tagged w/ Huffington Post
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According to a former aide, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has long been drawn toward conspiracy theories. Eric Dondero, who served Paul off and on from 1987 to 2003, wrote recently that the Texas Republican suspected that George W. Bush may have had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and that Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance about Pearl Harbor. Paul's writings and speeches spotlight a host of other plots, including the "war on Christmas."
But just because not all of Paul's theories are backed by good evidence doesn't mean none of them are.
In 1988, while running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, he highlighted yet another conspiracy theory, and this one doesn't collapse under investigation: The CIA, Paul told a gathering of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, was involved in trafficking drugs as part of the Iran-Contra debacle.
Drug trafficking is "a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can't get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings," Paul said. "The CIA was very much involved in the Iran-Contra scandals. I'm not making up the stories; we saw it on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back. And the CIA and government officials were closing their eyes, fighting a war that was technically illegal."
Earlier this week, I looked into Paul's claim in the same speech that the war on drugs had racist origins and that the medical community played a role in lobbying for drug prohibitions. That charge was more or less accurate.
So is Paul's claim about the CIA and drug trafficking, a connection I explore in the book "This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America." (An excerpt of the chapter on the CIA appeared in The Root.) The following is drawn from my book.
Since at least the 1940s, the American government has organized and supported insurgent armies for the purpose of overthrowing some presumably hostile foreign regime. In Italy, the United States helped pit the Corsican and Sicilian mobs against the Fascists and then the Communists. In China, it aided Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang in its struggle against Mao Zedong's communist forces. In Afghanistan, it once backed the mujahedeen in their fight against the Soviet Union and today backs warlords in opposition to the mujahedeen.
All of these and other U.S.-supported groups profited, or still profit, heavily from the drug trade. One of the principal arguments made by the Drug Enforcement Administration in support of the global drug war is that the illegal drug trade funds violent, stateless organizations. The DEA refers specifically to al Qaeda and the Taliban, but the same method of fundraising has long been used by other violent, stateless actors whom the United States befriended.
AN 'UNCOMFORTABLE' STORY
Douglas Farah was in El Salvador when the San Jose Mercury News broke a major story in the summer of 1996: The Nicaraguan Contras, a confederation of paramilitary rebels sponsored by the CIA, had been funding some of their operations by exporting cocaine to the United States. One of their best customers was a man nicknamed "Freeway Rick" -- Ricky Donnell Ross, then a Southern California dealer who was running an operation the Los Angeles Times dubbed "the Wal-Mart of crack dealing."
"My first thought was, 'Holy shit!' because there'd been so many rumors in the region of this going on," said Farah 12 years later. He'd grown up in Latin America and covered it for 20 years for the Washington Post. "There had always been these stories floating around about [the Contras] and cocaine. I knew [Contra leader] Adolfo Calero and some of the other folks there, and they were all sleazebags. You wouldn't read the story and say, 'Oh my god, these guys would never do that.' It was more like, 'Oh, one more dirty thing they were doing.' So I took it seriously."
The same would not hold true of most of Farah's colleagues, either in the newspaper business in general or at the Post in particular. "If you're talking about our intelligence community tolerating -- if not promoting -- drugs to pay for black ops, it's rather an uncomfortable thing to do when you're an establishment paper like the Post," Farah told me. "If you were going to be directly rubbing up against the government, they wanted it more solid than it could probably ever be done."
In the mid to late 1980s, a number of reports had surfaced that connected the Contras to the cocaine trade. The first was by Associated Press scribes Brian Barger and Robert Parry, who published a story in December 1985 that began, "Nicaraguan rebels operating in northern Costa Rica have engaged in cocaine trafficking, in part to help finance their war against Nicaragua's leftist government, according to U.S. investigators and American volunteers who work with the rebels."
Only a few outlets followed Barger and Parry's lead, including the San Francisco Examiner and the lefty magazine In These Times, which both published similar stories in 1986, and CBS's "West 57th" TV series, which did a segment in 1987. A Nexis search of the year following Barger and Parry's revelation turned up a total of only four stories containing the terms "Contras" and "cocaine," one of them a denial of the accusation from a Contra spokesperson. Stories popped up here and there over the next decade, but many of them made only oblique reference to a couldn't-possibly-be-true conspiracy theory.
(more @ link)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/30/ron-paul-conspiracy-theory-cia-drug-traffickers_n_1176103.htmlAccording to a former aide, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has long been... more
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that's 2011 -the "whose WHO" at " c u r r e n t " for YOU newbies !
starting with a review of LAST YEAR -
. . . .and moving on to a collection of THIS YEARS well known ( or not ) names
in the c u r r e n t community .
THIS YEAR,... those weird , dysfunctional "badge points" will be added,...just for "Shits and Giggles"
( a GROUP that will be added ! )
old LINK - - -
http://current.com/entertainment/comedy/92893471_c-u-r-r-e-n-t-new-years-tally.htm
merry c u r r e n t X-masthat's 2011 -the "whose WHO" at " c u r r e n t " for YOU... more
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Eve Ensler's -
Ambiguous UpSparkles From the Heart of the Park (Mic Check/Occupy Wall Street)
. . . .besides,....Bush is a dick,....uhm,....so is Rick,.....but I digress,......this is about what SHE said,.....and SHE said - - -
( about OCCUPY WALL STREET )
~ excerpt ~
[ It is a cry against what appears to be scarcity and what Naomi Klein calls a distribution problem and, I would add, a priority problem. It is a spontaneous uprising that has been building for years in our collective unconscious. It is a gorgeous, mischievous moment that has arrived and is spreading. It is a speaking out, coming out, dancing out. It is an experiment and a disruption.
We all know things are terribly wrong in this country. From the death of our rivers, to the bankruptcy of our schools to our failed health care system, something at the center does not hold.
A diverse group of teachers, thinkers, students, techies, workers, nurses, have stopped their daily lives. They have come to gather and reflect and march and lay their bodies down. They have come from all over the country and the world. Some have flown in just to be here. I met students last night from a college in Kentucky who had just arrived committed to sleeping out for two nights in solidarity.
Occupy Wall Street is a work of art, exploding onto a canvas in search of form, in search of an image, a vision.
In a culture obsessed with product, the process of creation is almost unbearable. Nothing is more threatening than the moment, the living breathing ambiguity of now. We have been trained to name things, own things, brand things and in doing so control and consume them. Well, the genius of Occupy Wall Street is that so far it is not brandable and that's what makes its potential so daunting, so far reaching, so inclusive, and so dangerous. It cannot be defined and so it cannot be sold, as a sound bite or a political party or even a thing. It can't be summed up and dismissed.]
and THIS-
[ To make sure the human microphone is working properly the speaker calls out Mike Check and the crowd repeats Mike Check and by doing this it becomes clear if the voice of the speaker is being carried through the entire crowd. I think our media needs a general Mike Check. So last night I committed to creating a column that would carry the stories of the occupiers at the heart of the park.
There are certain hand signals that are used in the group to signify response. My favorite is the signal for agreement, or something you like a lot .
People lift their hands and wiggle their fingers. This has come to be called Upsparkles. ]
Read the whole thing, it is worth your time. She writes really well,.....go figure.
p.s. ( for a woman )
p.p.s. There - THAT should generate some interest !
LINKeroooooooo - - -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/ambiguous-upsparkles-from_b_1003908.htmlEve Ensler's -
Ambiguous UpSparkles From the Heart of the Park (Mic Check/Occupy... more
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The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has called for an apology and retraction after the Huffington Post this week featured, on its home page, an article titled, “Sex For Tuition: Gay Students Using ‘Sugar Daddies’ To Pay Off Loan Debt.”
GLAAD called the post, authored by Amanda Fairbanks, “one of the most trite, stereotype-peddling articles we’ve seen in a long time” and denounced the Huffington Post for standing behind it.
WHOOT! Go get that editor! How did this every get by?! As if no HETEROSEXUAL has ever done this. it is a GAY ONLY Practice?! Yeah right!
http://tinyurl.com/3mwqvu3The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has called for an apology... more
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LOrion
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5 months ago
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A strange and fascinating sea-change has taken place at Huffington Post.
UK users, like myself, are now automatically directed to the UK front page on log-in, which consists of UK headlines (fair enough) and international news.
The US front page is entirely different and consists almost exclusively of US political news.
Though the UK front page is more “international”, the news there is likely to be of very little interest to any UK commenter, because it is simply a regurgitation of the day’s main headlines, which most UK users (no matter what their educational level or background) will either have heard on the radio during breakfast or read on their way to work on the bus. The links are to mainstream publications, both broadsheet and tabloid, most of which already have a vibrant online comments section.
The low number of comments on HP UK reflects this redundancy.
Meanwhile, over on the US front page, the ”World” section is no longer easily accessible – as it used to be – but has now been relegated to a subsection of “Other” right at the very end of the toolbar, way behind the“Celebrity”, “Comedy” and “Local” news sections.
As a result, US commenters are just shouting around in their own little echo-chamber, chasing their own tails, getting excited about such earth-shattering events as Michele Bachman’s corndog eating techniques and Sarah Palin’s toenails.
It’s like a media version of the Berlin wall. Never the twain shall meet.
The transatlantic dialogue, which once made HP so attractive, has been effectively silenced.
So, while Michele Bachmann may have been historically wrong when she talked about the “threat” of the long-defunct Soviet Union – somewhat perversely, she may actually have a point: there's a new Cold War going on.
The Iron Curtain has been resurrected – this time in the media.
We are seeing what John Pilger described, almost a decade ago, as the “vociferous brainwashing” of the US.
We are seeing what Noam Chomsky described as “manufacturing consent”.
And we cannot but agree with Robert Fisk when he suggests that most US newspapers should be renamed “American Officials Say”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvc0xIdvR7kA strange and fascinating sea-change has taken place at Huffington Post.
UK users,... more
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Seems they want some new graphic logo, but they don't want to pay a graphic artist to design it. They want readers to do if for free; having a "Contest" Gee, ads everywhere and they won't hire a graphic artist for one little project?
How are those tax cuts for the rich and corporate working for you, America?
Thought corporations needed a lotta tax breaks so they would create jobs. Looks more like they want the $$ AND free labor too. It's funny as AO-helL that the bozos who bought HP, ran more ads and wanted writers to give them 'blog content' for free now go public and basically admit they don't think they should have to pay for anything. Arrogant much?
The comments are a hoot and might give you hope that some Americans are waking up about how working people are exploited and how big corporations think they can get if for free.Seems they want some new graphic logo, but they don't want to pay a graphic... more
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The mainstream media continues to put on the back burner the war in Afghanistan, but our troops are still in the thick of it as these videos show.
http://corksphere.blogspot.com/The mainstream media continues to put on the back burner the war in Afghanistan, but... more
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