Crime | May 08, 2009 | 47 comments

ARE WE TREATED AS INSECTS ?

source: http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/tbankersdees.jpg

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WhiteNoise
EXHIBIT A
Unmanned drones, bombing the shit out of Pakistan’s countryside, as in a video game.

EXHIBIT B
Air Force One roaring by Ground Zero with but a warning ‘not to tell’ the rabble.

Strictly from a humanist point of view... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

Does the army and what passes for authority acts upon civilians as insects ?

Show otherwise !

EXHIBIT A

Just a few days ago 50-150 civilians blown to smithereens… http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/6/afghan

After US Strikes, Afghans Describe "Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies"
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/waroniraq/139882/after_us_strikes,_afghans_describ..."tractor_trailers_full_of_pieces_of_human_bodies"_/

How many innocent civilians will die before the US changes its approach to this war?

US drone bombings have reportedly killed 687 Pakistani civilians since 2006. During that time, US Predator drones carried out sixty strikes inside Pakistan, but hit just ten of their actual targets. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=21440

The Perils of Predator Drones in Pakistan
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/139843/the_perils_of_predator_drones_in_paki...

"Since 2006, we've killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they've given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. ... The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population."

Seems like war’s profits are so engaging that keeping them lowly populace enraged, thereby creating brand new & hate filled enemy combatant by the truckload is top priority. Pushing this unstable region closer to collapse seems to be the goal. Will the cavalry arrive in time ? Stay tuned for this narrative to conclude in more death, misery & profits ! http://current.com/items/89697631_killing-civilians-business-as-usual.htm

The many wonderful ways to profit from war are available here,,,
http://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=4

This now perpetual war of civilization needs to fuel our war machine, economy & empire.
Are we made any safer from this brilliant action ?

The leader of the Taliban’s Pakistan wing is threatening to attack areas in the United States in response to American drone attacks that have killed hundreds of people. Baitullah Mehsud made the threat as he took responsibility for an attack on a police academy in Lahore. http://pkpolitics.com/2009/04/02/lahore-under-attack/

“Wipe him out !” shouts the chorus so 5 meaner, tougher obscurantist mofo’s can take his place & threaten even more the way of life & freedom we long to bestow on them poor unwilling civilian victims !

Meanwhile back at the ranch…
A Predator drone pilot described that basically his experience of fighting in the Iraq war was getting in his Toyota Corolla, driving to work, then for twelve hours he puts missiles on targets, then commutes back home, and within twenty minutes he’s talking to his son at the dinner table.

He is engaging in combat. But he’s doing it from 7,000 miles away. And then, at the end of the day, he goes to a PTA meeting or takes his kid to soccer practice. It’s a whole new experience of war, a new concept of a warrior.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/6/wired_for_war_the_robotics_revolution

Some still raise a doubt & a question or two... they get arrested ;)

Ground the Drones…Lest we Reap the Whirlwind
http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org/issues/2009/predators_reapers.htm

All the while…

After 39 Years, Events Surrounding Kent State Massacre Remain Unresolved

National Guardsmen opened fire on hundreds of unarmed students at an antiwar rally at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four and injuring nine.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/7/after_39_years_events_surrounding_kent
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47 comments // ARE WE TREATED AS INSECTS ?

  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
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    • Obama's Undeclared War Against Pakistan Continues, Despite His Attempt to Downplay It

      By Jeremy Scahill

      Three days after his inauguration, on January 23, 2009, President Barack Obama ordered US predator drones to attack sites inside of Pakistan, reportedly killing 15 people. It was the first documented attack ordered by the new US Commander in Chief inside of Pakistan. Since that first Obama-authorized attack, the US has regularly bombed Pakistan, killing scores of civilians. The New York Times reported that the attacks were clear evidence Obama “is continuing, and in some cases extending, Bush administration policy.” In the first 99 days of 2009, more than 150 people were reportedly killed in these drone attacks. The most recent documented attack was reportedly last Thursday in Waziristan. Since 2006, the US drone strikes have killed 687 people (as of April). That amounts to about 38 deaths a month just from drone attacks. http://rebelreports.com/post/128133453/obamas-undeclared-war-against-pakistan-co...

      WHILE ON THE HOME FRONT...

      Obama Must Stop Mountain Top Obliteration
      by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

      Obama has the authority to end mountaintop removal, without further action from Congress and without formal rulemaking. He just needs to make the coal barons obey the law.
      http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-Must-Stop-Mountain-T-by-Robert-F-Kennedy-...

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
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      WhiteNoise  
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    • HIGH TECH REMOTE CIVILIAN KILLING : ONLY GAME IN TOWN !

      Known as "DOTS," Dynamic Optical Tags, DARPA claims that the system is comprised of a series of "small active retroreflecting optical tags for 2-way data exchange." The tags are small, 25x25x25 mm with a range of some 10 km and a two month shelf-life; far greater than even the most sophisticated RFID tags commercially available today. Sold as a system possessing a "low probability of detection," the devices can be covertly planted around alleged terrorist safehouses--or the home of a political rival or innocent citizen--which can then be targeted at will by Predator or Reaper drones.

      The Guardian revealed May 31 that over the last 18 months more than 50 CIA drone attacks have been launched against "high-value targets." The Pentagon claims to have killed nine of al-Qaeda's top twenty officials in north and south Waziristan. "That success" The Guardian avers, "is reportedly in part thanks to the mysterious electronic devices, dubbed 'chips' or 'pathrai' (the Pashto word for a metal device), which have become a source of fear, intrigue and fascination."

      According to multiple reports by Western and South Asian journalists, CIA paramilitary officers or Special Operations commandos pay tribesmen to plant the devices adjacent to farmhouses sheltering alleged terrorists. "Hours or days later" The Guardian narrates, "a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles. 'There are body parts everywhere,' said Wazir, who witnessed the aftermath of a strike."

      It is a high-tech assassination operation for one of the world's most remote areas. The pilotless aircraft, Predators or more sophisticated Reapers, take off from a base in Baluchistan province.

      But they are guided by a joystick-wielding operator half a world away, at a US air force base 35 miles north of Las Vegas. (Declan Walsh, "Mysterious 'chip' is CIA's latest weapon against al-Qaida targets hiding in Pakistan's tribal belt," The Guardian, May 31, 2009)

      But while American operators may get their kicks unloading a salvo of deadly missiles on unsuspecting villagers thousands of miles away, what happens when CIA "cut-outs" get it wrong?

      According to investigative journalist Amir Mir, writing in the Lahore-based newspaper The News, "of the sixty cross-border Predator strikes...between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians. The success percentage of the US Predator strikes thus comes to not more than six percent."

      So much for "precision bombing." But as CIA Director Leon Panetta recently told Congress, continued drone attacks are "the only game in town."

      Network-centric Warfare
      Dominating entire societies Worldwide through ubiquitous surveillance

      by Tom Burghardt
      http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13939

      "I hated my part in the charade of murder and horror. My efforts were contributing to the deaths, to the burning alive of children - especially the children. The photographs of young Vietnamese children burned by napalm destroyed me." - Ralph McGehee former CIA intelligence analyst

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • cheller1820
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
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    • Meanwhile...

      GM WORKERS TREATED AS INSECTS ?
      ...while the banks...well, you know the score ;)

      Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM by Greg Palast

      Screw the autoworkers.

      They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.

      Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.

      The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

      I smell a rat.

      Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.

      If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.

      It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.
      http://www.gregpalast.com/grand-theft-auto-how-stevie-the-rat-bankrupted-gm/

      Goodbye, GM ...by Michael Moore
      http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=248

    • 3 years ago
  • cheller1820
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • A GOOD OLD ONE, TWO ;)

      1) Neocon US Colonel Calls for Military Attacks on "Partisan Media"
      By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. Posted May 25, 2009.

      Col. Ralph Peters pens an outrageous essay, writing that journalists "have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants."

      A new report for a leading neoconservative group which pushes a belligerent “Israel first” agenda of conquest in the Middle East suggests that in future wars the US should make censorship of media official policy and advocates “military attacks on the partisan media.” (H/T MuzzleWatch) The report for JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, was authored by retired US Army Colonel Ralph Peters. It appears in JINSA’s “flagship publication,” The Journal of International Security Affairs. “Today, the United States and its allies will never face a lone enemy on the battlefield. There will always be a hostile third party in the fight,” Peters writes, calling the media, “The killers without guns:”
      http://www.alternet.org/media/140223/neocon_us_colonel_calls_for_military_attack..."partisan_media"/

      Media Advisory

      2 ) Cheney Often Wrong, Seldom Doubted
      Giving ex-VP a free ride in torture debate

      This is the man who, after all, said we know with absolute certainty Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. We know he has an active nuclear program. We know he has contacts with Al-Qaeda. This is the man who has told more lies from a public pulpit than almost anyone else I know. Why does the media give him so much airtime?

      ...AND LEAVE RACH LIMPBAG ONT OF THIS ;)

      "I hated my part in the charade of murder and horror. My efforts were contributing to the deaths, to the burning alive of children - especially the children. The photographs of young Vietnamese children burned by napalm destroyed me." : Ralph McGehee former CIA intelligence analyst
      "I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service." : General Smedley Butler. USMC (Ret.)

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
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      WhiteNoise  

    • NOTE: there's an INTENTIONAL "censorship" of words "crack" and "anal sex" to further underline the song's content.

      Sad but true for anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear & a brain to connect the dots...

      WE HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE...IT IS MURDER !

      “It’s here that the American dream decided it liked the taste of the vomit it was chocking on. Just rolled over on its back and screamed for more drugs. it didn't die.“ - Warren Ellis

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
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      WhiteNoise  
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    • COULD THIS EXPLAIN THAT ?

      While this item looks & feel far fetched & the independence of thought & reporting stops at the individual level it would, none the less, give some grievance to this quote...

      "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." -- Noam Chomsky

      ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP:
      SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD FOUNDATION?
      http://questionsquestions.net/gatekeepers.html

      The Ford Foundation and the CIA:
      A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police
      http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/FordFandCIA.html

      On the other hand could this be DISINFO 101 ?
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation

      IS THAT WHY THEY SAY THE CIA NEVER LIES ;)

      The CIA's History of Bamboozling The Congress :

      There is a long and substantiated record of CIA deceit and dissembling to the congressional intelligence committees. Here are some highlights of that record.
      http://pubrecord.org/commentary/916-the-cias-history-of-bamboozling-the-congress...

      Show otherwise !

      THE MIGHTY WURLITZER SPEWS UPON.A NATION OF VILLAGE IDIOTS ?..

      At least 22 American news organizations had employed American journalists who were also working for the CIA, and nearly a dozen American publishing houses printed some of the more than 1,000 books that had been produced or subsidized by the CIA. When asked in a 1976 interview whether the CIA had ever told its media agents what to write, William Colby replied, Oh, sure, all the time !

      PS : Check out Carl Bernstein's 1970s Rolling Stone article on the CIA's stranglehold on the US media, which has gotten far worse since then:
      http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/cia_press.html

      CIA Instructions to Media Assets
      http://192.220.64.45/collections/assassinations/jfk/cia-inst.htm

      "The media is not influenced by the CIA - the media is the CIA." -Robert Lederman http://www.konformist.com/2000/bush-dictator.htm

      Look who the corporate media is today. The beneficiaries of 9/11; the biggest beneficiaries have been Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, the Carlyle Group, Boeing, Halliburton, the military industrial contractors, each of those have had 300 to 400 percent increase in their stock value in the last five years, and when we look at those groups and the memberships of their boards, Carlyle has someone sitting on the New York Times board, Bechtel sits on NBC, Boeing sits on ABC, Halliburton sits on ABC, Lockheed Martin sits on Gannett. They're interconnected; - Peter Phillips / Project Censored

      TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES FOR 2009
      http://current.com/items/89327026_top_25_censored_stories_for_2009

      "A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself": Joseph Pulitzer

      NOTE : In a Jiu-Jitsu media kinda of a poetic justice...Whom or what finances the news outfit is of small consideration when the quality of work accomplished by the Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow & the Stweart/Colbert laugh-in could serve as a standard across the board.

      You would find indeed, in myself, a very happy camper when the stories & analysis of Greg Palast, Jeremy Schahill, Naomi Klein & Chris Hedges will be mainstream ;)

      Greg Palast
      http://www.gregpalast.com
      http://www.youtube.com/user/GregPalastOffice

      Jeremy Scahill
      http://rebelreports.com/
      http://www.alternet.org/authors/5434/
      http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/jeremy_scahill

      Naomi Klein
      http://www.naomiklein.org/main

      Chris Hedges
      http://www.truthdig.com/report/category/hedges/

      “Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought !
      Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder !
      Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings !
      Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction !
      Be heroes in an army of construction !” - Helen Keller

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
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      WhiteNoise  
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    • ‘Progressive’ Warmongers
      Liberals rally 'round Obama's war
      http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/04/07/progressive-warmongers/

      As President Barack Obama launches a military effort that promises to dwarf the Bush administration’s Iraqi adventure in scope and intensity, the "progressive" community is rallying around their commander in chief as obediently and reflexively as the neocon-dominated GOP did when we invaded Iraq. As John Stauber points out over at the Center for Media and Democracy Web site, the takeover of the antiwar movement by the Obamaites is nearly complete. He cites MoveOn.org as a prime but not sole example:

      "MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and by then supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time cheerleader supporting Obama’s policy agenda. Some of us saw this unfolding years ago. Others are probably shocked watching their peace candidate escalating a war and sounding so much like the previous administration in his rationale for doing so."

      How Obama Took Over the Peace Movement
      http://www.prwatch.org/node/8297

      New MoveOn Director Backs The President, For a Change
      http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/412407/in_first_interview_new_mov...

      Democratic Spin Won't End the War in Iraq
      http://www.prwatch.org/node/6081/oreference%20on%20saw%20this%20unfolding%20year...

      “We have to worship principles not people, otherwise it’s religion not politics.” – Bill Maher

      "I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own -- and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans. ": -- General David M. Shoup - Commandant of the Marine Corps 1960-63, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor - Source: May 14, 1966

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • Jeremy Scahill: “Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama”

      "I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." - Barack Obama / The Audacity of Hope

      So in the classic category of...YOU ASKED FOR IT !

      DON'T JUDGE POLITICIANS ON WHAT THEY SAY BUT ON WHAT THEY DO !

      CITIZENS 2.0 : PLAYERS NOT CHEERLEADERS

      So here it is, just doing the job as asked ;)

      "What we see at every turn is the Obama administration, backed up by the Wall Street Journal editorial board, backed up by the neoconservatives, backed up by the hawkish Republicans, on one side, and then the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and social justice and antiwar activists and human rights advocates, on the other side. This is a sad reality in America today, where you have a president that campaigned on a change that we can believe in continuing the most repressive policies of the Bush administration. "

      In Closed-Door Meeting With Rights Groups, Obama Suggests He'll Use 'Preventive Detention' http://rebelreports.com/post/110808585/in-closed-door-meeting-with-rights-groups...

      “I don’t see meaningful differences between [Obama’s] detention policies and those erected by President Bush,” said one participant in the meeting.

      The universally accepted definition of INSANITY is to persist in the same behavior but expecting a different outcome.

      Howard Zinn: Changing Obama's Military Mindset
      By Howard Zinn, The Progressive
      Obama once said, 'It's not enough to get out of Iraq; we have to get out of the mindset that led us into Iraq.' What happened to that Obama ?
      http://www.alternet.org/democracy/140035/howard_zinn:_changing_obama's_military_mindset/

      “It’s here that the American dream decided it liked the taste of the vomit it was chocking on. Just rolled over on its back and screamed for more drugs. it didn't die.“ - Warren Ellis

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • GENERAL "RAID" TAKES OVER !

      General Stanley McChrystal, to head the US and NATO military command in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s rise to leadership is marked by his central role in directing special operations teams engaged in extrajudicial assassinations, systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and search and destroy missions. He is the very embodiment of the brutality and gore that accompanies military-driven empire building. Between September 2003 and August 2008, McChrystal directed the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations (JSO) Command which operates special teams in overseas assassinations.

      The point of the ‘Special Operations’ teams (SOT) is that they do not distinguish between civilian and military oppositions, between activists and their sympathizers and the armed resistance. The SOT specialize in establishing death squads and recruiting and training paramilitary forces to terrorize communities, neighborhoods and social movements opposing US client regimes.

      EXECUTIVE RESUME

      Cheney's Chief Assassin Is Now Obama's Commander in Afghanistan
      http://current.com/items/89882237_executive-assasination-ring-reported-directly-...

      Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice

      WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY & IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

      Lesson from Danny Schechter : "The News Dissector"
      http://www.newsdissector.com

      The Military Industrial complex is very institutionalized, plays a big role in politics and the economy, and is not passive when it comes to expressing its opinions and needs. Watch “Why We Fight?” (1) It opens with the chilling warning of then President Eisenhower’s final address in January of 1961 of a growing danger…

      (1) Why We Fight?
      http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

      Do you think Obama, despite his Commander in chief title, has unlimited power to order THEM around? Duh. No. He has to listen, and bargain, and compromise and equivocate, and kow tow.
      It’s May—anyone every see the movie or read the book, “Seven Days In May?” (1) It is a 1962 political thriller novel written by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II. Supposedly, the story is said to have been influenced by the right-wing anti-Communist political activities of General Edwin A. Walker (2) after he retired from the military.

      (1) Seven Days In May
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5Zdl7mN4M4&feature=channel_page

      (2) General Edwin A. Walker
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD-biPku0EE

      Some observers think Fletcher Knebel, after interviewing then Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay (1), later George Wallace’s vice-presidential running mate, wrote the book using LeMay as inspiration. Still others think it is based on General Smedley Darlington Butler’s testimony before Congress over the alleged coup to unseat FDR (2) by a group of wealthy industrialists, “The American Liberty League (3),” which was formed solely to fight and oppose FDR and the trade unions. Sound familiar?

      (1) Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay
      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-fletcher-knebel-1495778.html

      (2) The alleged coup to unseat FDR
      http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=628728631767818729

      (3) The American Liberty League
      http://www.answers.com/topic/american-liberty-league

      "The plutocrats believe there are some things worse than war: the confiscation of special privileges; the abolition of unearned income; the overthrow of the economic parasitism; the establishment of industrial democracy. The plutocrats would welcome a war that promised salvation from any such calamities; they would also welcome a war that promised greater foreign markets, the destruction of foreign competition, more security for property rights and a longer lease on life for plutocratic despotism." - Scott Nearing — 1917

      "War is a racket"
      http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/624.html

      PEACE !
      http://antiwar.com

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
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      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      Is Obama's New Afghan Commander a Violator of the Geneva Conventions?
      By Tom Hayden, TheNation

      Allegations emerge that Gen. Stanley McChrystal oversaw secret prisons that violated human rights laws. http://www.alternet.org/audits/140136/is_obama's_new_afghan_commander_a_violator_of_the_geneva_conventions/

      Gen. McChrystal, Grim Reaper: Obama's New Afghan Commander Will Send Death Toll Soaring
      By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. Posted May 22, 2009.

      Stanley McChrystal comes from a world where killing by any means is the norm and a blanket of govt. secrecy provides the necessary protection.

      General McChrystal comes from a world where killing by any means is the norm and a blanket of secrecy provides the necessary protection. For five years he commanded the Pentagon's super-secret Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which, among other things, ran what Seymour Hersh has described as an "executive assassination wing" out of Vice President Cheney's office. (Cheney just returned the favor by giving the newly appointed general a ringing endorsement: "I think you'd be hard put to find anyone better than Stan McChrystal.")

      McChrystal gained a certain renown when President Bush outed him as the man responsible for tracking down and eliminating al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The secret force of "manhunters" he commanded had its own secret detention and interrogation center near Baghdad, Camp Nama, where bad things happened regularly, and the unit there, Task Force 6-26, had its own slogan: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." Since some of the task force's men were, in the end, prosecuted, the bleeding evidently wasn't avoided.http://www.alternet.org/audits/140177/gen._mcchrystal,_grim_reaper:_obama's_new_afghan_commander_will_send_death_toll_soaring/

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      General Accuses WH of War Crimes

      In his 2004 report (1) on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." He called the abuse "systemic and illegal." And, as Seymour M. Hersh (2) reported in the New Yorker, he was rewarded for his honesty by being forced into retirement. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/06/18/BL2008061801546.htm...

      (1) http://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdf
      (2) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=al...

      “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty and democracy ? ” - Gandhi

      Who Are the Shadow Warriors? Countries Are Getting Hit by Major Military Attacks, and No One Is Taking Credit http://www.alternet.org/world/140289/who_are_the_shadow_warriors_countries_are_g...

      The "privatization" of war, with its use of armed mercenaries, has come under heavy scrutiny, especially since a 2007 incident in Baghdad in which guards from Blackwater USA (now Xe) went on a shooting spree, killing 17 Iraqis and wounding scores of others. But the "covertization" of war has remained largely in the shadows. The attackers in the Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan were not private contractors, but U.S. and Israeli soldiers.

      AND ALWAYS REMEMBER>>>

      "It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination." - Henry Kissinger

      Assassination Teams

      In his book The War Within, The Washington Post's Bob Woodward disclosed that the U.S. military has developed "secret operational capabilities" to "locate, target, and kill key individuals in extremist groups."

      In a recent interview during a Great Conversations event at the University of Minnesota, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed a U.S. military "executive assassination ring," part of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Hersh says that "Congress has no oversight" over the program.

      According to a 2004 classified document, the United States has the right to attack "terrorists" in some 15 to 20 nations, including Pakistan, Syria, and Iran. The Israeli military has long used "targeted assassinations" to eliminate Tel Aviv's enemies. U.S. and NATO "assassination teams" have emerged in Iraq and Afghanistan, where, according to the UN, they have killed scores of people. Philip Alston of the UN Human Rights Council charges that secret "international intelligence services" allied with local militias are killing Afghan civilians and then hiding behind an "impenetrable" wall of bureaucracy.

      YES, WE HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE...IT IS MURDER !

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • MURDER BY TORTURE

      The Bush Administration Homicides
      http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-05/how-many-were-tortured...

      For five years as a researcher for Human Rights Watch and reporter, John Sifton helped investigate homicides resulting from the Bush administration's torture policy. His findings include:

      • An estimated 100 detainees have died during interrogations, some who were clearly tortured to death.
      • The Bush Justice Department failed to investigate and prosecute alleged murders even when the CIA inspector general referred a case.
      • Sifton’s request for specific information on cases was rebuffed by the Bush Justice Department, though it was “familiar with the cases.”
      • Attorney General Eric Holder must now decide whether to investigate and prosecute homicides, not just cases of torture.

      "We have become a monster in the eyes of the whole world – a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us… No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you." – Hunter S. Thompson

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • Isn't one of the most twisted end result of this whole attitude/operation being that most people, in a typical reptilian brain response, will turn around and also treat others as insects ?

      Sometimes, doesn't' it feel exactly like that when we are watching the news ? Think crazy weekly/monthly killing spree rampage ...

      Why is empathy now referred to as an ‘activists” disease ?

      Is it that torture now being acknowledge as a sad fact of American life and policy has pushed us to a partial or total dismiss of our humanity ?

      “It’s here that the American dream decided it liked the taste of the vomit it was chocking on. Just rolled over on its back and screamed for more drugs. it didn't die.“ - Warren Ellis

      It all depends how this story plays out…

      Show otherwise !

      “The noble virtues that drove characters like Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness” into the jungle veiled abject self-interest, unchecked greed and murder.” - Chris Hedges

      Liz Cheney Reveals That Fear Of Prosecution Motivates Dad’s Media Blitz Defending Torture
      http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/22/cheney-fear-prosecution/

      SO WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR ?

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • BLAME IT ON THE INSECTS !

      "It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination." - Henry Kissinger

      SO REMEMBER...ITS ALL YOUR FAULT ANYWAY !

      Hey Americans, the Pundits Blame You for Bush and Cheney's Torture Policies

      In their mad dash to ensure that no one in the Bush administration is held accountable for torture, the media are putting the blame on all Americans.
      http://www.alternet.org/rights/139994/hey_americans,_the_pundits_blame_you_for_b...'s_torture_policies/

      "...the concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations ... in the same proportion as their ignorance." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,

      "A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain" - Anatole France

      "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." - Noam Chomsky

      ...AND THIS WHY HE SAYS SO & NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT IT EITHER ;)

      Sooo sorry if facts STILL DO exist for some and should be addressed beside partisanship...

      GOP'S KILLING FLOOR
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4QKfDdJ3ns&feature=channel_page

      OBAMA & HILLARY'S KILLING FLOOR
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scNLxSleuec&feature=channel_page

      AND THE UNDERLINING REASON OF IT ALL BEING…

      HIGHEST BIDDER
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmhL8bjL9vc&feature=channel

      "Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. 'We have a single system,' he wrote, and 'in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.'" : Gore Vidal - The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

      " People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." - James Baldwin

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      BACK TO WHERE WE NEVER LEFT ?

      The Private Contracting Surge Into Afghanistan

      Just like in Iraq, a "shadow army" has been serving alongside American servicemen and women in Afghanistan. So far, it is at least 70,000 strong. Private contractors – now indispensable to the U.S. military as it wages war – are expected to grow and much surpass that number as U.S. troops there double from 35,000 to nearly 70,000 by 2010.

      "In short, we will be bringing as many contractors as we are troops – especially KBR [Kellogg, Brown and Root] – because they now feed and house the military, and the military has no real choice, because they have let that part of their logistics atrophy," pointed out Dina Rasor, director of the Follow the Money Project and co-author of Betraying our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War.

      So while billions of dollars will remain in dispute in Iraq, Obama has no choice but to keep pouring money into American firms such as KBR, DynCorp, and even Xe (formerly Blackwater) if he wants to move forward with the mission in Afghanistan, despite those firms’ notorious reputations for waste, fraud, and abuse in theater.

      "All of the fraud, waste, and … negligent homicide will be brought into Afghanistan if nothing is done,"

      http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2009/05/13/the-private-contracting-surge/

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      "The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans." - Hermann Hesse

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • 'NUFF SAID :)

      Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationality, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts.

      It is a component of a variety of more specific philosophical systems. Humanism can be considered as a process by which truth and morality is sought through human investigation; as such, views on morals can change when new knowledge and information is discovered. In focusing on the capacity for self-determination, humanism rejects transcendental justifications, such as a dependence on faith, the supernatural, or texts of allegedly divine origin.

      Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.

      A FEW modern humanists…

      § Isaac Asimov Asimov was a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy Of Humanism.
      § Arthur C. Clarke Clarke was a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy Of Humanism.
      § Albert Einstein Served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York
      § Gene Roddenberry (1921—1991): American scriptwriter and producer, creator of Star Trek. Roddenberry was a member of the American Humanist Association, and has been called "one of the most influential yet unheralded humanists of the twentieth century."
      § Salman Rushdie Rushdie is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy Of Humanism.
      § Carl Sagan Sagan was a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy Of Humanism.
      § Rod Serling Creator and narrator of The Twilight Zone.
      § Peter Ustinov Ustinov was a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy Of Humanism.
      § Kurt Vonnegut Vonnegut was a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy Of Humanism.

      "You'll get my tolerance, but not my intellectual respect for if you could you would burn me at the stake" - Bill Maher

    • 4 years ago
  • unclecharlie
    • 0
      unclecharlie  

    • Firstly, I reject humanism. You don't find humanist monks giving bread to the poor everyday in the South Bronx....or running hospitals or soup kitchens. That being said, war is war is war....civilians will always die by the thousands in wars, whether it be the firestorm bombing of Dresden (the largest civilian mass casualty of WWII) or Afghanistan in 2009......

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • AND TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY...

      “The Crusade for a Christian Military”: Are US Forces Trying to Convert Afghans to Christianity?

      "A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side" - Aristotle

      Our whole culture is organized around wealthy people who keep poor people poor, uneducated, and powerless.

      Is it much easier to abuse a clueless, ignorant rabble than a well informed educated one... ?

      “Conspiracy stuff' is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.” – Gore Vidal

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • William Greider: “Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country”

      The Nation‘s national affairs correspondent William Greider on the roots of the economic crisis, how US militarism is making the country less safe, Wall Street’s inflated power, the role of the Federal Reserve, and the future of healthcare reform. “My belief is, and I feel it strongly, is that we are just at the beginning of a really long, hard passage in which Americans, like it or not, have to adjust to these new realities,”

      We're Screwed on Everything From Health Care to the Economy If the Dems Don't Shape Up
      By William Greider, The Nation. Posted June 9, 2009.

      The Dems aid and protect their free-roaming entrepreneurial politicians and don't punish those who undermine the party's larger promises.http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/140489/we're_screwed_on_everything_from_health_care_to_the_economy_if_the_dems_don't_shape_up/

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      DN! William Greider: (3\3) "Come Home, America: US's Rise and Fall and Promise of Our Country"

      "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have: three meals a day for their bodies, - education and culture for their minds - and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • November 1999, and five days are about to rock the world as tens of thousands of demonstrators take to the streets of Seattle in protest of the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Meeting.

      A peaceful demonstration to stop the WTO talks quickly escalates into a full-scale riot, and soon a State of Emergency is declared by the Mayor of Seattle. The streets are mayhem, and the WTO is paralyzed.

      Ultimately, Battle in Seattle illustrates that even against incredible odds, ordinary people can change the world.

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • Come to think of it...
      Recent precedent do exists but people were...

      Gazed, sprayed upon & stepped on !

      Just as... insects ;)

      http://www.battleinseattlemovie.com/

      "I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own -- and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans. ": -- General David M. Shoup - Commandant of the Marine Corps 1960-63, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor - Source: May 14, 1966

      "He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas

      "I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits children to be destroyed." - Daniel Berrigan

      http://antiwar.com
      http://leftsolutions.wordpress.com/

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • pjacobs51
  • regjoeschmo
    • 0
      regjoeschmo  

    • seems to me like we are collateral damage, only to be used and abused by our government. Untill we realize that we do have the power to change things, this will only get worse.....

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • SO… ARE WE TREATED AS INSECTS ?

      "The CIA is a state-sponsored terrorists association. You don't look at people as human beings. They are nothing but pieces on the chessboard."
      -- Verne Lyon, former CIA agent in revealing documentary Secrets of the CIA

      "The tyrant, who in order to hold his power, suppresses every superiority, does away with good men, forbids education and light, controls every movement of the citizens and, keeping them under a perpetual servitude, wants them to grow accustomed to baseness and cowardice, has his spies everywhere to listen to what is said in the meetings, and spreads dissension and calumny among the citizens and impoverishes them, is obliged to make war in order to keep his subjects occupied and impose on them permanent need of a chief."
      - Aristotle

      "They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger... they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor... They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace." – Tacitus / Roman historian

      Face it, the democracy we so badly pretend to export has been hijacked by psychotic thugs & sickos corporations that sees us all, at best as ’the rabble” but increasingly as mere insects.

      So what are we programmed to do when insects start making our lives a tad unconfortable ?

      We are told to exterminate them…

      Show otherwise !

      "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." - Cicero, 42 B.C.

      $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

      EXECUTIVE RESUME
      http://whitenoise.webnode.com/

      Good night & good luck ;)

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      American Amnesia: We Forget Our Atrocities Almost As Soon as We Commit Them
      By Noam Chomsky, Tomdispatch.com. Posted May 20, 2009.

      CONTEXT

      The Politics of “Fait Accompli” : An American “Leitmotiv” ! http://current.com/items/89992126_the-politics-of-fait-accompli-an-american-leit...

      Chomsky...
      "Historical amnesia is a dangerous social phenomenon because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead."

      "The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so."

      "For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law -- a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for the Bush administration's "black sites," or secret prisons, and for extraordinary rendition, and they were fulfilled."

      "More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the "infant empire" -- as George Washington called the new republic -- extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers."

      "Accordingly, what's surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be "a nation of moral ideals" and never before Bush "have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for." To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history."
      http://www.alternet.org/rights/140137/american_amnesia:_we_forget_our_atrocities...

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      What about our troops ?

      Memorial Day Special…Winter Soldier on the Hill: War Vets Testify Before Congress
      http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/25/memorial_day_specialwinter_soldier_on_the

      SERGIO KOCHERGIN: Where is all the money going that is given to the military? During my first deployment, I had a Vietnam-era flak jacket without a plate. My M-16 was made back in the late ’70s. We did not have enough night-vision goggles for everyone. While Marines are patrolling in the Hummers every day and get blown up, because the only protection they have are the flak blankets hanging from the doors, while generals and colonels and other high-ranking officers that leave a base once in awhile have brand new, fully armored Hummers that are always spotless clean sitting on the base, while other Hummers are bleeding with our brothers’, sons’, daughters’, sisters’ blood every day.

      When we all come back from Iraq and we seek help from our command, they call us “weak” and “cowards.” The lines for a psychologist is almost a year long, and the only thing that can help us is the alcohol and the prescription pills they’re giving out to us like candy to keep us down, because it seems like doctors don’t want to do their job and they just don’t care. Use of drugs amongst the military units is critical. We lost numerous numbers of people from failing drug tests. They either want to get out, or they’re just so messed up, and the only one thing that can help them to escape is the drugs.

      If there is no care for your own Marines, what care do they have for the people of Iraq when they give the orders?

      I want to thank you for your time, and I believe that you will make a right decision and will help us to stop this inhumane treatment of Iraqi people and the troops and stop occupation of Iraq and help us to bring troops home. Thank you.

      "I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own -- and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans. ": -- General David M. Shoup - Commandant of the Marine Corps 1960-63, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor - Source: May 14, 1966

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      Testifying before a Senate hearing on the “Future of Journalism,” former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, best known as the creator of the award-winning HBO series The Wire, addresses the decline of the newspaper industry in the age of rabid media consolidation and the rise of the internet. Simon calls for a non-profit model in the newspaper industry, saying “raw unencumbered capitalism is never the answer when a public trust or public mission is at issue.

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      I simply adore it when individuals from totally opposite background come to the same conclusions...

      Case in point...

      FROM THE SO-CALLED RIGHT !

      Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He’s a conservative historian and a Vietnam War veteran who spent twenty-three years serving in the US Army before he retired as a colonel. He is the author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War and, most recently, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, which is just out in paperback. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/11/conservative_historian_andrew_bacevich_war...

      FROM THE SO-CALLED LEFT !

      CHRIS HEDGES' COLUMNS
      Becoming What We Seek to Destroy

      We are morally no different from the psychopaths within the Taliban, who Afghans remember we empowered, funded and armed during the 10-year war with the Soviet Union. Acid thrown into a girl’s face or beheadings? Death delivered from the air or fields of shiny cluster bombs? This is the language of war. It is what we speak. It is what those we fight speak. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090511_becoming_what_we_seek_to_destroy/

      I'm saying 'so-called' because at this point, the underlying 'humanist' view should have taken over the political discourse...hey a man can dream ;)

      "I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own -- and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans. ": -- General David M. Shoup - Commandant of the Marine Corps 1960-63, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor - Source: May 14, 1966
      "He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." Aquinas
      "I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits children to be destroyed."-- Daniel Berrigan

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      In his first national broadcast interview, New York Times reporter David Barstow speaks about his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the Pentagon propaganda campaign to recruit more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as military analysts ahead of and during the Iraq war. This week, the Pentagon inspector general’s office admitted its exoneration of the program was flawed and withdrew it.

      PART1 of 4

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      Senator Richard (Dick) Durbin lays it down...

      "The banks are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."

      The report, from the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, "Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?", found that the top 25 lenders of subprime mortgages - those risky assets that triggered the global economic meltdown - spent almost $370 million dollars over the last decade lobbying in Washington to weaken regulation of their behavior. Most of those 25 lenders are now out of business or have been sold to avoid bankruptcy, even as some of the nation's largest banks that owned or financed them - Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America - are being bailed out by your taxpayer dollars. The Center for Public Integrity says, "The banks...were not victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves, but enablers..."

      MORE OF THE SAME...

      Senate Defeats Proposal to Cap Credit Card Rates

      The Senate has defeated an amendment that would have capped credit card interest rates at 15 percent. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders tried to include the measure in a bill imposing new regulation on the credit card industry. Democratic lawmakers have vowed to protect consumers and crack down on the credit card companies’ abusive practices. But Sanders’ proposal drew just thirty-three votes, with a bipartisan group of sixty senators voting against. Sanders said, “When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available. They’re engaged in loan-sharking.” http://sanders.senate.gov/

    • 4 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • WhiteNoise:

      Obama's False Financial Reform Is Nothing But Smooth Talk and Some Fuzzy Plans
      By William Greider, The Nation. Posted June 25, 2009.

      The most disturbing thing about Barack Obama's call for financial reform was the way in which the president falsified our predicament. He tried to make it sound as though everyone was implicated in the financial breakdown and therefore no one was really to blame. "A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street," Obama explained. "And a regulatory system basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis -- the Great Depression -- was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st century global economy."

      That is not what happened, to put it charitably. Unlike some other presidents, Obama is much too intelligent not to know this. The regulatory system was not overwhelmed by historic forces. It was systematically gutted and dismantled by the government in Washington at the behest of the banking interests. If Obama wants details, he can consult his economic advisors -- Summers-Geithner -- who participated directly as accomplices in unwinding the prudential rules and regulations. Cheers were led by the Federal Reserve with heavy lifting by both political parties. http://www.alternet.org/workplace/140891/obama's_false_financial_reform_is_nothing_but_smooth_talk_and_some_fuzzy_plans/

    • 3 years ago
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