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When a system enters into the final stage of its deterioration – whether that is an institutional system, a state, an empire, or the human body – all the important information flows that support coherent communication breakdown. In this final stage, if this situation is not corrected the system will collapse and die.

It has become obvious to nearly everyone that we have reached this stage on the planet and in our democratic institutions. We see how the absolute dysfunction of the global information architecture — represented in the intersection of mainstream media outlets, social technology platforms and giant digital aggregators — is generating widespread apathy, despair, insanity and madness at a scale that is terrifying.

And we are right to be terrified, because this situation is paralyzing us from taking the action required to solve global and local challenges. While liberals fight conservatives and conservatives fight liberals we lose precious time.

While progressives fight government, the corporations and the super-rich we drown in despair. While philanthropists, fueled by their own certainty and wealth, fight for justice or equality or for some poor hamlet in Africa we become apathetic and distracted from the real source of the problem. And while the president fights everyone and everyone fights the president, the collective goes mad.

In the background, however, the game of hoarding resources and not redistributing them accelerates; absorbing the sum total of our collective actions and commitments into a singular unacceptable future. There is only one way to avoid this fate; uncover the source of the disease and cure it by mobilizing solutions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Internecine Deep State Conflict Moves to Stage Two

December 1, 2017

The Internecine Deep State Conflict Moves to Stage Two

It now seems evident that the Neoliberal Camp of the U.S. Deep State is highly vulnerable on an individual basis.

I tend to notice things like a year-old blog entry suddenly getting thousands of page views. The essay that received a surge of recent interest: Is the Deep State at War–With Itself? (December 13, 2016).

I’m reprinting the essay below for those interested, as nothing has emerged to change the conclusions.

That in itself reveals that the internecine war within America’s Deep State is if anything heating up as those attempting to hang a “Russian collusion” narrative on their Deep State opponents have failed to produce any proof of this collusion despite a year of effort.

Then all of a sudden big political donor Harvey Weinstein gets taken down for behaviors that have been well-known within the circles of power for 20+ years. So what changed? Why did Mr. Weinstein’s protective wall suddenly fail after serving him so effectively for decades?

But Mr. Weinstein was only the first to fall. Now high-profile figures across the mainstream media are toppling like dominoes. Doesn’t it seem a bit peculiar that all these Protected Privileged are suddenly being exposed, disgraced and removed from positions of influence and power?

Maybe it’s just random coincidence, but I doubt it. It has the scent of an intentional covert campaign. It’s well known that the mainstream media and Hollywood has been in bed with the security agencies for decades, and so it seems non-random that suddenly all these big-shots have lost their Protected Privileged Status more or less at once.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it looks like those who played on the losing side’s team (or cheered from the sidelines) just had their privileges revoked.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America’s Righteous Russia-gate Censorship

November 18, 2017

America’s Righteous Russia-gate Censorship

Exclusive: Arriving behind the anti-Trump “resistance” and the Russia-gate “scandal” is a troubling readiness to silence dissent in the U.S., shutting down information that challenges Official Narratives, writes Robert Parry.

A stark difference between today’s Washington and when I was here as a young Associated Press correspondent in the late 1970s and the early 1980s is that then – even as the old Cold War was heating up around the election of Ronald Reagan – there were prominent mainstream journalists who looked askance at the excessive demonization of the Soviet Union and doubted wild claims about the dire threats to U.S. national security from Nicaragua and Grenada.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin wall, Dec. 6, 2016. (Photo by Robert Parry)

Perhaps the Vietnam War was still fresh enough in people’s minds that senior editors and national reporters understood the dangers of mindless groupthink inside Official Washington, as well as the importance of healthy skepticism toward official pronouncements from the U.S. intelligence community.

Today, however, I cannot think of a single prominent figure in the mainstream news media who questions any claim – no matter how unlikely or absurd – that vilifies Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country. It is all Russia-bashing all the time.

And, behind this disturbing anti-Russian uniformity are increasing assaults against independent and dissident journalists and news outlets outside the mainstream. We’re not just entering a New Cold War and a New McCarthyism; we’re also getting a heavy dose of old-style Orwellianism.

Sometimes you see this in individual acts like HuffingtonPost taking down a well-reported story by journalist Joe Lauria because he dared to point out that Democratic money financed the two initial elements of what’s now known as Russia-gate: the forensic examination of computers at the Democratic National Committee and the opposition research on Donald Trump conducted by ex-British spy Christopher Steele.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mark Zuckerberg’s Long Litany Of Failings – Mainstream Media Turns On Social Media

November 17, 2017

Mark Zuckerberg’s Long Litany Of Failings – Mainstream Media Turns On Social Media

The mainstream media is a fickle beast beholden to the direction of the prevailing political winds. Unfortunately for Facebook, Google and Twitter, those winds have turned about face in recent weeks as the political establishment thrashes about in its misguided efforts to prove that – aided by social media – Russia changed the course of the 2016 presidential election. While Facebook’s share price has suffered very little so far, the mainstream media is going to work on the reputations of Facebook and its billionaire founder. For example, according to Vanity Fair last month.

“…the tech giant is broadly focused on repairing its reputation following revelations that its platform was weaponized by Russia in the 2016 election.”

“Weaponized” seemed a very strong word to use.

With the social media platform deemed “fair game” in the mainstream media, the Financial Times has lined up Mark Zuckerberg in its crosshairs. The FT journalist who penned the piece on Zuckerberg, Edward Luce, is cut from establishment cloth…and then some. Luce is the son of Richard Luce, now Baron Luce, the former MP, former Lord Chamberlain to the Queen and Knight of the Garter. Edward Luce read PPE at Oxford, took a sabbatical as a speech writer for Larry Summers and is the FT’s chief US commentator.

We are no fans of Zuckerberg and sympathise with some of it, but we recognise a hatchet job when we see it. In the article, Luce accuses Zuckerberg of…

Self-evident observation, or “stating the bleeding obvious”, to use the English vernacular:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. SHALE OIL PRODUCTION UPDATE: Financial Carnage Continues To Gut Industry

November 15, 2017

U.S. SHALE OIL PRODUCTION UPDATE: Financial Carnage Continues To Gut Industry

As the Mainstream media reports about the next phase of the glorious U.S. Shale Oil Revolution, the financial carnage continues to gut the industry deep down inside the entrails of its horizontal laterals. The stench of fracking fluid must be driving shale oil advocates utterly insane as they are no longer able to see the financial wreckage taking place in these companies quarterly reports.

This weekend, one of my readers sent me the following Bloomberg 45 minute TV special titled, The Next Shale Revolution. If you are in need of a good laugh, I highly recommend watching part of the video. At the beginning of the video, it starts off with President Trump stating that the U.S. has become an energy exporter for the first time ever. Trump goes on to say, “that powered by new innovation and technology, we are now on the cusp of a new energy revolution.” While I have to applaud Trump’s efforts for putting out some positive and reassuring news, I wonder who is providing him with terribly inaccurate energy information.

I would kindly like to remind the reader; the United States is still a NET IMPORTER of oil. We still import nearly six million barrels of oil per day, but we export some finished products and a percentage of our shale oil production. Thus, we still import a net of approximately three million barrels per day of oil.

A few minutes into the Bloomberg video, both Pioneer Resources Chairman, Scott Sheffield, and Continental Resources CEO, Harold Hamm, explain how advanced technology will revolutionize the shale oil industry and bring down costs. I find that statement quite hilarious as Continental Resources and Pioneer continue to spend more money drilling for oil and gas then they make from their operations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sweden: The World’s Biggest Housing Bubble Cracks

November 15, 2017

Sweden: The World’s Biggest Housing Bubble Cracks

Sweden’s property bubble is probably the world’s biggest, despite which it gets relatively little coverage in the mainstream financial media – although that might be about to change. Warnings about this bubble are not new. In March 2016, Moody’s issued a very explicit warning that Sweden’s negative interest rates were propagating an unsustainable housing bubble.

The central banks of Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden (all rated Aaa stable) have been among the first to push policy rates into negative territory. A year into this novel experience, Moody’s Investors Service concludes that, from among the three countries, Sweden is most at risk of an – ultimately unsustainable – asset bubble…

“The Riksbank has not been successful in engineering higher inflation, while Sweden’s GDP growth continues to be among the strongest in the advanced economies,” says Kathrin Muehlbronner, a Senior Vice President at Moody’s.

“At the same time, the unintended consequences of the ultra-loose monetary policy are becoming increasingly apparent – in the form of rapidly rising house prices and persistently strong growth in mortgage credit”, adds Ms Muehlbronner. In Moody’s view, these trends will likely continue as interest rates will remain low, raising the risk of a house price bubble, with potentially adverse effects on financial stability as and when house prices reverse trends.

In October 2016, the Riksbank’s Governor, Stefan Ingves, spoke in grave terms to the FT about the impact of negative rates on house prices.

But despite a lack of drama so far, Mr Ingves remains worried about a bad ending due to risks over financial stability.

He said: “It remains an issue because we are mismanaging our housing market. Our housing market isn’t under control, in my view.” The ratio of household debt to disposable income in Sweden is one of the highest in the world at more than 180 per cent and the Riksbank estimates it will continue to rise in the coming years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Make No Mistake: “Tensions Are Heating Up” With North Korea

November 5, 2017

Make No Mistake: “Tensions Are Heating Up” With North Korea

kimjongunwar

Unprecedented actions occurred over the last two weeks as the tensions between the United States and North Korea remain at an all-time high. The North Koreans (as reported by Reuters and AP news) have been conducting mass evacuation drills for cities and towns. These drills have been augmented with “blackout” drills, where lights are either cut or masked in homes and businesses to make them less readily visible.

U.S. Secretary of defense Mattis has announced that President Trump (who travels with the “football,” the apparatus with the nuclear launch codes) will not be limited by Congress and will act on his (the President’s) executive authority to conduct a first-strike against North Korea. Mattis went on to say that such would occur if North Korea had either launched, or if a launch was imminent against the U.S. Although these statements were not ambiguous, the latter is certainly subjective: after a nuclear war or strike, how would it be verified that a launch by North Korea had been imminent?

A new Cold War has taken shape and materialized over the course of the past several years. The Mainstream Media (MSM) is quick to “paint” one side as the “hero/good guy” and the other as the “villain.” In this case the villain in journalistic obfuscation (the piece is “journalistic” and not objective journalism) is the The Sun. Here are two excerpts. You make the call, with the underlined words being the “sticking point”:

“President Donald Trump sent a nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on a long-range mission to the Pacific this weekend.”

Here’s number two:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bombshell Revelation of US and Saudi Culpability in Creating ISIS Ignored by Mainstream Media – and by the Team Trump

November 4, 2017

Bombshell Revelation of US and Saudi Culpability in Creating ISIS Ignored by Mainstream Media – and by the Team Trump

Here it is, right from the horse’s mouth! Qatar’s former prime minister spills his guts about how his country worked with Saudi Arabia and Turkey under the direction of the United States – meaning then the Obama Administration – to funnel arms and money to jihad terrorists in Syria:

‘The explosive interview constitutes a high level “public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda.” … Former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who oversaw Syria operations on behalf of Qatar until 2013,… said while acknowledging Gulf nations were arming jihadists in Syria with the approval and support of US and Turkey: “I don’t want to go into details but we have full documents about us taking charge [in Syria].” He claimed that both Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah (who reigned until his death in 2015) and the United States placed Qatar in a lead role concerning covert operations to execute the proxy war.

‘The former prime minister’s comments, while very revealing, were intended as a defense and excuse of Qatar’s support for terrorism, and as a critique of the US and Saudi Arabia for essentially leaving Qatar “holding the bag” in terms of the war against Assad. Al-Thani explained that Qatar continued its financing of armed insurgents in Syria while other countries eventually wound down large-scale support, which is why he lashed out at the US and the Saudis, who initially “were with us in the same trench.”’ [“In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War,” Zero Hedge, October 29]

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

JFK Files: Cover-Up Continues of President’s Assassination

October 30, 2017

JFK Files: Cover-Up Continues of President’s Assassination

The murder of President John F Kennedy 54 years ago has been described as the “crime of the century”. If US and Western news media cannot discuss this seminal event openly and honestly, let alone investigate it, then what does that say about their credibility?

Such systematic media denial of reality inflicts irreparable damage to their credibility. How can they be taken seriously on any other matter, whether it is claims of “Russian meddling” or about the war in Syria, or the claims justifying Washington’s aggression towards Iran and North Korea?

The astounding media denial over JFK’s assassination is a symptom of the tacit totalitarianism that passes for “Western democracy”.

The release this week of secret government papers on the killing of President Kennedy was billed as a day of revelation and reckoning. Closer to the truth is that the shocking murder of Kennedy continues to be covered-up by the US deep state.

The premise of “revelation and reckoning” is absurdly false and naive. The notion that US authorities would “finally come clean” on what happened that day in Dallas is not only flawed. It also creates the illusion that the controversy has finally been settled, thereby supposedly confirming the official version that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone malcontent, Lee Harvey Oswald.

CNN reported the release of official documents this week thus: “More than 50 years after President John F Kennedy was killed, Americans on Thursday may finally get the US government’s full accounting… to quell conspiracy theories that have long swirled around the assassination.”

The New York Times wrote: “The final trove of sealed government records to be released” will lay to rest the “grand-daddy of all conspiracy theories”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This and That Vol 3 – Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

October 30, 2017

This and That Vol 3 – Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

There are a couple of phrases I often use to neatly describe the personal and social dysfunction exploding into view these days. On the personal side, my “We are only as sick as our deepest darkest secrets” perfectly illustrates how personally damaging those things are that we hide from everyone, especially ourselves.

Since a society is composed of, and accurately reflects, its individual citizens, it stands to reason this dysfunction would reverberate throughout society even if it manifested differently on an individual basis. It is entirely possible, and in fact a regular occurrence, for hundreds of millions of people to share a ‘secret’ by simply not talking about the root issues of our social dysfunction.

We as a society will nearly always talk over, under and around the core issues that are slowly grinding away at our sanity. Therefore “What is not discussed is far more important that what is”. A perfect example of this is the recent silliness of mass righteous indignation about kneeling or not during an act of coerced/conditioned symbolism (the ‘national anthem’) when so many far more important things are ignored like monsters hidden under the bed.

What is often lost by those on the sidelines, either participating in the drama or confused why there is so much ado about nothing, is that the drama IS necessary both for the participants and the viewers. It does not matter which side of the divide we lay on, only that we are engaged in not talking about the things we do not wish to talk about.

To many people my statements above will ring as nonsensical, even ridiculous, because in their view we talk incessantly about everything. The internet sees to that, which is abuzz with endless conversations and dialogue.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War

October 28, 2017

In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War

A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict.

And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level “public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda.” Importantly, “this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims.”

A 2013 London press conference: Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. A 2014 Hillary Clinton email confirmed Qatar as a state-sponsor of ISIS during that same time period.

As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Downright Sinister Rearrangement of Riches

October 27, 2017

The Downright Sinister Rearrangement of Riches

Simple Classifications

Let’s begin with facts. Cold hard unadorned facts. Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit at standard atmospheric pressure. Squaring the circle using a compass and straightedge is impossible. The sun is a star.

The sun is not just a star, it is a benevolent star. Look, it is smiling… sort of. [PT]

Facts, of course, must not be confused with opinions, which are based upon observations. Barack Obama throws like a girl. The Federal Register is for idiots. Two slices of chocolate cake are one too many. Are these opinions right or wrong?

The answer depends on who you ask. What’s certain about opinions, however, is that like bellybuttons, everybody has one. Moreover, unlike free drugs from the government, everyone is in fact entitled to their own opinion.

Moving on from facts and opinions, the next classification we encounter is the wholly asinine. This broadly contains the absurd and ridiculous. Take most university teachers, barring natural science professors, for instance. They’re wholly asinine. The wholly asinine also extends to editors at the New York Times, Washington Post, circus hunchbacks, and the like.

Lastly, we want to mention the downright sinister. This includes sociopaths like Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, nearly all of Congress, the Federal Reserve, fractional reserve banking, Washington lobbyists, a good part of Wall Street, and much, much more. Clearly, such people and professions don’t represent honest work. Rather, they epitomize less than honest work that’s performed by less than honest people.
Sinister mafia boss from Arkansas, possibly checking classified material on private phone… [PT] Photo credit: AP

Nixon Casts the Die

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Dear Spain, Mainstream Media: A Majority of Catalans Want Independence (Stop Saying Otherwise)

October 24, 2017

Dear Spain, Mainstream Media: A Majority of Catalans Want Independence (Stop Saying Otherwise)

Even though 92% of voters in the Catalonia election voted for independence, mainstream media keeps repeating the lie that a majority in Catalonia were against independence. Here’s the real math.

Mainstream Media Lies

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal repeated this frequently stated lie “A majority of Catalonia’s 7.5 million inhabitants don’t support independence, recent polls show.”

Today, ABC news repeated the stale news we have heard so many times before: “Until this crisis erupted, polls showed about 70 per cent of Catalans wanted to vote in an independence referendum. But only 41 per cent were actually in favour of cutting ties with Spain.”

These media outlets all parrot each other. Lies get repeated over and over and over. The Guardian and countless other places made the statement. No one bothers to link to or even cite the date of the “recent poll”.

I believe the allegedly “recent” poll was taken in July. Regardless, it was superseded by a more recent poll.

Most Recent Poll

The most recent poll was taken October 1. The results are as posted above. Counting ballots confiscated by Madrid, the real turnout was 57%.

Some may dispute the number of confiscated ballots. Don’t blame me, blame Madrid. If Madrid did not confiscate ballots and prevent people from voting, that reporting issue would not be in play.

It’s a certainty those confiscated ballots were overwhelmingly in favor of independence. In addition to the confiscated ballots, many who wanted to vote were forced away by Madrid police.

Its likely that yes had an outright majority from the 770,000 stolen votes alone. Add in other suppressed votes and its a certainty yes had an outright majority.

Dear mainstream media, the majority of Catalonia wanted independence. Please stop your lies.

Linking Hurricanes to Climate Change? Not So Easy.

October 23, 2017

Linking Hurricanes to Climate Change? Not So Easy.

The text below a reposting of something that I published on Oct 2, 2017 on “Medium”. On the basis of data from Google Trends, I proposed that, on the average, the public had not perceived the link of climate change with the spate of hurricanes of 2017. A few weeks later, it seems that my observation was correct: the latest polls indicate that the American public is slowly (very slowly) awakening to the idea of human-caused climate change, but that the 2017 hurricane season has not triggered a substantial change of views. Here is the post.

Above: the results of a Google Trends search for the term “climate change”. The recent wave of Caribbean hurricanes has had little effect on the number of searches on the Web. Most people just didn’t think that hurricanes and climate change are linked to each other.

We all live inside our specific information cocoons where we hear from sources we tend to trust.

If you, like me, live in a cocoon where it is generally agreed that human-caused climate change is real and dangerous, then you would think that the recent series of hurricanes hitting the US should have made a great impact on the public perception of the climate change threat. The impression I had from the messages I received and what I read from my sources of information is of an onrush of excitation that made it clear to everybody sane in his/her mind that we need to act against climate change before it is too late.

Ahem, no.

This is a classic example of the working of echo chambers. Out there, in the world of the mainstream media, the link between hurricanes and climate change was occasionally mentioned but that had little or no effect on people’s perception of the issue.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

ABC & Fake News

October 21, 2017

ABC & Fake News

Murrow Edward R (1908-1965)

ABC News has indeed violated the principles of a Free Press and is the example why the old Fairness Doctrine should be restored. ABC News has come out and wrote: “Every American president has sparred with the press and fought back against stories unflattering or unfair. But no sitting president has in decades suggested media organizations should be shut down or that the federal government should consider curtailing their content or reach.”

The press thinks it is their right to push their agenda on the people. They no longer report the news, but twist it for their agenda be it left or right. It was back in a 1958 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association when veteran CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow told a room full of TV executives: “We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent.” Murrow produced a series of reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his trumped up witch hunt for communists when it was revealed that he was just making accusations without evidence.

Murrow was one of the journalism’s greatest figures, noting his honesty and integrity in delivering the news. That stature of ethics has been lost which some news organizations like CNN produce fake news not just on Trump, but of everything they touch right down to exaggerating the hurricane in Florida.

Edward Murrow used his position to take on powerful politicians and defend the American people, a free press as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. He also exposed issues such as segregation and warned that the new TV medium was being used to “distract, delude, amuse and insulate” the public.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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