Neo-Cons

Horsey [David Horsey: Top of the Ticket] is a great cartoonist but here he leaves out a crucial point. Sure the Neo-Cons have been and continue to be the driving force behind our wars in the middle east but this post avoids pointing out who the major players of that group really are, Israel, their lobby and its minions.

You can't fix it if you ignore the real problem.

Iran's election spoils neocons' plans for a new war - latimes.com:




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What's Fair?

found in the comments of this....

Perception Versus Reality Versus Erick Erickson | Blog | Media Matters for America:

Why do we want to cut funds to the poor and middle class to motivate them, but have to give money to the wealthy to motivate THEM??

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Greenwald Hates America?

dershowitz: Greenwald hates America

One thing I heard Dershowitz say this weekend, I believe on this same segment, was that what Snowden did was far worse than what Jonathon Pollard did. [Pollard - Wikipedia]

Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is an American who passed classified information to Israel while working as an American civilian intelligence analyst. He pleaded guilty and received a life sentence in 1987. 

Pollard passed classified US military secrets to a foreign government for cash.

Snowden passed classified information about a US government program designed to spy on the American people, to American People, because he believed that what the government was doing was wrong. 

Dershowitz thinks that is worse than what Pollard did? 

I think we should ask ourselves who really hates America.

Snowden....

"Snowden and the people of the US" vs "the US Government and corporate media." or the 99% vs the 1%.

I've spent the last few days trapped in a hotel room with access to only the corporate media view of the Snowden case. In 4 days there were countless stories of where Snowden was, where he was going, why those places all hated the US, why China was evil, Why Russia was evil, Why Snowden was evil, etc.... but,...

 I saw zero stories, not one, about the NSA spying on Americans. Not One. Corporate media is the propaganda arm of the state.

Now for something completely different.... (from people who do seem to care)

Glenn Greenwald:

On the Espionage Act charges against Edward Snowden | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:

 .. the same people who are building a ubiquitous surveillance system to spy on everyone in the world, including their own citizens, are now accusing the person who exposed it of "espionage". It seems clear that the people who are actually bringing "injury to the United States" are those who are waging war on basic tenets of transparency and secretly constructing a mass and often illegal and unconstitutional surveillance apparatus aimed at American citizens

the Guardian on history:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/25/editorial-edward-snowden-history?CMP=twt_gu

..America is blessed with a first amendment, which prevents prior restraint and affords a considerable measure of protection to free speech. But the Obama administration has equally shown a dismaying aggression in not only criminalising leaking and whistleblowing, but also recently placing reporters under surveillance – tracking them and pulling their phone and email logs in order to monitor their sources for stories that were patently of public importance.

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Syria

Read these three posts and think about why we're about to get involved with Syria.

Tom Friedman says candidate with AIPAC backing can raise in 3 phone calls what his opponent needs 50,000 calls to raise | Mondoweiss:

Hillary’s court is the Israel lobby

Fmr French foreign minister reportedly says Israel seeks to ‘destroy’ Syria (and any other neighbor it can’t get along with)

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Syria: Chemical Weapons

The "Syria has used chemical weapons" story seems very similar to the "Iraq has WMD story". The war hawks beat the war drums, the talk of the evidence begins to appear, and finally, off we go to Get-Our-War-On.

This started with a steady beat from the war hawks to do something in Syria. Obama resisted preferring to wait for certain lines to be crossed before we would become more involved. Then there were reports that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons. These were never confirmed and the UN even suggested that it was the rebels, the side we support, who could have been responsible. Finally, it was decided we should wait for more evidence.

Obama went on record that chemical weapons use was a line that couldn't be crossed. The war media beat its drum and eventually, the American people agreed, with only about one-third in favor of getting more involved if chemical weapons have not been used but doubling to about two-thirds in favor of action if chemical weapons are used.

Polls show US support involvement if chemical weapons are used.

Now the US and Britain are saying they have proof. Send More guns. We have proof.

Russia doesn't agree but in the US public's eye, Russia is an enemy and their statement only enforces the view that something is going on and we should get involved.

These people don't agree: Chemical Weapons Experts

“In a world where even the secret execution of Saddam Hussein was taped by someone, it doesn’t make sense that we don’t see videos, that we don’t see photos, showing bodies of the dead, and the reddened faces and the bluish extremities of the affected,” he said. 

Other experts said that while they were willing to give the U.S. intelligence community the benefit of the doubt, the Obama administration has yet to offer details of what evidence it has and how it obtained it.

Also from the above...(emphasis mine)

“Ultimately, without more information, we are left with the need to trust the integrity of the U.S. intelligence community in arriving at its ‘high confidence’ judgment,” Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Arms Control Association

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/14/194016/chemical-weapons-experts-still.html#storylink=cpy

I don't know about you, but "trusting the integrity of the US intelligence community" is not something that comes easy given the Iraq WMD fiasco and the recent NSA lying/snooping allegations.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/14/194016/chemical-weapons-experts-still.html#storylink=cpy

This sounds to me like we're being led down the same "Iraq had WMD" path with the only difference being that the administration doesn't appear to be leading the charge quite like the Bush regime. The Obama regime is either being pushed along or is just better at manipulating the image. Either way, I think another large group of Muslims are about to begin to "Hate us for our Freedoms".

tnb

Israel vs the World

Do you suppose this: Hullabaloo: Bill Clinton wants us to "win" in Syria:

is related to this: Clinton Takes 500,000 for speech in Israel

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The People vs Republicans and Democrats

What If a Party Re-branded Itself, and Americans Never Noticed? — The Monkey Cage:

...structural conditions in the country, especially the state of the economy, may put a Republican in the White House and maintain or expand Republican seat share in Congress—even if the Republicans don’t moderate their policies. You don’t have to be, like me, a skeptic of the “emerging Democratic majority” thesis to believe this.

Yes, Republicans will continue to win elections despite their policies and the Democrats won't dominate our elections with an "emerging majority". However I don't believe it's because the people don't care or don't see the difference. It's that we don't really have much of a choice and Republican or Democrat, the system doesn't work for the people.

Our political system is broken and unable to fix real problems. It just doesn't work for the people. Both parties are funded by, and enact policy for, their corporate/business backers while only giving lip service to voters.. They keep their voters by demonizing the other side with scare tactics, uniting them against the "liberal menace", the Koch brothers, various social policies or foreign powers. It is a system of divide and conquer playing out before our eyes.  (And yes, I agree the Republicans and their Propaganda Network (Fox)  have taken the crazy, demonizing to new levels the last few years but the Democrats, at least those who hold the power in the party, aren't far behind.)

So the economy is slow. Good jobs have disappeared. The bankers, insurance companies, the health care system and basically just about every player in the whole corporate system are looting the middle class and the poor. We've wasted billions at war over the last decade against a vague "terrorism" enemy with nothing to show for it. The people are pissed-off and regardless of which party is in power, the government doesn't respond to them. So they vote them out.

But,... we only have two choices. So, we vote out the party that's in power hoping the other guy is the answer. A few years later when we find they weren't, we vote the original group back in only to find that nothing really changed. ...meet the old boss,......

The Republicans blame Government itself. The Democrats blame big business. Both are responsible. The corporate, business elite have overthrown the Government-of-the-people by capturing both parties and media.  A government run by, and operated for Business should be not be expected to operate for the people.

We-the-people need to take it back.

This cartoon says it all.





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Technology vs Jobs

Tip for the kids,... focus you energy on becoming part of the "creativity and problem-solving skills, often aided by computers, " group.

How Technology Is Destroying Jobs | MIT Technology Review:

"At least since the 1980s, he says, computers have increasingly taken over such tasks as bookkeeping, clerical work, and repetitive production jobs in manufacturing—all of which typically provided middle-class pay. At the same time, higher-paying jobs requiring creativity and problem-solving skills, often aided by computers, have proliferated. So have low-skill jobs: demand has increased for restaurant workers, janitors, home health aides, and others doing service work that is nearly impossible to automate. "

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Wall Street vs Joe Six Pack

How Schlubs Get Taken By Wall Street Pros - Forbes:

I guess this tells us that people should only trade in things they know or have some inside information on. For the Joe Six Pack's of the world, at least in my area, that's automobiles, antiques, guns, real estate, etc,.. and not the stuff Wall Street is selling.

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The Elite

This sucks....

A public, tax dollar subsidized university, does a regular economic study that can affect markets and then private companies "game" the market by paying the "Public" university for the information a few minutes before it's made public. I think a few people should go to jail for this.

The Financialization of America: A Wee Example | Mother Jones:

Once a month, at 10 am, the University of Michigan releases its consumer confidence index. But not everyone gets it at the same time. Thomson Reuters pays Michigan a million dollars a year for early access:

Five minutes before that, at 9:55 a.m., the data is distributed on a conference call for Thomson Reuters' paying clients, who are given certain headline numbers.
But the contract carves out an even more elite group of clients, who subscribe to the "ultra-low latency distribution platform," or high-speed data feed, offered by Thomson Reuters. Those most elite clients receive the information in a specialized format tailor-made for computer-driven algorithmic trading at 9:54:58.000, according to the terms of the contract. On occasion, they could get the data even earlier—the contract allows for a plus or minus 500 milliseconds margin of error.

Read the whole story for more, but in the meantime just sit back and be amazed at how high-speed trading has changed things. Getting early access to economic information has been important for centuries, and people have always been willing to pay for that early access. In the past, though, getting early access has always required either putting in extra work—for example, paying lookouts for early reports of ships coming into port—or else outright fraud—think Trading Places. But not anymore! This isn't exactly something that either Michigan or Reuters advertises, but now you just have to pay a fee in order to guarantee that you can take all the ordinary schlubs to the cleaners.

This is a small example of the financialization of America that I posted about yesterday. It has no possible social value, and it doesn't make credit markets more efficient in any way. It's just a purely artificial way for the rich to hoover up economic rents, and it's fully institutionalized and above board. Lovely, isn't it?

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NSA vs The People

Not only is the NSA spying on us, they may be letting foreign governments in on the action.

What was the Israeli involvement in collecting U.S. communications intel for NSA? - Diplomacy & Defense - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper:

The question arises amid controversy over revelations that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans every day, creating a database through which it can learn whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the United States. It also was disclosed this week that the NSA has been gathering all Internet usage - audio, video, photographs, emails and searches - from nine major U.S. Internet providers, including Microsoft and Google, in hopes of detecting suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

According to an article in the American technology magazine "Wired"from April 2012, two Israeli companies – which the magazine describes as having close connections to the Israeli security community – conduct bugging and wiretapping for the NSA.

Verint, which took over its parent company Comverse Technology earlier this year, is responsible for tapping the communication lines of the American telephone giant Verizon, according to a past Verizon employee sited by James Bamford in Wired. Neither Verint nor Verizon commented on the matter.

Natus, which was acquired in 2010 by the American company Boeing, supplied the software and hardware used at AT&T wiretapping rooms, according to whistleblower Mark Klein, who revealed the information in 2004. Klein, a past technician at AT&T who filed a suit against the company for spying on its customers, revealed a "secret room" in the company's San Fransisco office, where the NSA collected data on American citizens' telephone calls and Internet surfing.

Klein's claims were reinforced by former NSA employee Thomas Drake who testified that the agency uses a program produced by Narus to save the personal electrical communications of AT&T customers. 

Both Verint and Narus have ties to the Israeli intelligence agency and the Israel Defense Forces intelligence-gathering unit 8200. Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the 8200 unit, told Forbes magazine in 2007 that Comverse's technology, which was formerly the parent company of Verint and merged with it this year, was directly influenced by the technology of 8200. Ori Cohen, one of the founders of Narus, told Fortune magazine in 2001 that his partners had done technology work for the Israeli intelligence.

International intelThe question of whether intelligence communities outside the United States were involved has been raised. According to The Guardian, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain's intelligence agency, secretly collected intelligence information from the world's largest Internet companies via the American program PRISM. According to a top secret document obtained by The Guardian, GCHQ had access to PRISM since 2010 and that it used the information to prepare 197 intelligence reports last year. In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ, said it "takes its obligations under the law very seriously."

According to The Guardian, details of GCHQ's use of PRISM are set out in a 41-page PowerPoint presentation prepared for senior NSA analysts, and describe a "snooping" operation that gave the NSA and FBI access to the systems of nine Internet giants, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Skype.

Given the close ties between U.S. and Israeli intelligence, the question arises as to whether Israeli intelligence, including the Mossad, was party to the secret.

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Student loans and the Millennial Generation

This post looks a little like right wing propaganda (from a mostly left wing site) targeted at the Millennial generation.

Dangerous Minds | Will crushing student loan debt and worthless college degrees radicalize the Millennial generation?:

I agree with the basic points,...

The gross incompetence of the government and central bank—not to mention the endless power grabs by these centralized authorities—has not yet aroused a political consciousness that the system is irrevocably broken,...

and yes, the whole student loan/college education thing is just fucked up, but the post wants to put the blame for all the crap on "The Central State",.. in Right-Wing terms,... "the big bad GOVAMENT".

The central state is not your friend, it is your oppressor. The loan shark that won’t let you discharge your student loan debt without appealing each ruling against you three times is the government (and its hired-gun proxies). 

The oppressor who demands you work your entire life to pay interest on public debt squandered on neocolonial wars and various cartels (sickcare et al.) is your central state. 

The entity who demands you pay higher taxes so the generation entering retirement gets all that it was promised, even though the world has changed and the promises are no longer sustainable? The central state. 

The oppressor that will devote its enormous resources to investigate and crush you if you actively resist the bankers and financiers who pull the political lackeys’ strings? The central state. 

At some point, the Millennial generation will have to awaken to the fact that the only way to change its fate is to grasp political power and redirect the policy and mindset of the nation. Centralization is the black hole that is destroying the nation’s social and economic vigor. Decentralization, transparency, accountability, adaptability, social innovation, a community-based economy—these are the key features of a sustainable social order.

And yes, I agree the Central state is mostly fucked up at this time but the real issue is why is it fucked up?

Why?,.... Because it has been captured by the wealthy, corporate-government elite and is being operated to funnel as much cash as possible into their coffers.

Sure, the "Central State" enforces the Social Security and medicare taxes and the student loan programs but who is really making the money from these programs?

Who's getting rich?    The colleges themselves, along with their administrators. The banks get the interest from the loans and with the new boom in "corporate schools" it's a group of investors, a corporation, who gets the cash. Social Security and Medicare taxes basically end up in our corporate medical system's bank accounts after briefly pausing in a retiree's hands. Corporate Retailers, Corporate restaurants, the Walmarts of the world, the Energy Companies are all mining the country for cash. They setup throughout the country, run the locals out of business, grab all the cash they can and ship it out of the area and back to their "investors" leaving a Detroit-like shell in their wake.

The most blatant corporate cash-mine I know of is the Mid-West Casino. Walk through any Indiana Casino and you'll see it filled with mostly old, middle-class, grim-faced, mall-walkers patiently waiting to run what's left of their Social Security through the Casino's sluice in the name of "fun and excitement". It's damned depressing to see that your life can end like this.

Anyway, So the wealthy, corporate elite are getting rich and what do they do with all that cash? Well, they lobby buy the Government, the "Central State", so it can work for them to increase their profits and power. The "Central State" is just the enforcer for the Rich and powerful.

Blaming the "Central State" is like blaming the muscle-bound mafia enforcer for organized crime. Sure, he's part of it but he's not the mastermind.

The correct action for the Mellinnials is to take back their "Central State". Make it work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Raise taxes, build infrastructure, take care of our old and poor, make education and health care available to everyone. Build a foundation for everyone's future not just the rich and powerful's future.

tnb


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