Avatar is Awesome

I'll add my thoughts after the review:

"AVATAR - A REVIEW

Normally I do not do film reviews. Even though my day job is in film and TV (I have worked in visual effects and computer animation for over 30 years) What Really Happened is a political web site, and I generally avoid crossing the line into the day job. There have been exceptions, to be sure, and today I am going to make a big one. Following a frustrating few weeks filled with social obligations, I was finally able to carve enough time out of a weekend to see the film.

The short version, and at the risk of descending into cheap cliche', is that this is a movie YOU MUST SEE! If you can catch it in 3D, so much the better. But catch it. This film is a masterwork on several levels, and I am going to start on the technical level and work upward.....

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Now to the story.

Avatar is a metaphor for the current US aggressions against other countries and Cameron is not shy about making this point. The best line in the entire movie is (I am paraphrasing here) "Someone lives over something you want, you call them the enemy so you can attack them."

It hardly comes as a surprise that the political establishment is hostile to the film. L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Vatican, condemned the film as "an anti-imperialistic, anti-militaristic parable". Many media critics, eager to de link the message of the film from contemporary events, describe the storyline as a metaphor for Europe's decimation of the Native Americans. Yes, it is that, but it is the story of every imperial power that invaded another peoples' lands for profit throughout history and up to the present time.

In brief, and without wishing to spoil the surprise for those who have not seen it, the storyline is of a corporate attempt to exploit the mineral resources of an alien world called Pandora. Pandora is inhabited by the Na'Vi, a humanoid race totally integrated with the environment of their world. As an "old school" Darwinist (and a farm kid), I view such synergy as the perfect result of evolution. Cameron borrows a great deal of the Na'Vi's ethos from the hunter-gatherer culture of the Native Americans (down to the giving of thanks to the animals one kills for food), which is probably where the confusion over the metaphor may arise.

Into this naturist harmony comes a major corporation from Earth, backed up by the military, intent on scraping away the surface of the Na'Vi's world in order to extract the riches beneath. The story centers on a paraplegic Marine who is inserted into the manufactured body of a Na'Vi (hence the name "Avatar") and sees the world through his new alien eyes. It is the 21st Century equivalent of "Walking a mile in the other man's moccasins, or "Dances with Wolves" meets "The Martian Chronicles." Critics may decry the story as contrived, but it does not feel that way. The whole point of any story is to force the protagonist to question his beliefs, and in that challenge, to grow.

At two hours and twenty five minutes, the movie is longer than the usual theatrical fare, but trust me, you won't know it. The film flows so smoothly you will be at the end before you realize it, and perhaps a touch disappointed that it is over and that you have to leave Pandora to return to your own portion of planet Earth. After living with the Na'Vi, Earth is going to be a bit of a let-down.

Some critics have decried the film's happy ending (no spoilers here) as unrealistically silly, in the idea that such a primitive people could overwhelm and destroy a modern mechanized army. No doubt they wish to quell any suggestion that the numerous indigenous peoples the United States is even now divesting of their homes and riches might succeed in fighting back. Obviously, I disagree that opposing a modern invader equipped with the latest horrors of death is a waste of time or I would not have run this web site for the last 16 years. And to such unromantic and indeed unheroic naysayers who insist that victory will always go to the most ruthless and well-armed, I have but one word. "Afghanistan."

In a way, I feel sorry for Jim Cameron. He is a brilliant man, and while I might be (hope to be) pleasantly surprised to the contrary at some point in the future, I think "Avatar" is his masterwork, never to be equaled let alone surpassed. He may even now be facing his "Neil Armstrong" moment, as in "what the heck do I do for the rest of my life, to top THAT?"

See this movie.

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I did, and I was very impressed! It didn't surpass "Titanic" for me;, but that is a matter of personal taste. I recognized the theme right away, and I thought what a brave man for having done this.

Of course, his record and success gave him the independence to do such a thing, and the future metaphor (much like what the classic "Star Trek" used to do) allowed him to avoid any direct controversy with the product. But there was no mistaking the message.

The reviewers noting of the time spent in theater and the film being Cameron's life work reminded me so much of my favorite film and its director, and while I am not elevating "Avatar" to that level (again, due to matters of personal taste), I was very impressed.

I agree with the reviewer.

See this movie. It will make you think.

Also see: Why AmeriKans Hate Avatar

Maybe that is why, huh, Americans?

1/31 UPDATE:

I will be seeing "Avatar" for a second time (basically at the unspoken request of another) this afternoon -- and am not complaining on bit. May go with notepad this time and scribble in the dark.

Breaking News: Bin Laden Warns West

Oh, the DEAD GUY spoke from the GRAVE AGAIN, huh?

Beware the FALSE FLAG, America!!!

And he looks as YOUNG as he EVER DID, huh, 'murkns??

Bin Laden claims airline bombing attempt

Looking younger every day, isn't he?

U.S.-based IntelCenter, which monitors militant messages, said bin Laden used specific language he has used before in advance of attacks, a possible indicator of an upcoming action within the next 12 months.

Oh, the IntelCenter, huh?

Related: Jewish Media Group, SITE, is the first to release another Islamic threat video

There was no way to verify the voice on the audio message was actually bin Laden, but it resembled previous recordings attributed to him.

Is this the new Osama or the old Osama?

And please, no more FAKES!!

Of course:

US can't authenticate words

Oh, same photograph for two separate pieces; how nice.

Maybe this will help you out, government:

I don't know where you want to start digging, but....

Related:

Al-CIA-Duh

Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh and the OSI

Prop 101: The "Terrorism" Business

"Al-CIA-Duh" School in Somalia

New York Times Admits War on Terror is U.S. Creation

"Al-CIA-Duh," NYT!

What do you mean there is no Al Qaeda?

You mean Al Qaeda doesn't even exist?

We Have Met the Enemy

"The Creatures from the Black Lagoon of the Reptile Mind

Dog Poet Transmitting......

The reason they came up with an underwear bomber is the same reason they came up with a shoe bomber. First they wanted to get into your shoes and then they wanted to get into your underwear. After that they want to get into your body. But job one, day one, they want to get into your head. These are stages of humiliation designed to strip you of your dignity.

They could have fixed it for Richard Reid to blow up his foot and they could have fixed it for Abdulmutallab to blow up his balls but neither of these have the graphic potential of a suspicious passenger being overpowered on an airliner while weird shit happens. This way, you know exactly what they want you to know. If they have to piece it together (pun intended) later it’s a lot more costly and involved. They also didn’t have to destroy an airplane to do it. Saving expense is, of course, not their primary concern. Their primary concern is putting an image in your mind and making everyone suspicious of each other.

They don’t really care about blowing up airplanes and killing lots of people. Look at what they did with 9/11. Look at the people they are killing in their gratuitous wars. No, they don’t mind the killing because blood spilled in violence has a magical power that can be used by those who court or serve the powers that feed on it.

Actually blowing up airplanes, unless there is a real need (like provocation to attack Iran, or anyone) is counter-productive. They don’t want you to stop flying in airplanes. They just want you to accept the heavy handed behavior of the TSA thugs. They want you to agree in your mind to the need for the outrageous treatment they intend to visit on you. They want you conditioned and programmed because it is necessary to channel your fear and your hate for their purposes.

The reason they trashed the economic system was to put a great many of you into a state of desperation … and to make those who are still sailing along, mindful of what could happen to them. The reason for drumming up a non-existent Al Qaeda is to make people of one color suspicious of people with a different color while also setting religious belief systems against each other. The idea that there could be something like Al Qaeda that is linked up internationally around the world and which can strike anywhere at any time is as scary as it is ridiculous. It’s like Spectre run by a guy called Blofeld Mohammed. It’s everywhere with state of the art communications and endless financial resources with a limitless supply of insane believers willing to die for the cause and it doesn’t exist. What there is of it that does exist, exists because ‘they’ have been tormenting people beyond endurance.

Peoples of the world, you have an enemy and that enemy is your leaders. Your leaders serve the corporations and the corporations serve the bankers and the bankers serve that ancient foe whose pleasure is strife and discord.

Let me break it down for you in a very simple fashion. It’s not primarily about creating a permanent underclass to wait upon their elite status. It’s not primarily about eugenics and a world prison system. It is not primarily about making large sums of money from evil enterprise. It is not primarily about increasing control brought about through fear and timely false flags. It is about pleasure and enjoyment. These things are being done in order to maximize suffering because suffering is nectar to these creatures. They feed on misery and torment. They enjoy it. This is their cardinal motivation.

Before you can understand why these things are happening you have to grasp ‘motive’. You have to understand the perverted nature of the practitioner. You have to understand what drives them. You have to accept that there are immaterial forces at work and that we are all in the midst of a spiritual war, which is about the harvesting of human souls as well as the perversion of human souls, accomplished by the perversions and intentions of those who serve what lives in the darkness.

I am stating facts based on ancient traditions which have survived the test of time and all of them make mention of the enemy of humanity and those who serve that enemy for personal gain. This is not allegory or poetic license. This is the way it is. Everything that has been happening to you and around you is systematic. The pollution of your drinking water and the genetic modification of your foods are designed to put you into a confused and weakened state. The garbage that now passes for music and the pandering of the entertainment business to the lowest impulses in the human psyche are all intentional and your leaders, as well as the industry titans and banking concerns are all neck deep in it.

Yemen is not something that just happened on its own. It is by design in relation to long range plans concerning Iran, Russia and China and… everyone else. Psychopaths sit in guarded rooms where they draft complicated game plans whose goal is world wise chaos and immense human suffering.

Here is a recent S&MSM headline, “Obama links jet attack suspect to Al Qaeda”. What does that mean? Does that mean Obama personally put two and two together and got five and a half? Why is it that most of the news items that appear in the S&MSM no longer have an author? Despite how it might seem at the present; are these Creatures from The Black Lagoon of the Reptile Mind going to succeed? No… they will fail. No one ever succeeds at this sort of thing but that does not mean there won’t be a great deal of human suffering.

I’ve tried to say it many different ways at many different times in the different blogs. It is something I am certain of and that does not include a great many items. These miscreants who have sacrificed their humanity on the altar of personal ambition and gain think themselves to be canny sophisticates. They think they’ve got the planet nailed. It doesn’t occur to them that they are merely playing a role in a cosmic drama that has a directed and appointed end.

There is always more good in humanity than there is bad. The greatest problem is the amount of stupid and asleep. The spark of divinity and awakening motors us all but when spiritual awareness and contact with our divine nature has been lost or gotten to the point where it is so obscured that few people possess enough to counterbalance the rest, then transformation; the spirit informing matter, becomes necessary.

You may think this is about any of the obvious forces that present themselves on any given day; unbridled greed, environmental imbalance, failed systems, ubiquitous corrupt officials. The list is large. It is about you. It’s all about you and the precious cargo you carry, often unwittingly. You might think of it as a game that God plays against himself with anticipated successes and failures but you are in the middle of it and it is all about you.

None of us are set a task beyond our endurance and speaking for myself, it has often seemed like it. No one takes second place to me when it comes to screaming imprecations at Heaven, as if it were a living thing that confounds (and it is a living thing) and torments me… primarily because I don’t understand …because I can only see so far and the divine sees all the way through and always has. Wisdom is the fruit of such a struggle for those who endure …and the wheel of return is waiting for those who do not.

This unending battle between our dual natures has a purpose and no matter how hard we struggle it can only end in surrender. Each of us goes about this in our own way. We have traditions and libraries filled with pathways; conclusions, solutions, teachings of every possible stripe and color. None of them are complete or comprehensive by comparison to the living awareness that inhabits our being. It’s a simple matter really. Embrace the immortal intelligence that animates and guides you or make your own plans and follow your own devices. There isn’t any more to it than that. In either case something will be leading you to the inescapable truth.

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Everything Is Proceeding As Planned

"The infidels are winning

All the talk of failure in Afghanistan and Iraq is rubbish. The plan is unfolding superbly.

Muslims are killing each other. Birth defects are on the rise. Such are the lucid dreams of men in suits. Corporate fascism that has laws forcing the conquered inhabitants to use patented genetically modified seeds.

Gay parties at the American embassy in Bagdad. Gay units in the American military. Genocide is the game. The dehumanisation of the soul is in full swing. Now alcohol is available for the conquered..

Bankrupting America and the UK is of no consequence. A New Zionist World order, for everyone in the world to show an enforced loyalty.

China will obviously fill the inevitable vacuum, and so conjuring up a conflict with China will be necessary, probably with newly patsieised India or/ and Taiwan.

As much as we see conflict created and encouraged in Yemen and other faraway lands, we have to realize it is also on our doorsteps. America’s new health bills, Climate change, Swine flu: all are sewing dissent, and simply engineered as another vehicle for taxation, whether it is in Insurance premiums, our health or just fear.

The ones behind it are too taboo to mention, it beggars belief that they arrogently continue with false flags, and psuedo threats, always dragging everyone into more conflict. But we do know our hidden masters are adept at banking and hellbent on hegemony. It is Capitalism that feeds them and therefore Capitalism itself is now an enemy of peace.

Maybe a rebellion is starting. Some Israeli military figures cancelled a visit to the UK last weak for fear of being arrested as war criminals. So even in pliant Zionist colonies like the UK sprouts of opposition are appearing within the institutions....

Whether we end up withdrawing or not from these colonial wars, every day of more killings, or more depleted uranium is considered a success by many of our ruling elite.

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Captain on the Bridge

"Posting from the Bridge of the Starship

.....

They want to put these body scanners in all the airports but wait a minute… they have got these portable jobbies that they want to deploy everywhere to keep us safe from something that doesn’t exist and if it did it would be them. The Israelis want to install mind reading machines, which mean they want to use them against the Arabs who are the primary concern of the Israelis and why they have been doing most of the terror that has happened anywhere around the planet. They’ve taken control of the money supply so they can make the politicians that they got elected in the first place behave like the trained seals that they are.

It may be hard to imagine that both houses of Congress and the White House and the judiciary are all jailhouse punks done up in short denim skirts but such is the case. A lot of supposedly alternative news gathering sites are pushing this guy Peter Schiff so the weather is all to hell and gone way outside the perimeters of Visible’s Mind Gardens because Schiff is a nogoodnik too. All I have to do is hear him talk. He looks and talks like Chucky Schumer’s understudy. That’s okay if it was always your intention to take The Bride of Frankenstein to the prom; not so cool if you didn’t and much, much worse if she lets you sleep with her later on.

People, it is going down like clockwork. Right alongside the upcoming Super Bowl and all the gossipy entertainment news, about what one dimensional twits are up to, is the relentless pace of martial law. I’m going to sort out the players for you, just in case you’re keeping score. Since the game is fixed I guess you wind up on the team playing against the Harlem Globetrotters.

The sudden crisis in the German banking industry is not an accident. It’s there to make you uneasy and you’ll be getting a taste of that yourselves soon. If you don’t play nice you wind up in the nosebleed seats. A few patriots are going to get a taste of what’s up and who’s who soon enough and that is supposed to convince the rest of you to stay in line. They are beefing up the police state with weapons and personnel and they are coming to a theater near you soon.

Everybody behind the scenes already knows how it’s going to play out. They sold their souls and their asses for personal security; as always it is the war of the haves against the have nots. Your direct enemy, the enemy of all the people in the world is Israel, Washington D.C. and London; the rest fall in line behind them. If it were not for Russia and China things would be much worse already and China’s government is no picnic either.

There are all sorts of musical chairs playing out at the moment. People are being told to cooperate or be ruined and you are going to see some of that. People in positions of enforcement are struggling with their conscience. Some of them are just going to do their job because, you see, it’s them or you. A lot of them are going to break ranks and refuse to kill on command. There is a crisis of conscience in operation right now all up and down the chain of command. Everything has to work perfectly for them and it won’t. We can afford to not have it all work perfectly and still win.

As I had said many times, there is a joker in the deck… possibly more than one but rather appearing to be more than one but actually being the same one. That joker is the cosmic authority and even if everyone loses it still wins. It’s been setting these people up for a long time. It’s been going on for so long that they can’t even imagine it is happening to them and they don’t believe in any power greater than their own but they are going to find out differently in a very impressive way; in a very impressive way.

You’re good people, act like it....

Read the rest HERE

Insouciant Americans

"Insouciant Americans

By Paul Craig Roberts

The Underwear Bomber case indicates that whoever is behind these bomb scares is laughing at our gullibility.

How realistic is it that al-Qaida, an organization that allegedly pulled off the most fantastic terror attack in world history, would in these days of heightened security choose for an attack on an airliner a person who is the most conspicuous of all? Umar Farouk Mutallab had a one-way ticket, no luggage, no passport, and his father, reportedly a CIA and Mossad asset, had reported him to the CIA and Mossad. Does anyone really believe that al-Qaida would choose as an airliner bomber a person waving every red flag imaginable?

This obvious question has escaped the U.S. media, a collection of salespersons marketing full body scanning machines for airports.

Would al-Qaida, with its extensive knowledge of explosives, have armed Umar with a "bomb" that experts say couldn’t have blown up his own seat?

It is difficult to imagine a more gullible population than America’s, but do even Americans believe this story?

Since 9/11 the F.B.I. has been busy enticing people, who lack organizational skills, into "terrorist plots" that consist of F.B.I. initiated hot air talk. These ridiculous stings are then taken to trial, and the media fans the flames of fear of "home-grown terrorist plots against Americans."

There is little doubt that those interested in leading the U.S. deeper into a police state and deeper into a "war on terror" are active in adding orchestrated events to whatever real ones real terrorists manage to accomplish. The paucity of real terrorists has caused the U.S. government and its Ministry of Truth to promote the Taliban to terrorist rank. The problem is that these "terrorist acts" are taking place thousands of miles away in lands that the average American cannot find on a map and, thus, lack scare value. To keep the peril alive for Americans, we have the Underwear Bomb Plot.

What will be next? An elaborate head of hair laced with nano-thermite?

The "war on terror" is a far greater threat to Americans than all the terrorists in the world combined. This is so because the "war on terror" has destroyed the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. American citizens are now helpless in the event someone in government decides that some constitutionally protected behavior, such as free speech, or a contribution to a children’s hospital in Gaza, where Hamas, a U.S.-declared "terrorist organization," happens to be the elected government, constitutes aiding and abetting terrorism.

On Jan. 5 a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court in the District of Columbia gave away the most essential protection of liberty by declaring that the U.S. government is not bound by law during war. The ruling absolves Washington from complying with America’s own laws and from complying with international laws, such as the Geneva Conventions. It makes a mockery of all war crime trials everywhere. By elevating the executive branch above the law, the court gave the government carte blanche.

The rationale offered by the court for refusing to uphold the law came from Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who said that America had been pushed by war past "the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm, one that demands new rules be written. War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust." By "adjust" she means "be set aside" or "be thrown out."

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to defend both the Constitution and the principle that government is not above the law. Last Dec.14 the Supreme Court refused to review a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court in the District of Columbia, which dismissed a torture case with the argument that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants." In other words, neither U.S. nor international laws against torture can be enforced in U.S. courts. The opinion [PDF] was written by Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson.

The "war on terror," which is enriching Halliburton, Blackwater (now operating under an alias), and the military/security complex, while denying Americans health care, is running up debt that is a threat to Americans’ purchasing power and living standards. The contrast between America’s sanctimonious rhetoric and the murder of civilians and torture of prisoners has destroyed America’s reputation and caused Europeans as well as Muslims to despise the United States.

The sacrifice of the Constitution and rule of law to a hyped "terrorist threat" has destroyed the heart and soul of America herself.

As a poet wrote, "our world in stupor lies."

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Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?

"Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?

By Paul Craig Roberts

January 08, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.

If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.

After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur stunts.

The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV media and especially on Fox "news." After reading recently that The Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that preached the lobbyist’s interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of full body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear Bomber, if not behind the plot itself. In America, everything is for sale. Integrity is gone with the wind.

Recently I read a column by an author who has a "convenience theory" about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by al-Qaida in Yemen. As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were informed or consulted, the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient excuse for Washington’s new war, regardless of whether it was a real attack or a put-up job.

Once you start to ask yourself about whose agenda is served by events and their news spin, other things come to mind. For example, last July there was a news report that the government in Yemen had disbanded a terrorist cell, which was operating under the supervision of Israeli intelligence services. According to the news report, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Saba news agency that a terrorist cell was arrested and that the case was referred to judicial authorities "for its links with the Israeli intelligence services."

Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist recruits? Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel’s territorial expansion.

The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford University where I learned that the Tsar’s secret police set off bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest.

I next remembered that Francesco Cossiga, the president of Italy from 1985-1992, revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, a false flag operation under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The bombings were blamed on communists and were used to discredit communist parties in elections.

An Italian parliamentary investigation unearthed the fact that the attacks were overseen by the CIA. Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated in sworn testimony that the attacks targeted innocent civilians, including women and children, in order "to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

What a coincidence. That is exactly what 9/11 succeeded in accomplishing in the U.S.

Among the well-meaning and the gullible in the West, the supposition still exists that government represents the public interest. Political parties keep this myth alive by fighting over which party best represents the public’s interest. In truth, government represents private interests, those of the office holders themselves and those of the lobby groups that finance their political campaigns. The public is in the dark as to the real agendas.

The U.S. and its puppet state allies were led to war in the Middle East and Afghanistan entirely on the basis of lies and deception. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction did not exist and were known by the U.S. and British governments not to exist. Forged documents, such as the "yellowcake documents," were leaked to newspapers in order to create news reporting that would bring the public along with the government’s war agenda.

Now the same thing is happening in regard to the nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program. Forged documents leaked to The Times (London) that indicated Iran was developing a "nuclear trigger" mechanism have been revealed as forgeries.

Who benefits? Clearly, attacking Iran is on the Israeli-U.S. agenda, and someone is creating the "evidence" to support the case, just as the leaked secret “Downing Street Memo” to the British cabinet informed Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government that President Bush had already made the decision to invade Iraq and "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The willingness of people to believe their rulers and the propaganda ministries that serve the rulers is astonishing. Many Americans believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program despite the unanimous conclusion of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to the contrary.

Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives fought hard with limited success to change the CIA’s role from intelligence agency to a political agency that manufactures facts in support of the neoconservative agenda. For the Bush Regime creating “new realities” was more important than knowing the facts.

Recently I read a proposal from a person purporting to favor an independent media that stated that we must save the print media from financial failure with government subsidies. Such a subsidy would complete the subservience of the media to government.

Even in Stalinist Russia, a totalitarian political system where everyone knew that there was no free press, a gullible or intimidated public and Communist Party enabled Joseph Stalin to put the heroes of the Bolshevik Revolution on show trial and execute them as capitalist spies.

In the U.S. we are developing our own show trials. Sheikh Mohammed’s will be a big one. As Chris Hedges recently pointed out, once government uses demonized Muslims to get the new justice (sic) system going, the rest of us will be next.

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Treason Pie

"Committing treason for a piece of the pie

by Peter Chamberlin
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jan 5, 2010

If things were as they seemed, then the most powerful military force that the world has ever seen would have had no trouble defeating Afghan or Iraqi tribes, or the already decimated military of Saddam Hussein. But things are not as they seem on the nightly news; in fact, most things prove to be the exact opposite of how they are portrayed. In a country like America (and sadly, most countries want to be like America), the people prefer to believe whatever they are told.

No one questions now, nor did they at the time these things occurred, why American military forces performed in the following unprofessional, illogical manner: they consistently refused to contain the forces they fought against in any encounter (never closing the back doors) and they always stopped fighting just short of victory, allowing their enemies years to rebuild their forces while American soldiers were restrained from finishing the enemy to become instructors. Continuing the Iraq and Afghan wars was more important than winning or ending them; continuing the wars was "winning" them in the lexicon of the Empire-builders.

In the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon any force of patriotic fighting men in the history of the human race, over 2 million men and women have been sent to fight and die in wars where victory was never possible, by government mandate. This has been a hallmark of America's wars, set by the first Pres. Bush in his Gulf war. No useful assets like Saddam Hussein (or the Taliban, for that matter) can be eliminated in our wars of conquest. We are only interested in reeling in those who think that they are beyond control, restoring the balance of power, the balance of terror.

It is imperative that the still free citizens of the world understand that their own leaders consider the continuation of America's wars more important than anything else in the world right now. Every leader on the world stage has a financial stake in our war, although there is, no doubt, an element of threat in the equation, as well. If we prevail, then their rewards will multiply exponentially. Nothing less can explain how all of them could sell-out their own people for the opportunity to sign deals with the United States, or worse, how they all cover up crimes committed by American agencies.

The American war is not about fighting terror; that is just the most convenient excuse for the many criminal events that our governments have planned for us all. We fight to advance a new American order, one without resistance to the Empire's designs. Everyone who can go along with these plans and get along (doing as they are told) is guaranteed a better lot in the new order than those who resist. Anyone in the way of those designs is branded an extremist or a "terrorist," who must be taken out of the way.

The one nation that potentially has more to gain from partnering with the United States than any other compromised nation is India. The economic explosion that India has experienced over the past decade is a direct result of its new partnership with American interests. The globalist "outsourcing" solution has directly transferred millions of jobs and countless industries to India, resulting in an equivalent loss of American jobs. (The same can be said of China -- the decades of economic boom it has experienced was a conscious transfer of American jobs and wealth to China -- the "Walmart solution.").

India has special roles to play in the Empire's plans, on many different levels. Beyond the scientific and economic partnership is the US/India military partnership. This extends beyond the obvious visible manifestations of this partnership to the secret covert level. It is here in the septic tank level of international relations that India is dirtying itself in unbelievable ways, in order to fulfill what is required of it in this partnership. Considering the CIA's resounding success in persuading ISI men to aid in terror within Pakistan, it is not outrageous to suspect that the same thing is happening inside India.

India and the US are walking a dangerous line, accusing Pakistan for false flag attacks (that were probably their own handiwork), all the while running mercenaries inside Pakistan. If it is proven that the CIA has been running ops against the Indian government, then it is probable that Indians are part of the plan.

Evidence of both adversarial agencies is evident in the person of one captured spy, Daood Gilani, a.k.a. David Headley. Mr. Headley is a known asset of the CIA and the DEA, but he has also been trained by Pakistan's premier terror outfit, Lashkar e-Taiba. He will be charged for the planning of the Mumbai attack, thus implicating the American government in that attack. In addition, testimony of two of the men captured after the Mumbai attack suggests that Headley was possibly a colonel in one of India's agencies, or perhaps the Mumbai police force. Will prosecuting Headley for the attack implicate Indian players, possibly drawing-in RAW and the military?

It is difficult to see how India can pursue real leads in their Mumbai investigation (other than their usual anti-Pakistani propaganda) without exposing their own responsibility in that false flag attack upon mostly Indian citizens. Even though US, Israeli and British sources of the attackers are indicated, in addition to the Pakistanis, a central element of the Mumbai attack was the elimination of Hemant Karkare, chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad and his associates, in order to cover-up the Indian hand in previous false-flag attacks against Muslims within India.

The US maintains a delicate balancing act, using India to anchor its Asian operation and to provide an economic boost to its own stability, while the CIA pits RAW and ISI against each other in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the case of Headley, you have the reverse situation, where Pakistani assets are developed to be used in a "false flag" attack upon India by a consortium of agencies, which included Indian assets, intended to implicate Pakistan. In Pakistan, you have the same set-up with the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban, where Pakistanis are helping Indians and Americans by hurting other Pakistanis.

It is the contradictions seen in all false flag ops that make them appear absurdly impossible; they are dependent upon key players, "patsies," committing acts of treason against their own homelands. It is a phenomenon seen in all anti-state agency operations, from the Kennedy assassination to the attack upon Mumbai -- the contradictions make them seem impossible, but in reality, it is the inherent contradictions that make "big lie" ops work.

It has been the CIA's signature strategy for several decades that all of its missions are joint missions, if possible, comprised of black ops forces drawn from various spy and military organizations. The black ops forces that have served on American international missions are known collectively as 'al Qaida,' the Base. Since late 2000, the term "al Qaida" has been used to blame attacks upon terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden, although the bulk of the attacks attributed to this militant movement have been the work of the international mercenary/militant CIA forces.

Drafting India and RAW into this exclusive international terrorist order was a brilliant move that presented the "false flag" think tanks with a wide range of staging opportunities. The destabilizing mission planned for the subcontinent and all of Central Asia required active collaborators in every targeted state, to stage the attacks and battles required to incite war hysteria and to agitate for the revenge attacks that are necessary to fuel the war cycle against the "Islamist" perpetrators of the terror attacks.

By seducing India with economic incentives and promises of thermonuclear technology needed to overcome deficiencies in its arsenal, the United States has acquired a new economic lifeline, as well as the means to proceed with its own nuclear tests (through India), thereby ducking the political heat for the apparent hypocrisy of conducting nuclear tests while trying to eliminate nuclear arms. India is to serve as an American anchor, to help hold the subcontinent, while land is pacified ahead of the pipeline construction crews.

Indian authorities don't seem to have a problem with American intentions or covert actions in the region. Until the Headley incident popped up there were no Indian voices critical of American foreign policy. Since then, Indian reporters are suggesting the unthinkable -- that Headley is a double agent for both Pakistan and the US. One brave analyst goes so far as to suggest that he is a "quadruple agent."

It will be interesting to see where the Headley investigation goes, now that it has broken through the Western filters and burst onto the traditional media. You can be certain that everyone will be trying to sweep it all under the rug. The best that we can do here in Internet world is to keep digging to expose the roots of the corruption, and doing our best to funnel key pieces of evidence through that hole in the filters.

--MORE--"

The Rulers of the Early Twenty-First Century

But for how long?

The empire is bankrupt and crumbling, its currency weakened, its military overstretched....

"Israel Rules

by Paul Craig Roberts

29 December, 2009
Vdare.com

On Christmas eve when Christians were celebrating the Prince of Peace, the New York Times delivered forth a call for war. “There’s only one way to stop Iran,” declared Alan J. Kuperman, and that is “military air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.” [There’s Only One Way to Stop Iran, December 23, 2009 ]

Kuperman is described as the “director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin,” but his Christmas eve call to war relies on disinformation and contradiction, not on objective scholarly analysis.

For example, Kuperman contradicts the unanimous report of America’s 16 intelligence agencies, the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Russian intelligence with his claim that Iran has a nuclear weapon program. Astonishingly, it does not occur to Kuperman that readers might wonder how an academic bureaucrat in Austin, Texas, has better information than these authorities.

Kuperman is so determined to damn President Obama’s plan to have other countries enrich Iran’s uranium for Iran’s nuclear energy program and medical isotopes that Kuperman commits astounding blunders. After claiming that Iran has a “bomb program,” Kuperman claims that “Iran’s uranium contains impurities” and that Ahmadinejad’s threat “to enrich uranium domestically to the 20 percent level . . . is a bluff, because even if Iran could further enrich its impure uranium, it lacks the capacity to fabricate the uranium into fuel elements.”

What was the New York Times op ed editor thinking when he approved Kuperman’s article? Iran, Kuperman writes, needs “90 percent enriched uranium” to have weapons-grade material, but cannot reach 20 percent or even make fuel elements for its nuclear energy. So, how is Iran going to produce a bomb? Yet, Kuperman writes that “we have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.”

It could not be made any clearer that, as with the US invasion of Iraq, a military attack on Iran has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. An “Iranian nuke” is just another canard behind which hides an undeclared agenda.

One wonders about Kuperman’s non-proliferation credentials. How does a wanton military attack on a country encourage non-proliferation? Aren’t America’s bullying, threats and acts of war more likely to encourage countries to seek nuclear weapons?

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the United States has wars ongoing in Iraq where the ancient Chaldean Christian community was destroyed—not by Saddam Hussein but by the neoconservatives’ illegal invasion of Iraq—in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Sudan. The US initiated a war, which it lost, between its puppet ruler in the former Soviet province of Georgia and Russia.

The US, the world’s greatest supporter of terrorism, is the main financier of terrorist groups that stage attacks within Iran, and US money succeeded in financing protests against President Ahmadinejad’s re-election and in dividing the ruling Islamic clerics. It was American money, weapons, and diplomatic cover that enabled the Israeli war crimes against the Lebanese people during 2006 and against Palestinian civilians in Gaza during 2008-2009, crimes documented in the Goldstone Report.

Iran has never interfered in US internal affairs, but the US has a long record of interfering in Iranian affairs. In 1953 the US overthrew Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq and installed a puppet who tortured Iranians who desired political independence.

Despite this and other American offenses against Iran, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly expressed Iran’s interest to be on friendly terms with the United States, only to be repeatedly rebuffed. The US wants war with Iran in order to expand US world hegemony.

One might expect a non-proliferation expert to take history into account, but Kuperman fails to do so. Kuperman also has nothing to say about Israel’s, India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Unlike Iran, none of these countries are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, India, and Pakistan all developed their nuclear weapons in secret, and many experts believe Israel had American help, an act of treason. All three countries have been rewarded by Washington despite their perfidy. Why is Kuperman concerned about Iran, which submits to the IAEA inspections, but is unconcerned with Israel, a country that has never permitted a single inspection?

The answer is that the Israel Lobby, the US military-security complex, and the “Christian” Zionists have succeeded in demonizing Iran. Every real expert knows that an Iranian nuclear weapon would have no function other than deterring an attack on Iran. Ever since the US lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons, after using them offensively and pointlessly against a defeated Japan, nuclear weapons have served no purpose other than deterrence.

The US has no conflicting economic interests with Iran. Iran is simply a supplier of oil, an important one. A US attack on Iran, such as the one advocated by Kuperman, would most likely shut down oil flows to the West through the Strait of Hormuz. This might benefit refiners, who sell gasoline to the West and could charge enormous prices, but no one else would benefit.

Adding to the war cry are congregations of fake Christians. A great number of them, organized by someone’s money under the banner, “Christian Leaders for a Nuclear-free Iran,” has written to Congress demanding sanctions against Iran that amount to an act of war. The roll call includes the “Christian” Zionist John Hagee, who, according to reports, denigrates Jesus Christ and preaches to his illiterate congregation that it is God’s will for Americans to fight and die for Israel, the oppressor of the Palestinian people.

Among the signatories of the “Christians” demanding an act of war against Iran, are Dr. Pat Robertson, president of Christian Broadcasting Network, Nixon-era criminal Chuck Colson, and Richard Land, president of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention. Obviously, for southern Baptists ethics means murdering Islamists, and religious liberty excludes everyone but “Christian” Zionists.

It is a simple matter for an educated person to make fools of these morons who profess to be Christians. However, these morons have vast constituencies numbering in the tens of millions of Americans. There are, in fact, more of them than there are intelligent, informed, moral, and real Christian Americans.

The votes of the morons will prevail.

In the second decade of the 21st century, America’s Zionist wars against Islam will expand. America’s wars in behalf of Israel’s territorial expansion will complete the bankruptcy of America. The Treasury’s bonds to finance the US government’s enormous deficits will lack for buyers. Therefore, the bonds will be monetized by the Federal Reserve. The result will be rising rates of inflation. The inflation will destroy the dollar as world reserve currency, and the US will no longer be able to pay for its imports. Shortages will appear, including food and gasoline, and “Superpower America” will find itself pressed to the wall as a third world country unable to pay its debts.

America has been brought low, both morally and economically, by its obeisance to the Israel Lobby. Even Jimmy Carter, a former President of the United States and Governor of Georgia recently had to apologize to the Israel Lobby for his honest criticisms of Israel’s inhumane treatment of the occupied Palestinians in order for his grandson to be able to run for a seat in the Georgia state senate.

This should tell the macho super-power American tough guys who really runs “their” country.

--MORE--"

Scared Rabbit

I share his fears and can empathize with his holiday experience.

"For the first time I'm scared. I mean really scared. For the first time in my lifetime it looks like America may actually be coming to an end.

As I traveled over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays I payed special attention to the public. At gas stations and shopping centers - I took the time to observe. We are doomed. These people have nothing, know nothing, and are not interested. Talk about rabble.

As I spoke to members of my family at holiday celebrations - about topics foreign to me - like what's going on with their favorite TV show... my heart sank. No hope.

As I browsed the web to see the most recent joke of a terrorist attack - just enough not to cause property damage but just enough to scare the cringing American soccer-moms - I just stared. The conversation in the background continued - I didn't participate.

America is presently doomed. I've not even had the energy to do much blogging - since the words seem to fall on a mass of sheep intent on filling their stomachs. These are not citizens - they are consumers - oblivious to the death and destruction spread in their names.

The American citizen has become a penniless tool of credit card companies - unable to perform their duty as citizen since they cannot collect enough brain energy to grasp the mind-fuck under which they live. They live for a few moments between jobs - or rides to their children's activities, while monsters blow their still-uncollected tax money on expensive robot-drones used to kill "terrorists" - whatever they are. Ask an American what a terrorist is - you might as well ask a cinderblock.

We need a plan, leadership, and decisive action to save America. Our leaders have failed us. Many are being blackmailed. Unless those of us with the answers are taken seriously in public and supported this country is gone.

But maybe I'm wrong - that there really are Americans out there. That there are people who understand that anyone pretending that they have the power to take away their rights is a traitor and an enemy.

In the coming year it will be of the utmost importance to educate, invigorate and galvanize all. The American public is up against an organized force of thieves, liars and power-hungry oligarchs with the means, motive and opportunity to take everything. But what does it matter?

Our Bill of Rights is the only thing we have right now. There is absolutely no respect given to the Constitution of the United States - Why? Why when we have a so-called constitutional scholar in the White House? Perhaps the best way to undermine the Constitution is with someone who understands it best. And I've concluded from my holiday observations that no one is looking out for the American citizen regarding the Constitution of the United States. Especially not the American citizen. No - they cling to their belief that "somebody cares" - or maybe they are so ignorant of the theft of the only thing they have that matters - unique in time - and unique in world history - their Bill of Rights and Constitution - ...

I am concerned that the media is useless providing zero feedback to the population so elections can work. I am concerned that our elections are stolen - by companies who can give a paper receipt for a bank transaction at an ATM but not at the election booth. I am concerned that we have mercenary armies raping and pillaging half the planet with our money but not representing our ideals. I am concerned that our elected representatives, blackmailed, are using mercenaries to continue wars that have no support here in the United States. I am concerned that false-flag operations are constantly used, with the support of a phony news media - to stampede the American public into actions contrary to their freedoms. That's treason by the way.

For the first time in my life I've heard stable even-tempered adults discussing violent revolution. How crazy is that? Is that what it is going to take?

Where is the FBI on 911 Truth? AWOL. Our insane alphabet-soup agencies, CIA, NSA and the rest of them are simply a bunch of robotic brainwashed idiots - running around the world sticking their noses in everyone else's business - then when their nation-building antics backfire - we, the American public, are supposed to sit here and accept the police state required to maintain this madness. How about no?

How about no more prisons? How about no more cops running around with automatic rifles in this "land of the free and home of the brave?" How about some real change we can believe in?

Obama is a fraud, a liar, and as far as I am concerned a traitor. He is a one-world government con-artist with no respect for what America really stands for. He is a front-man for a group of con-artists - troops to Yemen, Columbia, Pakistan - continue the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, saber-rattling toward Iran. Is this clown for real? Why doesn't he declare war on the North Pole? Or is that a coming attraction?

Here in Charlottesville, Virginia we've recently been buried under a blanket of snow too high to drive through with most Jeeps. The entire town crippled - couldn't plow our own roads. What if Al Quaida attacked then? People were stuck in their cars overnight - no emergency crews could reach them. Yeah - we are really a superpower. Meanwhile our military is deployed the world over to save everything.

2010 must be the year of the plan. We need leadership, ideas and action. We need to shit-can our members of the House of Representatives - the first place to look - who don't know what a Bill of Rights is. We need to kick out anybody trampling on that Bill of Rights. Then we need to start working out from there.

Our dysfunctional House of Representatives is the starting line - the first place to focus all actions. And we need them to tackle the big issues - like 911 Truth and these phony wars. Anybody using the term "War on Terror" needs to be fired - period.

I guess I've ranted enough - I just hope some of this sank in. We are in big, big trouble here in America - and if we don't get organized and unite as Americans - we'll be saluting a new flag very very soon.

--MORE--"

Reflecting on the Next Terror Attack

".... Gordon Brown and Dragul Netanyahoo are talking about the next big terror thing. They have to be don’t they? They’re involved in setting it up. Obama (rhymes with Osama) would be talking about it with them but Obama isn’t really involved in the planning because he’s lucky if he can tie his shoes. No… Obama’s people do his talking for him, which means that either Rahm (definitely not Emmanuel) or Hilarious Clinton are probably in the room with Dragul and Gordon....

Yes… the early stages of the next big terror event are in progress. It’s been awhile. Some of us thought (me included) that it would happen earlier but obviously 2010 has all the necessary elements; economic freefall, annoying Goldstone Reports, Israeli organ theft from all over, including adopted Romanian children… it’s kind of a real life slasher film isn’t it? The setting is a slumber party at an orphanage. Ehud Barak comes in wearing a hockey mask and goes about his business never saying a word. Do you know why Jason and Michael Myers never speak? You can’t reason with someone who doesn’t talk to you. The killer takes on the persona of an automaton. At least Obama (rhymes with Osama) won’t need his teleprompter because he’s probably wearing a bag over his head....

**************************

I just want to point something out here and it needs to be said; this new non-terror event and the genocide in Gaza, the organ harvesting, the looting and stealing by alligator pigs in suits, this business about doing God’s work at Goldman Sachs and all the lies and evil deeds that keep getting exposed and then passed over, by the whores who write the news copy, is living proof that it’s all a setup to show the world just what kind of people have shoehorned themselves into the power suites....

The more I see of what’s happening these days, the more I am dead certain that these candidates for The Roach Motel are being led down the garden path to their ruin. It’s so glaring and obvious. Can’t you see it? Every time they outdo themselves and you think, “Now they’ll cut back and behave themselves’, they take it one step further. They’re driving around with “No Fear” bumper stickers and they’ve never been on a surfboard in their life. I do believe that they can’t believe they keep getting away with it and it compels them to push the envelope just one step further.

Meanwhile the public sits in their shrinking living room. Movers are removing the furniture; everything but the TV. Their kids are on the TV in that new reality show for pre-teens called, “Sexting you Up.”

Read the rest HERE

Maybe I shouldn't have posted it, but....

".....

Should a person who sees this taking place speak out against it? What if no one did?

It is okay to kill unarmed citizens in a war but it is usually not okay to kill any kind of citizens if you are not in a military engagement or a theater of war. Wars, for the most part are caused by banks and corporations for the purpose of profit.....

Corporations can routinely get away with things that a citizen cannot. Banks can engage in self-serving practices that would cause an individual to be sent to jail. Rich men can do things that poor men cannot and when they are occasionally caught out at their criminal enterprises they can hire legal representation that poor men cannot afford. When they are sent to jail, they are sent to special jails where poor men are not sent. Nations can get away with things that would land a citizen on death row and nations can do things to their citizens that would land a citizen in jail or on death row. Should I avoid saying something about this in order to avoid the attention of powerful entities or to avoid the censure of my readers and anyone who might object to my doing it? What if no one said anything about any of these things?

Powerful banking and corporate interests have compromised the leaders of many of the major nations in this world. They tell them what to do. They have conspired to destroy the economy of the nations in order to exert a greater control over the citizens. They did this during the Great Depression as well and it was also a real help in bringing about a world war from which these banks and corporations profited. It was true then and it is true now. Should I not say anything about this? What if no one was saying anything about this?

People are paid a lot of money to report the news in print and electronic media. They report the news according to what the heads of the corporations tell them to report. They are given the tone and the shape of the information and they are told not to deviate from it. They receive a fine lifestyle and a public profile, which they can translate into all kinds of profit for themselves simply by being an obliging liar. Along the way they are somehow able to convince themselves that they are telling the truth… even when the facts directly in front of them contradict all of what they are saying. Am I not supposed to call attention to this? What if no one dissented from the pro forma lies that have brought us to this pass?

Should we all just color in between the lines of the approved coloring book and follow all the rules even though our leaders and the rest of the people at the top of the heap do no such thing? Because a criminal, organized crime enterprise, has gotten themselves a country in order to do awful things at home and around the world, should I just accept this? When that country is based on observable lies and absurd claims that somehow became gospel in the face of all evidence to the contrary, should I just accept it and deny what my eyes and ears and heart and mind tell me? Severe laws have been passed to silence all criticism of this country and its agents. Should I submit?

****************************

There is no personal gain for me in speaking out; quite the contrary. Why would I or any of the few of the rest of us who do, do so? There must be a reason and I can only think that it is associated with conscience and as reaction against unnecessary injustices perpetrated upon our fellows. Just because it isn’t happening to me does not mean I should ignore it.

To find some answers go HERE

The Subprime Primer

--source--"

The 100th Monkey

"The 100th Monkey

Once dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory, the truth about 9/11 has continued to spread far and wide. Soon we will reach a tipping point as illustrated by the phenomenon of the 100th Monkey, and bring the real mass-murderers to justice.

World for 9/11 Truth

--more--"

Hell-Bent AmeriKans

"Americans Are Hell-Bent on Tyranny

by Paul Craig Roberts

Obama’s dwindling band of true believers has taken heart that their man has finally delivered on one of his many promises—the closing of the Guantanamo prison. But the prison is not being closed. It is being moved to Illinois, if the Republicans permit.

In truth, Obama has handed his supporters another defeat. Closing Guantanamo meant ceasing to hold people in violation of our legal principles of habeas corpus and due process and ceasing to torture them in violation of US and international laws.

All Obama would be doing would be moving 100 people, against whom the US government is unable to bring a case, from the prison in Guantanamo to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.

Are the residents of Thomson despondent that the US government has chosen their town as the site on which to continue its blatant violation of US legal principles? No, the residents are happy. It means jobs.

The hapless prisoners had a better chance of obtaining release from Guantanamo. Now the prisoners are up against two US senators, a US representative, a mayor, and a state governor who have a vested interest in the prisoners’ permanent detention in order to protect the new prison jobs in the hamlet devastated by unemployment.

Neither the public nor the media have ever shown any interest in how the detainees came to be incarcerated. Most of the detainees were unprotected people who were captured by Afghan war lords and sold to the Americans as “terrorists” in order to collect a proffered bounty. It was enough for the public and the media that the Defense Secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, declared the Guantanamo detainees to be the “780 most dangerous people on earth.”

The vast majority have been released after years of abuse. The 100 who are slated to be removed to Illinois have apparently been so badly abused that the US government is afraid to release them because of the testimony the prisoners could give to human rights organizations and foreign media about their mistreatment.

Our British allies are showing more moral conscience than Americans are able to muster. Former PM Tony Blair, who provided cover for President Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, is being damned for his crimes by UK officialdom testifying before the Chilcot Inquiry.

The London Times on December 14 summed up the case against Blair in a headline: “Intoxicated by Power, Blair Tricked Us Into War.” Two days later the British First Post declared: “War Crime Case Against Tony Blair Now Rock-solid.” In an unguarded moment Blair let it slip that he favored a conspiracy for war regardless of the validity of the excuse [weapons of mass destruction] used to justify the invasion.

The movement to bring Blair to trial as a war criminal is gathering steam. Writing in the First Post Neil Clark reported: “There is widespread contempt for a man [Blair] who has made millions [his reward from the Bush regime] while Iraqis die in their hundreds of thousands due to the havoc unleashed by the illegal invasion, and who, with breathtaking arrogance, seems to regard himself as above the rules of international law.” Clark notes that the West’s practice of shipping Serbian and African leaders off to the War Crimes Tribunal, while exempting itself, is wearing thin.

In the US, of course, there is no such attempt to hold to account Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the large number of war criminals that comprised the Bush Regime. Indeed, Obama, whom Republicans love to hate, has gone out of his way to protect the Bush cohort from being held accountable.

Here in Great Moral America we only hold accountable celebrities and politicians for their sexual indiscretions. Tiger Woods is paying a bigger price for his girlfriends than Bush or Cheney will ever pay for the deaths and ruined lives of millions of people. The consulting company, Accenture Plc, which based its marketing program on Tiger Woods, has removed Woods from its Web site. Gillette announced that the company is dropping Woods from its print and broadcast ads. AT&T says it is re-evaluating the company’s relationship with Woods.

Apparently, Americans regard sexual infidelity as far more serious than invading countries on the basis of false charges and deception, invasions that have caused the deaths and displacement of millions of innocent people. Remember, the House impeached President Clinton not for his war crimes in Serbia, but for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Americans are more upset by Tiger Woods’ sexual affairs than they are by the Bush and Obama administrations’ destruction of US civil liberty. Americans don’t seem to mind that “their” government for the last 8 years has resorted to the detention practices of 1,000 years ago—simply grab a person and throw him into a dungeon forever without bringing charges and obtaining a conviction.

According to polls, Americans support torture, a violation of both US and international law, and Americans don’t mind that their government violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spies on them without obtaining warrants from a court. Apparently, the brave citizens of the “sole remaining superpower” are so afraid of terrorists that they are content to give up liberty for safety, an impossible feat.

With stunning insouciance, Americans have given up the rule of law that protected their liberty. The silence of law schools and bar associations indicates that the age of liberty has passed. In short, the American people support tyranny. And that’s where they are headed.

--MORE--"

Anger Not Enough

"ANGER WITH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NOT ENOUGH

By Chuck Baldwin
December 18, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

....

That Americans are angry with the federal government is nothing new. As a general rule, Americans STAY angry with the federal government. So what? Nothing changes, anger and discontentment notwithstanding.

Oh! Occasionally, grassroots effort can be mustered in sufficient quantity to stop whatever happens to be the latest effort by the miscreants in Washington, D.C., that tramples our freedoms. But only occasionally. The only recent triumph I can think of was when G.W. Bush, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain tried to ram an amnesty bill for illegal aliens through Congress. But never fear, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid will pick up that particular baton soon enough.

I'm old enough to remember when giving the Panama Canal away was opposed by virtually everyone outside the Beltway. It changed nothing. Jimmy Carter and Congress gave it away, anyway. Most people oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So what? Our troops are not only still there, but more are on the way. Most people believe children should be allowed to pray and read the Bible in school. So what? They still are forbidden from doing so. Most people believed former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore had the right to post the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. So what? He was forced to take them down, anyway (and removed from office in the process). I could go on, but you get the point.

Anger and opposition to Washington's policies and edicts--no matter now egregious--hardly ever translate into anything beyond words of frustration. And Washington politicians don't pay much attention to rhetoric--not even their own.

You see, the wizards in Washington and on Wall Street have us figured out. Along with their compatriots in the propaganda press corps, they know that no matter how loudly we scream, how much we protest, or how angry we become, the system is rigged to protect them. The best we the people can seem to come up with is "throwing the bums out" every two or four years. BUT NOTHING CHANGES--at least, not in terms of restoring the fundamental principles of freedom and constitutional government.

Throw out George H.W. Bush in 1992, and nothing changes. Throw the Democrats out of Congress in 1994, and nothing changes. Throw Bill Clinton's party out of the White House in 2000, and nothing changes. Throw out G.W. Bush's Republicans in 2008, and nothing changes. The only thing that happens with a changing of the guard is an escalation in the pace of whatever version of socialism--or Big Government program--is currently in vogue. With Bush it meant expanding the Warfare State. With Obama it means expanding the Welfare State. But both do everything they can to expand Big Government.

When will we awaken to the reality that Washington, D.C., has had the American people chasing their tails for decades? People, wake up! As long as we continue to focus our attention and energy on Washington, D.C., we will only continue to supply more rope to those who wish to hang us.

Washington, D.C., is too far gone to salvage. Admit it! Washington is a cesspool, a landfill, and a putrid pond of corruption and duplicity. Neither the Republican nor Democratic Party will ever allow a principled constitutionalist to become its Presidential nominee. No matter whom we elect as President, the beat toward Big-Government socialism and one-world internationalism will go on without interruption. Big Government scalawags own the entire federal system, including Big Media, Big Business, Big Labor, Big Religion, and Big Special Interest Groups. They are all feeding at the government teat....

******************************

Folks, let's get down to where the rubber meets the road: the reason we are in the miserable mess we are in is because the states have--either wittingly or unwittingly--ceded their authority and independence to Washington, D.C. Therefore, it is now critical that states reclaim their authority--authority that is duly granted them under the US Constitution....

The truth is, for all intents and purposes, we could turn off television completely and be in no worse shape. And newspapers are no better. The vast majority of them blatantly support and promote Big Government. As Mark Twain said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."

With Big Media, it's all about Washington politics. Period. For the most part, the conservative-liberal/Republican-Democrat paradigm is nothing but a distraction at best, and a scam at worst, to keep all of us safely on the federal reservation, where we are without hope or recourse to actually change anything.

Ladies and Gentlemen, freedom in America has only one hope: the resurrection of State independence and sovereignty....

Read the rest HERE

The Problems of AmeriKa

"To Know the End from the Beginning

.... They have continued to steal when they already had more than they could ever need or ever spend. They made public displays of their wealth, while showing a calloused indifference to the plight of the people they stole their money from. They have awakened a beast in the hearts of the populace. This beast has its own intelligence outside of the minds of those in which it has been kindled. They are only the means. The beast is the awareness that drives the means to the end. This is how unruly mobs suddenly coalesce as if they were possessed of intelligent purpose. All of a sudden they have leaders and a structure. It seems to come out of nowhere but it does not. It is the natural response to conditions set into being by people who should have known better and did not.

When you set about repressing people’s freedom of speech and movement, you have created a problem. When you make their jobs and their savings disappear you have created another problem. When you send men and women to fight wars for profit or to serve the interest of a foreign nation that sees them as less than human, you have created another problem. When you fail to see to the aftercare of these soldiers you have created yet another problem. These are only a few of the problems....

Read the rest HERE

Breaking News: Obama Knows Osama is Dead

Also see: Where's Osama?

"BIN LADEN NEVER MENTIONED IN McCHRYSTAL REPORT OR OBAMA SPEECH

"HUNT FOR BIN LADEN" A NATIONAL SHAME

By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.

However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one....

America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001....

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The bin Laden scam is one of the most shameful acts ever perpetrated against the American people....

We know this: Bin Laden always denied any ties to 9/11 and, in fact, has never been charged in relation to 9/11. He not only denied involvement, but had done so, while alive, 4 times and had vigorously condemned those who were involved in the attack.

This is on the public record, public in every free country except ours. We, instead, showed films made by paid actors, made up to look somewhat similar to bin Laden, actors who contradicted bin Ladens very public statements, actors pretending to be bin Laden long after bin Laden's death.

These were done to help justify spending, repressive laws, torture and simple thievery.

For years, we attacked the government of Pakistan for not hunting down someone everyone knew was dead. Bin Laden's death hit the newspapers in Pakistan on December 15, 2001. How do you think our ally felt when they were continually berated for failing to hunt down and turn over someone who didn't exist?

What do you think this did for American credibility in Pakistan and thru the Islamic world? Were we seen as criminals, liars or simply fools? Which one is best?

This is also treason....

We spent 8 years chasing a dead man, spending billions, sending FBI agents, the CIA, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Special Forces, many to their deaths, as part of a political campaign to justify running American into debt, enriching a pack of political cronies and war profiteers and to puff up a pack of Pentagon peacocks and their Whitehouse draft dodging bosses.

How many laws were pushed thru because of a dead man?

How many hundreds were tortured to find a dead man?

How many hundreds died looking for a dead man?

How many billions were spent looking for a dead man?

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Now I Know My A-B-C's

"A Skeptic's Guide to Copenhagen

by Tunku Varadarajan

As the global summit on climate change gets under way in Copenhagen, Tunku Varadarajan offers an eyebrow-raising A-Z guide to the proceedings.

Very nearly a hundred years ago, Ambrose Bierce compiled A Devil's Dictionary, in which he sought to puncture the cultural cant of his time. Here is an attempt—at much shorter length—to prick a very contemporary kind of cant, that which has swollen the debate on climate change to ungovernable proportions.

A is for anthropogenic: (as in anthropogenic global warming, or “AGW”), a $10 word for "man-made" which global-warmists wield as proof of expertise—no one more so than Al Gore, who, after having invented the Internet, turned his prodigious mind to the conundrum of AGW.

B is for Björn Lomborg, the Danish professor whose book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, should have put Al Gore out of business forever; for the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) that aren’t ready to abandon the good, carbon-burning life just yet; and for boondoggle (see "ethanol," infra).

C is for the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, the now-discredited source of much of the data used to fuel climate hysteria. In November, in an episode that was oh-so-predictably dubbed Climategate, a cache of leaked emails showed that researchers systematically hid or manipulated data that was inconsistent with the accepted narrative of man-made climate change. (Read John Tierney's clear-headed critique here.) Don't forget carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless gas once considered essential to life on earth, not to mention bubbles in Champagne. (Although it's now regarded as a poisonous pollutant, you can, however, trade it.) Think also of consensus—the idea that science is settled by an asserted poll of experts after all objections from dissenting scientists have been suppressed.

D is for deniers. A mere notch above Holocaust deniers, these are the people who refuse to accept that climate change is largely man-induced. Heretics, they'd be burned at the stake if that were not such a bad thing for the ozone layer.

E is for environmentalism, which the philosopher Harvey Mansfield has defined as “school prayer for liberals,” ecoterrorists (who believe that all life, except yours, is sacred, and who tend to have names like "Swampy"), and ethanol (see "boondoggle," supra).

F is for fossil fuels, the consumption of which, over the last century, has powered prosperity and growth the world over, and for dear old Freeman Dyson, a distinguished scientist who copped some fearful flak for dissenting from the warmist consensus. ("I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated.")

G is for green, a mantra, a shibboleth, a way of life; the Guardian (house journal of the global-warming platoons); and Gwyneth Paltrow, who has said that she can "just feel" it getting globally warmer in her bones…Maybe her husband's band, Coldplay, should be re-named. Foreplay?

H is "hide the decline", (referring to a temperature graph that appeared on the cover of a 1999 report from the World Meteorological Organization). The phrase has been embraced by deniers as proof that the warmists are charlatans, as, previously, was the "hockey stick"—a graph that shows warming in the Northern Hemisphere, and which was featured in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report. Since its publication, the scientific methodology used to create it has been a source of intense dispute.

I is for internal combustion and the body that has demonized it—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a subsidiary of the U.N. which, with Al Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. The letter is also for incandescent light bulbs, the cheery glow we’ll have to learn to live without; the Inuit, who have 27 words for snow but only one for ozone; indulgences, the medieval scam run by the Catholic Church that Carbon Offsets closely resemble; and for inconvenient truth, such as the data buried at the CRU at East Anglia.

J is for Phil Jones, Cassandra in chief of global warming at East Anglia, long a foreteller of imminent catastrophe (superstorms, famines, polar bear extinction). Jones was little-known in America, where NASA's James Hansen is the Gandalf of the Hobbits marching to defeat the Greenhouse Mordor and return the Middle-earth to trembling Springtime. (Hansen, it should be noted, has compared coal trains to death-camp trains.)

K is for Kyoto, a Japanese city where the only thing of significance to have happened in the last 50 years was a 1997 Protocol which proposed mandatory emission reductions for developed countries. Those who pillory George W. Bush for not submitting the treaty to the Senate for ratification forget that Clinton administration didn't do so either. (Quiz: Who was Clinton's vice president?). Keep an eye, too, on Khosla Ventures (see "money," below).

L is for Nigel Lawson (father of the very warming Nigella), whose book—"An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming"—is a beacon of clarity in a sea of murk.

M is for Man, who, to quote Ambrose Bierce, is "an animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada." And then there's methane, a greenhouse gas parped into the air 24/7 by bovine polluters across the globe; the Medieval Climate Optimum, a warm period from about the 10th to the 14th century which warmists (i) ignore and/or (iii) cannot explain; ManBearPig, South Park's derisive nickname for global warming; and money (as in "Follow the…"; see Khosla Ventures, above).

N is for Noah, the Bible's original climate-change fanatic; nuclear energy, the cleanest solution to our "carbon" worries in the eyes of everyone but the warmists; and the Northwest Passage. Some scientists say that as more Arctic ice melts as a result of warming, the passage will open, conveniently, to ships.

O is for Obama, the man who may just end the Industrial Revolution; and ozone, the g-spot of the climate debate.

P is for peer-review, a scholarly process in which research that supports established IPCC conclusions is approved for publication, while contrary opinions are shredded; polar bears, the ursine mascots of the global-warming team—they're cute, cuddly (on film) and adrift on melted icebergs; and cap-and-trade permits, which give Congress hundreds of billions of dollars in new subsidies to distribute without putting the money on the federal balance sheet.

Q is for quixotic, a vivid feature of the drive for emissions reduction.

R is respiration, the process by which you, dear reader, commit global warming; and for Jairam Ramesh, the feisty, bouffant-haired Indian minister for the environment who has thumbed his elegant nose repeatedly at American demands that India slash its carbon emissions

S is for the sun, the likeliest global-warming culprit; and for Stern (Todd or Nicholas, take your pick). The former is the Obama administration's climate-change czar, who, it is rumored, could commit the U.S. to a nationwide emissions-reduction program at Copenhagen. The latter—Baron Stern of Brentford—is the author of a controversial British government report on climate change. He is not known to enjoy the company of those who disagree with him on the subject.

T is for "Mike's nature trick," a new method of manipulating data to support that idea that human beings are causing global warming. Phil Jones (see J, above) wrote that, in compiling new data, he had "just completed Mike's nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." Add to all this those lovely, bucolic "tree rings," whose changing sizes are regarded as proof of global warming in past centuries, even if recent fluctuations don't seem to match world temperature changes at all.

U is for under-arm spray. Go sweaty. Stink a little and save the environment.

W is for Martin Weitzman, the liberal Harvard economist who is honest enough to admit that there's no genuine economic case for cap and trade except by rigging the discount rate; and for Woods: no, not the forests, but the golfer. His is the only story that has a chance this week of knocking climate change off what are still, quaintly, called the front pages.

X is for XOM, or ExxonMobil, the greatest environmental villain known to man (and polar bears).

Y is for our young, now hardwired to be eco-fanatics, for better or worse, and for Yvo de Boer. Never heard of him? He's the U.N.'s UNFCCC man who's been arranging conferences, with their megacarbon footprints, in places such as Rio, Bali, Trinidad, and now Copenhagen. You never voted for him, but he's hoping to control how much you fly, drive, heat your home, and exhale.

Z is for zeitgeist, without which the entire controversy over man-made climate change would never had achieved traction in public debate; for Zanzibar, Zimbabwe, and Zambia (we’re doing it all for them, right?); zero population growth, which is the true aim of global warmism; and that great big, stomping, bellowing climate-change zoo, coming to a Danish capital near you.

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