then sank into a category of thought that is vaguely treasonous. War abolition was tried and failed, the thinking goes, like communism or labor unions and now we know better. While abolishing war is popular in much of the world, that fact is easily ignored by the 1% who misrepresent the 10% or 15% who live in the places that constitute the so-called International Community. Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come or weaker than an idea whose time has come and gone. Or so we think. But the Renaissance was, as its name suggests, an idea whose time came again, new and improved and victorious. The 1920s and 1930s are a resource for us. We have stockpiles of wisdom to draw upon. We have example of where things were headed and how they went of track.
Andrew Carnegie took war profits and set up an endowment with the mandate to eliminate war and then to hold a board meeting, determine the second worst thing in the world, and begin eliminating that. This sounds unique or eccentric, but is I believe a basic understanding of ethics that ought to be understood and acted upon by all of us. When someone asks me why I’m a peace activist I ask them why in the hell anyone isn’t. So, reminding the Carnegie Endowment for Peace what it’s legally obligated to do, and dozens of other organizations along with it, may be part of the process of drawing inspiration from the past. And of course insisting that the Nobel Committee not bestow another peace prize on a war-thirsty presidential candidate or any other advocate of war is part of that.
The case against war that is laid out at WorldBeyondWar.org includes these topics:
War is immoral.
War endangers us.
War threatens our environment.
War erodes our liberties.
War impoverishes us.
We need $2 trillion/year for other things.
I find the case to be overwhelming and suspect many of you would agree. In fact Veterans For Peace and numerous chapters and members of Veterans For Peace have been among the first to sign on and participate. And we’ve begun finding that thousands of people and organizations from around the world agree as people and groups from 68 countries and rising have added their names on the website in support of ending all war. And many of these people and organizations are not peace groups. These are environmental and civic groups of all sorts and people never involved in a peace movement before. Our hope is of course to greatly enlarge the peace movement by making war abolition as mainstream as cancer abolition. But we think enlargement is not the only alteration that could benefit the peace movement. We think a focus on each antiwar project as part of a broader campaign to end the whole institution of war will significantly change how specific wars and weapons and tactics are opposed.
How many of you have heard appeals to oppose Pentagon waste? I’m in favor of Pentagon waste and opposed to Pentagon efficiency. How can we not be, when what the Pentagon does is evil? How many of you have heard of opposition to unnecessary wars that leave the military ill-prepared? I’m in favor of leaving the military ill-prepared, but not of distinguishing unnecessary from supposedly necessary wars. Which are the necessary ones? When sending missiles into Syria is stopped, in large part by public pressure, war as last resort is replaced by all sorts of other options that were always available. That would be the case anytime any war is stopped. War is never a last resort any more than rape or child abuse is a last resort. How many of you have seen opposition to U.S. wars that focuses almost exclusively on the financial cost and the suffering endured by Americans? Did you know polls find Americans believing that Iraq benefited and the United States suffered from the war that destroyed Iraq? What if the financial costs and the costs to the aggressor nation were in addition to moral objections to mass-slaughter rather than instead of? How many of you have seen antiwar organizations trumpet their love for troops and veterans and war holidays, or groups like the AARP that advocate for benefits for the elderly by focusing on elderly veterans, as though veterans are the most deserving? Is that good activism?
I want to celebrate those who resist and oppose war, not those who engage in it. I love Veterans For Peace because it’s for peace. It’s for peace in a certain powerful way, but it’s the being for peace that I value. And being for peace in the straightforward meaning of being against war. Most organizations are afraid of being for peace; it always has to be peace and justice or peace and something else. Or it’s peace in our hearts and peace in our homes and the world will take care of itself. Well, as Veterans For Peace know, the world doesn’t take care of itself. The world is driving itself off a cliff. As Woody Allen said, I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen, I want to live on in my apartment. Well, I don’t want to find peace in my heart or my garden, I want to find peace in the elimination of war. At WorldBeyondWar.org is a list of projects we think may help advance that, including, among others:
- Creating an easily recognizable and joinable mainstream international movement to end all war.
- Education about war, peace, and nonviolent action — including all that is to be gained by ending war.
- Improving access to accurate information about wars. Exposing falsehoods.
- Improving access to information about successful steps away from war in other parts of the world.
- Increased understanding of partial steps as movement in the direction of eliminating, not reforming, war.
- Partial and full disarmament.
- Conversion or transition to peaceful industries.
- Closing, converting or donating foreign military bases.
- Democratizing militaries while they exist and making them truly volunteer.
- Banning foreign weapons sales and gifts.
- Outlawing profiteering from war.
- Banning the use of mercenaries and private contractors.
- Abolishing the CIA and other secret agencies.
- Promoting diplomacy and international law, and consistent enforcement of laws against war, including prosecution of violators.
- Reforming or replacing the U.N. and the ICC.
- Expansion of peace teams and human shields.
- Promotion of nonmilitary foreign aid and crisis prevention.
- Placing restrictions on military recruitment and providing potential soldiers with alternatives.
- Thanking resisters for their service.
- Encouraging cultural exchange.
- Discouraging racism and nationalism.
- Developing less destructive and exploitative lifestyles.
- Expanding the use of public demonstrations and nonviolent civil resistance to enact all of these changes.
I would add learning from and working with organizations that have been, like Veterans For Peace, working toward war abolition for years now and inspiring others to do the same. And I would invite you all to work with WorldBeyondWartoward our common goal.
David Swanson is Director of World Beyond War, host of Talk Nation Radio, author of books including War No More: The Case for Abolition, War Is A Lie, and When the World Outlawed War.
Denial ain’t just a River in Egypt.
Published on Jul 19, 2012http://www.JoshTolley.com Investigator, Doug Hagmann (from Hagmann and Hagmann) exposes that the top conspiracy theories are not theories after all! The Middle East, Government watch list, Money Manipulation, Privacy, TSA, and even the conspiracy that the government in Washington D.C. isn’t actually our government.!
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/
I find it interesting how like this one and many other so-called patriotic programs seem to overlook the very essence of why this stuff is happening now. They mention the founding Fathers and their intent over and over again, but these so-called Founding Fathers DID NOT intend for their “document” to include blacks, native Americans or women….. it was a document created for White Anglo-Saxon aristocracy.
They also forget to mention the atrocity of the Slave Trade and the Institution of Slavery, Racism and White Supremacy that sustained it for 300+ years. To me they miss the ELEPHANT in the room by overlooking these simple facts of history.
A nation built on the backs, blood, sweat and tears of an annihilated enslaved people can not stand for long. The European was given the false notion that he was superior to his “Slave” and therefore it was hardly a thing to mention the “rights’ of these enslaved people. The indigenous people were considered savages, therefore, no mention of them or their rights. The Constitution/Bill of Rights is an exclusive document written specifically for those intended not for the so-called “We the People”. Until this is identified, the now “We the People” will continue to grope in the dark for an answer as to why their “Freedoms” are being taken away.
Instead take a hard long look at how these “Freedoms” were taken away by force from the Indigenous People and the African people who were captured and brought thousands of miles from their homeland. These atrocities were perpetrated by the Forefathers of those who now complain about their “Freedoms” being taken away.
How long could such a house of cards last? Once this is faced with an open and serious eye, folks will continue to complain about how their “rights” are being taken away. Now, the descendants of the perpetrators of colonialism, death and destruction here in North & South America are seeing what it feels like to be discriminated against because of the way they think, act, believe or social status.
These Patriots need to take a long hard look at what their Forefathers and Founding Fathers did and continue to do; to Indigenous and African peoples over the past 500+ years and then they will see why, as Malcolm X once said, “The chickens come home to roost.”
I often wonder if when these Patriots spout out their patriotic dribble, do they have the same tunnel vision as their Forefathers? Are they willing to address the discrimination, oppression, racism and white supremacy that has spearheaded this train wreck? Are they brave enough, willing enough, capable enough to speak truth to power and admit that they are in the same hell their Forefathers perpetrated on other human beings? Can they honestly write an narrative that demonstrates how the present day Patriot got himself/herself in this cycle of oppression? Without looking at the root cause of the destruction of America/Western Society.. they will continue to bark at the Moon about the rights they are denied while ignoring how these same rights were denied others.
On the Death of Nelson Mandela
On the Death of Nelson Mandela
- The vicious system of apartheid—blatant, racist, brutal oppression and discrimination against black (and other non-white) peoples in South Africa, which Nelson Mandela struggled against—was part of a legacy of centuries of the most horrific plunder of Africa as a whole by the capitalist world. In South Africa after World War 2, apartheid further institutionalized and intensified that vicious oppression. Black (and other non-white) South Africans were locked down in prison-like “Bantustans,” without the most basic necessities of life (like clean water or decent shelter). They were treated as non-humans, subject to fascist “pass laws” that governed their every movement. On the backs of their labor, white settlers lived the lifestyles of northern Europe and global capitalism-imperialism accumulated massive profits.
- Nelson Mandela emerged as an opponent of the apartheid system in the 1950s. He joined the rising tide of courageous, widespread struggle among many different sections of people in South Africa that went up against the whips, clubs, guns and torture chambers of the regime. For this he was sentenced to a life of hard labor in prison, and he never backed down in his opposition to apartheid. The struggle against apartheid became a cause that inspired people around the world. Many people gave their lives in this struggle. And Nelson Mandela became the most prominent symbol of that struggle.
- But the powers-that-be are not praising Mandela because of his role as an opponent of apartheid, but because he conciliated with the forces of the old order, and played a key role in dismantling apartheid in a way that didn’t excavate, but in the main reinforced the historic and horrific oppression of the black and other non-white peoples of South Africa. Whatever Mandela’s intent, his outlook of “embrace the enemy” which is being so extolled by the powers-that-be in their eulogies, went directly against the need to uproot all the political, structural, economic, social and cultural relations that formed the foundation for that system.
- We have to have the honesty to confront the reality of the path Nelson Mandela charted. It did not lead to freedom for the oppressed people of South Africa. The vast majority of people in South Africa continue to suffer in the grip of global capitalism-imperialism. Today, two decades after Mandela became the first black president of South Africa, the situation for the masses of black people in South Africa remains horrendous. South Africa is one of the world’s most unequal societies. Over half the population of South Africa lives in extreme poverty. The only source of water for 1.4 million children is dirty, disease-ridden streams. Immigrant workers from poorer countries in Africa are subjected to violent attacks. Conditions for women, who played such a heroic role in the battle against apartheid, are abysmal—South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world. And, perhaps the most heartbreaking consequence of all, people have been left demoralized—seeing all this as more proof that fundamental change in society is not possible. That is not the case.
- But it is the case that nothing short of uprooting exploitation and oppression can free the people of South Africa or anywhere else. The “wretched of the earth” have made revolution and started on the road to communism—a society free of all oppression—first in Russia and then in China. They achieved great things before these revolutions were turned back. And not only has this been done before, it can be done again, and even better this time. We urge everyone reading this to get their hands on the special issue of revcom / Revolution “You Don’t Know What You Think You ‘Know’ About… The Communist Revolution and the REAL Path to Emancipation: Its History and Our Future,” and get into the work of Bob Avakian at revcom.us.
Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC
May 26, 2013
KNOW YOUR HISTORY: Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. They dug up the bodies and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 Black children where they marched, sang and celebrated.Thanks to Abstrakt Goldsmith for this nugget of history that most of us never learned in school.
To this, I say, why do we fight?? What is it about human nature that makes them believe that they must kill other human beings for their freedom?
The Glory of war is not glorious. Ask those who do fight. The first casualty of war is “Truth”. People are trained, brainwashed and distorted to believe that their leaders who do this to them would not lie to them, would not line their pockets with blood money and would care for them upon their return from the Battlefield.
All to often we see our fellow human beings become inhuman in their acts of warring against other human beings. And then they return home and are given ribbons, ribbons that honor how heroically they “killed” another human being for our “freedom”? The depth of the absurdity and cognitive dissonance is overwhelming. How does creating a war culture, a militarized environment, a police state, a surveillance state a cult of oppression of other human beings, give us freedom?
Our troops have their humanity removed from them as they are trained to believe that killing for freedom is tantamount to Patriotism. Patriotism is tantamount to all previously perceived values and standards. To be Patriotic means to stand by your government, even if it is found to be lying and creating scenarios in which you must risk your life and kill others, conquer others and invade others to maintain your freedom at home. The stalk reality that this aggression breeds more aggression and diminishes humanity to a banal state to me is the result of mass graves and disregard of the humanity of others.
This is not a political, racial, ethnic, national problem, it is a human problem, and it is the human being who continually takes the freedom and sovereignty of other humans in their so-called quest for “freedom” at home. An aerial view of this idiocy could cause humanity to stop and think, what is the purpose of this? Who profits? And more importantly, what is this doing to our basic humanity? Is it really about defense or is it really about DOMINANCE?
Links and Commentary:There appears to be many variations on this theme and a bit of a debate as to who started what and when. The links below will show the differences in the history and opinions on this. I think that this story shows the true horrors of war, something that would have been denied or ignored not because the Freedmen acknowledged the fallen soldiers but because of the way those fallen soldiers were treated on American soil.
From Dalp Pearson
Here is a tid-bit of back story on this photograph — Union Cemetery
During the closing days of the Civil War, the area was used as a prisoner-of-war camp. More than two hundred Union soldiers died in the camp and were buried in a mass grave at the site.
Union soldiers were buried behind the old racetrack’s stands near the present intersection of Tenth Ave. and Mary Murray Drive.
In an article titled “The First Decoration Day”, David W. Blight of Yale has written:[3]
“The city was largely abandoned by white residents by late February. Among the first troops to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the 21st U. S. Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the formal surrender of the city.
“Thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the planters’ horse track, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, into an outdoor prison. Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Some twenty-eight black workmen went to the site, re-buried the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, ‘Martyrs of the Race Course’.
“Then, black Charlestonians in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people on the slaveholders’ race course. The symbolic power of the low-country planter aristocracy’s horse track (where they had displayed their wealth, leisure, and influence) was not lost on the freedpeople. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing ‘a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.’
“At 9 am on May 1, the procession stepped off led by three thousand black schoolchildren carrying arm loads of roses and singing ‘John Brown’s Body.’ The children were followed by several hundred black women with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantry and other black and white citizens. As many as possible gathering in the cemetery enclosure; a childrens’ choir sang ‘We’ll Rally around the Flag,’ the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ and several spirituals before several black ministers read from scripture. No record survives of which biblical passages rung out in the warm spring air, but the spirit of Leviticus 25 was surely present at those burial rites: ‘for it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you … in the year of this jubilee he shall return every man unto his own possession.’
“Following the solemn dedication the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: they enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches, and watched soldiers drill. Among the full brigade of Union infantry participating was the famous 54th Massachusetts and the 34th and 104th U.S. Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite. The war was over, and Decoration Day had been founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration. The war, they had boldly announced, had been all about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders’ republic, and not about state rights, defense of home, nor merely soldiers’ valor and sacrifice.”
By late April 1865, a white picket fence on which was written “The Martyrs of the Race Course” had been erected.[4] On May 1, 1865, thousands of people, mainly newly freed blacks, processed to the site, and members of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry marched around the site. The graves were decorated, speeches were offered, and celebrants enjoyed picnics in the area.[5] This has been cited as the first Memorial Day celebration. By 1871, the cemetery was suffering neglect, and the soldiers were reinterred at the Beaufort[3] and Florence National Cemeteries.
http://m.video.pbs.org/video/2318014363/
” In the May 1865, the newspaper covered what Blight argues should be credited as the nation’s first memorial day observance, held on May 1, 1865. At that time, Charleston was largely in ruins and families were eager to rebuild their lives and their city. The photos on this page are Library of Congress images from the era. Two simply show scenes of wartime devastation in the city. But the photo at right here appears to show the land where the former Confederate prison camp stood (also the site of a pre-Civil War Race Course). The photo appears to show work beginning on raising the remains in April 1865 in preparation for the new cemetery that eventually would include a wall, an archway entrance and properly buried remains.
The Daily Courier coverage of that first memorial day, May 1, 1865, was headlined …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/jim-downs/who-invented-memorial-day_b_3340146.html
http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20090524/PC1602/305249938
http://www.waterloony.com/mdayhistory.html
http://video.pbs.org/video/2318014363/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/opinion/28mon4.html?_r=1&
http://jobs.blacknews.com/content/232372/blog.cgi?cid&reading=1
http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html
http://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1900454,00.html
http://www.blackbluedog.com/2013/05/news/did-you-know-memorial-day-was-started-by-ex-slaves/
http://blackhistory.com/content/232359/the-first-memorial-day-10-000-march-in-charleston-many-former-slaves-to-celebrate-freedom
From: Navneet Gupta
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own government, I cannot be silent”
“A nation that year after year continues to spend more money on military defense than on social uplift is approaching spiritual death”
“We have guided missiles, yet misguided men.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.(1929 – 1968)
Militarism is glorified in the west. We are asked to “remember” the fallen, yet keep fighting in these same unjust conflicts at the same time (many of which we are responsible for starting). It makes no sense?
The U.S. is one of only two countries which has not ratified the convention regarding the use of child soldiers. They are also the largest arms dealers in the world (here is our WMD).
War is all about greed, power, and exploiting the powerless. War has nothing to do with freedom, loving your country, or being a hero. War is about killing innocent people, stealing what they have and keeping power over them through violence & propaganda.
A FRACTION of the money spent on the military industrial complex could eradicate hunger (Food, Not Bombs!), and all other social and ecological problems humanity faces (saving lives instead of taking them).
‘Developed’ nations along with their corporate raiders prop up a corrupt elite at the top of poor nations through the selling of arms, funding, ‘development’, loans, etc. This has allowed for the extraction of indigenous wealth from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere (Often referred to as ‘Neocolonialism’)
Watch Out…We’re Surrounded! by Frank Scott
Watch Out…We’re Surrounded!
legalienate.blogspot.com/2013/03/watch-outwere-surrounded.html
8 Must See Documentaries
This film moves beyond the headlines of various American military operations to the deeper questions of why, why does America fight? What are the forces; political, economic, and ideological, that drive them to fight against an ever-changing enemy? Published on Mar 31, 2012 http://www.whywefight.com/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBH3W2 “…WHY WE FIGHT, the new film by Eugene Jarecki which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, is an unflinching look at the anatomy of the American war machine, weaving unforgettable personal stories with commentary by a “who’s who” of military and beltway insiders. Featuring John McCain, William Kristol, Chalmers Johnson, Gore Vidal, Richard Perle and others,
WHY WE FIGHT launches a bipartisan inquiry into the workings of the military industrial complex and the rise of the American Empire. Inspired by Dwight Eisenhower’s legendary farewell speech (in which he coined the phrase “military industrial complex”), filmmaker Jarecki (THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER) surveys the scorched landscape of a half-century’s military adventures, asking how — and telling why — a nation of, by, and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a system whose survival depends on a state of constant war. The film moves beyond the headlines of various American military operations to the deeper questions of why — why does America fight? What are the forces — political, economic, ideological — that drive us to fight against an ever-changing enemy?
“Frank Capra made a series of films during World War II called WHY WE FIGHT that explored America’s reasons for entering the war,” Jarecki notes. “Today, with our troops engaged in Iraq and elsewhere for reasons far less clear, I think it’s crucial to ask the questions: ‘Why are we doing what we are doing? What is it doing to others? And what is it doing to us?'”…” “…Main Characters Wilton Sekzer — Officer, NYPD Fuji & Tooms — Stealth Fighter Pilots, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski — Officer, Pentagon Middle East Desk William Solomon — New Recruit, U.S. Army Anh Duong — Explosives Expert, Indianhead Naval Center Others (in order of appearance) Sen. John McCain (R/AZ) Chalmers Johnson, CIA 1967-1973 Joseph Cirincione, Carnegie Endowment for Peace Gore Vidal, Author Charles Lewis,Center for Public Integrity Richard Perle, Pentagon Advisor William Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard Col. Richard Treadway, Commander Stealth Fighter Squadron James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force John S.D. Eisenhower, Son of Dwight Eisenhower Susan Eisenhower, Granddaughter of Dwight Eisenhower Gwynne Dyer, Military Historian Donna Ellington, President, Raytheon Missile Systems Col. Wally Saeger, U.S. Air Force Munitions Directorate Franklin Spinney, Pentagon Systems Analyst (ret.) Dan Rather, CBS News…”
This film details the ten steps a country takes when it slides toward Fascism. It takes a historical look at trends in once-functioning democracies that are being repeated in our country today. Published on May 12, 2012 The End of America details the ten steps a country takes when it slides toward fascism. It’s not a “lefty”tot tome, rather a historical look at trends in once-functioning democracies from modern history.
This documentary reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Published on Jun 16, 2012 Support these moviemakers: https://secure.acceptiva.com/?cst=700255 Documentary Canada, 2007 Directed by: Loretta Alper, Jeremy Earp
War Made Easy cuts through the dense web of spin to probe and scrutinize the key “perception management” techniques that have played huge roles in the promotion of American wars in recent decades. This guide to disinformation analyzes American military adventures past and present to reveal striking similarities in the efforts of various administrations to justify, and retain, public support for war. War Made Easy is essential reading. It documents a long series of deliberate misdeeds at the highest levels of power and lays out important guidelines to help readers distinguish a propaganda campaign from actual news reporting. With War Made Easy, every reader can become a savvy media critic and, perhaps, help the nation avoid costly and unnecessary wars. Source: http://www.warmadeeasythemovie.org/
Learn about historical examples of western governments covertly attacking their own civilians for political motives. Do the bombings of New York and London have any similarities to these events and why would leaders have a motive to terrorize their own civilians? TerrorStorm delivers a powerful sucker punch to the architects of global terrorism and how they stage false-flag events to achieve political and sociological ends. Alex journeys from the depths of history from the Gulf of Tonkin, the USS Liberty and Gladio through to the Madrid and 7/7 London bombings and robustly catalogues the real story behind the government induced fable. This film contains viable solutions on how we can reclaim human dignity and freedom and prevent the global population from becoming the slaves of a prison planet. “A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.” http://drey.orgfree.com/Political – Visit the Ocular Stream’s political section, for dozens of hard-hitting documentaries and films, all packed with physical evidence and sworn testimony.
This film exposes the systematic erosion of civil liberties in America. Through interviews Russo connects the dots between money creation, federal income tax, and the national identity card which becomes law in May 2008. Uploaded on Nov 15, 2011 Purchase full quality Director’s cut DVD here:
http://freedomtofascism.com Rate film here –
The true enemies of liberty and all modern societies and people are the central bank counterfeiters. The largest counterfeiter in the history of the world consists of the Federal Reserve banking scheme, which counterfeits American dollars through fiat currency and fractional reserve banking.
America Freedom to Fascism exposes the fraud and deceit of the Federal Reserve Banks (Fed), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the 16th Amendment, the income tax, the Federal Reserve System, national ID cards (REAL ID Act), human-implanted RFID tags (Spychips), Diebold electronic voting machines, New World Order (globalization), Big Brother, taser weapons abuse, and the use of terrorism by government as a means to diminish the citizens’ rights.
The Federal Reserve System is a privately held, for profit corporation, and not a government agency. It was created by bankers for bankers as a lender of last resort, so that whenever a banker ran his businesses poorly he could be bailed out at the expense of the public. The Fed does not have any reserves, it simply creates fiat money out of nothing and lends it out at interest to businesses and the federal government. The American people are then forced to pay for the bailouts to government and businesses through inflation and personal income taxes on their labor. The currency the Fed creates out of thin air and loans out to the government at interest is called Federal Reserve Notes – look at the top of what you may think are your Dollars and you will see they are actually Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs). FRNs are backed by nothing. US Dollars are required by law to be backed by gold and silver, but US Dollars are no longer in circulation. The only real US Dollars still somewhat in circulation are US Silver Eagles and Gold Eagle coins, but they have become so valuable due to the Fed’s inflation and destruction of the FRN currency, that it takes thousands of FRNs just to buy a single US $50 gold coin, and dozens of FRNs to buy a single US $1 Dollar silver coin.
The Federal Reserve System operates through manipulation of interest rates, which results in expanding and retracting bubbles of inflation, referred to as business cycles. When the Fed inflates the currency, it is effectively a hidden tax on existing currency, because the value of the newly created currency is stolen from the value of existing currency. This is reflected in continually rising prices, even though advances in technology and manufacturing processes should result in lower prices and a higher standard of living for everyone. Since the creation of the Fed in 1913, it has debased 99% of the value of the Dollar. In other words, it now takes $100 FRNs to buy what just $1 US Dollar would buy in 1913, as a result of inflation due to the Fed counterfeiting so much currency. If you had saved $100 in 1913, it would now only buy as much as a single 1913 Dollar would have bought at that time. The other $99 of value would have been stolen through counterfeiting (cheaply duplicating money out of nothing) over the years, resulting in the vale of the $100 being taxed through inflation, behind your back.
The film explains how monetary policy is the most powerful form of control over people that has ever existed, and is central to the unconstitutional, global New World Order ambitions of those that own and benefit from the Fed. The founder of the Rothschild family international banking dynasty, which became the most successful business family in history, Mayer Amschel Rothschild once declared, “Give me control of a nation’s money, and I care not who makes the laws.”
Most Americans are kept ignorant of how the Federal Reserve operates through actions of corrupt politicians and an increasingly centralized media. Using terms like, ‘quantitative easing,’ ‘monetizing the debt,’ or ‘adjusting monetary policy for increased fluidity of credit,’ the Fed conceals it’s true actions behind veils of legitimacy.
The U.S. Congress has the duty and responsibility of coining and maintaining the value of our dollar and money, yet Congress is being negligent in overseeing the Fed, as many politicians depend upon large campaign contributions from the Federal Reserve system bankers. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama’s #1 campaign contributor was Goldman Sachs, among many other banks involved in the fraudulent Federal Reserve counterfeiting system. What is particularly important to note is that Republican John McCain’s top contributors were the same as Barack Obama’s.
The Future of Food from picklock on Vimeo.
This film draws questions to critical attention about food production that need more public debate. Monsanto, Roundup and Roundup-resistant seeds, collectively wreaking havoc on American farmers and our agricultural neighbors around the world. There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America — a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat. The Future of Food offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply. Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, The Future of Food examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world’s food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today.
This film tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests? Published on Nov 29, 2012
The Century of the Self is an award-winning British television documentary series by Adam Curtis. It focuses on how the work of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and Edward Bernays influenced the way corporations and governments have analyzed, dealt with, and controlled people. “This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.” —Adam Curtis’ introduction to the first episode.
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed the perception of the human mind and its workings. His influence on the twentieth century is generally considered profound. The series describes the propaganda that Western governments and corporations have utilized stemming from Freud’s theories.
Freud himself and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in public relations, are discussed. Freud’s daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in the second part, as is one of the main opponents of Freud’s theories, Wilhelm Reich, in the third part. Along these general themes, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy, commodification and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitudes to fashion and superficiality.
The business and political world uses psychological techniques to read, create and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people’s rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population.
Paul Mazur, a Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers in the 1930s, is cited as declaring “We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. […] Man’s desires must overshadow his needs”.
Episodes:
1. Happiness Machines (17 March 2002)
2. The Engineering of Consent (24 March 2002)
3. There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed (31 March 2002)
4. Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering (7 April 2002)
In Episode 4 the main subjects are Philip Gould and Matthew Freud, the great grandson of Sigmund, a PR consultant. They were part of the efforts during the nineties to bring the Democrats in the US and New Labour in the United Kingdom back into power. Adam Curtis explores the psychological methods they have now massively introduced into politics. He also argues that the eventual outcome strongly resembles Edward Bernays vision for the “Democracity” during the 1939 New York World’s Fair. It is widely believed that the series was inspired and informed by a book written by the American historian, Stuart Ewen, “PR! A Social History of Spin”.
The documentary attempts to assess the “personality” of the corporate “person” by using diagnostic criteria from FBI consultants, compares the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath. Published on Jul 21, 2012
THE CORPORATION is a Canadian documentary film written by Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary examines the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person and evaluating its behavior towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples. Bakan wrote the book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, during the filming of the documentary.
If you like this film, please share it with your friends and support the makers by purchasing a full quality DVD at either of the two links below: http://www.hellocoolworldstore.com/home.php?cat=281. http://www.amazon.com/The-Corporation-Milton-Friedman/dp/B0007DBJM8.
Official Website: http://www.thecorporation.com
To Obama Supporters
It is a very sad day. the handwriting on the wall is obscured by ludicrousity, insanity and blatant denial. The masses travail in the muck and mire of an ill-fated illusion. Their deluded hope and belief in a denigrated system, sold out to the power elite. Nothing has changed save a momentary dream awakening to nightmarish proportions. I don’t care who thinks I am a vile voice in the wilderness.
I am a truth warrior, and the truth is the truth. The first time around, no one would listen, so with silent knowing, it came to pass, what could not be spoken aloud. The second time around, courage must speak its truth and open itself to frontal attack from those who cry “naysayer, kill joy, party buster, etc.”
Wake up, people, before it is too late! We live on a prison planet and have just witnessed, the changing of the guards. Same system, different guards. Same system, different keys to the cells. Same system and it will not be changed by the guards or their handlers. NB
President Obama’s second term in the White House was largely secured by record numbers of votes from ethnic minorities, while his popularity among whites plummeted, exit polls have revealed.
Hispanics, the fa
Of these, 7
1 per cent voted for Obama, up from 67 per cent in 2008. In a sign Republicans are failing to win over this increasingly influential group, Romney won just 27 per cent.
A record number of Asian voters – three per cent of the electorate – also turned out, with nearly three-quarters backing Obama. He also won a staggering 93 per cent of African-American votes.
Yet while his popularity among ethnic minorities swelled, he received just 39 per cent of the white votes, down by four per cent on the last election, a drop his campaign had anticipated.
Considering the 1.5 million deportations, and the incarceration of so many others, it begs to question, why the Hispanics came out so strongly for him. Not to mention the fact that his address to African Americans was stop complaining, take your slippers off and get to work on change. And the closest he came to digging in with the Black masses was hanging out with Jay-Z (a one per center) and Beyonce’,(I won’t get into what I think about her as a role model for young girls). And writing in on the Census report that he was African American. Not to mention the removal of a towering figure for Black unity and African unity, Muamar Qaddaffi. Hmm, me thinks I sense a hint of cognitive dissonance. NB
“we cling to voting like its our greatest & only chance for change; our one and only lifeboat. we misrepresent ancestors & claim we must participate in the process becuz of their past suffering, while ignoring the fact that their analysis was rooted in their times. since then, we’ve been brutally uprooted & though we can identify the hour, we never seem to kno what time it is. we swear voting is the answer, and when it doesn’t work, we still think it’s the answer, and when it’s proven to us that it doesn’t work, we still think it’s the answer, with a birth defect.”
Laini Mataka
excerpt from “there’s paralysis in our analysis”, from THE PRINCE OF KOKOMO by laini (don’t tread on me) mataka
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