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Blowback or False Flag in Paris?
Blowback or False Flag in Paris?
It’s too soon to know for sure. Given French complicity with ongoing US state terror throughout the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere, odds strongly favor the latter.
Multiple likely well-planned Friday night attacks in Paris had a disturbing aroma to them – including France’s knee-jerk police state reaction. More on this below. Here’s what happened.
At least seven apparently well-coordinated attacks occurred, gunmen with automatic weapons and suicide belts killing over 150 victims. Many others were injured. Stade de France stadium was struck during a football (soccer) match between France and Germany.
So was the Bataclan theater during a concert, restaurants full of patrons, a cinema, and pedestrians on Bichat Street, the Avenue de la Republique and Boulevard Beaumarchais.
Reports indicated other Paris locations were attacked, including the Forum des Halles shopping area attracting an estimated 150,000 daily visitors.
The predictable aftermath so far includes French President Francois Hollande declaring a state of emergency – effectively suspending constitutional rights under martial law.
“Two decisions will be taken,” Hollande announced. “The state of emergency will be decreed, which means several places will be closed off, and traffic will be limited in certain areas.”
“The state of emergency will apply across the country. The second decision I have taken is to close the borders, so that the people who have committed these crimes can be apprehended.”
“We know where this attack came from. We must show compassion and solidarity, but we must also show we are united. There is much to fear, but we must face these fears as a nation that knows how to muster its forces and will confront the terrorists.”
Heavily armed French soldiers were deployed around key Parisian locations. Five metro lines were shut. Orly airport flights were suspended. All city schools and universities were closed.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
New Socialist Government Keeps Portuguese People Under The Whip
New Socialist Government Keeps Portuguese People Under The Whip
The austerity imposed on the Portuguese people by the One Percent has resulted in the election of a coalition government of socialists, communists, and a “left bloc.” In the 20th century, socialism and the fear of communism humanized Europe, but beginning with Margaret Thatcher the achievements of decades of social reforms have been rolled back throughout Europe as bought-and-paid for governments have given all preference to the One Percent. Public assets are being privatized, and social pensions and services are being reduced in order to make interest payments to private banks.
When the recent Portuguese vote gave a majority to the anti-austerity bloc, the right-wing Portuguese president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, a creature of Washington and the big banks, announced that the leftwing would not be permitted to form a government, just as the senior British general announced that a Labour Government formed by Jeremy Corbyn would not be permitted to form.
True to her word, Anibal reappointed the austerity prime minister, Passos Coelho. However, the unity of the socialists with the communists and the left bloc swept Coelho from office and the president had to recognize a new government.
The new government means that for the first in a long time there is a government in Portugual that possibly could represent the people rather than Washington and the One Percent. However, if the new government leaves the banks in charge and remains committed to the EU, the current president, previous prime minister, and previous finance minister, Maria Luis Albuquerque, will continue to work to overthrow the people’s will as occurred in Greece.
The new Portuguese government cannot escape austerity without nationalizing the banks and leaving the EU. The failure of the Greek government to bite the bullet resulted in the Greek government’s acceptance of the austerity that it was elected to oppose.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Re-enserfment of Western Peoples
The Re-enserfment of Western Peoples
The re-enserfment of Western peoples is taking place on several levels. One about which I have been writing for more than a decade comes from the offshoring of jobs. Americans, for example, have a shrinking participation in the production of the goods and services that are marketed to them.
On another level we are experiencing the financialization of the Western economy about which Michael Hudson is the leading expert (Killing The Host). Financialization is the process of removing any public presence in the economy and converting the economic surplus into interest payments to the financial sector.
These two developments deprive people of economic prospects. A third development deprives them of political rights. The Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Partnerships eliminate political sovereignty and turn governance over to global corporations.
These so called “trade partnerships” have nothing to do with trade. These agreements negotiated in secrecy grant immunity to corporations from the laws of the countries in which they do business. This is achieved by declaring any interference by existing and prospective laws and regulations on corporate profits as restraints on trade for which corporations can sue and fine “sovereign” governments. For example, the ban in France and other counries on GMO products would be negated by the Trans-Atlantic Partnership. Democracy is simply replaced by corporate rule.
I have been meaning to write about this at length. However, others, such as Chris Hedges, are doing a good job of explaining the power grab that eliminates representative government.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/The-Most-Brazen-Corporate-by-Chris-Hedges-American-Hypocrisy_Americans-For-Prosperity_Corporate-Citizenship_Corporate-Crime-151107-882.html
The corporations are buying power cheaply. They bought the entire US House of Representatives for just under $200 million. This is what the corporations paid Congress to go along with “Fast Track,” which permits the corporations’ agent, the US Trade Representative, to negotiate in secret without congressional input or oversight. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Almost-200-Million-Donate-by-Paola-Casale-Banking_Congress_Control_Corporations-150620-523.html
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Vladimir Putin Speaks Honestly
Vladimir Putin Speaks Honestly
Russia’s president is a refreshing contrast to the liars who inhabit Western governments and Western media. The agenda of the Russian government is peace and international cooperation under the rule of law. Washington’s agenda is hegemony.
President Putin endeavors to lead the world to peace, while the neoconservatives who control Washington’s foreign policy try to drive the world to war. Contrast the crazed statements that flow from Washington comparing President Putin to Hitler, suggesting his assassination, and calling for shooting down Russian military aircraft with President Putin’s appeal that Washington abandon its hegemonic agenda and submit to international law and international cooperation. As President Putin has emphasized, for Washington “international cooperation” means submission to Washington’s will.
President Putin repeatedly states that governments must govern in accord with the people and not function as a decree-issuing body in accord with interest groups disrespectful of the people.
Throughout the West we see the increasingly unresponsive behavior of government. In the United States careful studies conclude that, despite elections, the American people have essentially zero input into the policies decided in Washington. In Greece, the government is coerced to impose on the Greek people policies dictated by large German banks supported by the German and EU governments. In Portugal, the socialists who won the election were told by the conservative president that they would not be permitted to form a government. In the UK, a senior military official stated that the military would not permit Jeremy Corbyn to form a Labour government should the Labour Party win the election. The United States government threatens the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina for representing the interests of the voters who put them in office instead of Washington’s interests. The United States government has destroyed American civil liberty with its unconstitutional mass surveillance, indefinite detention without charges, and murder of US citizens without due process of law. Dissent itself is in the process of being criminalized.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
US On Road To Third World
US On Road To Third World
On January 6, 2004, Senator Charles Schumer and I challenged the erroneous idea that jobs offshoring was free trade in a New York Times op-ed. Our article so astounded economists that within a few days Schumer and I were summoned to a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, DC, to explain our heresy. In the nationally televised conference, I declared that the consequence of jobs offshoring would be that the US would be a Third World country in 20 years.
That was 11 years ago, and the US is on course to descend to Third World status before the remaining nine years of my prediction have expired.
The evidence is everywhere. In September the US Bureau of the Census released its report on US household income by quintile. Every quintile, as well as the top 5%, has experienced a decline in real household income since their peaks. The bottom quintile (lower 20 percent) has had a 17.1% decline in real income from the 1999 peak (from $14,092 to $11,676). The 4th quintile has had a 10.8% fall in real income since 2000 (from $34,863 to $31,087). The middle quintile has had a 6.9% decline in real income since 2000 (from $58,058 to $54,041). The 2nd quintile has had a 2.8% fall in real income since 2007 (from $90,331 to $87,834). The top quintile has had a decline in real income since 2006 of 1.7% (from $197,466 to $194,053). The top 5% has experienced a 4.8% reduction in real income since 2006 (from $349,215 to $332,347). Only the top One Percent or less (mainly the 0.1%) has experienced growth in income and wealth.
The Census Bureau uses official measures of inflation to arrive at real income. These measures are understated. If more accurate measures of inflation are used (such as those available from shadowstats.com), the declines in real household income are larger and have been declining for a longer period. Some measures show real median annual household income below levels of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
More Lies From The New York Times
More Lies From The New York Times
44 years ago the NYT published the Pentagon Papers.
Today the NYT publishes neoconservative lies, which have destroyed several countries and millions of peoples, and dishonest apologies for Washington’s war crimes. Stephen Lendman tells us about the latest NYT atrocity.
It is amazing that anyone still reads the NYT.
NYT Justifies US Afghan Hospital Bombing
Almost daily, The Times finds new ways to disgrace itself. Instead of full and accurate reporting, it fronts for imperial lawlessness – making it complicit with high crimes of war and against humanity.
Its administration and Pentagon press release “journalism” is an open cesspool of misinformation, distortion and Big Lies – all propaganda all the time on issues mattering most.
Its latest willful deception headlines “Hospital Attack Fueled by Units New to Kunduz,” saying:
“The American airstrike against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in northern Afghanistan…was approved by American Special Operations Forces normally assigned to other parts of Asia.”
“The Afghan commandos who requested the strike had been rushed from another part of the country to help quell the Taliban attack. And the AC-130 gunship that unleashed the fire had not worked with either group before.”
“Military investigators have not yet reached any final conclusions about how the Oct. 3 attack in Kunduz occurred, but an emerging focus of investigators is how the lack of familiarity of American and Afghan forces with the area and their lack of experience in working together may have directly contributed to the series of mistaken decisions that led to the attack, American officials said.”
“They attributed those problems, in part, to the withdrawal of American forces from northern Afghanistan that has been part of the gradual drawdown of United States forces in the country.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter?
Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter?
As readers know, I have emphasized that the declared neoconservative intention of achieving global hegemony has resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon as Russia and China are most definitely not going to submit, as every European country, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, and Japan have submitted, to being Washington’s vassals.
The president of Russia and the president of China have made this completely clear.
If the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the Western political systems permit the continuation of the crazed, totally unrealistic, neoconservative agenda, the planet will die.
Ronald Reagan is the only US president during the era of nuclear weapons who was committed to removing them from all arsenals. I know because I was a part of his effort. If you can’t believe me, ask Pat Buchanan who was with Reagan at Reykjavik. In previous columns on my website, I quoted Buchanan’s response to my statements. Buchanan wrote to me that I was correct, that Reagan wanted rid of every nuclear weapon. That was President Reagan’s primary goal and is the reason for his economic program, which he placed in my hands. Reagan reasoned that if the US economy could be restored, the inability of the Soviet economy to be restored would allow him to pressure the Soviets into agreement to end the cold war and rid the world of nuclear weapons. When I get letters from those denouncing Reagan for his crimes, I wonder at the pride that the writers show in their utter ignorance and stupidity.
What the neocons have done is to throw away every treaty and violate every agreement that had the world on the path to nuclear disarmament. These evil persons have caused massive moderization of Soviet and Chinese nuclear forces. There is no prospect whatsoever of American hegemony over the world.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Sad Fate Of America’s Whistleblowers
The Sad Fate Of America’s Whistleblowers
Paul Craig Roberts believes Washington persecutes America’s greatest patriots…
John Kiriakou is an American patriot who informed us of the criminal behavior of illegal and immoral US “cloak and dagger” operations that were bringing dishonor to our country. His reward was to be called a “traitor” by the idiot conservative Republicans and sentenced to prison by the corrupt US government.Manning revealed US war crimes and after years of illegal pre-trial prison abuse was sentenced to 35 years in prison for keeping the vow to the US Constitution. Some of the idiot conservative Republicans thought the sentence was too light.
Tom Drake was ruined, and he kept his complaints about NSA illegality within the chain of command.
Julian Assange is confined by the US and UK governments in violation of international law to the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for doing his job and publishing leaked documents revealing the mendacity, immorality, and illegality of Washingtonn’s policies.
Edward Snowden is protected by Russia against Washington’s retribution for revealing that Washington’s illegal and unconstitutional spying is universal and includes the personal communications of all of the leaders of Washington’s own vassal states.
The American people accept the persecution of truth-tellers, because they have been brainwashed into believing that patriotism means defense of the government no matter what. As truth is so unfavorable to Washington, Americans believe that it must not be revealed, and if revealed, covered up, and those who reveal truth must be punished.
A country with such a population as this is a police state, not a free country.
It is an irony of history that a government and a population that believes truth must be covered up at all cost parades around the world acting as if Washington is the history’s agent for ?“bringing freedom and democracy to the world.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The United States government has become “the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization,” warns former Reagan official
The United States government has become “the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization,” warns former Reagan official
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, who served just over a year as Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, said on the Shadow of Truth radio program that Washington, D.C., is a major den of inequity.
“The United States [military policy] has destroyed seven countries,” he says. “The populations there are subject to ongoing continual violence either from the U.S. or these Jihadists or from the Islamic State. In Libya there’s various factions, no government – just warlords fighting and nobody’s safe anywhere so the populations are getting out. You can’t live in that type of situation.”
Early in the interview, the hosts ask Roberts about a recent column he penned in which he states that all current Republican presidential contenders are essentially in favor of war. The hosts then ask him about the potential of nuclear war with either Russia or China, “because we seem to be moving in that direction.”
“I think what it will take is the European countries to realize that they’ve been enabling American aggression in the 21st century, and aggression that is now brought them millions of refugees particularly from Syria and Iraq, and they can’t cope with these refugees,” said Roberts in reference to the fighting between ISIS, Syrian rebels, and Iraqi and Syrian government forces that has caused a wave of migration out of the war zones into Europe.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/051471_NATO_terrorists_nuclear_war.html#ixzz3oGPhR7Ee
Obama Deifies American Hegemony
Obama Deifies American Hegemony
Today is the 70th anniversary of the UN. It is not clear how much good the UN has done. Some UN Blue Hemet peacekeeping operations had limited success. But mainly Washington has used the UN for war, such as the Korean War and Washington’s Cold War against the Soviet Union. In our time Washington had UN tanks sent in against Bosnian Serbs during the period that Washington was dismantling Yugoslavia and Serbia and accusing Serbian leaders, who tried to defend the integrity of their country against Washington’s aggression, of “war crimes.”
The UN supported Washington’s sanctions against Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. When asked about it, Clinton’s Secretary of State said, with typical American heartlessness, that the deaths of the children were worth it. In 2006 the UN voted sanctions against Iran for exercising its right as a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty to develop atomic energy. Washington claimed without any evidence that Iran was building a nuclear weapon in violation of the non-proliferation treaty, and this lie was accepted by the UN. Washington’s false claim was repudiated by all 16 US intelligence agencies and by the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors on the ground in Iran, but in the face of the factual evidence the US government and its presstitute media pressed the claim to the point that Russia had to intervene and take the matter out of Washington’s warmonger hands. Russia’s intervention to prevent US military attacks on Iran and Syria resulted in the demonization of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. “Facts?!, Washington don’t need no stinkin’ facts! We got power!” Today at the UN Obama asserted America’s over-riding power many times: the strongest military in the world, the strongest economy in the world.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
No Brains In Washington
No Brains In Washington
Washington’s IQ follows the Fed’s interest rate — it is negative. Washington is a black hole into which all sanity is sucked out of government deliberations.
Washington’s failures are everywhere visible. We can see the failures in Washington’s wars and in Washington’s approach to China and Russia.
The visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, was scheduled for the week-end following the Pope’s visit to Washington. Was this Washington’s way of demoting China’s status by having its president play second fiddle to the Pope? The President of China is here for week-end news coverage? Why didn’t Obama just tell him to go to hell?
Washington’s cyber incompetence and inability to maintain cyber security is being blamed on China. The day before Xi Jinping’s arrival in Washington, the White House press secretary warmed up President Jinping’s visit by announcing that Obama might threaten China with financial sanctions.
And not to miss an opportunity to threaten or insult the President of China, the US Secretary of Commerce fired off a warning that the Obama regime was too unhappy with China’s business practices for the Chinese president to expect a smooth meeting in Washington.
In contrast, when Obama visited China, the Chinese government treated him with politeness and respect.
China is America’s largest creditor after the Federal Reserve. If the Chinese government were so inclined, China could cause Washington many serious economic, financial, and military problems. Yet China pursues peace while Washington issues threats.
Like China, Russia, too, has a foreign policy independent of Washington’s, and it is the independence of their foreign policies that puts China and Russia on the outs with Washington.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Democracy Has Departed The West
Democracy Has Departed The West
Before the West spreads democracy abroad maybe it could get some for itself. The US is an oligarchy in which government is answerable to six powerful private interest groups. In Europe governments are answerable to the EU, Washington, and private bankers and not to their peoples. In the UK the military brass has declared its hold on the reins of power.
Jeremy Corbyn is the first Labourite to lead the Labour Party in a long time. Considering the stupidity and immorality of the Tories, Corbyn could become prime minister of Britain. Should this occur, Corbyn would shift the budget priorities away from supporting Washington’s wars toward refurbishing the social welfare state that made life for ordinary Britishers more secure and less stressful.
A senior serving general of the British army said that the army would not allow the people to “put a maverick in charge of the country’s security. The Army just wouldn’t stand for it and would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that.”
In other words, a democratic outcome unacceptable to the English military will be overthrown. Just like in Egypt.
Here we have the incongruity of Washington and London bringing democracy to others through what Vladimir Putin calls “airstrike democracy,” while tolerating a democracy deficit themselves. The safest conclusion is that democracy is a cloak for an aggressive agenda, not a value in itself to the US and UK elites, who rule and who intend to continue to rule these countries for their personal benefit.
Jonathan Cook reports that the use of “whatever means possible, fair or foul,” against Labour prime ministers who actually stood for the people rather than for the elites is not unique to Corbyn.
Labour Prime Minister Harald Wilson faced similar pressure and resigned. http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2015-09-20/army-plots-against-british-pms-are-not-new/
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
9/11 Fourteen Years Later
9/11 Fourteen Years Later
Millions of refugees from Washington’s wars are currently over-running Europe. Washington’s 14-year and ongoing slaughter of Muslims and destruction of their countries are war crimes for which the US government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory was the catalyst. Factual evidence and science do not support Washington’s conspiracy theory. The 9/11 Commission did not conduct an investigation. It was not permitted to investigate. The Commission sat and listened to the government’s story and wrote it down. Afterwards, the chairman and cochairman of the Commission said that the Commission “was set up to fail.” For a factual explanation of 9/11, watch this film:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsoY3AIRUGA&feature=youtu.be
Here is a presentation by Pilots For 9/11 Truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Laaq44SDgg
Here is an extensive examination of many of the aspects of 9/11:http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167
Phil Restino of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace wants to know why national antiwar organizations buy into the official 9/11 story when the official story is the basis for the wars that antiwar organizations oppose. Some are beginning to wonder if ineffectual peace groups are really Homeland Security or CIA fronts?
The account below of the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory reads like a parody, but in fact is an accurate summary of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. It was posted as a comment in the online UK Telegraph on September 12, 2009, in response to Charlie Sheen’s request to President Obama to conduct a real investigation into what happened on September 11, 2001.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/6177194/Charlie-Sheen-urges-Barack-Obama-to-reopen-911-investigation-in-video-message.html#disqus_thread
The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this:
Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah. Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Dying Institutions Of Western Civilization
The Dying Institutions Of Western Civilization
nothing is left
Judiciary Branch Has Self-Abolished
The US no longer has a judiciary. This former branch of government has transitioned into an enabler of executive branch fascism.
Privacy is a civil liberty protected by the US Constitution. The Constitution relies on courts to enforce its prohibitions against intrusive government, but if the executive branch claims (no proof required) “national security,” courts kiss the Constitution good-bye.
Federal judges are chosen by the executive branch. The senate can refuse to confirm, but that is rare. The executive branch chooses judges who are friendly to executive power. This is especially the case for the appeals courts and the Supreme Court. The Justice (sic) Department keeps tabs on district court judges who rule against the government, and these judges don’t make it to the higher courts. The result over time is to erode civil liberty.
Recently a three-judge panel of the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the National Security Agency can continue its mass surveillance of the US population without showing cause. The panel avoided the constitutional question by ruling on procedural terms that NSA had a right to withhold the information that would prove the plaintiffs’ case.
By refusing to extend the section of the USA PATRIOT Act—a name that puts a patriotic sheen on Orwellian totalitarianism—that gave carte blanche to the NSA and by passing the USA Freedom Act, Congress attempted to give NSA’s spying a constitutional patina. The USA Freedom Act allows the telecom companies to spy on us and collect all of our communications data and for NSA to access the data by obtaining a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. The Freedom Act protects constitutional procedures by requiring NSA to go through the motions, but it does not prevent telecom companies from invading our privacy in behalf of NSA.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Where is Neo When We Need Him
Where is Neo When We Need Him
In The Matrix in which Americans live, nothing is ever their fault. For example, the current decline in the US stock market is not because years of excessive liquidity supplied by the Federal Reserve have created a bubble so overblown that a mere six stocks, some of which have no earnings commiserate with their price, accounted for more than all of the gain in market capitalization in the S&P 500 prior to the current disruption.
In our Matrix existence, the stock market decline is not due to corporations using their profits, and even taking out loans, to repurchase their shares, thus creating an artificial demand for their equity shares.
The decline is not due to the latest monthly reporting of durable goods orders falling on a year-to-year basis for the sixth consecutive month.
The stock market decline is not due to a weak economy in which after a decade of alleged economic recovery, new and existing home sales are still down by 63% and 23% from the peak in July 2005.
The stock market decline is not due to the collapse in real median family income and, thereby, consumer demand, resulting from two decades of offshoring middle class jobs and partially replacing them with minimum wage part-time Walmart jobs without benefits that do not provide sufficient income to form a household.
No, none of these facts can be blamed. The decline in the US stock market is the fault of China.
What did China do? China is accused of devaluing by a small amount its currency.
Why would a slight adjustment in the yuan’s exchange value to the dollar cause the US and European stock markets to decline?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
