tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91419962024-03-13T22:52:09.525-07:00Cherchez la VeriteOne 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.comBlogger1674125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-54181831072748928082019-06-22T14:01:00.000-07:002019-06-22T14:01:29.995-07:00<hr />
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">As We Face Armageddon the Western World Is Leaderless</span></span></i></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/06/22/" rel="nofollow">June 22, 2019</a>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As We Face Armageddon the Western World Is Leaderless</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Paul Craig Roberts</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>Please contribute to the success of the June quarterly appeal by donating to this website.</em></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">According to news reports, the validity of which cannot be
ascertained by the general public, a crazed US government came within
ten minutes of igniting a general conflagation in the Middle East, the
consequences of which could have been catastrophic for all.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The moronic warmongers in high office—Bolton, Pompeo, and Pence—and
their Israel Lobby masters are determined, and they have not abandoned
their campaign for war with Iran.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Of course, the liars say that Iran will just accept its punishment for defending its territory and there will be no war.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But this is not what Iran says.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I believe Iran.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Some of the tiny percentage of people in the Western World who are
still capable of thought regret that Trump called off the insane plan.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>They
think the consequences would have been the destruction of the Saudi and
Israeli governments—two of the most evil in history—and the cut-off of
oil to the US and Europe, with the resulting depression causing the
overthrow of the Western warmonger governments.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>They believe that catastrophic American defeat is the only way peace can be restored to the world. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In other words, it is not clear whether Trump calling off the attack saved us or doomed us.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The Israel Lobby and their neoconservative agents have not been taught a lesson.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Trump
has not fired Bolton and Pompeo for almost igniting a conflagation, and
he has not dressed down his moronic vice president.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So, it can all happen again.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And likely will.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The
lesson that Bolton and Israel have learned is that the fake news about
an Iranian attack on a Japanese freighter, denied by the Japanese, was
not sufficient to lock Trump into “saving face” by attacking Iran.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So be prepared for a larger orchestrated provocation. Bolton and Israel know that the Western presstitutes will lie for them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Watch for a provocation that allows Trump no alternative to an attack.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Washington’s use of fake news and false flag attacks to launch military attacks goes back a long way.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In
the 21st century we have had a concentrated dose—Saddam Hussein’s
weapons of mass destruction, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Iranian
nukes, Russian invasions, Maduro starving his own people, the endless
lies about Gaddafi.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Yes, I know there are more.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I am writing an article, not an encyclopedia.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Washington has grown accustomed to attacking countries on false pretenses and getting away with it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Therefore,
there is nothing to discourage the Israel Lobby and its Washington
puppets from continuing to set-up Iran for an attack.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Success breeds incaution.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The attack on Iraq was stage-managed by a credible US Secretary of State before the UN.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The attack on Libya was stage-managed by a UN resolution that a deceived Russia and China failed to block.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In situations such as these, Washington arranged a green light for its war crimes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>However,
Washington has failed to stage-manage a green light for an attack on
Iran. Moreover, Iran is a more powerful military force than Iraq and
Libya, and the extent of the depth of Russian and Chinese support for
Iran is unknown to Washington.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If Israel succeeds in having its Washington puppet attack Iran,
Israel and its neoconservative agents will not welcome failure of their
objective.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>They will fight against failure with more dangerous moves.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I
can easily imagine the fanatics having Trump “save face” by destroying
the world and issuing some kind of ultimatums to Russia and China or
resorting to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The insouciant American—indeed, Western—people are kept unaware by design.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It is the function of the presstitutes to control the explanations given to the people.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The US Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel Lobby, as are most important politicians in the UK and Europe.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What I am telling you is that it is very easy for fanatics to produce Armageddon.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Stephen Cohen and I, and a few surviving others, lived through the
20th century Cold War. In recent years we both have reported on numerous
occasions that the threat of nuclear war today is far higher than
during the Cold War.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>One reason is that during the Cold War US and Soviet leaders worked to defuse tensions and to build trust.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In contrast, since the Clinton regime the US has worked consistently to build tensions.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Both
Cohen and I have listed on many occasions the tension-building
activities pursued by all post-Reagan/George H.W. Bush administrations.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Russians no longer trust Washington, and neither do the Chinese.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Washington has lied to, and about, Russia so often in the 21st century that Russian trust of Washington is exhausted.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>No matter how earnestly the Russian government wants to trust Washington, it dare not do so.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Therefore, it takes very little miscalculation for the morons in
Washington to cause a threat-ending response from Russia as Washington
has convinced the Russian government that the US intends to destroy
them. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The orchestration of Russiagate by the Democratic Party,
military/security complex, and their media whores has, as Stephen Cohen
has emphasized, forced President Trump in an act of self-preservation to
adopt the neoconservative attitude toward Russia and other
“non-compliant” governments.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This attitude is dangerous enough in the best of times.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It is extremely dangerous after trust has been destroyed by years of lies and false accusations. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Perhaps there is someone in the Trump administration who has the
intelligence to understand the dangerous situation and who has Trump’s
confidence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But I do not know who that person is.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">We have to face the fact that as we face Armageddon the Western World is leaderless.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="heateor_sss_sharing_title" style="font-weight: bold;">
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-57653490743358751962018-07-08T18:10:00.000-07:002018-07-08T18:21:10.197-07:00Here, Paul Craig Roberts asks the question of The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two Countries? by studying what the Washington Post and the New York Times say about that. And They repeat the disproven lies about Russia as if blatant, obvious lies are hard facts. Yet the WaPo reads: “THE REASONS for the tension between the United States and Russia are well-established. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a war in eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential election campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, poisoned a former intelligence officer on British soil and continues to meddle in the elections of other democracies.” But if you can get behind the truth, Russia didn't "seize" Crimea because it belonged to Russia for centurys and they only took it back after a plebiscite wherein about 85 or 90 voted to again be under Russian rule, largely because the Ukraine instigated a war armed by the U.S. who payed neo-Naxis to kill native Russians. <hr />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V-5Nt4j8Pmw/WzgJaxMi3QI/AAAAAAAAL1g/dohq7-ZeZu0FYfJnO25q5pPH59-04i9vwCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V-5Nt4j8Pmw/WzgJaxMi3QI/AAAAAAAAL1g/dohq7-ZeZu0FYfJnO25q5pPH59-04i9vwCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two Countries?</span></span></i></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/30/" rel="nofollow">June 30, 2018</a>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Two Superpowers: Who Really Controls the Two Countries?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Among the ruling interests in the US, one interest even more powerful
than the Israel Lobby—the Deep State of the military/security complex—
there is enormous fear that an uncontrollable President Trump at the
upcoming Putin/Trump summit will make an agreement that will bring to an
end the demonizing of Russia that serves to protect the enormous budget
and power of the military-security complex.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can see the Deep State’s fear in the editorials that the Deep
State handed to the Washington Post (June 29) and New York Times (June
29), two of the Deep State’s megaphones, but no longer believed by the
vast majority of the American people. The two editorials share the same
points and phrases. They repeat the disproven lies about Russia as if
blatant, obvious lies are hard facts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both accuse President Trump of “kowtowing to the Kremlin.”
Kowtowing, of course, is not a Donald Trump characteristic. But once
again fact doesn’t get in the way of the propaganda spewed by the WaPo
and NYT, two megaphones of Deep State lies.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Deep State editorial handed to the WaPo reads: “THE REASONS for
the tension between the United States and Russia are well-established.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a war in eastern Ukraine,
intervened to save the dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
interfered in the U.S. presidential election campaign to harm Hillary
Clinton and help Donald Trump, poisoned a former intelligence officer on
British soil and continues to meddle in the elections of other
democracies.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The WaPo’s opening paragraph is a collection of all the blatant lies
assembled by the Deep State for its Propaganda Ministry. There have
been many books written about the CIA’s infiltration of the US media.
There is no doubt about it. I remember my orientation as Staff
Associate, House Defense Appropriation Subcommittee, when I was informed
that the Washington Post is a CIA asset. This was in 1975. Today the
Post is owned by a person with government contracts that many believe
sustain his front business.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And don’t forget Udo Ulfkotte, an editor of the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, who wrote in his best seller, Bought Journalism,
that there was not a significant journalist in Europe who was not on the
CIA’s payroll. The English language edition of Ulfkotte’s book has been
suppressed and prevented from publication.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The New York Times, which last told the truth in the 1970s when it
published the leaked Pentagon Papers and had the fortitude to stand up
for its First Amendment rights, repeats the lies about Putin’s “seizure
of Crimea and attack on Ukraine” along with all the totally unstantiated
BS about Russia interferring in the US president election and electing
Trump, who now kowtows to Putin in order to serve Russia instead of the
US. The editorial handed to the NYT insinuates that Trump is a threat to
the national security of America and its allies (vassals). The problem,
the NYT declares, is that Trump is not listening to his advisors.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Shades of President John F. Kennedy, who did not listen to the CIA
and Joint Chiefs of Staff about invading Cuba, nuking the Soviet Union,
and using the false flag attack on America of the Joint Chiefs’
Northwoods Project (look it up online). Is the New York Times setting
up Trump for assassination on the grounds that he is lovely-dovey with
Russia and sacrificing US national interests?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I would bet on it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While the Washington Post and New York Times are telling us that if
Trump meets with Putin, Trump will sell out US national security, The
Saker says that Putin finds himself in a similar box, only it doesn’t
come from the national security interest, but from the Russian Fifth
Column, the Atlanticist Integrationists whose front man is the Russian
Prime Minister Medvedev, who represents the rich Russian elite whose
wealth is based on stolen assets during the Yeltsin years enabled by
Washington. These elites, The Saker concludes, impose constraints on
Putin that put Russian sovereignty at risk. Economically, it is more
important to these elites for financial reasons to be part of
Washington’s empire than to be a sovereign country. <a href="http://thesaker.is/no-5th-column-in-the-kremlin-think-again/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"> http://thesaker.is/no-5th-column-in-the-kremlin-think-again/ </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I find The Saker’s explanation the best I have read of the
constraints on Putin that limit his ability to represent Russian
national interests.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have often wondered why Putin didn’t have the security force round
up these Russian traitors and execute them. The answer is that Putin
believes in the rule of law, and he knows that Russia’s US financed and
supported Fifth Column cannot be eliminated without bloodshed that is
inconsistent with the rule of law. For Putin, the rule of law is as
important as Russia. So, Russia hangs in the balance. It is my view
that the Russian Fifth Column could care less about the rule of law.
They only care about money.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As challenged as Putin might be, Chris Hedges, one of the surviving
great American journalists, who is not always right but when he is he is
incisive, explains the situation faced by the American people. It is
beyond correction. American civil liberties and prosperity appear to be
lost. <a href="https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/america-shows-many-signs-impending-catastrophic-collapse-pulitzer-prize-winner-explains" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/america-shows-many-signs-impending-catastrophic-collapse-pulitzer-prize-winner-explains </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my opinion, Hedges leftwing leanings caused him to focus on
Reagan’s rhetoric rather that on Reagan’s achievements—the two greatest
of our time—the end of stagflation, which benefited the American people,
and the end of the Cold War, which removed the theat of nuclear war. I
think Hedges also does not appreciate Trump’s sincerety about
normalizing relations with Russia, relations destroyed by the Clinton,
George W. Bush, and Obama regimes, and Trump’s sincerety about bringing
offshored jobs home to American workers. Trump’s agenda puts him up
against the two most powerful interest groups in the United States. A
president willing to take on these powerful groups should be appreciated
and supported, as Hedges acknowledges the dispossessed majority do. If
I might point out to Chris, whom I admire, it is not like Chris Hedges
to align against the choice of the people. How can democracy work if
people don’t rule? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hedges writes, correctly, “The problem is not Trump. It is a
political system, dominated by corporate power and the mandarins of the
two major political parties, in which we [the American people] don’t
count.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
Hedges is absolutely correct.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is impossible not to admire a journalist like Hedges who can describe our plight with such succinctness: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers
destroy justice, universities destroy knowlege, the press destroys
information, religion destroys morals, and banks destroy the economy.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Read The Saker’s explanation of Russian politics. Possibly Putin
will collapse under pressure from the powerful Fifth Column in his
government. Read Chris Hedges analysis of American collapse. There is
much truth in it. What happens if the Russian people rise up against
the Russian Fifth Column and if the oppressed American people rise up
against the extractions of the military/security complex? What happens
if neither population rises up?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Who sets off the first nuclear weapon?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our time on earth is not just limited by our threescore and ten
years, but also humanity’s time on earth, and that of every other
species, is limited by the use of nuclear weapons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is long past the time when governments, and if not them, humanity,
should ask why nuclear weapons exist when they cannot be used without
destroying life on earth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why isn’t this the question of our time, instead of, for example,
transgender toilet facilities, and the large variety of fake issues on
which the presstitute media focuses?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The articles by The Saker and Chris Hedges, two astute people, report
that neither superpower is capable of making good decisions, decisions
that are determined by democracy instead of by oligarchs, against whom
neither elected government can stand. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If this is the case, humanity is finished. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are the Washington Post and New York Times editorials:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Washington Post<br />
June 29, 2018<br />
Editorial</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
Trump is kowtowing to the Kremlin again. Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
Ahead of a summit with Putin, Trump is siding with the Russian leader, with dangerous results.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">THE REASONS for the tension between the United States and Russia are
well-established. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a war in
eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the dictatorship of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential election
campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, poisoned a
former intelligence officer on British soil and continues to meddle in
the elections of other democracies. Yet on Wednesday in the Kremlin,
President Vladimir Putin brushed it all aside and delivered the Russian
“maskirovka,” or camouflage, answer that it is all America’s fault.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Meeting with John Bolton, the president’s national security adviser,
Mr. Putin declared that the tensions are “in large part the result of an
intense domestic political battle inside the U.S.” Then Mr. Putin’s
aide Yuri Ushakov insisted that Russia “most certainly did not interfere
in the 2016 election” in the United States. On Thursday morning, Mr.
Trump echoed them both on Twitter: “Russia continues to say they had
nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why is Mr. Trump kowtowing again? The U.S. intelligence community has
concluded that Russia did attempt to tilt the election using multiple
campaigns, including cyberintrusions and insidious social media fakery.
Would it be so difficult to challenge Mr. Putin about this offensive
behavior? A full accounting has yet to be made of the impact on the
election, but Mr. Bolton did not mince words last year when he described
Russian interference as “a true act of war” and said, “We negotiate
with Russia at our peril.” And now?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Summits can be productive, even – maybe especially – when nations are
at odds. In theory, a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, now
scheduled for next month in Helsinki, could be useful. But a meeting
aimed at pleasing Mr. Putin is naive and foolhardy. A meeting aimed at
pleasing Mr. Putin at the expense of traditional, democratic U.S. allies
would be dangerous and damaging.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just as Mr. Bolton was flattering Mr. Putin, Russia was engaging in
subterfuge on the ground in Syria. The United States, Russia and Jordan
last year negotiated cease-fire agreements in southwestern Syria, along
the border with Jordan and the Golan Heights. In recent days, the United
States has warned Russia and its Syrian allies not to launch an
offensive in the area, where the rebel forces hold parts of the city of
Daraa and areas along the border. The State Department vowed there would
be “serious repercussions” and demanded that Russia restrain its client
Syrian forces. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Russian
foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, saying an offensive would be
unacceptable. All to no avail; Syria is bombing the area.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
This is what happens when Mr. Trump signals, repeatedly, that he is
unwilling or unable to stand up to Russian misbehavior. We are on
dangerous ground. Either Mr. Trump has lost touch with essential U.S.
interests or there is some other explanation for his kowtowing that is
yet unknown.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">New York Times<br />
June 29, 2018<br />
Editorial</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
Trump and Putin’s Too-Friendly Summit</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
It’s good to meet with adversaries. But when Mr. Trump sits down with
Mr. Putin, it will be a meeting of kindred spirits. That’s a problem.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s good for American presidents to meet with adversaries, to
clarify differences and resolve disputes. But when President Trump sits
down with President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Finland next month, it
will be a meeting of kindred spirits, and that’s a problem.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One would think that at a tête-à-tête with the Russian autocrat, the
president of the United States would take on some of the major concerns
of America and its closest allies. Say, for instance, Mr. Putin’s
seizure of Crimea and attack on Ukraine, which led to punishing
international sanctions. But at the Group of 7 meeting in Quebec this
month, Mr. Trump reportedly told his fellow heads of state that Crimea
is Russian because everyone there speaks that language. And, of course,
Trump aides talked to Russian officials about lifting some sanctions
even before he took office.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One would hope that the president of the United States would let Mr.
Putin know that he faces a united front of Mr. Trump and his fellow NATO
leaders, with whom he would have met days before the summit in
Helsinki. But Axios reported that during the meeting in Quebec, Mr.
Trump said, “NATO is as bad as Nafta,” the North American Free Trade
Agreement, which is one of Mr. Trump’s favorite boogeymen.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Certainly the president would mention that even the people he
appointed to run America’s intelligence services believe unequivocally
that Mr. Putin interfered in the 2016 election to put him in office and
is continuing to undermine American democracy. Right? But on Thursday
morning, Mr. Trump tweeted, “Russia continues to say they had nothing to
do with Meddling in our Election!”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More likely, Mr. Trump will congratulate Mr. Putin, once again, for
winning another term in a sham election, as he did in March, even though
his aides explicitly warned him not to. And he has already proposed
readmitting Russia to the Group of 7, from which it was ousted after the
Ukraine invasion.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Summits once tended to be carefully scripted, and presidents were
attended by senior advisers and American interpreters. At dinner during a
Group of 20 meeting last July, Mr. Trump walked over to Mr. Putin and
had a casual conversation with no other American representative present.
He later said they discussed adoptions – the same issue that he falsely
claimed was the subject of a meeting at Trump Tower in 2016 between his
representatives and Russian operatives who said they had dirt on
Hillary Clinton.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s clear that Mr. Trump isn’t a conventional president, but instead
one intent on eroding institutions that undergird democracy and peace.
Mr. Trump “doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance
at all” and believes that “permanent destabilization creates American
advantage,” according to unnamed administration officials quoted by
Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Such thinking goes further than most Americans have been led to
believe were Mr. Trump’s views on issues central to allied security. He
has often given grudging lip service to supporting NATO, even while
complaining frequently about allies’ military spending and unfair trade
policies.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The tensions Mr. Trump has sharpened with our allies should please
Mr. Putin, whose goal is to fracture the West and assert Russian
influence in places where the Americans and Europeans have played big
roles, like the Middle East, the Balkans and the Baltic States.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yet despite growing anxieties among European allies, Mr. Trump is
relying on his advisers less than ever because, “He now thinks he’s
mastered this,” one senior member of Congress said in an interview.
That’s a chilling thought given his inability, so far, to show serious
progress on any major security issue. Despite Mr. Trump’s talk of quick
denuclearization after his headline-grabbing meeting with the North
Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, experts say satellite imagery shows the
North is actually improving its nuclear capability.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While the White House hasn’t disclosed an agenda for the Putin
meeting, there’s a lot the two leaders should be discussing, starting
with Russian cyberintrusions. Mr. Trump, though, has implied that Mr.
Putin could help the United States guard against election hacking. And
although Congress last year mandated sweeping sanctions against Russia
to deter such behavior, Mr. Trump has failed to implement many of them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a similar vein, should Mr. Trump agree to unilaterally lift
sanctions imposed after Moscow invaded Ukraine and started a war, it
would further upset alliance members, which joined the United States in
imposing sanctions at some cost to themselves. Moreover, what would
deter Mr. Putin from pursuing future land grabs?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mr. Trump could compound that by canceling military exercises, as he
did with South Korea after the meeting with Mr. Kim, and by withdrawing
American troops that are intended to keep Russia from aggressive action
in the Baltics.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another fraught topic is Syria. Mr. Trump has signaled his desire to
withdraw American troops from Syria, a move that would leave the country
more firmly in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad and his two
allies, Russia and Iran. Russia, in particular, is calling the shots on
the battlefield and in drafting a political settlement that could end
the fighting, presumably after opposition forces are routed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What progress could be made at this summit, then? Mr. Trump and Mr.
Putin may find it easier to cooperate in preventing a new nuclear arms
race by extending New Start, a treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons
that expires in 2021.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another priority: bringing Russia back into compliance with the
I.N.F. treaty, which eliminated all U.S. and Soviet ground-launched
ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500
kilometers, until Russia tested and deployed a prohibited cruise
missile.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mr. Trump’s top national security advisers are more cleareyed about
the Russian threat than he is. So are the Republicans who control the
Senate. They have more responsibility than ever to try to persuade Mr.
Trump that the country’s security is at stake when he meets Mr. Putin,
and that he should prepare carefully for the encounter.</span><br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-56863094777699980742018-06-22T16:36:00.000-07:002018-06-22T16:36:06.537-07:00Paul Craig Roberts beleves that the entire Western World lives in Cognitive Dessonance, based on the use of the current top news storys. In order to illustrate the disconnect that is everywhere in the Western mind. He begins with the family separation of children from immigrant/refugee/asylum parents has caused such public outcry that President Trump has backed off his policy and signed an executive order terminating family separation. <hr />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZubYkZKs4PE/WxcrxWdVHaI/AAAAAAAAL1U/DXtOG9PDlOQT3XL_Zgza2P_eisFdLzo1QCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZubYkZKs4PE/WxcrxWdVHaI/AAAAAAAAL1U/DXtOG9PDlOQT3XL_Zgza2P_eisFdLzo1QCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Entire Western World Lives In Cognitive Dissonance</span></span></span></i></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Entire Western World Lives In Cognitive Dissonance</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In this column I am going to use three of the current top news
stories to illustrate the disconnect that is everywhere in the Western
mind.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Let us begin with the family separation issue. The separation of
children from immigrant/refugee/asylum parents has caused such public
outcry that President Trump has backed off his policy and signed an
executive order terminating family separation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The horror of children locked up in warehouses operated by private
businesses making a profit off of US taxpayers, while parents are
prosecuted for illegal entry, woke even self-safisfied “exceptional and
indispensable” Americans out of their stupor. It is a mystery that the
Trump regime chose to discredit its border enforcement policy by
separating families. Perhaps the policy was intended to deter illegal
immigration by sending the message that if you come to America your
children will be taken from you.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The question is: How is it that Americans can see and reject the
inhumane border control policy and not see the inhumanity of family
destruction that has been the over-riding result of Washington’s
destruction in whole or part of seven or eight countries in the 21st
century?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Millions of people have been separated from families by death
inflicted by Washington, and for almost two decades protests have been
almost nonexistent. No public outcry stopped George W. Bush, Obama, and
Trump from clear and indisputable illegal acts defined in international
law established by the US itself as war crimes against the inhabitants
of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. We can
add to this an eighth example: The military attacks by the US armed and
supported neo-Nazi puppet state of Ukraine against the breakaway
Russian provinces.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The massive deaths, destruction of towns, cities, infrastructure, the
maiming, physical and mental, the dislocation that has sent millions of
refugees fleeing Washington’s wars to overrun Europe, where governments
consist of a collection of idiot stooges who supported Washington’s
massive war crimes in the Middle East and North Africa, produced no
outcry comparable to Trump’s immigration policy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How can it be that Americans can see inhumanity in the separation of
families in immigration enforcement but not in the massive war crimes
committed against peoples in eight countries? Are we experiencing a
mass psychosis form of cognitive dissonance?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We now move to the second example: Washington’s withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On November 2, 1917, two decades prior to the holocaust attributed to
National Socialist Germany, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James
Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild that Great Britain supported Palestine
becoming a Jewish homeland. In other words, the corrupt Balfour
dismissed the rights and lives of the millons of Palestinians who had
occupied Palestine for two millennia or more. What were these people
compared to Rothschild’s money? They were nothing to the British
Foreign Secretary.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Balfour’s attitude toward the rightful inhabitants of Palestine is
the same as the British attitude toward the peoples in every colony or
territority over which British power prevailed. Washington learned this
habit and has consistently repeated it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just the other day Trump’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley, the crazed and
insane lapdog of Israel, announced that Washington had withdrawn from
the UN Human Rights Council, because it is “a cesspool of political
bias” against Israel.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What did the UN Human Rights Council do to warrent this rebuke from
Israel’s agent, Nikki Haley? The Human Rights Council denounced
Israel’s policy of murdering Palestinians—medics, young children,
mothers, old women and old men, fathers, teenagers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To critize Israel, no matter how great and obvious is Israel’s crime,
means that you are an anti-semite and a “holocaust denier.” For Nikki
Haley and Israel, this places the UN Human Rights Council in the
Hitler-worshipping Nazi ranks.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The absurdity of this is obvious, but few, if any, can detect it.
Yes, the rest of the world, with the exception of Israel, has denounced
Washington’s decision, not only Washington’s foes and the Palestinians,
but also Washington’s puppets and vassals as well.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To see the disconnect, it is necessary to pay attention to the wording of the denunciations of Washington.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A spokesperson for the European Union said that Washington’s
withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council “risks undermining the role
of the US as a champion and supporter of democracy on the world stage.”
Can anyone image a more idiotic statement? Washington is known as a
supporter of dictatorships that adhere to Washington’s will. Washington
is known as a destroyer of every Latin American democracy that elected a
president who represented the people of the country and not the New
York banks, US commerical interests, and US foreign policy. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Name one place where Washington has been a supporter of democracy.
Just to speak of the most recent years, the Obama regime overthrew the
democratically elected government of Honduras and imposed its puppet.
The Obama regime overthrew the democratically elected government in
Ukraine and imposed a neo-Nazi regime. Washington overthrew the
governments in Argentina and Brazil, is trying to overthrow the
government in Venezuela, and has Bolivia in its crosshairs along with
Russia and Iran.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Margot Wallstrom, Sweden’s Foreign Minister, said: “It saddens me
that the US has decided to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council. It
comes at a time when the world needs more human rights and a stronger
UN – not the opposite.” Why in the world does Wallstrom think that the
presence of Washington, a known destroyer of human rights—just ask the
millions of refugees from Washington’s war crimes overrunning Europe and
Sweden—on the Human Rights Council would strengthen rather than
undermine the Council? Wallstrom’s disconnect is awesome. It is so
extreme as to be unbelievable.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, spoke for the most
fawning of all of Washington’s vassals when she said that she was
concerned by the UN Human Rights Council’s “anti-Israel bias.” Here you
have a person so utterly brainwashed that she is unable to connect to
anything real.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The third example is the “trade war” Trump has launched against
China. The Trump regime’s claim is that due to unfair practices China
has a trade surplus with the US of nearly $400 billion. This vast sum
is supposed to be due to “unfair practices” on China’s part. In actual
fact, the trade deficit with China is due to Apple, Nike, Levi, and to
the large number of US corporations who produce offshore in China the
products that they sell to Americans. When the offshored production of
US corporations enter the US, they are counted as imports.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have been pointing this out for many years going back to my
testimony before the US Congress China Commission. I have written
numerous articles published almost everywhere. They are summarized in
my 2013 book, <i>The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism.</i> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Failure-Laissez-Faire-Capitalism/dp/0986036250/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529582838&sr=1-1&keywords=Paul+Craig+Roberts+books&dpID=51HWdHsbtFL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Failure-Laissez-Faire-Capitalism/dp/0986036250/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529582838&sr=1-1&keywords=Paul+Craig+Roberts+books&dpID=51HWdHsbtFL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The presstitute financial media, the corporate lobbyists, which
includes many “name” academic economists, and the hapless American
politicians whose intellect is almost non-existent are unable to
recognize that the massive US trade deficit is the result of jobs
offshoring. This is the level of utter stupidity that rules America.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In <i>The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism</i>, I exposed the
extraordinary error made by Matthew J. Slaughter, a member of President
George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, who incompetently claimed
that for every US job offshored two US jobs were created. I also
exposed as a hoax a “study” by Harvard University professor Michael
Porter for the so-called Council on Competitiveness, a lobby group for
offshoring, that made the extraordinary claim that the US work force was
benefitting from the offshoring of their high productivity, high
value-added jobs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The idiot American economists, the idiot American financial media,
and the idiot American policymakers still have not comprehended that
jobs offshoring destroyed America’s economic prospects and pushed China
to the forefront 45 years ahead of Washington’s expectations.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To sum this up, the Western mind, and the minds of the Atlanticist
Integrationist Russians and pro-American Chinese youth, are so full of
propagandistic nonsense that there is no connection to reality.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is the real world and there is the propagandistic made-up world
that covers over the real world and serves special interests. My task
is to get people out of the made-up world and into the real world.
Support my efforts.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-25779060670328173722018-06-06T10:05:00.000-07:002018-06-06T10:05:35.142-07:00The neoconservatives have seized the opportunity and replaced diplomacy with threat and coercion. Our government tells weaker countries to "do as you are told or we will impose sanctions." Sanctions are an assertion of hegemony of one country over another. And once the constraint on Washington’s unilateralism was removed, sanctions became an instrument of US foreign policy and replaced diplomacy. <hr />
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<br />
<h1>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">The</span></i></span> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Absence of Diplomacy Is Isolating Washington — Paul Craig Roberts</i></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/05/" rel="nofollow">June 5, 2018</a>
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The Absence of Diplomacy Is Isolating Washington<br />
<br />
Paul Craig Roberts<br />
<br />
The dissolution of the Soviet Union removed the constraint on
Washington’s unilateralism. The neoconservatives, who had just risen to
power, seized the opportunity and replaced diplomacy with threat and
coercion. One infamous example is from the George W. Bush regime when
the Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, told Pakistan to do as
you are told or you will be bombed into the stone age. We have this on
the authority of the president of Pakistan himself, who did as he was
told.<br />
<br />
In the case of Russia during the Putin era, this level of threat is
excessive as Russia can bomb back. So the threat has been reduced to:
do as you are told or we will impose sanctions.<br />
<br />
Sanctions are an assertion of hegemony of one country over another.
They are an assertion that the imposer of sanctions has extra-legal
international authority to tell other sovereign states what to do or to
suffer consequences if they do not.<br />
<br />
Once the constraint on Washington’s unilateralism was removed,
sanctions became an instrument of US foreign policy and replaced
diplomacy. The Clinton regime used them on Iraq. When the UN reported
that the effect of the Clinton regime’s sanctions on Iraq was the deaths
of 500,000 Iraqi children, Clinton’s Jewish Secretary of State was
asked by Lesley Stahl on the national TV program “60 Minutes” if the
sanctions were worth the deaths of a half million children. Madaline
Albright said yes, “the price is worth it.” The Jews feel the same way
about the Palestinians. As the Palestinians’ country has been stolen by
Israel, what is the point of Palestinians? Killing them is Israel’s
answer. As one Israeli minister said, we are only doing what the
Americans did to the native Americans known as Indians. As America
shares this crime with Israel, little wonder that Washington always
vetoes any UN action against Israel for its crimes against the
Palestinians. The two criminal states stand united against the world.<br />
<br />
And from Washington’s view, it has been “worth it” ever since as
Washington during the 21st century proceeded to destroy in whole or part
seven countries, and is still working on several more.<br />
<br />
Any time a country doesn’t follow Washington’s orders, Washington
imposes sanctions. Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela are all
bearers of Washington’s sanctions. Moreover, Washington forces other
countries, including its European allies, to also impose sanctions or
Washington will sanction them as well.<br />
<br />
This worked until Washington’s assertion of its hegemony over the
world became excessive. That happened when Trump, guided by Israel and
by Israel’s neoconservative agents who are Trump’s advisers, denounced
and withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement signed by the US, Iran,
Russia, China, France, the UK, and Germany.<br />
<br />
When Washington’s European vassals did not also withdraw from the
agreement that they had signed, Trump threatened them with sanctions.<br />
<br />
All of Europe already suffers from high unemployment. Washington’s
sanctions worsen the situation for Europe, which has resumed profitable
business with Iran. Finally Europe has caught on. Washington is
telling Europe that Europe must suffer economically so that Washington
can exercise hegemony, from which Europe gets no benefit.<br />
<br />
This is too much even for the European and British governments that
have been Washington’s vassals since 1945. Rebellion is reported
everywhere in the Internet news although not in the presstitute media.
European and EU officials are saying that it is time that Europe
represents its own interests instead of Washington’s. Even the head of
the EU, a CIA creation, is in rebellion.<br />
<br />
Will the rebellion last, or is it merely the antics of Europeans long
on Washington’s payroll posturing for more money? How much does
Washington have to shell out to quiet the European rebellion?<br />
Vladimir Putin has been eating insults and provocations for years
while awaiting for Washington’s arrogance to break up its European
empire. Perhaps Putin’s patience is paying off, and it is happening now.<br />
<br />
There are signs that Washington is isolating itself. Washington has
ordered India and also Turkey, a NATO member, not to purchase Russian
weapons systems, but both countries have given the bird to Washington,
rejected Washington’s interferrence in their affairs and have gone ahead
with the purchases.<br />
<br />
The chairman of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, said
that it was time for Europe to reconnect with Russia and to stop
attacking Russia. Will the EU, the CIA’s own creation, turn against
Washington?<br />
<br />
It is possible. Washington has threatened Germany with sanctions if
Germany participates in Russia’s North Stream 2 gas pipeline project
bringing energy to Europe. Washington’s preference is that Europe close
down from lack of energy rather than to be dependent on Russia, as this
dependency reduces Washington’s power over Europe.<br />
<br />
Germany’s Merkel, long Washington’s whore, has changed her spots.
She announced that the US is no longer a reliable political partner and
that Germany “needs to take its fate into its own hands.” The latest
poll shows that 82 percent of Germans agree with her that Washington is
an “unreliable partner.”<br />
<br />
Washington, wallowing in its fabled incompetence, is now worsening
all of its empire relationships by threatening its own allies with trade
wars. There is no one of sufficient competence in the Trump regime to
be able to understand that America’s “trade problem” is entirely of its
own making and is not due to Mexico, Canada, China, and Europe.<br />
<br />
America’s extremely serious trade problem is due to globalism, neoliberal economics, and to the New York investment banks.<br />
<br />
The US trade deficit with China has its origin in the offshoring of
American jobs. Products, such as Levis, Nike shoes, Apple computers,
once produced in America by American workers are now produced abroad
where wages and various compliance costs are much lower. When these
products produced abroad for American markets by US corporations come
back to the US to be sold, they arrive as imports. Thus, the offshored
production of US corporations is the most direct cause of American trade
deficits.<br />
<br />
However, this basic, indisputable fact is never reported by the
presstitute media, or by the neoliberal economists or US government
statistical agencies. The pretense is that it is all China’s, or
Mexico’s, or Canada’s fault. You would never know that it was the direct
result of the profit-seeking activity of US corporations.<br />
<br />
What has happened is that with the Soviet dissolution, the
governments of socialist India and communist China made a decision that
capitalism was the wave of the future, and they opened their labor
markets to foreign capital.<br />
<br />
The American firms that did not want to desert their home towns and
work forces by offshoring their production were forced to do so by
threats from the New York investment banks. Domestic producers were
told to move operations to China where lower labor costs would boost
profits or face a takeover of the corporation that would raise profits
by moving operations abroad.<br />
<br />
The reason high productivity high value-added jobs have exited
America is because of Wall Street and the greed of corporate executives
and shareholders. As always happens, the ruling interest groups and
their Washington puppets blame foreigners, thus protecting themselves.<br />
<br />
However, now they have started what is mischaracterized as a “trade war.”<br />
<br />
In effect, the Trump regime is not at war with China and other
countries. The Trump regime is at war with the US corporations who
moved their production for US markets offshore and with the New York
banks that forced this move. The tarrifs will fall not on Chinese
exports but on the offshored production of US corporations. The tarifs
will raise the price that Americans pay for the products that US
corporation make in China.<br />
<br />
Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum raise the cost of inputs used
in US production functions. Raising the price of these inputs means
that the products of US industry made from steel and aluminum also rise
in price, thus hurting US competitiveness. This is the opposite of how
protectionism is supposed to work. Protectionism works by minimizing
the costs of inputs and by protecting outputs with tariffs on competing
foreign products. In other words, the prices of domestically produced
goods are lowered, and the prices of competing imports are raised.<br />
<br />
The neoliberal economists lied when they gave assurances that the US
manufacturing and professional skill jobs moved offshore would be
replaced with better jobs for Americans. As the official payroll data
makes clear, the replacement jobs are worse, consisting as they do of
lowly paid domestic service jobs that characteize employment in third
world countries.<br />
<br />
Jobs offshoring has been disastrous for America. The resulting trade
deficit is the least of it. The loss of well-paying jobs has hurt
consumer purchasing power. To maintain living standards, consumers have
substituted debt for the missing income. The result is that 41 percent
of Americans cannot raise $400 should they be faced with an emergency.<br />
<br />
The budgets of states that were once manufacturing powerhouses have
also been hurt, calling into quesion their ability to meet pension
obligations. The benefits of jobs offshoring were concentrated on a
small group of corporate executives and shareholders and are dwarfed by
the massive external costs of jobs offshoring on the US economy and work
force.<br />
<br />
Robotics will make the situation far worse. The smart people so
happily working on replacement of humans in the work force are in fact
stupid. They are destroying the social system. Tariffs cannot protect
jobs lost to robots. Moreover, robots don’t buy houses, furniture,
cars, clothes, entertainment, food, drink, smart phones, computers. All
the money saved by replacing people with robots is not available to
purchase the products made by robots. Consumer demand collapses. The
only solution is the socialization of production that makes all members
of society owners of the output. Even this is only a partial solution
as it leaves unanswered the question of what people do with their time
and what happens to people who do not have to work and to develop their
capabilities.<br />
<br />
Capitalism, despite the claim that it efficiently allocates resources
over time, has a short-run time horizon—the next quarter’s profits.
Everything about the system is short-term. We have reached the point at
which executives destroy the company by indebting it in order to buy
back the company’s shares, thus driving up the stock price and
maximizing their “performance bonuses.”<br />
<br />
By undermining the strength of the economy, the consequence of
short-run profit maximization is to make the US more belligerent.
Plunder becomes a way of keeping the system afloat. Thus, hegemony over
others becomes a means of survival.<br />
<br />
Matters are coming to a head in the Trump regime. Trump’s bullying
personality mated with the belligerence of neoconservative hegemony
produces war in its many forms. The economic warfare with which
Washington is threatening its vassals can lead to an independent Europe
friendly to Russia.<br />
<br />
The decline in Washington’s hegemonic power is a prerequisite for the
resurrection of the American economy. When plunder is not an option,
policy has to turn inward. The responsibilities of corporations have to
be restored to include employees, customers, and communities along with
shareholders. The Sherman Anti-trust Act must be revived, monopolies
dismembered, banks too big to fail broken up, and offshored production
brought home by taxing corporations according to whether they produce
for the US market at home or abroad.<br />
<br />
Historically, foreign trade was unimportant to US economic
development. A rising middle class produced a large consumer market
that sufficed for the prosperity of large-scale manufacturing and
industrial enterprises. This prosperous America was destroyed by
globalism. American revival awaits a new class of leaders devoid of the
hubris of “exceptionalism” who can reject the role of world bully and
focus on the problems at home. <div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-35406886153463412512018-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:002018-04-30T15:44:42.008-07:00The Period of American Dominance Has Passed. Russian Missile Tech has Made America’s Trillion Dollar Navy Obsolete. Russia’s new missiles can be launched from thousands of kilometers away, are unstoppable, and it takes just one to sink a destroyer and just two to sink an aircraft carrier. <hr />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p6meawjJP_4/WuZ3UH95oTI/AAAAAAAAL04/5UUE4VGih801rcnYFHg4Z3O_ePLX5AvFgCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p6meawjJP_4/WuZ3UH95oTI/AAAAAAAAL04/5UUE4VGih801rcnYFHg4Z3O_ePLX5AvFgCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
<h1>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>The Period of American Dominance Has Passed</i></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/29/" rel="nofollow">April 29, 2018</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> Categories: <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/29/period-american-dominance-passed/">Guest Contributions</a>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Period of American Dominance Has Passed</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Russian Missile Tech has Made America’s Trillion Dollar Navy Obsolete</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dmitry Orlov</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the past 500 years European nations—Portugal, the Netherlands,
Spain, Britain, France and, briefly, Germany—were able to plunder much
of the planet by projecting their naval power overseas. Since much of
the world’s population lives along the coasts, and much of it trades
over water, armed ships that arrived suddenly out of nowhere were able
to put local populations at their mercy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The armadas could plunder, impose tribute, punish the disobedient,
and then use that plunder and tribute to build more ships, enlarging the
scope of their naval empires. This allowed a small region with few
natural resources and few native advantages beyond extreme orneriness
and a wealth of communicable diseases to dominate the globe for half a
millennium.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The ultimate inheritor of this naval imperial project is the United
States, which, with the new addition of air power, and with its large
aircraft carrier fleet and huge network of military bases throughout the
planet, is supposedly able to impose Pax Americana on the entire world.
Or, rather, was able to do so—during the brief period between the
collapse of the USSR and the emergence of Russia and China as new global
powers and their development of new anti-ship and antiaircraft
technologies. But now this imperial project is at an end.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prior to the Soviet collapse, the US military generally did not dare
to directly threaten those countries to which the USSR had extended its
protection. Nevertheless, by using its naval power to dominate the sea
lanes that carried crude oil, and by insisting that oil be traded in US
dollars, it was able to live beyond its means by issuing
dollar-denominated debt instruments and forcing countries around the
world to invest in them. It imported whatever it wanted using borrowed
money while exporting inflation, expropriating the savings of people
across the world. In the process, the US has accumulated absolutely
stunning levels of national debt—beyond anything seen before in either
absolute or relative terms. When this debt bomb finally explodes, it
will spread economic devastation far beyond US borders. And it will
explode, once the petrodollar wealth pump, imposed on the world through
American naval and air superiority, stops working.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">New missile technology has made a naval empire cheap to defeat.
Previously, to fight a naval battle, one had to have ships that
outmatched those of the enemy in their speed and artillery power. The
Spanish Armada was sunk by the British armada. More recently, this meant
that only those countries whose industrial might matched that of the
United States could ever dream of opposing it militarily. But this has
now changed: Russia’s new missiles can be launched from thousands of
kilometers away, are unstoppable, and it takes just one to sink a
destroyer and just two to sink an aircraft carrier. The American armada
can now be sunk without having an armada of one’s own. The relative
sizes of American and Russian economies or defense budgets are
irrelevant: the Russians can build more hypersonic missiles much more
quickly and cheaply than the Americans would be able to build more
aircraft carriers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Equally significant is the development of new Russian air defense
capabilities: the S-300 and S-400 systems, which can essentially seal
off a country’s airspace. Wherever these systems are deployed, such as
in Syria, US forces are now forced to stay out of their range. With its
naval and air superiority rapidly evaporating, all that the US can fall
back on militarily is the use of large expeditionary forces—an option
that is politically unpalatable and has proven to be ineffective in Iraq
and Afghanistan. There is also the nuclear option, and while its
nuclear arsenal is not likely to be neutralized any time soon, nuclear
weapons are only useful as deterrents. Their special value is in
preventing wars from escalating beyond a certain point, but that point
lies beyond the elimination of their global naval and air dominance.
Nuclear weapons are much worse than useless in augmenting one’s
aggressive behavior against a nuclear-armed opponent; invariably, it
would be a suicidal move. What the US now faces is essentially a
financial problem of unrepayable debt and a failing wealth pump, and it
should be a stunningly obvious point that setting off nuclear explosions
anywhere in the world would not fix the problems of an empire that is
going broke.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Events that signal vast, epochal changes in the world often appear
minor when viewed in isolation. Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon
was just one river crossing; Soviet and American troops meeting and
fraternizing at the Elbe was, relatively speaking, a minor event—nowhere
near the scale of the siege of Leningrad, the battle of Stalingrad or
the fall of Berlin. Yet they signaled a tectonic shift in the historical
landscape. And perhaps we have just witnessed something similar with
the recent pathetically tiny Battle of East Gouta in Syria, where the US
used a make-believe chemical weapons incident as a pretense to launch
an equally make-believe attack on some airfields and buildings in Syria.
The US foreign policy establishment wanted to show that it still
matters and has a role to play, but what really happened was that US
naval and air power were demonstrated to be almost entirely beside the
point.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course, all of this is terrible news to the US military and
foreign policy establishments, as well as to the many US Congressmen in
whose districts military contractors operate or military bases are
situated. Obviously, this is also bad news for the defense contractors,
for personnel at the military bases, and for many others as well. It is
also simply awful news economically, since defense spending is about the
only effective means of economic stimulus of which the US government is
politically capable.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Obama’s “shovel-ready jobs,” if you recall, did nothing to forestall
the dramatic slide in the labor participation rate, which is a euphemism
for the inverse of the real unemployment rate. There is also the
wonderful plan to throw lots of money at Elon Musk’s SpaceX (while
continuing to buy vitally important rocket engines from the Russians—who
are currently discussing blocking their export to the US in retaliation
for more US sanctions). In short, take away the defense stimulus, and
the US economy will make a loud popping sound followed by a gradually
diminishing hissing noise.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Needless to say, all those involved will do their best to deny or
hide for as long as possible the fact that the US foreign policy and
defense establishments have now been neutralized. My prediction is that
America’s naval and air empire will not fail because it will be defeated
militarily, nor will it be dismantled once the news sinks in that it is
useless; instead, it will be forced to curtail its operations due to
lack of funds. There may still be a few loud bangs before it gives up,
but mostly what we will hear is a whole lot of whimpering. That’s how
the USSR went; that’s how the USA will go too.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This post first appeared on Russia Insider.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyone is free to republish, copy, and redistribute the text in this
content (but not the images or videos) in any medium or format, with the
right to remix, transform, and build upon it, even commercially, as
long as they provide a backlink and credit to Russia Insider. It is not
necessary to notify Russia Insider. Licensed Creative Commons</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://russia-insider.com/en/russian-missile-tech-has-made-americas-trillion-dollar-navy-obsolete/ri23242" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://russia-insider.com/en/russian-missile-tech-has-made-americas-trillion-dollar-navy-obsolete/ri23242 </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">N.B. the following articles collected by Paul Craig Roberts get deeper into the currant issues: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<h1>
<hr />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Idiot Neoconservatives Will Get Us All Killed</span></span></span></i></h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/29/" rel="nofollow">April 29, 2018</a>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Idiot Neoconservatives Will Get Us All Killed</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.unz.com/article/the-implications-of-russias-new-weapons/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.unz.com/article/the-implications-of-russias-new-weapons/ </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.unz.com/tsaker/war-with-russia-two-great-american-myths/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.unz.com/tsaker/war-with-russia-two-great-american-myths/ </a></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-54400492196697107052018-04-14T15:46:00.000-07:002018-04-14T15:46:57.168-07:00Here Paul Craig Roberts analyzes why the US Secretary of War, Mattis backed down on Trump's illicit plan to attack Syria. He knew that if the U.S. Navy ships were to approach the Syrian shores and open fire, they would be destroyed by the Russians. <hr />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0s/Va9clHPjzIguMvTgqVCVPjk1AIjM32RjQCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0s/Va9clHPjzIguMvTgqVCVPjk1AIjM32RjQCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
<h1>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Are We Over the US/UK Fomented Crisis In Syria?</i></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/14/" rel="nofollow">April 14, 2018</a>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Are We Over the US/UK Fomented Crisis In Syria?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It appears from the very limited US missile attack, most of which
were intercepted and destroyed by Syrian air defenses, that the US
military prevailed over the crazed John Bolton and carefully avoided a
strike that would have resulted in a Russian response. No significant
Syrian site appears to have been targeted, and no Russians were
endangered. <a href="https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/04/in-depth-syria-stuns-world-thwarts-us-attack/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/04/in-depth-syria-stuns-world-thwarts-us-attack/ </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The US ambassador to Russia said that the US strikes were coordinated with Russia to avoid a great power confrontation. <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/424132-us-russia-syria-strikes/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.rt.com/news/424132-us-russia-syria-strikes/</a> Russia Insider concludes that the exercise was a face-saver for Trump <a href="https://russia-insider.com/en/out-whimper-trump-blinks-delivers-limited-strikes/ri23132" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://russia-insider.com/en/out-whimper-trump-blinks-delivers-limited-strikes/ri23132 </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The main effect seems to be that Trump has further discredited
himself and the US by violating the UN Charter and international law and
committing an act of aggression, which is a war crime for which Nazi
civilian and military officials were executed. Russia’s President Putin
said that the wanton and illegal use of force by Washington has had “a
devastating impact on the whole system of international relations” and
called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. China also
condemned the illegal US attack. <a href="https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/04/china-says-us-led-attacks-against-syria-are-illegal-and-against-international-law/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/04/china-says-us-led-attacks-against-syria-are-illegal-and-against-international-law/ </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How was the feared conflict between the US and Russia avoided? From
what I have been able to learn, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff would not
accept the risk of conflict with Russia. The reason is not that the
Joint Chiefs are more moral, more caring about the deaths and injuries
that would result, or less inclined to go to war based on lies. Their
objection was based on the lack of protection US Navy ships have from
the new Russian weapons systems. An attack that brought a Russian
response could sink the US flotilla and present the US with a
humiliating defeat that would discredit American military prowess. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bolton’s position was that Putin is a pussy who, as in every previous
case, will do nothing. Bolton’s postion is that the Russians are so
scared of US military might that they will not respond to any US attack
on their forces and Syrian forces. The Russians, Bolton says, will do
what they always do. They will whine about the crime to the UN, and the
Western media will ignore them as always.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The US Secretary of War, Mattis, represented the Joint Chiefs
opinion. What, Mattis asked, if the Russians have had enough and do
what they are capable of and sink the US flotilla? Is Trump prepared to
accept a defeat engineered by his National Security Adviser? Is Trump
prepared for a possible wider conflict? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Joint Chiefs would rather use the orchestrated “Syrian crisis” to
argue for more money, not to go to war that could be terminable of
their retirement plans. The Joint Chiefs can tell Congress: “We
couldn’t risk conflict with Russia over the use of chemical weapons in
Syria because we were outgunned. We need more money.” The older
American generation will rementer the fantasy “missile gap” of the
Nixon/Kennedy presidential campaign that was used to boost US defense
spending.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It would be a mistake for anyone to conclude that common sense has
prevailed and the conflict has been resolved. What has prevailed is the
Joint Chiefs’ fear of a defeat. The next crisis that Washington
orchestrates will be on terms less favorable to Russian arms.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bolton, the neoconservatives and the Israeli interest that they
represent will go to work on Mattis and the dissenting generals. Leaks
will appear in the presstitute media that are designed to discredit
Mattis and to foment Trump’s distrust. The neoconservatives will
advance military men more in line with the neoonservatives’
aggressiveness to positions on the Joint Chiefs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Syria is not about any chemical weapons use. Ahmet Uzumcu, director
general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
reported that all chemical weapons had been removed from Syria. “Never
before has an entire arsenal of a category of weapons of mass
destruction been removed from a country experiencing a state of internal
armed conflict, and this has been accomplished within very demanding
and tight time frames.”<a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/06/24/last-of-syrias-chemical-weapons-removed.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank"> https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/06/24/last-of-syrias-chemical-weapons-removed.html </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Syria is not about dictatorship or building democracy. It is not
about the alleged 70 victims of chemical weapons. It would take a
complete idiot to believe that Washington and its European vassals, who
have killed, maimed, orphaned, and displaced millions of Muslims in
seven countries over the last 17 years to be so upset over the deaths of
70 Muslims that they are willing to risk war with Russia.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Syria and Iran are an issue, because Syria and Iran supply the
Lebonese millita, Hezbollah, with money and weapons. This support from
Syria and Iran gives Hezbollah the capability of preventing Israel’s
occupation and annexation of southern Lebanaon, whose water resources
Israel covets. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Twice the vaunted Israel Army has been chased out of Lebanon by
Hezbollah. Israel’s military reputation cannot risk a third defeat by a
mere militia, so Israel is using its control over US foreign policy and
its rock solid alliance with the neoconservatives to use the US
military to destabilize Syria and Iran as the US did to Iraq and Libya.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Additionally, there is the crazed neoconservative ideology of US
world hegemony. The interests of Russia and China are in the way of US
hegemony. Therefore, these two countries are defined as “threats.”
Russia and China are not threats because they intend to attack the US,
which neither has shown any indication of doing. They are threats
because they are in opposition to US unilateralism which overrides their
sovereignty. In other words, to be clear, the US cannot tolerate any
country that has an independent foreign or economic policy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That Russia and China have independent policies is the reason that they are “threats.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It would be a mistake to conclude that diplomay has prevailed and
common sense has returned to Washington. Nothing could be further from
the truth. The issue is not resolved. War remains on the horizon.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-3619819464640793802018-04-14T14:44:00.002-07:002018-04-14T14:44:47.152-07:00Even though the Scenario turned out to be the best ever, if you are truly interested you should play the link below, which will tell you what is really going on in Syia. Hint: it is opposite of what you would hear in the U.S., UK, and EU. (They are all liers)<hr />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0s/Va9clHPjzIguMvTgqVCVPjk1AIjM32RjQCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0s/Va9clHPjzIguMvTgqVCVPjk1AIjM32RjQCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Worst Case Scenario Is Now Our Reality</span></i></span></h1>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/13/" rel="nofollow">April 13, 2018</a>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Felicity Arbuthnot Lays It On The Line</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-and-syria-the-worst-case-scenario-is-now-our-reality/5635749" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-and-syria-the-worst-case-scenario-is-now-our-reality/5635749</span> </a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-62880297080757807752018-04-12T16:01:00.000-07:002018-04-12T16:01:37.274-07:00Ten Days Before The End Of The World. Do you believe it? Do you even think about it? Well, I do. The people who are pushing this are in the U.S. (particularly Trump and his insane warmongering govement). I hope that the Russians handel it well to save the world. <hr />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0s/Va9clHPjzIguMvTgqVCVPjk1AIjM32RjQCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0s/Va9clHPjzIguMvTgqVCVPjk1AIjM32RjQCEwYBhgL/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
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</h1>
<h1>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ten Days Before The End Of The World</span></span></i></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/12/" rel="nofollow">April 12, 2018</a>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ten Days Before The End Of The World</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The criminally insane governments of the US, UK, and France are
sending a flotilla of missile ships, submarines, and an aircraft carrier
to attack Syria in the face of Russian warnings. What is the likely
outcome of this outrageous act of aggression based entirely on an
orchestrated and transparent lie, an act of reckless aggression that is
more irresponsible and more dangerous than anything done by the
demonized Nazi regime in Germany?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are no protests from European governments. There are no
protesters in the streets of European and US cities. Congress has not
reminded Trump that he has been given no authority by Congress to launch
a military attack on a soverign country that is likely to ignite a war,
possibly World War 3. Everyone seems content with the prospect of the
end of the world. The moronic American presstitutes are egging it on.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are possible outcomes:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(1) The Russians, trapped in the deluded belief that facts and
evidence matter to the West and that common sense will prevail, accept
the attacks. This outcome is the most dangerous of all, because this
outcome will encourage more attacks until Russia is backed into a corner
and has no alternative to a direct nuclear attack on the US.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(2) Russia takes the initiative in the brewing conflict and escorts
the US missile ship, USS Donald Cook, out of attack range of Syria
before the attack flotilla arrives and declares a perimeter line beyond
which the Western flotilla becomes target for attack. This should force
a showdown between Trump’s warmonger government and the US Congress
that would challenge Trump’s ability to unilaterally commit the US to
war.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(3) Russia escorts the Donald Cook away from the scene and
simultaneously wipes out the military capabilities of Saudi Arabia and
Israel, removing Washington’s ground-based allies in its attack on
Syria, thus loading the odds in Russia’s favor, and making it clear that
Russia is going to pre-empt attack, not respond to one.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(4) Russia, in the deluded belief that it must prove itself in the
right, accepts the attack and its unpredictable damage before
responding. This outcome is almost as bad as the first, as this lets
the war start in contrast to options (2) and (3) which have some
possibility of preventing a US/Russian confrontation by forcing common
sense on the Americans.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(5) Senior German politicians inform Merkel that Britain and France’s
support of the US strike on Syria could commit NATO to a war with
Russia. Germany has had one devastating experience with the Russian
military and does not need another. They could pressure Merkel to
withdraw Germany from NATO. The resulting consternation/confusion would
likely halt the US attack on Syria/Russia.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(6) The US Joint Chiefs of Staff could easily and honestly conclude
that in the event of a Russian response to an attack on Syria, the
entire flotilla could be lost, carrier included, inflicting a
humiliating defeat on US arms, and that in view of this possbility, the
Joint Chiefs recommend against the announced attack. Possibly this has
occurred and explains Trump’s latest tweets, which suggest that doubts
might have entered Trump’s mind.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even if a hopeful outcome such as (5) and (6) occurs, we are left
with the dangerous situation that some elements in the US and UK
governments were able to orchestrate two events—the alleged Skripal
poisoning and the alleged Assad chemical attack—and use the events to
leverage unsupported accusations against Russia and Syria as
justifications for an illegal military attack on a sovereign country.
That such an outrageous orchestration is possible proves that there is
no democracy or constraint on government in the US and UK.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-33234656467194385312018-04-11T08:37:00.000-07:002018-04-11T08:37:01.717-07:00The idiocy of Trump, French president Macron, and UK prime minister May may be bringing the end of the world.<hr />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0o/nu9tMn3pMfE9TQYzVBX8AfpU6JroEPSpQCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jwK3oT2zj88/Ws4fXMCsZMI/AAAAAAAAL0o/nu9tMn3pMfE9TQYzVBX8AfpU6JroEPSpQCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
<h1>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Idiocy Is Bringing The End Of The World</span></span></i></h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/11/" rel="nofollow">April 11, 2018</a>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Idiocy Is Bringing The End Of The World</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here is Jason Ditz on the coming end of the world:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2018/04/10/trump-builds-coalition-for-war-against-syrian-government/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://news.antiwar.com/2018/04/10/trump-builds-coalition-for-war-against-syrian-government/ </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Vladimir Soloviev explains the failure of Putin’s policy of appeasement:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://russia-insider.com/en/breaking-defining-moment-putin-stand-usisrael-empire-chaos-or-fold/ri23052" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://russia-insider.com/en/breaking-defining-moment-putin-stand-usisrael-empire-chaos-or-fold/ri23052 </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you were the president of France or the prime minister of the UK,
would you permit criminally insane Washington to drag you into military
conflict with Russia? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.infowars.com/get-ready-russia-trump-takes-to-twitter-to-threaten-strike-on-syria/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.infowars.com/get-ready-russia-trump-takes-to-twitter-to-threaten-strike-on-syria/ </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t either. So what’s with Macron and
May? What’s with the French and British governments? What’s with the
French and British media? I read recently that former UK Labour prime
minister Tony Blair is now worth $100 million, his payoff for lying to
the UK government and people in order to support the George W. Bush
regime’s invasion of Iraq. Have Macron and May been promised the same?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It makes no sense for the UK and French governments to make
themselves targets of a military power against which they have no
possibility of defense. It makes no sense that their peoples and media
sit silently while one French president and one British prime minister
endanger not only France and the UK but the entirety of Europe. What’s
with the European Union? There is only silence as Europe, and the
world with it, are taken to the brink of annihiliation. This makes no
sense. <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/taking-the-world-to-the-brink-of-annihilation/5635456" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.globalresearch.ca/taking-the-world-to-the-brink-of-annihilation/5635456 </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">People in Ghouta, doctors in Ghouta, and Russian experts who have
arrived on the scene report that there is no sign of any chemical
attack. Not only did Syria not use chemical weapons against the
civilians that it liberated, there was no chemical attack, not even a
false flag one staged by the US supported mercenaries who have been
driven out of Ghouta by the Syrian Army. In other words, the chemical
attack is entirely a hoax.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To keep the hoax from being confirmed by independent investigation,
Washington vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to send in neutral
experts to evaluate the claim of chemical attack. Why would Washington
prevent an investigation that would prove Washington’s allegation?
Clearly, Washington would only prevent an investigation that would
disprove the false allegation. There is no doubt whatsoever that
Washington’s allegation is false and is being used as an excuse to force
Russia to fight or to accept Washington’s hegemony in the Middle East.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What if there was a chemical attack? Why does it matter to people
who are killed whether it was by bullets, bombs, missiles, or chemicals?
Why is it so bad to use chemicals instead of Hellfire missiles? Why
is it OK for Washington and Israel to blow up schools, hospitals,
weddings, funerals, market places, and homes full of women and children
with missiles, but not OK to kill people with chemicals? Why is it
worth starting World War 3 over a hoax chemical weapons attack or a real
one?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Americans, for the most part a clueless people, have no awareness of
the risk that the criminally insane government in Washington is taking
with their lives. What if the Russians mean what they say and do not
again turn the other cheek and back down? What happens if Russia
replies to force with force? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why is it that only a few Internet sites are asking this question?</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-13877100537956734162018-03-21T14:48:00.000-07:002018-03-21T14:50:05.805-07:00A good question Paul. And, yes, from my point of view, the US Goverment is indeed Criminally Insane! How about you?<hr />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YPBzgwdsEpE/WrK9E9N4ylI/AAAAAAAAL0E/MYogW_hd7U4SETYwM0PFyW8U0gSl2kcdQCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YPBzgwdsEpE/WrK9E9N4ylI/AAAAAAAAL0E/MYogW_hd7U4SETYwM0PFyW8U0gSl2kcdQCLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Is the US Government Criminally Insane?
</span></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">March 21, 2018 | Categories: Guest Contributions |
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span font-size:="" large="" style="categories: Guest Contributions | </span></span><br /> <span style=; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Is the US Government Criminally Insane?
Read these articles and make up your mind: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49037.htm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49037.htm </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/03/21/russian-military-warns-major-war-in-syria-imminent.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/03/21/russian-military-warns-major-war-in-syria-imminent.html </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.uawire.org/lavrov-us-british-french-and-other-number-of-other-countries-have-special-forces-working-in-syria" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.uawire.org/lavrov-us-british-french-and-other-number-of-other-countries-have-special-forces-working-in-syria </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/421919-chemical-weapons-militants-syria/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.rt.com/news/421919-chemical-weapons-militants-syria/ </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/03/escalation-us-assumes-naval-attack-posture/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/03/escalation-us-assumes-naval-attack-posture/ </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /> </span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-3680473724675482412018-03-02T11:44:00.000-07:002018-03-02T11:44:26.250-07:00In his reascent speech Putin revealed the existence of new Russian nuclear weapons that make it indisputably clear that Russia has vast nuclear superiority over the United States and its pathetic NATO vassal states. However, he declared that Russia has no territorial ambitions, no hegemonic ambitions, and no intention to attack any other country. Putin described the weapons as the necessary response to the West’s firm refusal year after year to accept peace and cooperation with Russia, instead surrounding Russia with military bases and ABM systems. But he Putin stressed that Russia’s nuclear weapons are reserved for retaliation, not for offense, but that any attack on Russia or Russia’s allies will receive an immediate response “with all that it implies.”<hr />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h1>
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<h3 class="pk_entry_title">
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Putin’s State of the Union</span></span></span></i></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>By: <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/author/pcr3/" rel="author" title="Posts by pcr3">3</a><span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/03/01/">01</a> <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/03/">March</a>, <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/">2018</a><span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Putin’s State of the Union</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Putin has given a remarkable address to the Federal Assembly, the Russian People, and the peoples of the world. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his speech Putin revealed the existence of new Russian nuclear
weapons that make it indisputably clear that Russia has vast nuclear
superiority over the United States and its pathetic NATO vassal states.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
In view of the Russian capabilities, it is not clear that the US any longer qualifies as a superpower.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is little doubt in my mind that if the crazed neoconservatives
and military/security complex in Washington had these weapons and Russia
did not, Washington would launch an attack on Russia.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Putin, however, declared that Russia has no territorial ambitions, no
hegemonic ambitions, and no intention to attack any other country.
Putin described the weapons as the necessary response to the West’s firm
refusal year after year to accept peace and cooperation with Russia,
instead surrounding Russia with military bases and ABM systems. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Putin said: “We are interested in normal constructive interaction
with the United States and the European Union and are expecting that
common sense will prevail and our partners will choose fair and equal
cooperation. . . . Our policy will never be based on aspirations for
exceptionalism, we are defending our interests and respect the interests
of other countries.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Putin told Washington that its efforts to isolate Russia with
sanctions and propaganda and to prevent Russian capability to respond to
the growing military encirclement from the West has failed. Russia’s
new weapons have made the entire US/NATO approach “ineffective from a
military point of view.” “The sanctions to constrain Russia’s
development, including in the military sphere… they did not work out.”
They have not been been able to contain Russia. They need to realize
this… Stop rocking the boat in which we all sit.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, what is to be done? Will the West come to its senses? Or will
the West, drowning in debt and loaded to the gills with bloated and
ineffective military industries, intensify the Cold War that Washington
has resurrected?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I do not think the West has any senses to come to. Washington is
totally absorbed in “American exceptionalism.” The extreme hubris of
the “indispensable country” afflicts all. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Europeans are bought and
paid for by Washington. I am confident that Putin was hopeful that
European leaders would understand the futility of trying to intimidate
Russia and cease to endorse Washington’s Russiaphobia that is leading to
nuclear war. No doubt Putin was disappointed in the idiotic response
of the UK defense minister Gavin Williamson who accused Russia of
“choosing a path of escalation and provocation.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My guess is that the neoconservatives will play down Russia’s
capability, because the neoconservatives do not want to accept that
there are any constraints on Washington’s unilateralism. On the other
hand, the military/security complex will hype the Russian superiority in
order to demand a larger budget to protect us from “the Russian
threat.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Russian government concluded from years of frustrating experience
with Washington’s refusal to consider Russia’s interests and to work
together in a cooperative manner that the reason was Washington’s belief
that American power could compel Russia to accept American leadership.
To shatter this Washington illusion is the reason for Putin’s forceful
announcement of the new Russian capabilities.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his address, he says, “no one wanted to speak with us. No one
wanted to listen to us. Listen to us now.” Putin stressed that Russia’s
nuclear weapons are reserved for retaliation, not for offense, but that
any attack on Russia or Russia’s allies will receive an immediate
response “with all that it implies.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having made it clear that the Western policy of hegemony and
intimidation is dead in the water, Putin again held out the olive
branch: let us work together to solve the world’s problems.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope that Russian diplomacy succeeds in bringing an end to the
rising tensions fomented by Washington. However, Russian diplomacy
faces two perhaps insurmountable obstacles. One is the need for the
bloated US military/security complex to have a major enemy as a
justification for its $1,000 billion annual budget and the power that
goes with it. The other obstacle is the neoconservative ideology of US
world hegemony.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The military/security complex is institutionalized in every US state.
It is an employer and a source of major political campaign
contributions, which makes it almost impossible for a senator or
representative to go against its interests. In US foreign policy
circles there is yet to appear countervailing power to the crazed
neoconservatives. The Russiaphobia that the neoconservatives have
created now affects ordinary Americans. These two obstacles have proved
sufficiently powerful to prevent President Trump from normalizing
relations with Russia.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps in his next speech, Putin should address the Europeans
directly and ask them how European interests are served by enabling
Washington’s hostilities toward Russia. If push comes to shove, how can
any country hosting US ABMs, US nuclear weapons, and US military bases
expect to escape destruction?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without NATO and the forward bases it provides, Washington cannot
drive the world to war. The basic fact of the matter is that NATO is an
obstacle to peace.</span><br />
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-12788799061173372962018-01-28T16:57:00.000-07:002018-01-28T16:57:33.660-07:00<hr />
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<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In the Western World Lies Have Displaced Truth</span></span></i></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/01/28/" rel="nofollow">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/01/28/" rel="nofollow">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/01/28/" rel="nofollow">
January 28, 2018</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> Categories: <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/01/28/western-world-lies-displaced-truth/">Articles & Columns</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the Western World Lies Have Displaced Truth</span></div>
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last year I was awarded <i>Marquiss Who’s Who In America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.</i> This did not prevent a hidden organization, <i>PropOrNot</i>,
from attempting to brand me and my website along with 200 others “Putin
stooges or agents” for our refusal to lie for the corrupt,
anti-American, anti-constitutional, anti-democratic, warmonger police
state interests that rule the Western World.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The only honest, factual media that exists in the Western World today are the names on the PropOrNot list of “Putin agents.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The purpose of ProOrNot is to convince Americans that freedom of
speech must be halted by destroying fact-based Internet media, such as
this website and 200 others that provide factual information at odds
with Big Brother’s universal brainwashing as delivered by CNN, NPR, the
New York Times, the Washington Post, and the rest of the utterly corrupt
presstitute media, a collection of scum devoid of all integrity and all
respect for truth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A conspiracy of US government agencies, tax-exempt think tanks funded
by the ruling interests, and media acting in behalf of a war and police
state agenda work to shape perceived reality as it is described in
George Orwell’s book, <i>1984</i>, and in the film, <i>The Matrix</i>.
Controlled perception-based reality is only a Facebook “like” away
from killing one person or one million or elevating a liar or the
warmonger responsible for the killing to hero status or to the control of
the CIA or FBI or the US presidency.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here on <i>OpEdNews</i> is an article by George Eliason that
reports on who exactly PropOrNot is and who is underwriting the
disinformation that is PropOrNot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=219560" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=219560 </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eliason’s article is long and documented. It demonstrates the
organized conspiracy against truth that exists in the Western World.
Nothing stated in the Western presstitute media and no statement by any
Western government or subservient vassal state can be trusted to comply
with the facts. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Truth is the enemy of the state, and the state is eliminating the truth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Peoples in the United States, Europe, Britain, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and the various vassal states, such as Japan, all live day in,
day out, an orchestrated lie that serves interests directly opposed to
the interests of the peoples.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Governments that do not rest on truth rest on tyranny.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-64724583110024136362017-12-30T14:57:00.000-07:002017-12-30T15:04:02.108-07:00Over the past decade, the federal government has seized more than $28 billion. But that’s done absolutely nothing to deter crime. The government steals more from the American people through confiscations than is lost outright to robberies and muggings. It’s been reported that in 2015 civil forfeitures exceeded the amount stolen by all robbers.<hr />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gk1HPuQHtWs/WkgI9SvvdrI/AAAAAAAALzQ/e88w1s4WFNkOxJrdMHT27iEnE3sAru7qwCLcBGAs/s1600/Casey%2BDaily%2BDispatch%2B12-28-17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="570" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gk1HPuQHtWs/WkgI9SvvdrI/AAAAAAAALzQ/e88w1s4WFNkOxJrdMHT27iEnE3sAru7qwCLcBGAs/s1600/Casey%2BDaily%2BDispatch%2B12-28-17.jpg" /></a></div>
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<tr id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78089"><td align="left" class="yiv7279222685celltype" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78088" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78198" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;">
<b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78197">Justin’s note: </b>U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to steal your property.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78087" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;">
Since
taking office in February, he’s done all sorts of idiotic things. He’s
threatened to crack down on the legal marijuana market. He’s attacked
gay rights. And he even wants to amp up asset seizures. This is when the
government takes money and property from people. You don’t even need to
be convicted of a crime.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78207" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;">
In this installment of <a href="https://click.exct.caseyresearch.com/?qs=25560a0a6910f2ffa5284c1c78b9fbb29a89f750e0e40bf86eeb22515a5dfa72fbe0d384786201ffd10faa2a6dfbc22a7a287fe4cc37f7e0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">our special holiday series</a>, Doug Casey shares his thoughts on the subject…</div>
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<tr id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78210">
<td align="left" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78209" style="border-collapse: collapse; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 15px;" valign="top"><h1 id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78214" style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 36px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 40px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 5px;">
<b>Doug Casey on Asset Seizures</b></h1>
</td>
</tr>
<tr id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78154">
<td align="left" class="yiv7279222685celltype" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78153" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 0px;"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78218" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Justin:</b> Doug, what do you think of Sessions’ latest “bright” idea?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78216" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Doug:</b>
Well, let me preface this by saying Sessions was a disastrous choice
for Attorney General. He’s done nothing in his life but be a lawyer, a
prosecutor, and a politician. He has no experience—and therefore
probably no inclination or even ability—to produce things of tangible
value.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
But
we almost always get undesirables as the AG. They’re hatchet men, meant
to prosecute “the enemy,” taking their pick of the hundreds of
thousands of laws and regulations on the books to do so. Look at some of
the recent AGs—Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Alberto Gonzales, John
Ashcroft, Janet Reno. All of them would have been willing and obedient
lapdogs to Stalin or Beria. A certain personality type is suited for the
job.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78221" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
Sessions
is a rabid drug warrior, even against something as useful and benign as
hemp, or marijuana. He’s a busybody who feels no guilt or remorse at
enforcing laws that have destroyed the lives of tens of millions. I
don't know if he's stupid, bent, thoughtless, paranoid or what his
problem might be. Maybe he’s afraid that if pot wasn’t illegal he’d
become a dope fiend himself. But the proper direction, the objective, is
to legalize all drugs. Not amp the drug war up another notch, as he
wants to do.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78223" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
And
not only does he want to amp up the drug war, but he wants to increase
the State’s ability to confiscate citizens’ property—especially cash—on
even suspicion of breaking a law.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78250" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
In
the meantime he's not doing anything to investigate the people in
Hillary’s camp for all kinds of apparent illegality. In fact, now that
Trump's in office, what ever happened to his promise of a real
investigation of what really happened to things like Building 7 on 9/11?
Or the strange deaths that seem to have surrounded the Clinton clan for
decades?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78248" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
So
far the man seems all negatives no positives. He’s just another Deep
State actor who’s climbed the political ladder a little higher. These
guys all protect each other.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78246" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
But
increasingly many of Trump’s choices are disastrous, like his National
Security Advisor McMaster and White House Chief of Staff Kelly. And
wormtongues Ivanka and Jared Kushner. This is perhaps an inevitable
problem when a President is just a pragmatist with no philosophical
core. Although, I hasten to add, having no core may be better than
having a rotten core, like Obama and others in the recent past.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78255" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Justin:</b>
Not to mention, asset seizures don’t work. Over the past decade, the
federal government has seized more than $28 billion. But that’s done
absolutely nothing to deter crime.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78257" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
So, why would Sessions double down on this failed policy? Is he clueless? Or is the government just that desperate?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78259" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Doug: </b>Good
question. Well, I’ve already speculated on some possible aspects of
Sessions’ character that might partially explain this. But all the
repressive aspects of government—civil forfeitures are just one—have
been growing and compounding for years. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s the
natural progression of all living organisms. They all want to grow,
exert more control on their environments, and become more powerful. The
problem is that government has unusual powers, and no longer seems to
have many limits. So you can expect this trend to accelerate.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78261" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
I
saw the other day the government steals more from the American people
through confiscations than is lost outright to robberies and muggings.
It’s been reported that in 2015 civil forfeitures exceeded the amount
stolen by all robbers. It’s quite amazing and disturbing. There are at
least two reasons things are deteriorating.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78263" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
Number
one, as a general rule, police are no longer trained as “peace
officers.” They’re trained to be, and view themselves, as “law
enforcement officers.” This is a very different thing. The police are a
bigger threat to your property and your liberty, not to mention your
life, than actual criminals. Number two, these governments are all
bankrupt. They're looking for revenue wherever they can get it.
Predators are most dangerous when they’re hungry.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78301" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
The
police are the ones that actually make it happen, and they have a
vested interest in doing the wrong thing. Whenever a police department
confiscates things under these laws, they get to keep some percentage.
It varies, but can be 10, 20, 30, 50 percent of what's confiscated, and
they love it because the money goes to the local police department in
question. They can use it for buying fun cop toys, or for buying further
educational benefits, or whatever, for themselves. So, they're
profiting from this stuff as directly as the criminals do that steal
things from citizens. It's a total disaster.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78299" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
And remember, the Attorney General is the country’s top law enforcement officer.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78305" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Justin:</b> Yeah, it’s scary.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78307" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
Unfortunately,
the government is sinking deeper in debt by the day. So, I’m afraid
this is going to get worse before it gets better. Do you agree?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Doug:</b> It's inevitable.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78309" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
These
governments are digging themselves into deep financial holes. They're
going to need more and more revenue. The populace has been trained to
see the government as a cornucopia. As the economy goes into the
trailing edge of the current financial hurricane, they’re going to
demand even more freebies from all levels of government. So, the trend
will continue until there's some type of a crisis. At which point
anything can happen.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78311" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
The
downtrend is in motion. And trends in motion tend to continue and
accelerate until they change. I like to draw attention to France in
1789, a horrible situation with its highly authoritarian and totally
bankrupt government. A revolution was necessary and welcome. But then
things got worse under Robespierre. And worse again under Napoleon. The
exact same thing with Russia in 1917—but then they got Lenin, and then
Stalin.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78313" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Justin:</b> Absolutely. So, asset seizures won’t even put a dent in the government’s debt problem.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78315" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
With that said, how else might the government steal money and property from people?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78317" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Doug:</b>
Well, they're now talking about making you declare your
cryptocurrencies whenever you cross a border. If you don't, and they
find out, they're eligible for confiscation. As cryptocurrencies get
bigger—and they will—this will constitute both a gigantic invasion of
privacy and an attack on your wealth.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78319" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
All
governments already ask whether you have more than $10,000 when you
cross their borders, and reserve the right to search you. If this
becomes law, it means that you, your computer, and your smartphone will
always be liable to a full forensic audit.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78321" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
It's another major step towards the world of <i>1984</i>.
Every new law they pass has Kafka-esque possibilities. That’s what
legislatures around the world do every day they’re in session. All of
these laws have severe penalties. The trend in this direction—which
started in earnest just over 100 years ago—is going hyperbolic. And the
average human—miseducated, propagandized, and besotted by food and
drugs—wants more laws. Why? I think fear is today’s dominant emotional
tone. People want to be protected and cared for, like farm animals. They
see the State as their benevolent shepherd.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78323" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
There
are no positive political trends in today’s world. They aren’t cutting
back on regulations, reducing taxes, or eliminating laws anywhere.
They're doing just the opposite.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78351" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78353">Justin: </b>So, how can people protect themselves from this?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78349" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78357">Doug: </b>It’s
increasingly hard because the statists, collectivists, socialists,
fascists, globalists, and the like have won the war for the hearts and
minds of the masses all over the world. And the world’s
governments—notwithstanding their inevitable wars and such—are
cooperating with each other far, far more than ever before.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
In a nutshell, there are three things to keep in mind.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78347" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
First,
become as wealthy as possible. Although they can steal anything and
everything from you, the more you have the more damage you can sustain,
and the more influence you can exert.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78359" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
Second,
diversify politically and geographically. You want to have some
convenient options if your government starts looking like Russia in the
‘20s, or Germany in the ‘30s, China in the ‘50s, Cuba in the ‘60s, etc.,
etc. It’s a very long list.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78361" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
Third,
keep your head down. The tall poppy is the one selected for cutting. I
observe my first two rules, but not so much this one. That’s because
sometimes we have to make a choice between what’s smart and what’s
right. In my case, almost nothing is worth feeling like a whipped dog.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78363" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Justin: </b>Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today, Doug.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1514584095612_78365" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Doug: </b>My pleasure.<br />
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-82880621610256095762017-12-21T16:16:00.000-07:002017-12-21T16:16:00.331-07:00Paul Craig Roberts states that "Russiagate is an orchestrated hoax. That has now become so aparent that even insouciant Americans are catching on, even those low IQ ones who sit in front of TV news. I often disparage Congress, but here is a member who is admirable, Republican Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio." Be sure to play the videos two and eight paragraphs below. In the second one Republican Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio tells it like it is!!! <hr />
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<h1>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">De Facto Travel Restrictions Now Exist For Americans</span></span></i></h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/12/21/" rel="nofollow">December 21, 2017</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> Categories: <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/12/21/de-facto-travel-restrictions-now-exist-americans/">Articles & Columns</a>
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<br />
<i>Dear Friends, I apologize for dumping this on you at
Christmas, a time for peace and joy. But these are the facts. We can
ignore them only at our peril.</i><br />
<br />
<b>De Facto Travel Restrictions Now Exist For Americans</b><br />
<br />
Paul Craig Roberts<br />
<br />
Green Party presidential Candidate Jill Stein is being investigated
by the Senate Intelligence (sic) Committee for “Russian connections.”<br />
<br />
What has brought Russiagate to Jill Stein? The answer is that she
attended the 10th Anniversary RT dinner in Moscow as did the notorious
“Russian collaborator” US General Michael Flynn. RT is a news
organization, a far better one than exists in the West, but if you were
one of the many accomplished people who attended the anniversary dinner,
you are regarded by Republican Senator Richard Burr from North Carolina
as a possible Kremlin agent. <a href="http://russia-insider.com/en/anti-russian-witch-hunt-comes-jill-stein-because-she-once-sat-next-putin-and-flynn/ri21998" rel="noopener" target="_blank"> http://russia-insider.com/en/anti-russian-witch-hunt-comes-jill-stein-because-she-once-sat-next-putin-and-flynn/ri21998 </a><br />
<br />
What is going on here? Stein sums it up: <i>“we must guard against
the potential for these </i><br />
<i>investigations to be used to intimidate and
silence principled opposition to the political establishment.”</i><br />
<br />
Here I sit considering two interesting invitations. One is to speak
at the main Plenary Session of the Moscow Economic Forum in April. The
other is to speak at the Summit for Global Challenges in the former
Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan in May. The very minute I accept, the NSA
will notify its mouthpieces, the New York Times, PropOrNot’s promoter
the Washington Post, Senator Burr, and Special Russiagate Prosecutor
Robert Mueller. Would I be renditioned to Israel or Eqypt or Saudi
Arabia and tortured until I confessed that I was a member of the
Trump-Flynn-Jill Stein Kremlin spy network?<br />
<br />
As the United States is no longer a free country governed by a
Constitution that protects civil liberty, that possibility cannot be
discounted. What is for sure is that if I accept these invitations, the
US Establishment will discredit my voice when I write about US/Russia
relations. Indeed, that was the intention of the PropOrNot Washington
Post story that attacked 200 truth-tellers as “Russian agents/dupes.”
Many of those so attacked have experienced slower growth in their
readership. After all, Americans and Europeans are insouciant. They are
actually sufficiently stupid to believe what governments and print and
TV media tell them.<br />
<br />
I, too, was invited to RT’s 10th Anniversary celebration in Moscow.
Imagining the celebration would be grand balls in palaces and myself,
decked out in white tie with my French Legion of Honor dancing with
those beautiful RT women, I almost accepted. But I learned in time that
the event was conferences and speeches and decided to forego a Moscow
winter.<br />
<br />
Otherwise I would be in the dock with Trump, Flynn, and Jill Stein and whomever the Washington Gestapo settles on next.<br />
<br />
Russiagate is an orchestrated hoax. That has now become so aparent
that even insouciant Americans are catching on, even those low IQ ones
who sit in front of TV news. I often disparage Congress, but here is a
member who is admirable, Republican Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio.
<a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/boom-rep-jim-jordan-goes-nuclear-rod-rosenstein-trump-hating-fbi-agent-peter-strzok-video/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/boom-rep-jim-jordan-goes-nuclear-rod-rosenstein-trump-hating-fbi-agent-peter-strzok-video/ </a><br />
<br />
Watch the short video and delight in the power and force with which
Rep. Jordan goes after the piece of crap US deputy attorney general the
Twitter President has in office. When the President of the United
States has to rely on a congressman to call out the Justice Department
and the FBI for its criminal actions and for its treason to overthrow
both democracy and the elected government of the United States, you know
we have elected a president who is too scared to defend himself. Roger
Stone is correct, if Trump were a real man, Mueller, Comey, Hillary,
Obama, and the rest of the criminal scum would be arrested, prosecuted
and sentenced for their vast crimes, crimes that exceed those of anyone
in prison today.<br />
<br />
But Trump is nothing but talk. No action.<br />
<br />
How much longer can I give interviews to Russian and Iranian media
before the Washington Gestapo gives me a midnight knock on my door.<br />
<br />
Whatever America is, it is not a free country.<br />
<br />
If Trump wants to make America great again, he must shatter the CIA,
FBI, NSA, and media into a thousand pieces. The concentrated power that
President Eisenhower warned Americans about in 1961 is far too great
for liberty to survive.<br />
<br />
Instead, the weakest president in American history actually read the
speech handed to him by the ruling neocon military/security complex and
declared Russia and China inimical to Washington’s interests.<br />
<br />
Americans are too insouciant to understand it, but this was a
declaration of war against two countries, which when combined are more
than a match for Washington.<br />
<br />
Neither Russia nor China, much less an alliance between them, will accept Washington’s hegemony.<br />
If the hubris-crazed fools in Washington persist, we are all going to die.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-53372700680814558832017-12-11T09:01:00.000-07:002017-12-11T09:01:13.503-07:00Beware. The U.S. is a police state. U.S. cops kill innocents without reason and get away with it.<hr />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
We’ve all been there before.<br />
<br />
You’re driving along and you see a pair of flashing blue lights in
your rearview mirror. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you get
a sinking feeling in your stomach.<br />
<br />
You’ve read enough news stories, seen enough headlines, and lived in
the American police state long enough to be anxious about any encounter
with a cop that takes place on the side of the road.<br />
<br />
For better or worse, from the moment you’re pulled over, you’re at
the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute
discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and
how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to
“serve and protect.”<br />
<br />
This is what I call “blank check policing,” in which the police get to call all of the shots.<br />
<br />
So if you’re nervous about traffic stops, you have every reason to be.<br />
<br />
Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a
bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge
relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about
your rights, but there’s always the chance that an encounter will turn
deadly.<br />
<br />
For instance, it was just a year ago, in the early morning hours of
Dec. 1, 2016, when Gregory Tucker, a young African-American man, was <a href="https://rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/rutherford_institute_sues_police_over_broken_taillight_traffic_stop_that_re">pulled over by Louisiana police for a broken taillight</a>.<br />
<a href="https://rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/rutherford_institute_sues_police_over_broken_taillight_traffic_stop_that_re">What should have been a routine traffic stop became yet another example of police brutality in America</a>.<br />
<br />
According to the <a href="https://rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/rutherford_institute_sues_police_over_broken_taillight_traffic_stop_that_re">lawsuit that was filed in federal court by The Rutherford Institute</a>,
Tucker was thrown to the ground by police, beaten, arrested and
hospitalized for severe injuries to his face and arm, allegedly in
retaliation for “resisting arrest” by driving to a safe, well-lit area
before submitting to a traffic stop for a broken tail light.<br />
<br />
Mind you, this young man complied with police. He just didn’t do it fast enough to suit their purposes.<br />
<br />
If this young man is “guilty” of anything, he’s guilty of ticking off
the cops by being cautious, concerned for his safety, and all too aware
of the dangers faced by young black men during encounters with the
police.<br />
<br />
Frankly, you don’t even have to be young or black or a man to fear for your life during an encounter with the police.<br />
<br />
Just consider the growing numbers of unarmed people are who being
shot and killed just for standing a certain way, or moving a certain
way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a
gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind
that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.<br />
<br />
At a time when police can do no wrong—at least in the eyes of the
courts, police unions and politicians dependent on their votes—and a
“fear” for officer safety is used to justify all manner of police
misconduct, “we the people” are at a severe disadvantage.<br />
<br />
Add a traffic stop to the mix, and that disadvantage increases dramatically.<br />
<br />
According to the Justice Department, the <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=702">most common reason for a citizen to come into contact with the police</a> is being a driver in a traffic stop.<br />
<br />
On average, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/09/you-really-can-get-pulled-over-for-driving-while-black-federal-statistics-show/">one in 10 Americans gets pulled over by police</a>.<br />
<br />
Indeed, police officers have been given free range to pull anyone over for a variety of reasons.<br />
<br />
This free-handed approach to traffic stops has resulted in drivers
being stopped for windows that are too heavily tinted, for driving too
fast, driving too slow, failing to maintain speed, following too
closely, improper lane changes, distracted driving, screeching a car’s
tires, and leaving a parked car door open for too long.<br />
<br />
Motorists can also be stopped by police for driving near a bar or on a
road that has large amounts of drunk driving, driving a certain make of
car (<a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/10/13/cars-that-get-ticketed-most-police-speeding-lifestyle-vehicles-violations.html">Mercedes, Grand Prix and Hummers are among the most ticketed vehicles</a>),
having anything dangling from the rearview mirror (air fresheners,
handicap parking permits, troll transponders or rosaries), displaying
pro-police bumper stickers, having acne, appearing nervous or driving
with a stiff posture.<br />
<br />
In other words, drivers beware.<br />
<br />
Traffic stops aren’t just dangerous. They can be downright deadly.<br />
<br />
From the moment those lights start flashing and that siren goes off, we’re all in the same boat.<br />
Survival is the key.<br />
<br />
<i>Technically</i>, you have the right to remain silent (beyond the
basic requirement to identify yourself and show your registration). You
have the right to refuse to have your vehicle searched. You have the
right to film your interaction with police. You have the right to ask to
leave. You also have the right to resist an unlawful order such as a
police officer directing you to extinguish your cigarette, <a href="http://www.newsnet5.com/news/state/heres-what-drivers-police-are-allowed-to-do-during-traffic-stops">put away your phone or stop recording them</a>.<br />
<br />
However, there is a price for asserting one’s rights. That price grows more costly with every passing day.<br />
<br />
If you ask cops and their enablers what Americans should do to stay
alive during encounters with police, they will tell you to comply,
cooperate, obey, not resist, not argue, not make threatening gestures or
statements, avoid sudden movements, and submit to a search of their
person and belongings.<br />
<br />
The problem, of course, is what to do when compliance is not enough.<br />
<br />
As I make clear in my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590793099"><i>Battlefield America: The War on the American People</i></a>,
every day we hear about situations in which unarmed Americans complied
and still died during an encounter with police simply because they
appeared to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/28/police-shoot-black-man-in-san-diego-suburb-sparking-protests-circumstances-remain-unclear/">standing in a “shooting stance”</a> or <a href="http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/dec/31/metro-police-investigating-officer-involved-shooti/">held a cell phone</a> or a <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/04/local/la-me-ln-water-nozzle-shooting-20130404">garden hose</a> or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/us/chicago-police-fatally-shoot-2-raising-new-questions-for-a-force-under-scrutiny.html">carried around a baseball bat</a> or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/us/chicago-police-fatally-shoot-2-raising-new-questions-for-a-force-under-scrutiny.html">answered the front door</a> or held a <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/alabama-man-rushed-officer-spoon-fatally-shot-article-1.2336281">spoon in a threatening manner</a> or <a href="http://patch.com/georgia/cartersville/new-details-released-bartow-officer-involved-shooting-0">ran in an aggressive manner</a> holding a tree branch or <a href="http://www.cbs46.com/story/28301956/naked-man-shot-by-police-officer-at-dekalb-county-apartments">wandered around naked</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/man-injured-in-police-involved-shooting-in-baltimore-suburb/2015/06/25/84be9f36-1b26-11e5-ab92-c75ae6ab94b5_story.html">hunched over in a defensive posture</a> or made the mistake of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sheriff-shooting-20160809-snap-story.html">wearing the same clothes as a carjacking suspect</a> (dark pants and a basketball jersey) or dared to <a href="http://www.11alive.com/news/local/da-officer-involved-in-fatal-midtown-shooting-faces-murder-charges/274709357">leave an area at the same time that a police officer showed up</a> or <a href="http://abc7.com/news/tulsa-police-shoot-kill-unarmed-black-man-doj-investigating/1517880/">had a car break down</a> by the side of the road or were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/nc-trooper-being-investigated-for-shooting-of-deaf-man.html">deaf</a> or <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-castic-deputy-shooting-20160803-snap-story.html">homeless</a> or <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-john-wrana-textbook-police-force-case-kass-0111-20150111-column.html">old</a>.<br />
<br />
Frankly, the only truly compliant, submissive and obedient citizen in a police state is a dead one.<br />
If you’re starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed, intimidated and
fearful for your life and the lives of your loved ones, you should be.<br />
<br />
You should be very afraid.<br />
<br />
I am.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-63307759074252908992017-11-29T15:09:00.002-07:002017-11-29T15:14:26.245-07:00"Mark [his] words. If passed, the Republicans will then rediscover the "deficit crisis," and push aggressively for massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education – higher education in particular – nutrition, affordable housing and more. They will seek to undo every major piece of legislation passed in the last 80 years designed to help working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor." I'm wondering if any of you have learned these facts from the despicable mainstream meda? I doubt it. Trust Bernie and spread his message!<hr />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JxgYmo0oxzw/Wh8m944f1II/AAAAAAAALyU/RuPGKIAyeS0xy3fuumaDUjWd0-1VYHn8gCLcBGAs/s1600/Bernie%2B2017-11-29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="135" data-original-width="570" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JxgYmo0oxzw/Wh8m944f1II/AAAAAAAALyU/RuPGKIAyeS0xy3fuumaDUjWd0-1VYHn8gCLcBGAs/s1600/Bernie%2B2017-11-29.jpg" /></a></div>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919736" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<hr />
<br />
For the past 40 years, the financial and political elite of this
country have rigged the tax code to redistribute wealth and income to
some of the richest and most powerful people in this country. The
result: we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society in
which the top 1 percent is doing phenomenally well, the middle class
continues to decline and 40 million Americans are living in poverty.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919736" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919777" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
And it will probably not surprise you to learn that just as our tax
code benefits the wealthiest people in this country, it also benefits
some of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world with a
myriad of tax breaks, deductions, credits and other loopholes. As a
result, one out of five large profitable corporations today pays nothing
in federal taxes.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919777" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919779" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
The current Republican “tax cut” bill, paid for by the Koch brothers
and other billionaire campaign contributors, continues the push to make
the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. It would raise taxes on
middle class families making $75,000 a year or less and would throw 13
million Americans off of health insurance. And it would do all of these
things to provide permanent tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and
profitable corporations that ship American jobs to China while moving
their American profits to the Cayman Islands.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919779" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919781" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
But let's be clear. This legislation goes well beyond taxes. Its
ultimate goal is to radically transform American society and the role
that government plays in the lives of the working families of our
country. This legislation will increase the deficit by at least $1.5
trillion over ten years. Mark my words. If passed, the Republicans will
then rediscover the "deficit crisis," and push aggressively for massive
cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education – higher
education in particular – nutrition, affordable housing and more. They
will seek to undo every major piece of legislation passed in the last 80
years designed to help working families, the elderly, the children, the
sick and the poor.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919781" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919784" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919783">This is the
Republican plan. Huge tax breaks for the rich and powerful. Massive cuts
to life and death programs for the middle class and working families of
our country.</b></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919784" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<b>This is not moral. This is not what the American people want.
This is not what our country and our pledge for "liberty and justice for
all" is supposed to be about.</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<b>That is why I am going on the road this week to talk directly
to working people in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania about this
disastrous piece of legislation. If we stand together – black, white,
Latino, Asian American, Native American, male and female, young and old,
gay and straight – we can defeat this horrific bill. But I need you to
make your voice heard as well. We need to stand together.</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919484" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<a href="https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/bernie-gop-tax?source=em171129-no-full" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919487" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/bernie-gop-tax?source=em171129-no-full"><b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919486">Please
sign my petition calling on Congress to REJECT the Republican “tax cut”
plan that would take from the working families in this country to give a
massive tax break to people and corporations who already are doing
extremely well. At a time of grotesque levels of income and wealth
inequality, we must not make a bad situation even worse.</b></a></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919484" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919481" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
Today in America, more than 40 million Americans, including 20 percent
of all children, live in poverty. Many in extreme poverty. Almost 28
million Americans have no health insurance. Millions of bright kids
can’t afford to go to college without facing a lifetime of debt. Seniors
and disabled veterans are struggling to stay alive on inadequate Social
Security checks.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919481" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919786" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
Despite all of that pain, the greed of the billionaire class in this
country knows no limits. No. We will not allow them to take away from
those in need in order to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the
very rich.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919786" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919789" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919788">Here’s a radical
idea for my colleagues in the Republican Party: instead of just
listening to the rich and powerful few in this country, maybe just maybe
Congress should listen to the majority of the American people who want a
fair tax system.</b></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919789" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919792" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
Maybe just maybe corporate tax reform should start by preventing
profitable companies from sheltering profits in tax haven countries like
the Cayman Islands.</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br />
Here is something you may not know:</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919794" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
A 2008 Government Accountability Office report found that 83 of the
Fortune 100 companies use at least one offshore tax scheme to lower
their taxes. A 2016 study found that one of every five large, profitable
corporations paid no federal income taxes at all in 2012.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919794" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919594" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
The practice of stashing profits in places like the Cayman Islands has
become so absurd that one single, five-story office building there is
now the official legal “home” to more than 18,000 corporations! Our tax
code has essentially legalized tax dodging for large corporations.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919594" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919796" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
We must stop this bill. We must stop the Republicans from moving this country into an oligarchy.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919796" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919596" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
And that starts with all of us standing up, fighting back and making
our voices heard. Three weeks ago progressives from coast to coast ran
for office at the local and state level – and they won. We have to
continue that progress and build on that momentum.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919596" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919598" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<a href="https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/bernie-gop-tax?source=em171129-no-full" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919799" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/bernie-gop-tax?source=em171129-no-full"><b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919798">Please
sign my petition calling on Congress to REJECT the Republican “tax cut”
plan that would take from working families in this country all to give a
massive tax break to people and corporations who already have it all.</b></a></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919598" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919801" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
Brothers and sisters. We must do exactly the opposite of what Trump is
attempting to do. He wants to divide us up by the color of our skin, our
gender, our religion, our sexual orientation or our country of origin.
He wants us fighting with each other while Wall Street and the
billionaire class laugh all the way to the bank.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919801" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919803" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
Our job is to bring our people together around an agenda that creates
an economy and government that works for all, not just the 1 percent.
Defeating this terrible piece of legislation will be an important step
forward.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919803" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919805" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
This bill is a moral abomination. I hope you’ll add your name if you agree.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919819" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
In solidarity,</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919819" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510875670008_919817" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px; line-height: 140%;">
Bernie Sanders</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-81972190266683308342017-11-24T08:00:00.001-07:002017-11-24T08:00:38.283-07:00When I was 10 years old in grade school, my teacher would tell us to hide below our desks to practice being safe from a Russian attack. Of course, nothing like that every happened. However, in 1962 things became much more dangerous when Cuba installed a Russian ballistic nuclear missile to offset American missiles in Italy and Turkey. This was a very scary moment, but it was finally solved peacefully when Khrushchev and John Kennedy worked out a way to remove both the Russian missile in Cuba and the U.S. missiles surrounding Russia. Flash forward to the present: Most of the members of the American Congress are now pushing to destroy Russia with a sneak attack with hundreds of U.S. nuclear missiles. But by now Putin is on to that and is preparing a superior counter attack. Surely that should scare all Americans …yet unlike my grade school teacher, most Americans seem to be unconcerned. They don’t care if they and their children and grand-children all die suddenly?<hr />
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<h1>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Will America Survive Washington? — Paul Craig</span> Roberts</span></span>
<hr />
</i></h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/11/13/" rel="nofollow">November 13, 2017</a>
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Will America Survive Washington?<br />
<br />
Paul Craig Roberts <br />
<br />
In recent columns posted on my website, I brought attention to two
dramatic and dangerous developments between the two major nuclear
powers.<br />
<br />
One was the public statement of the deputy commander of the Russian
military’s Operation Command at a recent Moscow security conference. Lt.
Gen. Viktor Poznihir, Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate
of the Russian Armed Forces, stated at the Moscow International Security
Conference that the Operations Command of the Russian General Staff has
concluded that Washington is preparing a nuclear first strike on
Russia. <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/05/11/are-you-ready-to-die/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"> https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/05/11/are-you-ready-to-die/ </a><br />
<br />
The other is the report that the US is collecting Russian DNA for the
US Air Force weapons laboratory, the implication being that the US
intends to research if a bio-weapon can be created that only targets
Russians. <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/11/01/washingtons-barbarity-reaches-new-heights/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/11/01/washingtons-barbarity-reaches-new-heights/</a><br />
<br />
As far as I can ascertain, neither of these startling developments
were reported in the US media. One would think that the White House
would have been on the telephone to Putin giving reassurances that the
US is not planning a surprise nuclear attack on Russia. One would think
that the publication of US contracts for Russian DNA and Putin’s public
statement about it would have immediately resulted in President Trump
ordering a halt to the Russian DNA project.<br />
<br />
But not a peep.<br />
<br />
Instead, the morons ruling us are content to send two back-to-back messages to Russia that we intend to wipe out Russia.<br />
<br />
Can you imagine anything more reckless and irresponsible than to
convince a nuclear power that you have targeted them for destruction?<br />
<br />
Where are the American and European media? The presstitutes are busy
at work repeating endlessly the military/security complex and DNC’s
lies about “Russiagate.” Alternatively, the presstitutes are focused on
what the NFL’s national anthem policy will be.<br />
<br />
We are experiencing the total failure of the leadership of a country.<br />
<br />
While threatening Russia, the military/security complex and the
presstitutes are simultaneously creating an ominous Russophobia among
the US and European populations. <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-tells-europe-prepare-for-a-russian-invasion-who-are-the-most-dangerous-russians-in-the-world-today/5617972" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-tells-europe-prepare-for-a-russian-invasion-who-are-the-most-dangerous-russians-in-the-world-today/5617972</a><br />
<br />
President Trump said after his recent unofficial meeting with
President Putin that he believed Putin that there was no Russian
government interference in the US election. This set off a cacophony of
denunciations by presstitutes, dumbshit politicians, and corrupt
military/security officials.<br />
<br />
See Stephen Lendman: <a href="http://stephenlendman.org/2017/11/uproar-trumps-remarks-putin/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://stephenlendman.org/2017/11/uproar-trumps-remarks-putin/ </a><br />
Recently I pointed out that these highly visible threats to Russians
are mindless considering the military inferiority of the United States.
The Saker concluded that I was correct in my assessment. <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/11/06/saker-examines-pcrs-one-day-tomorrow-wont-arrive/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/11/06/saker-examines-pcrs-one-day-tomorrow-wont-arrive/ </a><br />
<br />
The Saker has now provided considerable detail documenting Russian
military superiority. If the morons in Washington persist in their
insane aggression against Russia, the US will completely disappear from
the face of the earth and likely also its dumbshit European vassals.
Here is The Saker’s presentation: <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48185.htm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48185.htm </a><br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the effort to keep Americans and Europeans totally
ignorant of everything that is really happening, substituting
Washington’s controlled explanations for actual reality, continues. For
telling the truth, the news service RT has been forced to register as a
“foreign agent” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-brands-rt-a-foreign-agent-a-chilling-move-against-free-speech/5617908" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-brands-rt-a-foreign-agent-a-chilling-move-against-free-speech/5617908 </a><br />
<br />
In other words, the First Amendment, along with the rest of the US
Constitution, has been repealed by Washington’s assertion of raw power,
not limited by law or even morality.<br />
<br />
According to the report (above) on Global Research, “This month, an
organization calling itself the European Values Think-Tank, based in the
Czech Republic and funded by the US embassy and foundations associated
with billionaire George Soros, published just such a list, including the
names of 2,300 RT guests, grouped into US and UK politicians,
journalists, academics and celebrities. These individuals are, according
to the think tank, ‘useful idiots’ for a ‘hostile foreign power.’”<br />
<br />
I am not being facetious when I tell you “don’t expect to live much
longer.” We are ruled by mindless, insane, psychopaths who believe that
the US is invulnerable. These dumbshits are likely to get us all blown
off the face of the earth. If you are not concerned that the US
government is picking a fight with Russia (and China, North Korea, and
Iran as well), something is wrong with you.<br />
<br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-63135904505373591752017-11-03T15:40:00.000-07:002017-11-05T09:26:04.205-07:00Members of the Congress and the military/security complex together with the spy agencies of the CIA want the US to become a police state. Whereas, Abraham Lincoln once said "The people are the masters of both the Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it!" Who will win now? If you would like more guidance on this issue, be sure to play the link provided below. The fake news comes from the US, not Russia.<hr />
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<br />
<h1>
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Washington Stomps on Civil Liberty</span></i></h1>
<hr />
<div class="single_page_entry_meta">
<div class="">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/11/03/" rel="nofollow">November 3, 2017</a>
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</span><span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span></div>
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Washington Stomps on Civil Liberty</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The insouciant American electorate is so inattentive that it
routinely elects enemies of civil liberty to represent the public in
Congress. Last Wednesday Rep. Adam Schiff (D, CA), Rep. Trey Gowdy ( R,
SC), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, CA), Sen. Mark Warner (D, VA), Rep.
Jackie Speier (D, CA), Sen. Tom Cotton (R , AR ), and Rep. Joaquin
Castro (D, TX) tried to intimidate executives from Facebook, Twitter,
and Google into blocking all digital dissent to the anti-Trump/Russian
line taken by the DNC and military/secrurity complex and to serve as spy
agencies for the CIA.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two of the above—Gowdy and Cotton—are Republicans who have aligned
themselves with the attack on Russia and Republican President Trump.
What unites the members of the two parties is that they want a police
state. Jackie Speier demands to know from Google why Google hasn’t
“shut down RT on YouTube.” Joaquin Castro wants messages linked to
Russia turned over to the US government. Trey Gowdy wants false
statements blocked, which would mean that the entire print and TV media
in the US would be shut down along with Congress, John Brennan, Robert
Mueller, and James Comey. Gowdy does not know that the First Amendment
guarantees free speech and leaves it up to the public to decide what is
true and what is false. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You tell me. What kind of insouciant people are capable of electing
representatives who do not respect the Bill of Rights? Is a country
whose government does not respect its own Constitution a democracy? Is
such a country an exceptional, indispensable country? Or is it a
completely corrupt entity whose government no longer has the slightest
allegience to the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What is the quality of an electorate that sends those with a police
state mentality to represent them in the government that has power over
them? Are we witnessing the destruction of democracy by the electorate?
Is the failure of the American people staring us in the face?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Are you amazed that it is the executives of Facebook, Twitter, and
Google, and not the members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the
Constitution of the United States, who point out to US Representatives
and Senators that their demands for censorship and spying are
unconstitutional? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What is the liberal/progressive/left, which believes that good
resides in government and evil in the private sector, to make of this? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Is the hatred of dissent so great that nothing else is important?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here is a report on Wednesday’s hearings by the House and Senate Intelligence (sic) committees on “extremist” views: <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/lawmakers-demand-tech-companies-censor-journalists-and-conduct-mass-surveillance/5616331" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.globalresearch.ca/lawmakers-demand-tech-companies-censor-journalists-and-conduct-mass-surveillance/5616331 </a></span><br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-32574275337632735442017-10-29T13:51:00.000-07:002017-10-29T13:51:03.190-07:00I guarantee that the stock markets will crash sometime between now and maybe a year from now. The market is run by rich people who borrow money to run up the entire market. They are confident that they will continue to make big money, because the FED keeps reporting that 95+% of all working age American have jobs. However, to get that number, the FED treats all those without jobs for longer than a month or so are treated as though dead. Whereas, the truth is that, by now there are between 24% (definitely), and likely closer to 50%, of all working-age Americans can no longer find a decent job. And even those who are counted as having jobs are likely to have menial ones, and so they can’t buy the rich people's products. Thus, when the fat cats finally realize that the game is over, much of their wealth will go down together with their rigged stock markets. And, boy, do they ever deserve it.<hr />
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509289434654_18647" style="font-family: Oswald; font-size: 24px; line-height: 35px; margin-bottom: 27px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
Will President Trump Take The Blame When the Stock Markets Crash?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509289434654_18479" style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
Stock
markets continue to reach record high levels, but it’s only a matter of
time before they crash back to earth. When they do, there will be a lot
of finger pointing at those deemed to be responsible for the crash.
Given the current political climate, President Trump will undoubtedly
come in for criticism. But will that be a fair criticism?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509289434654_18558" style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
President
Trump is certainly taking the credit for the hot stock markets, and his
supporters view this as market approval for his allegedly pro-growth
economic policies. Trump’s critics will undoubtedly seize on something
to criticize him when stock markets crash, no matter how flimsy their
case may be. All of this obscures the fact that Presidents just don’t
have that much of an effect on the economy, at least not in the short
term.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509289434654_18654" style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
For
one thing, Congress is responsible for passing the federal budget, one
of the biggest drains on the economy. Sure, the President can submit a
budget proposal, but ultimately it’s Congress that determines just how
many trillions of dollars are siphoned away from taxpayers and shuttled
into non-productive endeavors.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509289434654_18655" style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
Where
Presidents are most responsible for affecting the economy is in their
selection of Federal Reserve Board members, particularly when they pick a
chairman. The chairman ultimately determines the direction of monetary
policy, which has far more effect on the economy than anything else the
federal government does.</div>
<div style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
This
stock market bubble has been years in the making, a natural consequence
of the trillions of dollars that the Federal Reserve System has been
pumping into financial markets. It’s not a surprise either, at least to
those of us who adhere to Austrian economics and understand that the
Fed’s response to the last financial crisis would result in another
larger bubble.</div>
<div style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
President
Trump has a chance to change things for the better at the Fed if he
appoints a chairman who will upend the Fed’s traditionally loose conduct
of monetary policy, although that doesn’t appear likely. But no matter
who he picks now, the wheels for the next crisis were set in motion
years ago. It was the monetary policy of Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen
that will bring about the next financial crisis, so the blame should
fall squarely on the shoulders of Presidents Bush and Obama who
appointed them.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509289434654_18658" style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
Nothing
President Trump or his appointees do now will stop the next financial
crisis, they can only react to it. How they react should certainly be
subject to critique, but placing the blame on President Trump for
something that he inherited will be a classic case of playing politics –
attacking the President for something he didn’t do, while continuing to
obscure the Federal Reserve’s role in monetary malfeasance.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509289434654_18657" style="font-family: georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 0in;">
- Ron Paul</div>
<img src="https://goldco.com/email/img/rp_sig.png" style="display: block; margin-left: 20px;" />
<br />
<hr />
Blogger's Note: This was originally brought out by Goldco, a company that you may look up in order to use their system for getting rich when the stock markets crash ...or you can use the any or all of my "Royal" gold and silver stocks as follows: RGLD, OR, AEM, or WPM, all on the New York Exchange. N.B. The term "Royal" means a rich company that owns gold and silver but is not a miner. Rather then mining, they buy small amounts of gold or silver rather cheap, because the miners always need more money to dig deeper. <div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-23352667036572606722017-10-15T09:14:00.000-07:002017-10-15T09:14:03.435-07:00If the U.S. should be forced by the neocon military/security complex to attack Russia with nuclear weapons, the certain result would be the destruction of the whole human race. This would mean that your grown children’s lives would be cut short and your grandchildren would never grow up. Think about that! You won’t hear anything like that from the so-called “main stream media” because they would lose their jobs if they don’t repeat your government’s lies. So, if you should want to know the real truth, you will have to get it from individuals like Paul Craig Roberts …who has a 6-year PhD in economics and has worked for Ronald Reagan and on Wall Street, but now lives on his government pension (and donations from people like me) in order to spread the truth. Can I count on you to spread this to some of your friends?<hr />
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<br />
<h1>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The</span></span></i> <i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unraveling of American/Russian Relations — Paul Craig Roberts</span></span></i></h1>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="single_page_entry_meta">
<div class="">
<hr />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/10/14/" rel="nofollow">October 14, 2017</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> Categories: <a href="https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/10/14/unraveling-americanrussian-relations-paul-craig-roberts/">Articles & Columns</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>
</div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Unraveling of American/Russian Relations</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dear Readers: I agree that the official Las Vegas story seems to be
unraveling. A public mass shooting should be transparent, not opaque. I
think we explored the story long enough to discover that without
knowing the facts, we cannot arrive at an explanation with confidence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is time to move on to another unraveling—that of US/Russian
relations. This unraveling is far more serious as it threatens life on
earth. I have warned of the consequences of Washington threatening
Russia’s security by breaking agreement after agreement, by placing
missile bases on Russia’s borders, by orchestrating anti-Russian coups
in former Soviet provinces, and by a continuing volley of false
accusations against Russia. There is no act more reckless and
irresponsible than to make one nuclear power fear nuclear attack from
another.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Alert observers have become aware of the mounting danger. Canadian
professor Michel Chossudovsky writes that Washington has taken nuclear
war from a hypothetical scenario to a real danger that threatens the
future of humanity. <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/towards-a-world-war-iii-scenario-breaking-the-big-lie/5348384" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.globalresearch.ca/towards-a-world-war-iii-scenario-breaking-the-big-lie/5348384 </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who worked with President Ronald
Reagan to end the Cold War and the threat of nuclear Armageddon, has
appealed to President Trump and President Putin to hold a summit meeting
and bring an end to the rising tensions. Gorbachev wrote in the
Washington Post that “it is far from normal that the presidents of major
nuclear powers meet merely on the margins of international gatherings.”
This is especially the case as “relations between the two nations are
in a severe crisis.” <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48004.htm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48004.htm </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gorbachev’s warning could be an understatement. Last March, General
Viktor Poznikhir, the deputy commander of the Russian military’s
Operation Command expressed concern that Washington could be preparing a
surprise nuclear attack on Russia. See <a href="https://dninews.com/article/moscow-us-missile-systems-europe-may-lead-sudden-nuclear-attack-russia" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://dninews.com/article/moscow-us-missile-systems-europe-may-lead-sudden-nuclear-attack-russia </a> and <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-global-missile-defense-lead-nuclear-war-europe-591244" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-global-missile-defense-lead-nuclear-war-europe-591244</a> and <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-officials-u-global-missile-192829855.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-officials-u-global-missile-192829855.html </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Had any such statement from the Russian high command been issued
anytime during the 20th century Cold War era, the President of the
United States would have immediately contacted the Soviet leader and
given every assurance that no such plan or intentions toward Russia
existed. As far as I can tell, the Trump White House let this ominous
announcement pass unremarked. If this is the case, it must have
provided confirmation to the Russians’ conclusion.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For some time I have pointed out that the entirety of the West, both
the US and its vassal states, continue to ignore very clear Russian
warnings. Gilbert Doctorow has made the same point. <a href="https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/10/10/deaf-ear-dire-russian-warnings.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/10/10/deaf-ear-dire-russian-warnings.html</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps the most clear of all was Putin’s public statement that
“Russia will never again fight a war on its own territory.” If
Washington’s EU vassals did not hear this clear warning that they are
courting their nuclear destruction—especially the Poles and Romanians
who have mindlessly hosted US missile bases—they are as deaf as they are
stupid.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One Russian official told the idiot British government to its face
that if the British threat to first use nuclear weapons is directed at
Russia, if such an attempt is made, Great Britain will disappear from
the face of the earth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is no doubt that that would be the case.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So why do Washington’s impotent vassals talk tough to Russia, a
government that only desires peace and has threatened Britain in no way.
Nor has the Russian government threatened France, Germany, Italy,
Belgium, Greece, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway,
Denmark, Finland, or any of the former Eastern European vassals of the
Soviet Union that exchanged their captivity to the Soviet Union for
captivity to Washington. Russia has not even threatened Ukraine, which
Russia could wipe out in a couple of minutes. Why are all of these
countries, apparently led by mindless, gutless two-bit politicians,
aligned with Washington’s false propaganda against Russia?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The answer is money. The vassals are paid to go along with the lies.
As Alain of Lille said as long ago as the 12th century, “not God, not
Caesar, but money is all.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What are the forces driving Washington’s provocation of Russia?
There are three, and they comprise a vast conspiracy against life on
earth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One is the Neoconservatives. The Neoconservatives were convinced by
the Soviet Collapse that History has chosen not the proletariat but
American “democratic capitalism” as the socio-politico-economic system
for the world, and that this choice by History conveys on America the
status of the “indispensable, exceptional” country, a status that places
America above all other countries and above international law and,
indeed, America’s own laws.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">America is so exceptional that it can torture people in total
violation of both US law and international law. The government in
Washington can, on suspicion alone without presentation to a court of
evidence and conviction, confine US citizens indefinitely, torturing
them the entire time, and can assassinate them at will without due
process of law. This is the definition of a total police state tyranny.
Yet Washington represents America as a “great democracy,” whose
endless wars against humanity are “bringing democracy to the world.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">America is so exceptional that it can bomb other countries
indiscriminately without officially being at war with those countries.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">America is so exceptional that the separation of powers prescribed in
the American Constitution can be totally ignored by the executive
branch as, the Neoconservatives claim, the President has “unique powers”
not limited by the Constitution, which, of course, is just another lie.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Russia, China, and Iran are targets of the Neoconservatives, as were
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and provinces of
Pakistan, because these countries have/had independent foreign policies
and are/were not Washington’s vassals.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Neoconservative doctrine states that it is the “principal goal”
of US foreign policy “to prevent the rise of Russia or any other state”
that can serve as a constraint on Washington’s unilateralism. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The New York Times under this headline on March 8, 1992, explains the Wolfowitz doctrine:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop<br />
A One-Superpower World</b> <a href="http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm</a></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>
Special to The New York Times<br />
<br />
WASHINGTON, March 7 In a broad new policy statement that is in its
final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America’s
political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to
ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe,
Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union.<br />
<br />
A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of
the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects
to release later this month, states that part of the American mission
will be convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a
greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their
legitimate interests.<br />
<br />
</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The classified document makes the case for a world dominated
by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive
behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of
nations from challenging American primacy.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Every state with an independent foreign policy is a constraint on
Washington, especially states with nuclear capabilities such as Russia
and China.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A second interest with incentive to provoke Russia is the US
military/security complex. President Eisenhower, a five-star general,
warned Americans in 1961 that the “military-industrial complex” was a
threat to American democracy. Today the military/security complex is
much more than a mere threat to American democracy. It has already
taken over the US government and the Trump administration, which is run
by generals, and it now threatens all life on earth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The military/security complex has an annual budget of one thousand
billion dollars. This sum is larger than the Gross Domestic Products of
all but a handful of countries on earth. Such an immense budget
conveying such power desperately needs a dangerous enemy for its
justification. Russia has been assigned this role. Given the power of
the military/security complex, the role assigned to Russia cannot be
mitigated by Russian diplomacy. Moreover, the interests of the
military/security complex and the Neoconservatives are in agreement.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The third powerful interest group leading to conflict with Russia is
the Israel Lobby. In Washington the Israel Lobby is extremely powerful.
If the Israel Lobby puts legislation or a resolution before Congress,
it usually passes almost unanimously, as anyone who votes against it is
likely to be eliminated in the next election.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Israel Lobby is closely linked to the Neoconservatives, the
principal figures of which are Zionist Jews tightly allied with Israel.
Some are joint US/Israeli citizens. The Israeli influence in
Washington is so strong that the Vice Chairman of the US Federal Reserve
Bank is the former chairman of the Israeli Central Bank. Israel is so
powerful in Washington that it even runs US economic policy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Zionists in Israel want to expand. Their doctrine is “from the
Nile to the Euphrates.” That is the Zionist claim of the land that God
gave to the Chosen People.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In pursuit of this goal, Israel twice sent the Israeli Army into
southern Lebanon to occupy that part of the country in order to seize
the Litani River, water resources that Israel desires.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However, twice the Hezbollah militia drove out the vaunted Israeli
Army. Israel now fears to send the army again. Instead, Israel is
using its power over the government in Washington to use the US military
to put Syria and Iran in the same chaos as exists in Libya and Iraq.
The reason is that Syria and Iran are the supporters of the Hezbollah
militia. Deprived of support, Hezbollah can be defeated by Israel.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is Israel, not the US government per se, that is driving the US to
war with Iran. Israel, which almost always gets its way in Washington,
is encountering difficulties. Washington’s EU vassals are opposed to
renewing conflict with Iran. Europe is overwhelmed with problems, many
of which stem from Washington’s wars, and doesn’t need the Iranian one
again. Neither does the US military, defeated in Syria and unable to
win in Afghanistan after 16 years against a few thousand lightly armed
Taliban. Washington’s defeat in Afghanistan on top of the defeat in
Vietnam has destroyed any fear of Washington’s conventional forces,
which is why Russia and China expect the next war to be nuclear.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Moreover, if Russia will not tolerate Washington’s overthrow of
Syria, Russia certainly will not tolerate Washington’s overthrow of
Iran. And it is unlikely that China will either as, according to
reports, China gets 20% of its oil from Iran. Indeed, the Russian and
Chinese interest in Iran is so strong that it is inexplicable that the
Israel Lobby thinks it is so strong that it can drive Washington into
war with Iran. The hubris and arrogance of the Neoconservatives and the
Israel Lobby are the greatest the world has seen since Hitler marched
off into Russia.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If the dumbshits in Washington repeat this folly, the lights on Earth will be turned off.</span><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-6183593547482138822017-10-09T11:16:00.000-07:002017-10-09T11:16:35.673-07:00How NOT to be a patriotic American, i.e., One who believes anything claimed as fact by the so-called "mainstream media" …particularly regarding current foreign affairs. <hr />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="label">Published by</span>
<span class="fn" itemprop="name"><a href="http://stephenlendman.org/author/stephen/">Stephen Lendman</a></span>
</span></span></span><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<span class="label">at</span>
<time class="entry-date updated" datetime="2017-10-09T10:17:12+00:00" itemprop="datePublished">October 9, 2017</time></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>How to Succeed in Western Media Without Really Trying</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Stephen Lendman (<a class="autohyperlink" href="http://stephenlendman.org/" target="_blank">stephenlendman.org</a> – Home – Stephen Lendman)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most important is loyalty to monied interests, war-profiteers, and
the imperial state – serving as their press agents, abandoning
fundamental journalistic principles, learning how to lie well, along
with leaving honesty and integrity at home when heading for work.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Julian Assange offered his own recommended strategy for success. It’s simple, he said. Blame Russia for everything.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“You can do it” – without really trying.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“1) Pick random globally newsworthy event.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Russian press will also be reporting it by definition.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2) Write story: Russian state secretly behind globally newsworthy event as proved by their press reporting it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3) Profit!”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bashing Russia works, the bandwagon effect when everybody does it, following the same script.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Saying it makes it so. Repeating it ad nauseam works best. Lying is
simpler than truth-telling – no evidence needed, no sources required.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Citing the usual unnamed ones works fine. Who’ll check? Lying pays
well in America and other Western countries, truth-tellers shunted,
contradicting the official narrative not tolerated.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Western major media are deplorable, truth-telling a lost art in their
publications and broadcasts. The fourth estate, dominated by corporate
giants, feature disinformation, fake news and advocacy instead of what
legitimate journalism is supposed to be.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s shocking how low major media reporting has sunk. It’s biased,
sensationalist, irresponsible rubbish, what Project Censored calls “junk
food news.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Major media are in cahoots with other powerful interests, government
and private. Free and open societies are threatened when propagandists
pose as journalists, letting fiction substitute for facts, stifling the
free flow of content, shutting out dissent, working as paid liars, what
famed journalist George Seldes called “prostitutes of the press.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Imperial wars are called liberating ones, humanitarian intervention
and responsibility to protect. Civil liberties are suppressed for our
own good.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Beneficial social justice is considered heresy. The marketplace works
best, we’re told, so let it. Patriotism means going along with what
harms our welfare.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Independent journalism is the only legitimate kind, notably digital
democracy, threatened by administration efforts to control Internet
content.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Facebook, Twitter and other social media are willing accomplices. So
are Google and other search engines, censoring and suppressing content, flagrantly violating the most vital of all constitutional rights – media and speech freedom. </span></div>
<div class="author-date">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">During pre-television days, noted journalist and author AJ Liebling
once said “(p)eople everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with
news.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">HL Mencken called US journalism “predominantly paltry and worthless.
Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He explained why major media sanitize news, filtering out unwanted content, saying:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“The most dangerous (person) to any government is (anyone) able to
think things out for himself (or herself), without regard to the
prevailing superstitions and taboos.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Almost inevitably (they come) to the conclusion that the government…is dishonest, insane, and intolerable…”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The state of Western media today is too deplorable to fix.
Independent sources provide the only reliable news, information and
analysis, no others.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: <a class="autohyperlink" href="http://stephenlendman.org/" target="_blank">stephenlendman.org</a> (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at <a class="autohyperlink" href="mailto:lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net">lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”</span><br />
<br />
<span class="date"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><time class="entry-date updated" datetime="2017-10-09T10:17:12+00:00" itemprop="datePublished"> </time></span></span></span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-42311420693874099632017-09-30T04:44:00.000-07:002017-09-30T09:17:43.485-07:00How to be a patriotic American. Think you know how? I bet you don't, but you should learn how ...before it's too late.<hr />
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;">Patriots
and Protesters Should Take a Knee for the
Constitution</span></b>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">By John W.
Whitehead</span>
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
“Seems like in the past 15 years or so the idea
of patriotism has changed some. More polarized,
more tied to political or ideological views.
I’ve never seen patriotism or the flag connected
to either</span><a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/7/3/15879778/american-flag-clothes-code">;
I see the flag more as the symbol of a nation
that allows the freedom to express those ideas.</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
That alone deserves my respect.”— Macy Moore,
U.S. Marine</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">September
29, 2017 "</span><a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/"><span style="color: black; font-size: large;">Information
Clearing House</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">"
- </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">By
all means, let’s talk about patriotism and President
Trump’s call for “</span><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/912280282224525312">respect
for our Country, Flag and National Anthem</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">At a
time when the American flag adorns everything from
men’s boxers and women’s bikinis to beer koozies,
bandannas and advertising billboards (with little
outcry from the American public), and the National
Anthem is sung by </span>
<a href="https://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/puppy-bowl/videos/pepper-sings-the-national-anthem">
Pepper the Parrot</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
during the Puppy Bowl, this conveniently timed
outrage over disrespect for the country’s patriotic
symbols rings somewhat hollow, detracts from more
serious conversations that should be taking place
about critical policy matters of state, and further
divides the nation and ensures that “we the people”
will not present a unified front to oppose the
police state.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">First off,
let’s tackle this issue of respect or lack thereof
for patriotic symbols.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">As the U.S.
Supreme Court has made clear, Americans have a right
to abstain from patriotic demonstrations (<i>West
Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette</i>, 1943)
and/or actively protest that demonstration, for
example, by raising one’s fist during the Pledge of
Allegiance (<i>Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland</i>,
2004). These First Amendment protections also extend
to military uniforms (worn to criticize the
military) and military funeral protests (<i>Snyder
v. Phelps</i>, 2011).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Likewise,
Americans have a First Amendment right to display,
alter or destroy the U.S. flag as acts of symbolic
protest speech.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In
fact, in </span>
<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6391101560513832626">
<i>Street v. New York</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
(1969), the Supreme Court held that the government
may not punish a person for uttering words critical
of the flag, writing that “the constitutionally
guaranteed ‘freedom to be intellectually . . .
diverse or even contrary,’ and the ‘right to differ
as to things that touch the heart of the existing
order,’ encompass the freedom to express publicly
one’s opinions about our flag, including those
opinions which are defiant or contemptuous.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The
case arose after Sidney Street, hearing about the
attempted murder of civil rights leader James
Meredith in Mississippi, burned a 48-star American
flag on a New York City street corner to protest
what he saw as the government’s failure to protect
Meredith. Upon being questioned about the flag,
Street responded, “</span><a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6391101560513832626">Yes;
that is my flag; I burned it. If they let that
happen to Meredith, we don’t need an American flag</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In
</span>
<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9551529622479132913">
<i>Spence v. Washington</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
(1974), the Court ruled that the right to display
the American flag with any mark or design upon it is
a protected act of expression. The case involved a
college student who had placed a peace symbol on a
three by five foot American flag using removable
black tape and displayed it upside down from his
apartment window.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
Finally, in </span>
<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2084618710761560217">
<i>Texas v. Johnson</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
(1989), the Court held that flag burning was
protected speech under the First Amendment. The
case arose from a demonstration near the site of the
Republican National Convention in Dallas during
which protesters marched through the streets,
chanted political slogans, staged “die-ins” in front
of several corporate offices to dramatize the
consequences of nuclear war, and burned the flag as
a means of political protest.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">In other
words, if freedom means anything, it means that
those exercising their right to protest are showing
the greatest respect for the principles on which
this nation was founded: the right to free speech
and the right to dissent. Clearly, the First
Amendment to the Constitution assures Americans of
the right to speak freely, assemble freely and
protest (petition the government for a redress of
grievances).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Whether
those First Amendment activities take place in a
courtroom or a classroom, on a football field or in
front of the U.S. Supreme Court is not the issue:
what matters is that Americans have a
right—according to the spirit, if not always the
letter, of the law—to voice their concerns without
being penalized for it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Frankly,
the First Amendment does more than give us a right
to criticize our country: it makes it a civic duty.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Second,
let’s not confuse patriotism (love for or devotion
to one’s country) with blind obedience to the
government’s dictates. That is the first step
towards creating an authoritarian regime.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">One
can be patriotic and love one’s country while at the
same time disagreeing with the government or
protesting government misconduct. As journalist
Barbara Ehrenreich recognizes, “</span><a href="http://www.uexpress.com/as-i-see-it/2008/7/5/the-duty-of-patriots-is-to">Dissent,
rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the
true duty of patriots</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Indeed, I
would venture to say that if you’re not speaking out
or taking a stand against government wrongdoing—if
you’re marching in lockstep with anything the
government and its agents dole out—and if you’re
prioritizing partisan politics over the principles
enshrined in the Constitution, then you’re not a
true patriot.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Real
patriots care enough to take a stand, speak out,
protest and challenge the government whenever it
steps out of line.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">There is
nothing patriotic about the lengths to which
Americans have allowed the government to go in its
efforts to dismantle our constitutional republic and
shift the country into a police state.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">It’s not
anti-American to be anti-war or anti-police
misconduct or anti-racial discrimination, but it <i>
is</i> anti-American to be anti-freedom.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">I have come
to realize that what many refer to as
polarization—certainly, what the government refers
to as “extremism”—is actually Americans challenging
the status quo, especially the so-called government
elite. Martin Luther King Jr. put it best when,
after being accused of extremism, responded, “The
question is not whether we will be extremists, but
what kind of extremist will you be?”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">How many
times over the years have I been criticized for
being anti-American and unpatriotic, reprimanded for
being too negative in my views of the government,
admonished to have “faith” in our leaders, and
ordered to refrain from criticizing our president
because Americans still live in the best country in
the world?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Is this
really what patriotism or loving your country is all
about? If so, then the great freedom fighters of
history would be considered unpatriotic.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Too many
Americans seem to think that faith in the government
and a positive attitude are enough to get you
through the day… that you’re not a good citizen if
you criticize the government… and that being a good
citizen means doing one thing: voting.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">The problem
we face today, however, is that America requires
more than voters inclined to pay lip service to a
false sense of patriotism. It requires doers—a
well-informed and very active group of doers—if we
are to have any chance of holding the government
accountable and maintaining our freedoms.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">After all,
it was not idle rhetoric that prompted the Framers
of the Constitution to begin with the words “We the
people.” In the words of Supreme Court Chief Justice
Earl Warren, “there is an implicit assumption
[throughout the Constitution and Bill of Rights]
that we, the people, will preserve our democratic
rights by acting responsibly in our enjoyment of
them.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">This
ultimate responsibility for maintaining our freedoms
rests with the people.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Third, we
need to stop acting as if showing “respect” for the
country, flag and national anthem is more important
than the freedoms they represent.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
Listen: I served in the Army. I lived through the
Civil Rights era. I came of age during the Sixties,
when activists took to the streets to protest war
and economic and racial injustice. As a
constitutional lawyer, I defend people daily whose
civil liberties are being violated, including high
school students prohibited from wearing American
flag t-shirts to school, </span>
<a href="https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/us_supreme_court_refuses_to_protect_right_of_students_to_wear_american_flag">
allegedly out of a fear that it might be disruptive</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">I
understand the price that must be paid for freedom.
None of the people I served with or marched with or
represented put our lives or our liberties on the
line for a piece of star-spangled cloth or a few
bars of music: we took our stands and made our
sacrifices because we believed we were fighting to
maintain our freedoms and bring about justice for
all Americans.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">As such,
responsible citizenship means being outraged at the
loss of others’ freedoms, even when our own are not
directly threatened.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">The Framers
of the Constitution knew very well that whenever and
wherever democratic governments had failed, it was
because the people had abdicated their
responsibility as guardians of freedom. They also
knew that whenever in history the people denied this
responsibility, an authoritarian regime arose which
eventually denied the people the right to govern
themselves.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">All
governments fall into two classifications: those
with a democratic form and those that are
authoritarian, ruled by an individual or some
oligarchic elite.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Acting
responsibly, however, means that there are certain
responsibilities and duties without which our rights
would become meaningless. Duties of citizenship
extend beyond the act of voting, which is only the
first step in acting responsibly. Citizens must be
willing to stand and fight to protect their
freedoms. And if need be, it will entail criticizing
the government.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">This is
true patriotism in action.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">What this
means is that we can still be patriotic and love our
country while disagreeing with the government or
going to court to fight for freedom. Responsible
citizenship means being outraged at the loss of
others’ freedoms, even when our own are not directly
threatened. It also means remembering that the prime
function of any free government is to protect the
weak against the strong.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Love of
country will sometimes entail carrying a picket sign
or going to jail or taking a knee, if necessary, to
preserve liberty and challenge injustice. And it
will mean speaking up for those with whom you might
disagree.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Tolerance
for dissent, we must remember, is a vital
characteristic of the citizens of a democratic
society. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes said, “If there is any principle of the
Constitution that more imperatively calls for
attachment than any other, it is the principle of
free thought--not free thought for those who agree
with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Loving your
country does not mean being satisfied with the
status quo or the way government is being
administered. Government invariably, possibly
inevitably, oversteps its authority. As human beings
are not perfect, governments, because they are
constructs of human beings, will necessarily be
imperfect as well.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Love of
country, it must be emphasized, is always
strengthened by both a knowledge of history and of
the Constitution and, when need be, acting on that
knowledge. “If we have no appreciation of the past,”
Justice Warren recognized, “we can have little
understanding of the present or vision for the
future.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">The
problems facing our generation are numerous and are
becoming incredibly complex.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Technology,
which has developed at a rapid pace, offers those in
power more invasive and awesome possibilities than
ever before. Never in American history has there
been a more pressing need to maintain the barriers
in the Constitution erected by our Founders to check
governmental power and abuse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">As I
make clear in my book </span>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590793099">
<i>Battlefield America: The War on the American
People</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">, we’re
at a very crucial crossroads in American history. We
have to be well-informed, not only about current
events but well-versed in the basics of our rights
and duties as citizens. If not, in perceived times
of crisis, we may very well find ourselves in the
clutches of a governmental system that is alien to
everything for which America stands. And make no
mistake about it, the mass of citizens will continue
to be misinformed, and as astute political leaders
have recognized in the past, they can be easily led.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Therein is
the menace to our freedoms.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Stop
falling for the distractions. Stop allowing yourself
to be fooled by propaganda and partisan politics.
Stop acting as if the only thing worth getting
outraged about is whether a bunch of </span>
<a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/real-patriotism-mr-trump-isnt-how-you-treat-a-flag-its-how-you-treat-americans/article36375796/">
football players stand or kneel for the National
Anthem</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Stop being
armchair patriots and start acting like foot
soldiers for the Constitution.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Remember,
it’s all a game, a ruse, a dance intended to keep
you in line and marching to the government’s tune
instead of freedom’s call. In this age of spin
doctors and manipulation, those who question the
motives of government provide a necessary
counterpoint to those who would blindly follow where
politicians choose to lead.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">Past
regimes understood well how to manipulate and
maneuver. As Hermann Goering, one of Hitler’s top
military leaders, remarked during the Nuremberg
trials:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;">It is
always a simple matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same in any
country.</span></blockquote>
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead
is founder and president of </span><a href="https://www.rutherford.org/" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;"><u>The
Rutherford Institute</u></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.
His new book </span></span></i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590793099/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;"><i>Battlefield
America: The War on the American People</i></a></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> (SelectBooks,
2015) is available online at www.amazon.com.
Whitehead can be contacted at </span><a href="mailto:johnw@rutherford.org" style="color: black; font-weight: bold;">johnw@rutherford.org</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.</span></span></i><br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-80988768596467044392017-09-21T06:10:00.000-07:002017-09-21T06:10:51.233-07:00Paul Craig Roberts: “Trump’s UN speech makes it clear that Trump’s presidency, in terms of his campaign promise to remove Washington from the “policeman of the world” role, exit the Middle East, and repair the damaged relations with Russia, is over." And “The CIA and the military/security complex are in full control of the US government.” Furthermore, “At the UN Trump actually threatened to wipe North Korea off of the face of the earth.” He added to this threat threats against Venezuela and Iran.” And he concludes that “It is only the US government, which is not a government of the people, that has ever threatened another country with total destruction as Trump did to North Korea in the CIA’s UN speech.”<hr />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K5BnbZdVbJk/WcJsuB04v4I/AAAAAAAALwY/bvIPV9Kp9dsSk6P4i0ka5m0IbxBg2wWNACLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="570" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K5BnbZdVbJk/WcJsuB04v4I/AAAAAAAALwY/bvIPV9Kp9dsSk6P4i0ka5m0IbxBg2wWNACLcBGAs/s1600/PCRheader2017-09-11.jpg" /></a></div>
<h1>
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More Thoughts on Trump’s UN Declaration of War Against Iran and North Korea</span></i></h1>
<div class="single_page_entry_meta">
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<hr />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/09/19/" rel="nofollow">September 19, 2017</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> Categories: <a href="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/09/19/thoughts-trumps-un-declaration-war-iran-north-korea/">Articles & Columns</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span></span> </span></i><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>More Thoughts on Trump’s UN Declaration of War Against Iran and North Korea</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Trump’s UN speech makes it clear that Trump’s presidency, in terms of
his campaign promise to remove Washington from the “policeman of the
world” role, exit the Middle East, and repair the damaged relations with
Russia, is over. The CIA and the military/security complex are in full
control of the US government. Trump has accepted his captivity and his
assigned role as the enforcer of Washington’s hegemony over every other
country. Washington <i>uber alles</i> is the only foreign policy that Washington pursues.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the UN Trump actually threatened to wipe North Korea off of the
face of the earth. He added to this threat threats against Venezuela (<a href="http://stephenlendman.org/2017/09/trump-threatens-venezuela/" target="_blank">http://stephenlendman.org/2017/09/trump-threatens-venezuela/</a>)
and Iran. He demonized these countries as “rogue states,” but it is
Washington that is playing that role. Washington has destroyed in whole
or part eight countries in the young 21st century and has 3 to 5 more
in its crosshairs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One question is: why did not the UN audience shout Trump down, a man
standing before them telling obvious lies? The answer, of course, is
money. The US taxpayers pay roughly one-quarter of the UN’s annual
budget, leaving the other 130+ countries a light load. Washington is
succeeding in driving the world to Armageddon, because the world’s
leaders prefer money to truth, to justice, to survival. <i>The UN
diplomats see in their cooperation with Washington the opportunity to
make money by sharing in the West’s exploitation of their own countries.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Washington, absorbed in its effort to destroy Syria, left it to its
Saudi Arabian puppet to destroy Yemen. The Saudi autocracy, a major
sponsor with the US of terrorism, has done a good job, thanks to US
supplying the weapons and to the US refueling the Saudi attack
airplanes. This totally gratuitous war has helped to maximize the
profits of the American military/security complex, a collection of evil
never before present on the face of the earth. UNICEF reports that one
million Yemeni children will be the victims of “American compassion” of
which Trump bragged in the CIA’s UN speech.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One wonders if the Russians and Chinese are so absorbed in getting
rich like America’s One Percent that they are unaware that they are on
the list of countries to be eliminated for not accepting Washington’s
hegemony. Really, where was the Russian government when Washington
overthrew the Ukranian government? It was at a sports event. And I call
Americans insouciant. Where was the Russian government? How could it
have not known?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To be frank. The point is this. Unless Russia and China can take
out the US, the US will take out Russia and China. The only question is
who strikes first. The only way to avoid this is for Russia and China
to surrender and accept Washington’s hegemony. This is the firm
undeviating path on which the neoconservatives, the CIA, and the
military/security complex have set the United States. The entire point
of North Korea is US nuclear missiles on China’s border. The entire
point of Iran is US nuclear missiles on Russia’s border.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As far as I can ascertain, hardly anyone is aware that Armageddon is
just around the corner. There is no protest from the Western
presstitutes, a collection of whores. In the US the only protests are
against ancient “civil war” statues, which the ignorant rabble say are
symbols of black slavery. There is no peace movement and no peace
marches. In London the transgendered and the radical feminists are
protesting one another, engaging in fist fights in Hyde Park. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4891484/Fists-fly-politically-correct-rally.html" target="_blank">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4891484/Fists-fly-politically-correct-rally.html</a> No one seems to have any awareness.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In US online propaganda websites such as Americans for Limited
Government—funded by who? serving who?—endorse Trump’s destabilizing UN
speech as a non-threat to world peace: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“President Trump has provided a cogent and inspiring defense of
America and the American constitutional system of governance to the
world not as imposition but an example to be followed, while at the same
time respecting the sovereignty of other nations. However, the
President also made it clear to those nations that threaten humanity
with nuclear destruction [which Washington has done to N. Korea and
Iran] that the United States will not be held hostage, and continuing
down their current paths guarantees their annihilation. While many will
focus on Trump’s threat to North Korea and Iran, the real focus of his
speech is that it is a call to all nations to embrace their own
sovereignty without threatening world peace.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have never in my long life read such a misrepresentation of a
speech. The United States has become the complete propaganda state. No
truth ever emerges. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is only the US government, which is not a government of the
people, that has ever threatened another country with total destruction
as Trump did to North Korea in the CIA’s UN speech.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a first. It trumps Adolf Hitler. The US has become the 4th
Reich. It is doubtful that the world will survive the foreign policy of
the United States of America. </span><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-70143366058968248712017-09-04T06:02:00.001-07:002017-09-04T06:02:55.218-07:00Blogger’s background: I am an American physicist with 200 frequently cited publications who was a Democrat but who now eschews both major parties. I am also a member of the Election Defense Alliance, which has studied hacked elections in the US ever since George Bush’s supposed reelection (it was rigged). And I can assure you that it is physically impossible for someone in Russia to hack an American election without their infiltration of many hackers into the US, all speaking perfect English, and all finding ways to infiltrate hundreds of polling places without a single one being noticed as an outsider. The only good thing I can say about Trump is that he took the word of Vladimir Putin that the Russians didn’t hack Hillary Clinton’s election (although he only did this mainly to continue illegal businesses in Russia). Fortunately, “…thanks to an exacting forensic examination of the available evidence by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), an organization of former CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, and military intelligence officers, technical experts, and analysts” are closing in on the real perps. “Special counsel, Robert Mueller, has been tasked with investigating the alleged Trump-Russia conspiracy. Unlike the feckless Comey, he has used a grand jury and at least one search warrant to obtain evidence.” So, if you read the article below you will see that very likely a faked hack was created by someone in the Democratic National Committee!<hr />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G2BY9oXqxS4/Wa0jT_t04RI/AAAAAAAALvw/nyBJjatWwqs548LQx0Nzls-Vi6iCy6DnQCLcBGAs/s1600/PCR%2Bheader%2B2017-04-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="155" data-original-width="570" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G2BY9oXqxS4/Wa0jT_t04RI/AAAAAAAALvw/nyBJjatWwqs548LQx0Nzls-Vi6iCy6DnQCLcBGAs/s1600/PCR%2Bheader%2B2017-04-12.jpg" /></a></div>
<h1>
<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Will special counsel Mueller examine the DNC server, source of the great Russiagate caper?</span></span></i></h1>
<hr />
<div class="single_page_entry_meta">
<div class="">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/09/03/" rel="nofollow">September 3, 2017</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span> Categories: <a href="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/09/03/54021/">Guest Contributions</a>
<span class="pk_meta_divider">|</span></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>
</div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Former federal prosecutor George Parry read the report by the
association of Veteran Intelligence Professionals. which conclusively
proves that there was no hacking of the DNC computer and that the
information was downloaded from within the DNC and then used to
orchestrate a fake Russian hacking of the election. Parry explains how
it was done and the implications. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Philadelphia Inquirer</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">August 29, 2017</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Will special counsel Mueller examine the DNC server, source of the great Russiagate caper?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By George Parry</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>George Parry is a former state and federal prosecutor practicing law in Philadelphia.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks announced that it would soon release
stolen computer files that pertained to Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two days later, CrowdStrike, a computer security company working for
the Democratic National Committee, announced that it had detected
Russian malware on the DNC’s computer server. The next day, a
self-described Romanian hacker, Guccifer 2.0, claimed he was a WikiLeaks
source and had hacked the DNC’s server. He then posted online DNC
computer files that contained metadata that indicated Russian
involvement in the hack.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Much to the embarrassment of Hillary Clinton, the released files
showed that the DNC had secretly collaborated with her campaign to
promote her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination over
that of Bernie Sanders. Clearly, the Clinton campaign needed to lessen
the political damage. Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s public relations
chief, said in a Washington Post essay in March that she worked
assiduously during the Democratic nominating convention to “get the
press to focus on … the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and
stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump
and hurt Hillary.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thus was laid the cornerstone of the Trump-Russia-collusion conspiracy theory.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since then, the mainstream media have created a climate of hysteria
in which this unsubstantiated theory has been conjured into accepted
truth. This has resulted in investigations by Congress and a special
counsel into President Trump, his family, and his campaign staff for
supposed collusion with the Russians.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But in their frenzied coverage, the media have downplayed the very
odd behavior of the DNC, the putative target of the alleged hack. For,
when the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI learned of the
hacking claim, they asked to examine the server. The DNC refused.
Without explanation, it continues to deny law enforcement access to its
server.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why would the purported victim of a crime refuse to cooperate with
law enforcement in solving that crime? Is it hiding something? Is it
afraid the server’s contents will discredit the Russia-hacking story?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The answers to those questions are beginning to emerge thanks to an
exacting forensic examination of the available evidence by the Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), an organization of former
CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, and military intelligence officers,
technical experts, and analysts.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By way of background, VIPS has a well-established record of debunking
questionable intelligence assessments that have been slanted to serve
political purposes. For example, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq,
VIPS courageously and correctly challenged the accuracy and veracity of
the CIA’s intelligence estimates that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons
of mass destruction and that he posed a threat to the United States.
Similarly, VIPS has condemned the use of “enhanced interrogation
techniques” on suspected terrorists. In short, VIPS can hardly be
described as either a right-wing cabal or as carrying water for the
Republican Party.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In its ongoing analysis of the purported DNC hack, VIPS has brought
to bear the impressive talents of more than a dozen experienced,
well-credentialed experts, including William Binney, a former NSA
technical director and cofounder of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence
Automation Research Center; Edward Loomis, former NSA technical director
for the Office of Signals Processing; and Skip Folden, former manager
of IBM’s information technology. As the French would say, these are
l’hommes serieux, as are the other computer-system designers, program
architects, and analysts with whom they are investigating the
Clinton-DNC hack story.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Recently, VIPS released its initial investigative findings, and they are stunning.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First, VIPS has concluded that the DNC data were not hacked by the
Russians or anyone else accessing the server over the internet. Instead,
they were downloaded by means of a thumb drive or similar portable
storage device physically attached to the DNC server.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How was this determined? The time stamps contained in the released
computer files’ metadata establish that, at 6:45 p.m. July 5, 2016,
1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the DNC’s server. This took
87 seconds, which means the transfer rate was 22.7 megabytes per
second, a speed, according to VIPS, that “is much faster than what is
physically possible with a hack.” Such a speed could be accomplished
only by direct connection of a portable storage device to the server.
Accordingly, VIPS concludes the DNC data theft was an inside job by
someone with physical access to the server.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">VIPS also reports that, if there had been a hack, the NSA would have a
record of it that could quickly be retrieved and produced. But no such
evidence has been forthcoming. Can this be because no hack occurred?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even more remarkable, the experts have determined that files released
by Guccifer 2.0 have been “run, via ordinary cut and paste, through a
template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast
as Russian fingerprints.” In other words, the files were deliberately
altered to give the false impression that they were hacked by Russian
agents.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Up to this point, Russiagate has been notable as an irrational,
self-levitating media jihad devoid of any material-supporting evidence.
Now, thanks to the VIPS experts, the Russia-hacking story – the very
genesis of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory – appears to have been
affirmatively and convincingly undercut. And this raises many questions
concerning the purveyors of the Russia hacking story, as well as the
heretofore semicomatose federal investigation of the alleged hack.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the DNC denied law enforcement access to its server, the FBI –
under James Comey’s flaccid leadership – meekly agreed to accept the
findings of CrowdStrike, the DNC’s private computer security firm, as to
the server’s contents. This was in lieu of the FBI’s using the legal
process to search the server for Russian malware and evidence of
hacking.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why did Comey and the FBI agree to such an impotent, absurd, and
self-defeating arrangement? And why to this day has this bizarre
situation been allowed to continue?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Special counsel Robert Mueller has been tasked with investigating the
alleged Trump-Russia conspiracy. Unlike the feckless Comey, he has used
a grand jury and at least one search warrant to obtain evidence. May we
expect Mueller to use similar tactics in dealing with the mysteriously
recalcitrant DNC? Will the server at long last be subjected to a
non-DNC-controlled forensic analysis? Will the server and CrowdStrike’s
work product be analyzed to either confirm or disprove the presence of
Russian malware? And, if none is found, will the special counsel
investigate the persons responsible for that deception?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Will the DNC files released by Guccifer 2.0 be analyzed to determine
if they were, as VIPS has concluded, altered to give the false
impression that the Russians had hacked the server? If so, will Mueller
pursue those responsible for the adulteration? If, as appears likely,
the server was not hacked, will Mueller investigate why Hillary Clinton
and the DNC claimed it was? Will he investigate whether the DNC files
were stolen by someone who had direct physical access to the DNC server?
Will he try to determine who at the DNC had a motive to leak the files?
Could it be someone who wanted to make public Clinton and the DNC’s
underhanded treatment of Sanders?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are but a few of the areas of inquiry that any fair and
competent investigator intent on getting to the truth would pursue. Will
Mueller honestly and vigorously investigate them at the risk of
incurring the anti-Trump media’s wrath and possibly exposing the
Russia-hacking story as a carefully orchestrated falsehood by Clinton
and the DNC?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Or will the unraveling Russiagate fable continue to be a fig leaf for
a one-sided, politically motivated effort by Mueller and his staff of
Hillary Clinton supporters to undo the outcome of the 2016 presidential
election?</span><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141996.post-8861912987948941442017-08-16T14:35:00.000-07:002017-08-16T14:38:12.178-07:00I have been a follower of Paul Craig Roberts since the turn of the century. Here he describes him self as "one of the most respected columnists in the alternative media. His syndicated articles can be seen on many leading alternative news websites including Lew Rockwell, Infowars, Counterpunch, InformationClearingHouse and countless others. Roberts scores huge points in the credibility department having been the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury under Reagan, and an editor of the Wall Street Journal — among a long list of other accolades. His research is impeccable and his vision of how the world really operates is second to none. He knows why and when the global chess pieces are moving, and has the incredible talent to communicate difficult concepts to the general public. He has written several books including The Tyranny of Good Intentions and How the Economy was Lost. His many interviews can be seen on Russia Today and Prison Planet TV. Roberts is also a recent contributor to Gerald Celente’s esteemed Trends Journal. There is no one better at reporting the reality of geo-political events and the workings of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve." Take my word, he is all of that and more. And apropos, just today he recomended the artical below. There you will learn that while Trump gets ready to incenerate North Korea, that country continues to provide every student free schooling and a health-care-system for all. <hr />
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<i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In America Propaganda Has Vanquished Truth</span></span></i></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In America Propaganda Has Vanquished Truth</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Paul Craig Roberts</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Durham, North Carolina, the seat of Duke University, a gang of
largely white males destroyed public property by pulling down a statue
of a Confederate soldier. Perhaps they took their cue from the
neo-Nazis installed in Ukraine by Obama and Hillary following the
US-engineered coup that overthrew the elected democratic government.
The first thing the new Obama-installed neo-Nazi regime did was to pull
down all the Soviet war memorials of the liberation of Ukraine from Nazi
Germany. The neo-Nazis who pulled down the war memorials were the
descendants of the Ukrainians who fought for Nazi Germany. These
neo-Nazis comprise the government of the “democracy” that Obama and
Hillary brought to the Ukraine and is the government that the US
government and its European vassals support.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What did the destruction of public property in Durham achieve, and where were the police? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What the films of the event reveal is a collection of crazed white
people, mainly white men, kicking and spitting at a bronze statue and
jumping back as if the statue were going to strike back. It was a
display of ignorant psychopathic hatred.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Where did this hatred come from and why was it directed at a statue?
To the ignorant gangsters, most likely Duke University students, the
destroyed statue is a symbol of slavery. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This ignorant association between a Confederale soldier and slavery
contradicts all known history. Slavery in the Southern states was
confined to large argicultural tracts known as plantations. Slaves were
the agricultural workforce. This institution long predated the
Confederacy and the United States itself. It was an inherited
institution from the time that the New World was colonized by European
economic interests. Slaves were not a Southern invention. They were
brought in long prior to the Declaration of Independence, because there
were resources to be exploited but no work force.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first slaves were white slaves, but they died like flies from
malaria and yellow fevor. Next indigenious Americans (“Indians”) were
used as slaves, but they would not work. Then it was discovered that
some Africans had immunity to malaria and resistance to yellow fever,
and finally a work force was located. The slaves were purchased from
the African tribes that annually conducted warfare between themselves,
the booty of which was slaves. Socialist historians, such as Karl
Polanyi, the Jewish brother of my Jewish Oxford professor, the
distinguished physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi, to whom
my first book is dedicated, wrote detailed and exacting histories of the
African slave trade conducted by black Africans.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Confederate soldiers did not own slaves, and as every honest
historian knows, they were not fighting for slavery. They were
fighting, because their country had been invaded.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Confederacy was not their country any more than the United States had been. <i>Their country was their state</i>.
In those days people’s loyalty was to their state. They thought of
their state as their country. To their minds, the United States was
something like the EU is to the French, Italians, Dutch, British, etc.
The French still think of themselves as French, not as EU.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Remember, when Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union Army,
he declined on the grounds that he could not bring war to his own
country, by which he meant Virginia.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Lee’s army was the Army of Northern Virginia.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As President Lincoln said over and over, the war is not about
slavery. It is about “preserving the union,” that is, the empire. If
the South were permitted to separate, it would mean that there would be
two countries competing for the vast lands to the west of the
Mississippi River. The budding empire in Washington did not want any
such competition.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If the South were permitted to seperate, the North would lose its
market for its relatively high priced manufactured goods that it hoped
to sell to the South by placing a tariff against the cheaper British
goods.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The South figured, correctly, that it would be doubly hit. Higher
prices from the North and retaliatory tariffs from the British on its
cotton exports.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This economic conflict between the North and South went on for a long
time before it provoked secession. The left-wing American Historian,
Charles Beard, explains the so-called “Civil War” in the economic terms
that provoked it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The very designation, “Civil War,” is a lie. A civil war is when two
sides fight for control of the government. The South was not fighting
for control of the US government. It was fighting, because the North
had invaded.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lincoln did not free the slaves. Moreover, had Lincoln not been
assassinated, his plan was to send the blacks, whom he regarded as
inferior to whites, back to Africa. This is not a “conspiracy theory.”
It is the documented fact. It is totally impossible to refute this
documented fact.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Emancipation Proclamation was propaganda. It had two purposes:
one was to shut up the abolitionists. The other was to promote a slave
rebellion in the Southern states that would draw Confederate troops out
of the front lines to protect the women and children at home. As
Lincoln’s own Secretary of State, William H. Seward, said, we have
freed the slaves where we have no jurisdiction and left them in slavery
where we have justification. Seward’s exact words: “We show our sympathy
with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and
holding them in bondage where we can set them free.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The left-wing historian Richard Hofstadter ridiculed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation for freeing only the slaves <i>over which Lincoln had no power.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lincoln’s purpose was not to free slaves but to provoke the slave
rape of Southern women and murder of Southern children that would pull
the Southern troops his generals could not defeat off the front lines
and impel them home to protect their families from Lincoln’s slave
revolt.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>But the slaves did not revolt even though there was no one there
to control them but women and children. So what kind of oppression was
this?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lincoln issued the proclamation intended to produce a slave rebellion
because he had run through countless generals, and although the Union
army in its engagements with Robert E. Lee always outnumbered the
Southerns by two or three to one, and sometimes more, the Army of
Northern Virginia did not lose a battle for the first two years of the
War. If the South had had more people, a number of Southern battle
victories would have ended in the capture of Washington and the end of
the war. But the South never had the number of soldiers sufficient to
have a reserve to capitalize on its military victories. In contrast,
the North had an endless supply of immigrants from Ireland, most of whom
died for the American Empire.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oppositon to the war in the North was high. Lincoln had to arrest and
imprison 300 northern newspaper owners and editors and exile a US
Congressman.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Slavery was an inherited institution, not a Southern construct.
Slavery would have gradually disappeared as immigrants into the South
begin forming a work force and the over-cultivated plantation lands
begin losing their fertility. Slavery existed as long as it did because
new immigrants, instead of becoming a local work force, moved west,
occupied Indian land and became independent farmers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, the abolitionist created all the hatred of the South that
they possibly could. Indeed, during my entire life, lived almost
exclusively outside the South, I have observed the liberals foment
racial hatred of blacks toward whites, and I have watched feminists
foment gender hatred of women toward men. Hatred is the great cause of
the liberals. It is what defines them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The stupid liberals have sowed social enmity between races and genders. The destruction of America will be the result.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps we will fall apart, occupied in racial and gender warfare,
before the Russians and Chinese have to blow us off the face of the
earth.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<hr />
P.S. PCR recommends that you read the following before your country bombs North Korea ...again. You will be surprised -- and sickened if they do.
<br />
N. Korea Has A Better And More Equitable Health Care System Than The US
<br />
Read Professor Michel Chossudovsky’s report on the World Health Organization’s latest finding:
<br />
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/16/n-korea-better-equitable-health-care-system-us/
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Cherchez la Verite</div>David Griscomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16911018239218830381noreply@blogger.com0