Militaristic, corrupt America increasingly resembles a Third World state

Despite a change of presidents, America remains mired in economic, institutional, and cultural purgatory, with Obama’s exalted oratory circling the stratosphere like a taunt.

Angry nationalism shouts down prudence. Disproportionate military spending threatens economic wellbeing. Industry has its hand so deep in the government’s purse that private enterprise is becoming public property. The currency falters, the infrastructure crumbles. And a supine media, once a watchdog of the powerful, happily licks the strongman’s hand.

If the picture looks familiar, that’s because we’ve seen it many times before, from Argentina to Chile to Russia. The U.S. is third worlding.

That statement may smack of hyperbole. It may also understate the phenomenon, for many of the countries that the United States increasingly resembles are not only Third World—they are authoritarian, even rogue.

This is not to say the U.S. will be indistinguishable from a Third World country any time soon. We’re clearly nowhere near Sudanese levels of violence or Bangladeshi depths of poverty. But in terms of institutional structure, financial stability, and even national spirit, the U.S. looks little like the country it was a generation ago and more like nations it has long condemned.

The turning point came on 9/11. Terrorism is now a weary concern: other issues dominate the headlines—stimulus, healthcare, climate change. Yet the attacks were a pretext for a host of foreign and domestic policies that promised to secure America against its hell-bent enemies but have instead dragged the country down, eroding the qualities that distinguished it from the rest of the world.

The Third Worlding of America is less cinematic but more serious than empire-in-decline analogies suggest. After all, Britain no longer wields global supremacy, but it is still firmly in the First World, its political class scrutinized by an independent, assertive media. And even after its post-World War II penury, it did not backpedal on political reforms at home. This is not to excuse the colonizer’s brutality abroad but rather to distinguish Britain’s imperial decline from America’s homeland decay.

The United States has transgressed her traditions in the fog of war before, only to redeem herself later. But we are now engaged in a war without borders against a self-multiplying enemy. There is no army to trounce, so no clear end to the bloodletting or bankrupting.

The patchouli-scented youth, who protest in the streets of D.C. with their towering papier-mâché effigies, may have been correct after all in highlighting the breadth of America’s all-encompassing problems—if not their remedies. Crisis has pushed the U.S. toward Third World policies with alarming swiftness. But the risk is not that Americans will bring out the pitchforks and join the protestors. Rather, citizens seem as disaffected and resigned as their Third World brethren, only occasionally roused from reality TV by their favorite pundit peddling the outrage du jour.

The far Right wallows in paranoia with its dreams of overturning an election by discovering a Kenyan birth certificate. Most on the Left seem too mesmerized by the president to hold him accountable. The media ranges from insipid to hysterical. This country may never see the reasons for—and the parallels to—its disintegration.

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United States of Morons

Not much has changed since 1922 when H. L. Mencken described the United States as "the commonwealth of morons." The majority of Americans are under-educated, pathetically misinformed, generally lacking critical thinking skills, and apparently incapable of fact-based analysis. Indeed, American ignorance about current events, their own culture, history and government, as well as international current events, cultures and history, is well documented. For further evidence, simply talk to your neighbors, read comments on political blogs or listen to call-ins on talk radio. You will be astounded and even frightened.

In addition to being uninformed and incapable of connecting the dots, many Americans actually take pride in their ignorance and lack of civility. Currently we are subjected to the unmitigated ignorance of "birther" morons and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin making the ludicrous assertion that health care proposals include a "death panel." The media whores on television and braying jackasses on talk radio actually report these inanities as newsworthy of serious discussion.

Meanwhile, organized right wing efforts disrupt attempts at informed health care discussion by Democratic members of Congress with their home constituencies. These disruptions are supported by many Republicans and receive financial support from the health care industry. The spittle-screaming thugs at recent town meetings are reminiscent of the goose stepping brown shirts in the latter days of the WeimarRepublic.

Anti-intellectualism, Bible thumping ignorance and thuggish behaviors have become patriotic hallmarks. Anyone who is reasonably educated, reasonably informed and behaves in a reasonably civilized manner is branded an elitist.

In the 1980s voters agreed with Reagan that "government is the problem" and entrusted their jobs, homes, health, retirement and future of their children to corporate America. The overturning of the Glass-Steagall Act and other government regulations transformed the corporate exploitation of America in the 1980s and 1990s into the savage rape of the 21st century.

American morons are suckers for any scam as long as they are manipulated with proper flag waving, Jesus praising and fear mongering. Other effective strategies include declaring any government assistance program "socialism" and calling for more tax cuts despite national insolvency and the obscene tax breaks already scammed by corporations and the wealthy. Perhaps we should cease funding Social Security, Medicare, public school education and other such "socialist" abominations.

Now Americans stare like deer in headlights as the United States plunges into cultural and economic free fall. Homes are foreclosed and millions are unemployed while manufacturing and high tech job are lost permanently overseas. Health care bankruptcy, depleted retirement savings and a bleak future for the next generation is the new American reality.

Government was never the problem. The problem was and is American morons and the corrupt corporate stooges they elect and re-elect to public office. The commonwealth of morons deserves its fate.

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Nader Was Right: Liberals Are Going Nowhere With Obama

By Chris Hedges

The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or "extraordinary rendition," restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems.

The sad reality is that all the well-meaning groups and individuals who challenge our permanent war economy and the doctrine of pre-emptive war, who care about sustainable energy, fight for civil liberties and want corporate malfeasance to end, were once again suckered by the Democratic Party. They were had. It is not a new story. The Democrats have been doing this to us since Bill Clinton. It is the same old merry-go-round, only with Obama branding. And if we have not learned by now that the system is broken, that as citizens we do not matter to our political elite, that we live in a corporate state where our welfare and our interests are irrelevant, we are in serious trouble. Our last hope is to step outside of the two-party system and build movements that defy the Democrats and the Republicans. If we fail to do this, we will continue to undergo a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion that will end in feudalism.

Read the entire article Here

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I still support Barack Obama, I would like to see him succeed but he seems to be making decisions just to make the moderates and right wing nutcases feel at ease. People on the left have been waiting 8 long years for a liberal champion to come along. We thought we had a champion in Mr. Obama but he seem to have traded his core values for political reason similar to what Bill Clinton did when he was president, and look how the right wing did him. Fraze2K

Economy Down, Military Recruitment Up

Well the military is not complaining about the latest bad news on the economy, they are seeing an increase in recruitment numbers lately. With jobs being hard to find and college tuition is as high as ever, it is no wonder young people are turning to the military for opportunity. This from the Washington Post:

Some of the largest investment firms on Wall Street are gone. The country's auto industry is on the verge of collapse. Banks are shedding jobs. But in these doom-and-gloom times, there is someone who's hiring: your local military recruiter.

The economic downturn and rising unemployment rate are making the military a more attractive option, Pentagon officials say. In some cases, the peace of mind that comes with good benefits and a regular paycheck is overcoming concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which any new enlistee is likely to join.

"There's no way to sugarcoat it: We're a nation at war," said Lt. Col. Michael Bennett, who commands the Maryland Army National Guard's recruiting battalion. "But we offer a stability of income that a lot of employers can't guarantee right now."

The active-duty Army, which like other branches has increased benefits and added recruiters, said last month that it had recruited more than 80,000 soldiers during the past fiscal year, the third year in a row it has met its recruiting goals. Good news for the Army has coincided with terrible news elsewhere. The unemployment rate has jumped from 4.8 to 6.5 percent in the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During that time, the ranks of the unemployed grew by 2.8 million, to 10.1 million.

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Meanwhile, recruiting has become even more vital as the military plans to expand so it can relieve the strain on troops and their families. The active Army is to grow by 65,000 soldiers, to 547,000, by 2010. And the Marine Corps is to add 27,000, for a total of 202,000, by 2011.

When are Americans going to say, ENOUGH! You know it sounds good, giving young kids an opportunity to go to college and a steady paycheck but it's bullshit, the young folks they are recruiting are going to be used as cannon fodder for the government's wars of aggression. We wouldn't need so many recruits if we didn't get in tangled in so many unnecessary wars and we didn't try to maintain this US military empire around the world.

The military is preying on poor and under privileged young people. I believe the government should provide opportunities to young people to learn job skills and to go to college through various national service programs but not just the military and all young people from all classes should be required to serve the country in some capacity.

Obama to Escalate Afghan War With A 20,000 Troop Surge

Well if you thought Obama was the guy to bring change to US foreign policy then I must say you were sadly mistaking or worse mislead. It seems every American president has got to get their war on, I guess to show the world that they're not to be fucked with. While the American presidents shows the world his bonafides you are going to have some non white people in some far off land being used as live battlefield targets for the US Military. The US Military Industrial Complex is a very powerful and influential business organization and Barack know not to cross the UMIC unless he want to end up like JFK.

From The Telegraph UK:

Barack Obama is preparing to send at least 20,000 more US soldiers into Afghanistan in a "surge" similar to the deployment that contributed to security improvements in Iraq.

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The President-Elect's intention to shift the focus of the fight against terrorism to Afghanistan has been bolstered by Robert Gates agreement to stay on as Defence Secretary.

Mr Gates is a strong believer in an Afghan surge, which would not only put thousands more boots on the ground but involve negotiations with malleable branches of the Taliban

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A spokesman said the final number was likely to be "well north of 20,000", and indicated that countries such as Britain already fighting in the south would not face strong US demands to provide more troops.

Defence department staff members are privately delighted Mr Obama has chosen to retain a popular boss in the interests of stability. Mr Gates is expected to be officially introduced as part of an experience and centrist national security team on Monday.

"The president-elect has already indicated that he wants to put additional troops in Afghanistan," said an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Over the weekend Mr Obama reiterated that he wanted to begin drawing down the 146,000 US troops in Iraq as soon as he takes office, saying he wanted to "shore up efforts" in Afghanistan.

The economy is about to go bottom up, people are losing their homes and their jobs, there is no money for health care or college tuition but our govrnment always have money to wage wars. What a fucking shame.

Obama Keeps Bush's Defense Secretary

I am starting to here the grumbling get louder and louder from the left. Obama's supporters on the left are starting to ask the question, 'Dude, where is my change?'

From ABC:

ABC News' Martha Raddatz and Jake Tapper Report: Sources tell ABC News that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be staying on in the top Pentagon job, for at least the first year of the Obama administration. "It is a done deal" a source close to the process tells ABC News.

Gates, while a registered independent, has served numerous Republican administrations. President George W. Bush nominated Gates to replace the Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was spiraling out of control.

The former Eagle Scout is expected to be rolled out immediately after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend as part of a larger national security team expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, as Secretary of State; Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

So far Obama's national security team is filled with hawks whether it be neo liberal hawks or neo conservative hawks they are still war lusting hawks. I am starting to ask myself what is going on? American foreign policy is in need of a major over haul and you can't fix it with the same old pro-war politicians that has been running the show for years. Come on Barack let me see some new faces baby.

Am I to believe what the cynics say that the President is not really in charge, that the president is just a lackey or a figure head taking orders from other powerful shadow figures?

President Elect Obama I want to believe the change that you spoke about during the campaign was sincere. I don't want to believe that this election about change was a sham but so far it seems like business as usual my dude.

US Empire 'to decline by 2025'

The American people better start putting money away for rainy days because the future is looking kind of cloudy. I know Americans are not good at saving but you better learn to kick that habit of just buying stuff just because it's the "new thing". We got to learn to put something away for our kid's future because it's going to be tougher on them to live the life we Americans have become accustom to living. Not to mention the country's debt they will inherit. This article from Al Jazeera should wake a lot of folks up:

US economic and political power is set to decline over the next two decades and the world will grow more dangerous as the battle for scarce resources intensifies, a report by US intelligence agencies has predicted.

The current global financial crisis is the beginning of a weakening of the US dollar to the point where it becomes "first among equals", said the National Intelligence Council's (NIC) Global Trends 2025 report published on Thursday.

One of the main conclusions of the report is that "the unipolar world is over, [or] certainly will be by 2025", said Thomas Fingar, the NIC's deputy director, at a press conference in Washington DC.

China and India were likely to join the US at the top of a multipolar world and compete for influence, the report added.

Russia's future was less certain, but Iran, Turkey and Indonesia were also seen by the report as gaining power.

"The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over scarce resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons," said the report.

"Widening gaps in birth rates and wealth-to-poverty ratios, and the uneven impact of climate change, could further exacerbate tensions."

USA, RIP: Remembering the richest third-world country on Earth

From Unknkown News

We in the US are suffering a crisis of loyalty to our country.

Historically it is as if we have moved from a jingoistic nativ-ism directly to national nihilism in a couple of generations. The deep self-serving polarizations between the two dominant political parties, the hidebound commitment of so many to various political and economic ideologies, the increasing fundamentalist fanaticism of various religious groups and, most of all, deep allegiances to corporate and
multinational goals, have left no room for simple patriotic loyalty to country.

Everywhere we see patriotism proclaimed by scoundrels and the simple-minded and ignored by the rest. To an increasing number of US citizens their chief identity is couched in membership in some ethnic, religious or political group. Nowhere do we see people saying that we are all on the same side and, for the sake of the country as a whole, we need to compromise and settle our differences. No-one seems to place the welfare of the entire nation before their parochial con- cerns. This is dissolution.

To an astounding extent, people identify first as members of a faction and only as an afterthought as members of a community that contains within it members of other competing factions. We have become a nation of accidental traitors who care little about the welfare or reputation of their country.

As a functional reality, the United States of America has ceased to exist. We have a Constitution that is ignored and disowned by every center of power. We have a system of laws that are so selectively applied and enforced that it has become more of a system of excuses for the powerful. We have a government financial structure that has primarily been used as a convenient cash machine for criminals. We have developed a national debt, as a result of this looting, that can not conceivably be repaid and hence has driven the country effectively into bankruptcy.

We have a military that has been massively overbuilt and over-funded to the benefit of war profiteers, and which is sent on missions that only decrease the security of the country while pursuing economic gains for the multinational companies whose incestuous tentacles embrace the officer corps and their co-conspiring politicians with bribes and promises of future corporate positions and club membership in an international cabal of wealth.

We have a "representative" legislature that consistently ignores the will of the people who elect them. We have become a nation of irony, conceived in liberty but now dedicated to oppression.

Our real, unspoken pledge of allegiance goes like this, "I pledge allegiance to my faction and the lies for which it stands. One nation under the thumb of international conglomerates with impunity and wealth for marketplace winners and suffering and poverty for the rest."

Our true national religion is unbridled capitalism and opportunism, known in ancient times as the worship of mammon. We have abandoned our souls to the pursuit of commodities. We treat as enemies anyone who champions social reform, lest in the change that is called for we end up having to make some material sacrifice.

We watch as our nation is led in opposition to the rest of the world with actions that are indifferent to the climate crisis. In the face of dire warnings of worldwide catastrophe we accelerate our contribution to climate change as a matter of pride. We enforce with military might grossly unfair trade policies that are causing worldwide hunger and thirst.

We are a nation of individual petty tyrants with a depraved indifference to the suffering that we cause. We lack the attitude of mutual concern that defines a nation. We are no longer a nation. We are a loose association of consumers and pirates.

Finally, on every measure of standing except for strategic military power, the US has fallen to a dismally low status. Last amongst industrial countries in health care, public education, lawfulness, justice, fair elections and much else. We are the richest third-world country on Earth.

The US is dead. Long live the ideals on which it was founded.

Endless war for endless profit

From Unknownnews.com
Our current set of wars don't make sense, largely because they are not wars in the normal sense. They are actually just gigantic business opportunities.

The so-called news about these wars is not news, it is carefully designed advertising for the businesses involved in the so called war-making.

The soldiers are not really soldiers, they are paid extras on a movie set where the advertising occurs.

Consequently, nothing that is not productive of profits receives any significant attention, beyond what is necessary to maintain the pretense that a real war is actually occurring. International law and rules of war have the same relation to these wars as a novel that is adapted to the screen.

Patriotic pretense is elevated over patriotic feeling. Wounded soldiers are not honored as heroes, they are just shuffled off the set like used and damaged props, abandoned and ignored as avoid-
able costs that threaten profits. Strategic military goals become meaningless as the overriding strategic goal is to keep the profit making business going.

Victory, in this setting, is the last thing desired, as it would mean an end to the flow of profit. Defeat and retreat, likewise, are unthinkable for the same reason. The business plan is endless war for endless profit.

Anything in these so-called wars that enhances profit or furthers the career goals of the major players is good. Anything that threatens profit or the anticipated lucrative careers of the military, industrial and congressional leaders is bad.

These wars, as they are being conducted, are best understood as a self-contained horizontally and vertically integrated industry, for whom the nation is merely a befuddled customer.

International experts foresee collapse of U.S. economy

Excerpt

And you thought that I had a gloomy outlook on the economy. Now the bad news pops up everywhere.

Harry Koza in the Globe and Mail quotes Bernard Connelly, the global strategist at Banque AIG in London, who claims that the likelihood of a Great Depression is growing by the day.

Martin Wolf, celebrated columnist of the U.K.-based Financial Times, cites Dr. Nouriel Roubini of the New York University's Stern School of Business, who, in 12 steps, outlines how the losses of the American financial system will grow to more than $1 trillion - that's one million times $1 million. That amount is equal to all the assets of all American banks.

Every day now, thousands of people all over the U.S. and Great Britain are walking away from their homes - simply mailing their house keys to the banks - as housing bailout plans fail.

With unemployment growing, the next phase will hit commercial real estate making the financial institutions the unwilling owners not only of quickly depreciating houses, but also of empty strip malls and even larger shopping centres.

The next domino to fall will be credit card defaults, and after that... who knows? There are so many exotic funds out there, with trillions of dollars in paper - or rather computer-screen money - all carrying assorted acronyms, and all about to disintegrate into nothingness. Over the next couple of years, scores of banks that have thrived on these devices, based on quickly disappearing equities, will fail.

The most frightening forecast so far comes from the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin (GEAB), available for 200 euros - about $300 - for 16 issues annually. Its prediction is quite specific.

Where my warnings never spelled out an exact date, this think tank has it pegged precisely. Here are its very words:

"The end of the third quarter of 2008 (thus late September, a mere seven months from now) will be marked by a new tipping point in the unfolding of the global systemic crisis.

"At that time indeed, the cumulated impact of the various sequences of the crisis will reach its maximum strength and affect decisively the very heart of the systems concerned, on the front line of which (is) the United States, epicentre of the current crisis.

"In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into - get this - a collapse of the real economy, (the) final socio-economic stage of the serial bursting of the housing and financial bubbles and of the pursuance of the U.S. dollar fall. The collapse of U.S. real economy means the virtual freeze of the American economic machinery: private and public bankruptcies in large numbers, companies and public services closing down."

The report goes on to say that we are entering a period for which there is no historic precedent. Any comparisons with previous situations in our modern economy are invalid.

Can Old Europe Save America?

Excerpts:
Sure, we’ll drink their wine, eat their tappas and cheeses, and drive their BMWs. But when it comes to Europe, we refuse to adopt their most sensible refinements—the metric system, wise gun laws, better poverty programs, and inclusive medical care. The latest feather in our stubborn streak is our unwillingness to follow their practice of abstaining from war.


Out of the ashes of two world wars and a long history of barbaric warfare, western Europeans have finally made reliable peace with each other. The possibility of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans killing each other in the fury of war is as remote now as it was predictable only 70 years ago.



Can Europe’s aversion to war be imported to America? Will it get here in time? Our totalitarian military-industrial complex, instinctively attuned to fear and greed, is devouring the civilian economy and crushing the spirit of our bedridden democracy.


Are we as blind about militarism as we were 150 years ago about slavery? Europeans of that era were also more enlightened than us about the practice of slavery.

America’s leaders react to Europe’s achievement by mocking their pacifism and lecturing them on how to be more warlike. A stark warning from Defense Secretary Robert Gates is a recent example. He told an international security conference in Munich this month that the safety of Europeans from terrorist attacks depends on NATO’s enhanced military presence in Afghanistan.

****

It’s true, of course, that during the Cold War we protected Western Europe from the need for militarization. However, both the Cold War and the rise of Islamic terrorism might have been avoided if the United States had shown more confidence in the power of diplomacy and statecraft rather than relying to such a degree on military might. People with integrity are more likely to believe in the power of diplomacy because they negotiate effectively in their personal relationships.


Oh, but how we love our guns! Last month, while the families of those murdered in last year’s Virginia Tech massacre looked on, Virginia legislators voted to block legislation that would have prevented deranged individuals and ex-felons from buying guns at gun shows. If we refuse to demilitarize at this level, we’re not likely to do so at the more profitable and thrilling level of advanced lethal weapons systems.


The one thing we love better than guns are profits. The bigger our empire, the greater the profits. Maintaining the commercialization of war is our Christian nation’s sacred vow. There was little danger that the end of the Cold War would interrupt that observance. It’s a case of the Mighty Right’s Illusionary Syndrome meets the National Disgrace Disorder. One of the symptoms of this confabulation is the claim that Old Europe offers nothing of value.


The White House isn’t going to ask Europeans to send us teams of warfare deprogrammers. What might save us, in a self-defeating sort of way, is national bankruptcy or hyper-inflation. A less painful route would be the election of a reformist government.


To be effective, this government would need the passionate support of many millions of Americans who denounce the demonology of perpetual war. For this to happen, we will have to become more engaged and creative in spreading our ideals and values into the social and political sphere. If we come to our senses, there’s enough shame for the Iraq misadventure to make it America’s last war.

Angry Okinawa wants smaller U.S. military presence

Angry lawmakers on Japan's southern island of Okinawa called for progress on shrinking the U.S. military presence and tighter discipline among U.S. troops after the arrest of a Marine on suspicion of raping a schoolgirl.

The 38-year-old Marine, Tyrone Hadnott, based at Camp Courtney on the island, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of raping the 14-year-old Japanese girl when the two were in a car on Sunday. He has denied raping the girl but acknowledged forcing her to kiss him, an Okinawa police spokesman said.

"Considering the fact that such vicious, atrocious incidents have never ceased to occur, we must question the way the U.S. military enforces discipline and educates its soldiers," the Okinawa assembly said in a resolution protesting the incident.

The lawmakers demanded an apology and compensation for the girl and her family, steps to prevent similar crimes in the future, and a reduction of U.S. forces on the island, reluctant host to the bulk of the nearly 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

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Western Civilization Lacks Morality

From Rense.com:

"The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction." --Five Western military leaders.

I read the statement three times trying to figure out the typo. Then it hit me, the West has now out-Orwelled Orwell: The West must nuke other countries in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction! In Westernspeak, the West nuking other countries does not qualify as the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The astounding statement comes from a paper prepared for a NATO summit in April by five top military leaders ­ an American, a German, a Dutchman, a Frenchman, and a Brit.

The paper, prepared by men regarded as distinguished leaders and not as escapees from insane asylums, argues that "the West's values and way of life are under threat, but the West is struggling to summon the will to defend them." The leaders find that the UN is in the way of the West's will, as is the European Union which is obstructing NATO and "NATO's credibility is at stake in Afghanistan."

And that's a serious matter. If NATO loses its credibility in Afghanistan, Western civilization will collapse just like the Soviet Union. The West just doesn't realize how weak it is. To strengthen itself, it needs to drop more and larger bombs.

The German military leader blames the Merkel government for contributing to the West's inability to defend its values by standing in the way of a revival of German militarism. How can Germany be "a reliable partner" for America, he asks, if the German government insists on "special rules" limiting the combat use of its forces in Afghanistan?

Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund and a former US State Department official, welcomed the paper as "a wake-up call." Asmus means a call to wake-up to the threats from the brutal world, not to the lunacy of Western leaders.

Who, what is threatening the West's values and way of life? Political fanaticism, religious fundamentalism, and the imminent spread of nuclear weapons, answer the five asylum escapees.

By political fanaticism, do they mean the neoconservatives who believe that the future of humanity depends on the US establishing its hegemony over the world? By religious fundamentalism, do they mean "rapture evangelicals" agitating for Armageddon or Christian and Israeli Zionists demanding a nuclear attack on Iran? By spread of nuclear weapons, do they mean Israel's undeclared and illegal possession of several hundred nuclear weapons?

No. The paranoid military leaders see all the fanaticism, religious and otherwise, and all the threats to humanity as residing outside Western civilization (Israel is inside). The "increasingly brutal world," of which the leaders warn, is "over there." Only Muslims are fanatics. All us white guys are rational and sane.

There is nothing brutal about the US/NATO bombing of Serbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, or the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, or the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, or the genocide Israel hopes to commit against Palestinians in Gaza.

All of this, as well as America's bombing of Somalia, America's torture dungeons, show trials of "detainees," and overthrow of elected governments and installation of puppet rulers, is the West's necessary response to keep the brutal world at bay.

Brutal things happen in the "brutal world" and are entirely the fault of those in the brutal world. None of this would happen if the inhabitants of the brutal world would just do as they are told. How can the civilized world with its monopoly on morality allow people in the brutal world to behave independently? I mean, really! God forbid, they might attack some innocent country.

The "brutal world" consists of those immoral fanatics who object to being marginalized by the West and who reply to mass bombings from the air and to the death and destruction inflicted on them through myriad ways by strapping on a suicide bomb.

Unable to impose its will on countries it has invaded with conventional arms, the West's military leaders are now prepared to force compliance with the moral world's will by threatening to nuke those who resist. You see, since the West has the monopoly on morality, truth, and justice, those in the outside world are obviously evil, wicked and brutal. Therefore, as President Bush tells us, it is a simple choice between good and evil, and there's no better candidate than evil for being nuked. The sooner we can get rid of the brutal world, the sooner we will have "freedom and democracy" everywhere that's left.

Meanwhile, the United States, the great moral light unto the world, has just prevented the United Nations from censuring Israel, the world's other great moral light, for cutting off food supplies, medical supplies, and electric power to Gaza. You see, Gaza is in the outside world and is a home of the bad guys. Moreover, the wicked Palestinians there tricked the US when the US allowed them to hold a free election. Instead of electing the US candidate, the wicked voters elected a government that would represent them. The US and Israel overturned the Palestinian election in the West Bank, but those in Gaza clung to the government that they had elected. Now they are going to suffer and die until they elect the government that the US and Israel wants. I mean, how can we expect people in the brutal world to know what's best for them?

The fact that the UN tried to stop Israel's just punishment of the Gazans shows how right the five leaders' report is about the UN being a threat to Western values and way of life. The UN is really against us. This puts the UN in the outside world and makes it a candidate for being nuked if not an outright terrorist organization. As our president said, "you are with us or against us."

The US and Israel need a puppet government in Palestine so that a ghettoized remnant of Palestine can be turned into a "two state solution." The two states will be Israel incorporating the stolen West Bank and a Palestinian ghetto without an economy, water, or contiguous borders.

This is necessary in order to protect Israel from the brutal outside world.

Inhabitants of the brutal world are confused about the "self- determination" advocated by Western leaders. It doesn't mean that those outside Western civilization and Israel should decide for themselves. "Self" means American. The term, so familiar to us, means "American-determination." The US determines and others obey.

It is the brutal world that causes all the trouble by not obeying

Marxism is starting to make sense

I always wondered, why is Marxism demonized and considered an evil economic system? Marxism is totally against the exploitation of the masses by the dominate class. Capitalism, on the other hand, is the direct opposite, it's an economic system in which the business and wealth of a country is contolled by a few, the dominate class. Capitalism is now the dominate economic system around the world where most of the worlds wealth and resources are being controlled by a few. Kathy Fisher over at Unkwown News wrote a good article in which she says the following:

The capitalists are never dying to be rich, they let other people's children do the dying for them. The same way they hire slave labor to do the hardest dirtiest work, then they clame the fruits of someone else's labor. They will tout that if not for them there would be no jobs for people to go to. They steal the land, they steal the money, and then they grab a nation's people by the balls.

Many people will point to the old Soviet Union and it's failures as a reason to reject Marxism and support Capitalism but Ms. Fisher has a different take on that:

These idiots that thought the old Soviet Union was true communism and Marxisn were dead wrong. Once again they had the masses brainwashed. Just because their leaders let a stature of Marx stand in the town square! That doesn't mean shit.

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Putin embraces capitalism. The truth is the Soviet Union leaders were always Closet Capitalists. Not a Marxist or communist among them. They ruled with an iron fist. They forced a set of rules on the people they themselves would never live by. They sold the people a pack of lies. It was all a charade and they had their people imprissoned. I ask you, would a Marxist communist country have a media that was catered to, given the best apartments the highest salaries (Pravda)? Just like our media is. Of course not.

She goes on further to write about the downside of Capitalism by saying the following:

Ultra rich and dirt poor, you have to be kidding me! And nothing in between, and that's exactly where our leaders have taken us. That's NOT Marxism.

Unionized societies are hated by CAPITALISTS. The Capitalist's motto is Don't love your brother, take his job, take his oil, take his country as if it was your God given right. Our leaders lied to the people to when they constantly said 'We are fighting Communism.'' That was pure Bullshit! They were stealing and plundering other countries' resources and using its people for slaves of their new stolen empires. Cruel Business as Usual. The French and the Dutch did the same thing. In the name of GREED and Capitalism.

Now they lie again and say they are fight TERRORISM. No, it's more conquest. More stealing other nations resources. It's capitalism with a big jackbooted helping of in your face Fascism. They work their dirty deeds with the help of their paid shills who spread Propaganda for them.

As for me, I have no country. There is nowhere to go, and nowhere to run to and live free. You need the capitalists form of freedom, THE ALMIGHTY MONEY RULES EVERTHING AND EVERY ONE! Where can the common people live, whose hearts are not filled with greed and dog eat dog mentallity? Where do people go whose only want and desire is to be treated equal?

The Capitalists have created so many hellholes around the world that America still looks safe and good. This shit called Capitalism is like a plague, once it grabs hold of a people it chokes the life out of them. And it has spread to just about everywhere. Can you afford to live in Spain? Or Norway? Can you just pick up your family and your belongings and go off to live in another country? Do we now become nomads? Are we supposed to roam from place to place like cattle?

The fat cat Capitalists can, but why would they leave? They've got it made off the backs of the salt of the earth. Our Sweat, our labor is their victory. The last time I counted there was more of Us than Them. We must take a stand and fight for our lives, our decent way of life. This is our last chance.

CAN YOU SPOT THE TERRORIST?

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I guess it depends on what side you're supporting in the fight.

George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists

Former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and 16 other military leaders in Argentina will be prosecuted on charges of conspiring to kidnap and kill political activists in a scheme known as Plan Condor, developed by Henry Kissinger and George Bush Sr., head of the CIA at the time. Dictators in Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina killed opponents in the 1970s and 80s under the plan, also known as Operation Condor. The United States and Latin American military governments developed Operation Condor as a a transnational, state-sponsored terrorist coalition among the militaries of South America. In Argentina alone some 30,000 people were disappeared as result, leaving loved ones to seek justice decades later.

Coordinating Terror with U.S. support

Plan Condor began with the U.S. supported military coup against Chile's democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. Allende's government was targeted as a threat to U.S. strategic policy in Latin America early on. White House tapes reveal that on Sept. 14, 1970, then-President Richard Nixon ordered measures to force the Chilean economy into bankruptcy. "The U.S. will not accept a Marxist government just because of the irresponsibility of the Chilean people," declared Henry Kissinger, Nixon´s secretary of State.

Declassified U.S. Department of State documents have provided evidence to Plan Condor's broad scope. The Operation was an ambitious and successful plan to coordinate repression internationally. FBI special agent intelligence liason to the Southern Cone countries Robert Scherrer (now deceased) sent the letter to the U.S. embassy in Argentina on September 28, 1976: "'Operation Condor' is the code name for the collection, exchange and storage of intelligence data concerning so-called 'leftists,' communists and Marxists, which was recently established between cooperating intelligence services in South America in order to eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in the area."

The memo also specified Argentina's enthusiasm over the plan. "Members of 'Operation Condor' showing the most enthusiasm to date have been Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. The latter three countries have engaged in joint operations, primarily in Argentina, against the terrorist target." Operation Condor has been difficult to investigate, due to the selectivity of victims and lack of official declassified documents from the CIA and Department of State. Many of the documents that have been released have been heavily censored. However, following an extensive investigation by Argentine courts beginning in 1999 and the decade long work of human rights groups to collect forensic evidence, 17 military leaders will be put on trial for their participation in the illegal persecution of social activists.

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Source

The Cost of War

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In U.S. War On Iraq 1,139,602

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 3,896

Cost of U.S. War and Occupation of Iraq $478,951,779,066



Source

The Vote for Endless War

On Tuesday, December 18, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate combined to give President Bush $70 billion to carry the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into next summer. Only 23 Democrats and one independent supported an amendment by Senator Feingold that would have required the safe redeployment of troops from Iraq. Here are the senators who voted to end the war:

Akaka (D-HI) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Harkin (D-IA) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Menendez (D-NJ) Murray (D-WA) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Stabenow (D-MI) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

Next summer, when the money runs out, a cutoff of funds will be unimaginable. The election will be too close. So our troops are committed till the end of the president's term; after all the talk, the Democrats have ended by obeying him. This capitulation marks the climax of one of the most extraordinary displays in history of a complex phenomenon: power wielded in the face of popular rejection, and power surrendered in spite of overwhelming public support. A president whose policy was disapproved by more than half of the American people chose to defy a majority whose midterm victory he himself had called "a rout." And the majority, saying they wished things were different, pleading the necessity of 60 rather than 50 votes, but never exacting reprisals or driving a hard bargain against defectors from their own ranks--the majority, again and again, backed down.

This definitive result of the 110th Congress will confirm the popular feeling that George W. Bush believes in his disaster more than the Democrats believe in anything.


Link

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This Iraq debacle has got to be one of the biggest waste of money since the Vietnam War. It's a damn shame Americans never learn.

Through the looking glass in Iraq

by Hazel Burke, Unknown News November 9, 2007

I happened to catch a few minutes of "Lou Dobbs Tonight", which featured as (repeat) guest, Lt. David Grainger. The big "news" is that just as public opposition to the Iraq War has reached a new low of 68%, the U.S. is starting to do remarkably well. Wow! Good news, eh?Not. The only metric provided was that U.S. troop deaths have fallen sharply in recent months. That is how our success is being measured. And according to the Lt. Grainger, if we were to withdraw our troops the situation would deteriorate."We must reinforce success," he asserted. So that means that because our troops are not dying as fast as they were, they have to stay in Iraq! Wow! That's not good -- especially because this debacle is costing $200 billion a year and the U.S. public national debt just hit $9 trillion, up from $5.6 trillion at the start of the Bush "presidency" (presiding over a series of failures is the actuality).

We have seen casualty reductions before. They resulted from a shift in tactics from offense to defense ("force protection missions".) In fact, there have been reports that some troops are writing fake action reports, just going out to a safe place and waiting for the end of their shift to roll around. Those troops are probably in the tiny majority, but undoubtedly U.S. commanders have been ordered to reduce troop deaths for political reasons.There have also been reports of a major escalation in the air war, something which receives little coverage in Der Homeland. So, a shift from ground offensives to aerial bombardment can easily account for a temporary reduction in ground-combat troop deaths.The (near) completion of ethnic cleansing may account for some reduction in violence. As may the reports of armloads of cash handed out to former "insurgents" in an attempt to buy loyalty from those who previously fought against and killed American soldiers.All in all, not even counting Abu Ghraib, there is not a bit of glory in this war, and there is no victory in sight. We cannot leave because we are succeeding they say, and our success is measured by how few American soldiers are dying each month.According to the pro-war crowd we must continue to spend $200 billion a year to support what can at best be deemed a long term stalemate. In fact, a long term U.S. presence in Iraq amounts to a defeat for America. That is the truth about guerrilla war. The invaders are bled dry and eventually they leave. The guerrillas have nowhere to go and are motivated for reasons other than money. Strategically too, a long term occupation of Iraq is a total disaster because it destabilizes the Middle East and encourages people to hate America and all that it stands for.

Right now what America stands for is threatening and invading countries with oil, the use of internationally banned torture techniques and secret prisons where people disappear permanently, and an inability to manage its economy and finances (America has earned a reputation for gigantic financial frauds, and for rarely prosecuting rich white executives.)In the end the Iraqis don't need to defeat our soldiers, they just need to wait for the oil sheiks and the Asian exporters to cut off our financing. When the U.S. is no longer deemed creditworthy (any minute now), our global military empire will disband and disappear.Even worse for BushCo, did you hear about the Nazi war criminal that is still being sought? Sixty years after
the end of WWII and the people of Israel are still rounding these guys up and trying them! That ought to give the leaders of any soon-to-be ex-superpowers something to think about!I have long advocated turning over the American leadership to the International Criminal Court for trial as part of the Middle East peace process. We don't have enough money to pay reparations, but we could put on a helluva show with these blowhards on TV in orange jumpsuits and manacles!

The Shame of Our Flag

The United States is the power behind world repression. Since World War Two we have made it our policy to support the corporate exploitation of resources and populations the world over, so long as the bulk of those riches flowed into the US to maintain US consumption and economic growth.

The US is the leading producer of greenhouse gasses. Yet the US is the one country that has refused to do anything about them. It is the top consumer of world resources, consuming at a level far exceeding the carrying capacity of the environment. As such, the US is largely responsible for resource depletion and mass extinction.

Yet even our gluttonous over-consumption is not enough to sustain economic growth. So we have turned to juggling bubbles of debt. The public is told that it is their patriotic duty to consume, consume, consume, even as their adjusted income continues to shrink. To fulfill our patriotic duty, we take out second and third mortgages, and we max out credit cards. Our debts are then repackaged and sold off as investments.

Now these bubbles are becoming unmanageable. Foreign investors, the other pillar of our economy, are beginning to divest themselves of the US dollar. A major economic crash is imminent, a crash that could make the Great Depression pale in comparison. Once this crash is complete, plans are already in place to replace the US dollar with the North American Amero, to establish the supremacy of the North American Union over the federal governments of the US, Canada and Mexico, and to keep the public in line through the establishment of a repressive police state.

Meanwhile the US Empire and the conquest of the rest of the world will continue. Under the guise of fighting a war on terror, we have assumed the right to attack any country we wish through so-called pre-emptive strikes. We can imprison anyone anywhere indefinitely, without filing formal charges. And we can use any amount of force necessary, even torture.

The country we live in has become a fascist empire. Our government and our corporations have joined together to commit crimes against humanity and crimes against the planet. If allowed to go on, all of us will suffer - all of us but our elite masters. That is, if their insane greed does not destroy this planet's ability to support complex life.

Something has to be done to stop this madness, the sooner the better. And that goal will not be achieved by voting, writing letters to our congresspeople, or marching on the capitol. Our only recourse to prevent the unthinkable is a major uprising.