The senior executive of the Middle East’s most recognizable news television network has resigned following revelations that he met with American intelligence officials and complied with their requests to alter the content of news reports.
To top off the challenges of the past year, I spent hundreds of hours working to protect my self, my family and community from the onslaught of two private military companies using assault weapons and detonating explosives at an illegal weapons range near our homes. It was stressful, frightening, costly, unpaid work, unavoidable and unrewarding. It was hell. The local police were involved. These guys worked for Blackwater, and they routinely kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was really, really hard on my family and I and there's been a lot of harassment and retaliation and it's not over.
..the U.S. is fulfilling President Obama's pledge that it will "not stand idly by" in the face of a tyrant's oppression of his own people, as the U.S. is actively feeding that regime new weapons; that, by definition, is not "standing idly by."
Unity, planning and discipline are also interconnected. When the police make arrests at Liberty Plaza, it tends to divide the protesters. Some want to fall back, some want to fight back. Instead, with more discipline, these incidents could unite them and sharpen their focus. Too often, the protesters are letting themselves forget who their real opponent is—all that Wall Street represents in American culture and politics—by focusing so much on anger against the underpaid, working-class police force deployed around them.
The mega mall, the biggest in Europe, is built in the midst of grey tower blocks not far from where the recent riots occurred, its “designer” products, made mostly with cheap, regimented labour, beckon the indebted. That it stands on a site where London workers made trains – thousands of locomotives, carriages and goods wagons – in what was once called manufacturing is of melancholy interest. The mega mall’s jobs produce nothing and are mostly low-paid. It is an emblem of extreme times.I don't see that the article has much to do with wars as the title suggests, unless he is thinking in the context of class wars.
Nine-eleven's ten-year anniversary is sparking retrospectives ranging from lives lost to a War on Terror launched. But media accounts have omitted an important political casualty: the short-lived "anti-globalization" movement, perhaps the largest American social movement since the civil rights and Vietnam War era.If 9/11 was not at least partially engineered by ruling class political operatives, it should go down in history as the most fortuitous event in the 300 year reign of capitalism. But, with the current economic collapse of capitalist economies, its beneficial effects for the defense of capitalism may be coming to an end.
The general assemblies, who began their meetings in circles, sitting on the concrete, broke down discussions into three general areas — problems, solutions and strategies. Most discussions began with an open session for assembly participants to vocalize what they viewed as the biggest challenges the country faces in freeing itself from the power of finance. While much discussion focused on the corruption and collusion between Wall Street and Washington, many assembly members also noted that general apathy was also a problem of education.This event is hopefully the embryo of a future plant that represents the control of the people over the most vital activity of their lives: how and what they produce to sustain their lives and families, and how they distribute the wealth they create.
The second part of the general assemblies focused on developing general solutions for the problems just identified. Regulation, transparency and again education became the hot talking points for this session. By the third session, assemblies were working on exchanging strategies for local, national and international action.
Yesterday was another rough day for those here in Liberty Plaza, but much better than Tuesday when the police harassment was a definite attempt to nip Occupy Wall Street in the bud.Meanwhile, the protests are spreading to other cities: Seattle, San Francisco, and other cities in the US. and making news across the globe. However, the numbers involved in these protests are still fairly small; but, who knows, they could easily escalate as the economy continues to deteriorate and impact Americans.
Who hasn’t received one -- or 100 -- of those “Nigerian” letters offering you, in florid prose, millions of potential dollars and with nary a catch in sight? But who knew that the highest officials in Washington have been receiving them as well -- and from our war zones rather than Africa.
New Economics Foundation policy director Andrew Simms put it like this.
"For years we have been told that there is no alternative to an economy that
wrecks the environment and worsens inequality. We've been told that we live
in a time of prosperity, when really we're no happier than we were thirty
years ago. We've been told that crashes, bubbles and recessions are all
part of the 'natural cycle' of economies. But faced with potentially
irreversible climate change and corrosive inequality, these are dangerous
fairy tales. The Great Transition shows we have a chance of a better
reality."
Many mental health professionals have concluded that the official version of 9/11 is false, and that those who believe the official version suffer from defense mechanisms.The author provides links to many mental health professionals who see a whole society of Americans trying to deal with the conflict between the official propaganda regarding 9/11 and evidence from scientists and engineers that contradicts the propaganda. Currently most people do not believe the official version, and this has caused many Americans a lot of problems. He ends up with this 15:08m excellent video featuring interviews with more mental health professionals relating their experiences with their patients regarding the 9/11 experience:
What matters are the "facts on the ground" of Israel as the supreme dominatrix of US foreign policy as well as the US Congress being Israel's bitch. What matters is Obama trying to entice Muslims with flowery rhetoric in Istanbul and Cairo just to meekly submit, and when the going gets tough, to feel the dominatrix whip.However, the article is mostly about the Empire's new weapon, the killer drones, AKA the Reaper, and the increasing use of these weapons to enforce the Empire's interests.
"Julien Febvre” is a Greek writer, musician, artist and filmmaker, student of politics and sociology in Birkbeck University of London. He has studied Arts and Pedagogy in Griffith College, (Dublin, Ireland) and Musicology in Kingston University of London. He has been influenced by the Greek philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, the Situationist Movement, anarchism and Libertarian Socialism.I consider this article to be most reflective of my "imaginary", world view, "weltanschauung" (German), or ideological position. Such an exposition of this ideology is rarely found in American English articles. Unfortunately, this article should have been proofread to eliminate several errors and to conform to ordinary English usage. (Also, I think it is useful to keep in mind that he is writing this to a British audience following the riots in London and other cities in August, and I think that he is responding to the coverage of these events by British mainstream media.)
To those myopic conservatives who claim that a society without state violence or capitalism is inevitable, we would respond that oppression, exploitation, war, consumerism, pollution, is the reality they are defending.I think he meant to write:
Precisely because of this knowledge [the meaning of "autonomy"], they can set their own laws and institutions and despise them whenever they deem it is necessary, without recognizing any totems and taboos.I think he meant to write:
Such like for a Jewish of the Bible the question “is the law right and fair” has no answer because “the law is given by God, consequently everybody who despises it, is a sinner, a heathen or an unbeliever, hence everybody has to obey this law or will receive eternal punishment”.I think he meant to write:
Direct democracy is not a purport but a mean, an ability to understand how we, ourselves, are able to create laws. In direct democracy, all decisions are taken directly by ourselves (whether through popular assemblies, or other entities).I think he meant to write:
The news is about sensationalism, death and carnage laced with preconceived ideas. Barack Obama proposes his jobs bill, which was filled with perks and play pretties for the Republican side of the aisle, only to meet resistance from his own side. Obama counters that criticism with a new set of proposals to tax the wealthy, but if Obama had been in any way serious he would have proposed these things three years ago. Obama is only stunting for the camera, emoting passionate sounds bites for public consumption.
The police strategy was simple: get that video feed stopped. Make a show of force. Scare the crap out of these whiners and poop this little party.Also, check out this coverage.
The police tactics are now turning to petty harassment and intimidation to discourage others from physically coming to join the protest.The local authorities of the ruling class are clearly handling this demonstration with great care. They know full well that if they crack down too hard on the protests, that this will likely only add fuel to the fire. So far, this strategy along with keeping the protests out of mainstream news seems to be working. But, if the activists in New York can sustain their protests, things can very well change.
What the members of the Troika are doing can be compared to the odious behaviour of someone who, while claiming to help a person in a difficult predicament, would actually make it worse and benefit from it. We can also consider that it is a criminal act planned collectively by the IMF, the ECB, the EC, and the governments that are supporting their action. Associating in order to plan and carry out a criminal act increases the responsibility of the aggressors.I don't know if you can follow all the financial tricks that European banks use to enrich themselves, but it is clear to Eric Toussaint that the European Union and its institutions were designed for the welfare of the private banks and their owners, the capitalist ruling classes, and not for the benefit of the vast majority. Surprise, surprise!
...verbal bromides, including the standard Orwellian line that the cuts are aimed at “strengthening Medicare and Medicaid over time,” are intended to cloak the actual consequences of the measures—the reduction or elimination of care for millions of people.
It's a story that should take your breath away: the destabilization of what, in the George W Bush years, used to be called "the arc of instability". It involves at least 97 countries, across the bulk of the global south, much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet. A startling number of these nations are now in turmoil, and in every single one of them - from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia - Washington is militarily involved, overtly or covertly, in outright war or what passes for peace.This thesis illustrates how the US governmental system functions to create the illusion of democracy while serving powerful people behind the scenes whose rule is imposed on the world regardless of who is "elected" from those candidates that are allowed to run for office. (Read an excellent exposé in a book entitled, The Secret Team by (ret. Colonel) L. Fletcher Prouty
...President Barack Obama is in the process of trumping his predecessor.
Macroeconomic models take the present economic system as an indisputable given. Their studies, their conclusions, their thoughts remain uncritical; the predominant attitude of the profession is that there is no credible alternative to our system of capitalism. ...For American social science it is a scandal that it remains silent on so great an issue.” Orthodox economic thinking stops Americans short of seriously reconsidering the merits of maintaining a system that has privatized their sovereign economic power. Our economic liberty has been shackled to the privately owned Federal Reserve System.In departing from my usual policy of posting only current articles, I offer this one which is relatively timeless and insightful. I have great appreciation for this institute and the book they have published called, The Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zarlenga. It is a bit rough in the earlier chapters, but the author really hits his stride by chapter nine. He bases his observations on considerable research into this widely obscured subject.
...the Fed doesn't work for the American public - it works for Wall Street .It is clear that our economy is run by and for bankers, not by or for the benefit of its worker-citizens who produce real wealth in the forms of food, clothing, transportation, communications, housing, education, etc.
That's right. It's not the economy the Fed has on life support - it's the banks.
...we need to be aware that various EU treaties have to be abrogated, that the ECB statutes have to be radically changed, and that the EU has to be founded on other premises. Yet to achieve this, the balance of power has first to be changed through massive street mobilizations.I don't know if you can follow all the financial tricks that European banks use to enrich themselves, but it is clear to Eric Toussaint that the European Union and its institutions were designed for the welfare of the private banks and their owners, the capitalist ruling classes, and not for the benefit of the vast majority. Surprise, surprise!
...what does make it incredible, is the way that freak melting season 2007 has been equaled and even surpassed in some data sets [for 2011].See also this EarthSky report that provides data from NASA illustrated with great graphics while failing to mention the ominous implications.