Jamaica's Shower Posse: How The CIA Created "The Most Notorious Criminal Organization"

from News One for Black America. 

This is an excellent synthesis of a number of reliable background sources of information in order to understand the recent violence in Jamaica. One again, you have the Empire's enforcers destabilizing a government that it does not like, and in the process creates social chaos for generations to come.

Are Faulty Polls Driving Policy on Climate Change?

from New Deal 2.0. The author finds discrepancies in US poll results regarding opinions on climate change. Looking at the questions asked by some pollsters, he finds that the questions were framed in such a way as to give results that mainstream media could use to support establishment views.

It is unlikely that the polls were constructed to serve a political agenda. The bias, if it exists, is probably more subtle. One possibility is that the pollsters are aware of their symbiotic relationship with the news media. The media disseminates their work. Two of the questions reported in the article straightforwardly framed the questions in terms of information received by the respondent from the media. They measured opinions of the reporting on the policy, not the policy itself. Perhaps inadvertently, the pollsters focused on the business of their media outlets rather than the pure policy question.

Really!? It seems to me that the author goes out of his way to excuse mainstream media's way of dis-informing the rabble. Don't they always use subtle methods?? Clearly today's propagandists are more sophisticated than Goebbels.

€uro: the worst case scenario

from Voltaire. The author makes quite a dramatic assertion in this article--that the current European economic crisis was a deliberate attempt to curb European independence and to bring it more under the influence of what I refer to as the Empire, or an Anglo-American coalition of financial elites. Not sure that he makes a compelling case, but his arguments are very interesting.

We can wager that the new regional order that the great organisers of chaos intend to see emerge from the crisis itself will be a unified Europe, centralised and federal, placed under the direct influence of the US with the aid of the Federal Reserve of which the European Central Bank will be only a branch, and under the vigilant watch of the IMF, representative or product of an emergent global power, deterritorialised yet omnipresent.

Daniel Ellsberg Says He Fears US Might Assassinate Wikileaks Founder (10:31m video and transcript)

from FireDogLake.  As a former target of a CIA hit squad for leaking secret government immoral and illegal acts , he knows whereof he speaks.

“We have after all for the first time, that I ever perhaps in any democratic country, we have a president who has announced that he feels he has the right to use special operations operatives against anyone abroad, that he thinks is associated with terrorism,”

Financial Reform Conference Committee Offers Industry Lobbyists Chance to Reunite With Former Bosses

from Open Secrets. A look at your government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists. Well, not really. It's actually for those who hire the lobbyists. Anyway, the point is, your government does not serve your interests. If you don't believe me, try this: the next time you write your Congressman, be sure to enclose a check for $10,000. Then compare the response you get with previous responses when you just asked him/her to do the right thing.

Time out

How to Build a Better Neighborhood

from Shareable. The article contains some good ideas about how to do this.

More Than 1 In 5 American Children Are Now Living Below The Poverty Line

from The Economic Collapse. 

Perhaps the greatest victims of the economic nightmare that is unfolding right in front of our eyes are our children.  The overall economic numbers are really bad, but when you examine the impact that this economy is having on children things get really horrifying.

The Death Of Las Vegas

from Economic Collapse. 

There are quite a few U.S. cities that are complete and utter economic disaster zones in 2010 (Detroit for example), but there is something about the demise of Las Vegas that is absolutely stunning.

You needn't worry about Steve Wynn--I hear that he's making bundles at his casino at that Portuguese playground for the rich off the coast of China called Macau.

When the Wealthy Wed, the Guests Get Gossiping

from Vanity Fair.  This is my Saturday offering about the lives of the rich. Not sure how long I can get away with this, but you really should know all about how the 1% lives. I'm sure they are human and must worry about mortgage and credit card payments, having their children get a good education, and landing a decent paying job--you know, just regular people like us. Well, maybe not.

EPA Has AgBiz Giants Run Farm Advisory Table

from Food Freedom. 

For decades, federal policy—regardless of which Administration or party is in power—has facilitated the gutting of the nation’s farm structure and the destruction of its rural communities.  The demise of family farms was greased by the cozy relationship between the Congress, successive Administrations, and federal agencies that eventually turned into the takeover of food production by the industrial agribusiness machine that now dominates rural America and the entire nation.

New York Times Runs Yet Another Banking Industry Propaganda Piece

by Yves Smith from her blog, Naked Capitalism.  This astute blogger spots spin immediately when she reads mainstream articles--this time it's spin on behalf of the banking industry.

The message is none too subtle: you can’t be mean to those banks! They are part of our communities! We really really need them! Even a city in the heartlands like Louisville depends on them!

The worst thing that ever happened to the Jewish people is the Holocaust. The second worst thing that ever happened to the Jewish people is the state of Israel.

by William Blum from his blog, Killing Hope .  This is a good rant about the many manifestations of hypocrisy that emanate from the Empire, and what happens when some people tell the truth.

Also other subjects thrown in such as some details on Obama's background that suggest earlier ties with the CIA. This reminds me that his banker-grandmother, who largely raised him, worked for a number of years for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia. The Ford Foundation has often fronted for CIA agents in foreign countries. 

Pete Peterson Has Won: Americans Rate Federal Debt as Top Threat

from Naked Capitalism. The background information on Peterson is here. The author provides polling evidence to show that public opinion is being managed to create acceptance of cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

Time out

AIG's problems far greater than Bush officials told public (9:41m video and article)

from McClatchy news service and The Real News Network (embedded). An in-depth report on new details of the AIG bailout that suggest major crimes may have been committed and covered up.

Prisoners by choice: Gated communities and domesticated cells

from Le Monde Diplomatique. A very thoughtful article on worrisome trends in the US that suggests the disintegration of society into islands of affluence in walled-off communities surrounded by huge areas of poverty. Welcome to the Brave New World of late neo-liberalism.

Aspirations for relative equality, social justice and participation have been undermined by a sense of the immediacy and finality of our lives, a need to provide security and, not unlike the robber barons of the corporate world, a desire to take what we can and lock ourselves away from the scrutiny of our riches.

Sayonara, America?

from Le Monde Diplomatique.

Hatoyama had no wish to break the alliance but affirmed his intention of normalising relations with the US and getting it to treat Japan like any other sovereign state. He also wanted to create an East Asian Community on EU lines. Did this indicate a slight shift away from the West? The idea was enough to cause panic in the business world....

Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Was - Until Last Year - Also Chairman of BP

from Washington's Blog. 

Our intrepid investigator of how the world is ruled puts his spotlight on one shadow figure in the ruling class. The real rulers of our society operate behind the scenes and it is always difficult to know who among them is doing what.

Obama, Democrats abandon stimulus for austerity

from World Socialist Web Site. More promises by the Obama administration abandoned:

With long-term unemployment at its highest level since records began in the 1940s, the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are abandoning even the wholly inadequate economic stimulus measures of last year and focusing instead on budget-cutting and austerity.