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More Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: This Time, They’re Coming for Your Democracy

October 4, 2016

More Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: This Time, They’re Coming for Your Democracy

Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.” Today, he says “things have just gotten so much worse.”
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John Perkins. Photo by Paul Dunn.

Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations.

I couldn’t help but think about Flint, Michigan, under emergency management as I read The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Perkins was recruited, he says, by the National Security Agency (NSA), but he worked for a private consulting company. His job as an undertrained, overpaid economist was to generate reports that justified lucrative contracts for U.S. corporations, while plunging vulnerable nations into debt. Countries that didn’t cooperate saw the screws tightened on their economies. In Chile, for example, President Richard Nixon famously called on the CIA to “make the economy scream” to undermine the prospects of the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.

If economic pressure and threats didn’t work, Perkins says, the jackals were called to either overthrow or assassinate the noncompliant heads of state. That is, indeed, what happened to Allende, with the backing of the CIA.

Perkins’ book has been controversial, and some have disputed some of his claims, including, for example, that the NSA was involved in activities beyond code making and breaking.

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

New Film Tells the Story of Edward Snowden; Here Are the Surveillance Programs He Helped Expose

September 17, 2016

OLIVER STONE’S LATEST film, “Snowden,” bills itself as a dramatized version of the life of Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who revealed the global extent of U.S. surveillance capabilities.

Stone’s rendering of Snowden’s life combines facts with Hollywood invention, covering Snowden being discharged from the military after an injury in basic training, meeting his girlfriend, and training in the CIA with fictitious mentors (including Nicolas Cage’s character, most likely a composite of whistleblowers like Thomas Drake and Bill Binney). Snowden then goes undercover, only to see an op turn ugly; becomes a contractor for the CIA and NSA; and finally chooses to leave the intelligence community and disclose its vast surveillance apparatus, some of which he helped develop.

The movie hits key points in Snowden’s story, including his growing interest in constitutional law and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, some of the U.S. surveillance programs he eventually unmasked, and parts of his furtive meetings in Hong Kong with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras (co-founders of The Intercept), as well as The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill.

There are doses of artistic license — for example, a Rubik’s Cube hiding the drive where he stored the documents, and Snowden’s CIA mentor spying on his girlfriend through her webcam. In hazier focus are the global questions his revelations raised, including the legal and moral implications of the U.S. government collecting data on foreigners and Americans with relative impunity, and the very real stories born of Snowden’s massive disclosures.

So here’s a retrospective of sorts for moviegoers and others interested in the journalism Edward Snowden made possible through his decision to become a whistleblower: In all, over 150 articles from 23 news organizations worldwide have incorporated documents provided by Snowden, and The Intercept and other outlets continue to mine the archive for stories of social and political significance.

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

The Mainstream Has Failed

August 16, 2016

The Mainstream Has Failed

The good news is there is a way to avoid failure and stagnation: avoid the mainstream like the plague.

The mainstream became mainstream because it worked: the mainstream advice to “go to college and you’ll get a good job” worked, the mainstream financial plan of buying a house to build equity to pass on to your children worked, the mainstream of government regulation worked to the public’s advantage at modest cost to taxpayers and the mainstream media, despite being cozy with government agencies such as the C.I.A. and operating as a profit machine for the families that owned the newspapers, radio stations, etc., functioned as a basically honest broker of information and reporting.

Now, the mainstream has failed. Mainstream career advice now leads to crushing debts and career stagnation, mainstream financial planning generates high risks, mainstream government regulations are costly and burdensome, and the mainstream media is little more than a corporate-owned mouthpiece of propaganda and distributor of infotainment that is sold as “news.”

Does anyone actually believe the mainstream political process isn’t broken? Those who claim it isn’t broken are either well-paid shills just doing their job or they’re delusional.

The mainstream American diet now leads to chronic disease and early death.Supersized portions, large amounts of sugar and/or salt in virtually every packaged food item, heavy doses of low-quality fats in almost all mainstream fast foods–these have become mainstream at a very high cost in diminished health and reduced years of life free of chronic disease and pain.

The mainstream level of fitness contributes to chronic disease and early death.The mainstream lifestyle is one in which people passively watch a few daredevils pursue extreme sports on a variety of digital screens, passively “consume” music rather than learning to play music themselves, passively consume “news” rather than being engaged in community activities that make news, and so on.

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

29 Pages Revealed: Corruption, Crime and Cover-up Of 9/11

July 17, 2016

29 Pages Revealed: Corruption, Crime and Cover-up Of 9/11

By Kristen Breitweiser, one of the four 9/11 widows – known as the “Jersey Girls” – instrumental in forcing the government to form the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 2001 attacks. Follow Kristen Breitweiser on Twitter: .

First and foremost, here is what you need to know when you listen to any member of our government state that the newly released 29 pages are no smoking gun — THEY ARE LYING.

Our government’s relationship to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is no different than an addict’s relationship to heroin. Much like a heroin addict who will lie, cheat, and steal to feed their vice, certain members of our government will lie, cheat, and steal to continue their dysfunctional and deadly relationship with the KSA — a relationship that is rotting this nation and its leaders from the inside out.

When CIA Director John Brennan states that he believes the 29 pages prove that the government of Saudi Arabia had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks, recognize that John Brennan is not a man living in reality — he is delusional by design, feeding and protecting his Saudi vice.

When Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Anne W. Patterson, testifies — under oath — that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an ally that does everything they can to help us fight against Islamic terrorism, recognize that her deep, steep Saudi pandering serves and protects only her Saudi vice.

Read the 29 pages and know the facts.

Do not let any person in our government deny the damning reality of the 29 pages.

And as you read the 29 pages remember that they were written during 2002 and 2003.

President Bush did not want the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia investigated. President Bush has deep ties to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its royal family and only wanted to protect the Kingdom. President Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq — not Saudi Arabia.

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

Atlantic Article on Hollywood Misses Powerful Points About CIA Control

July 17, 2016

Atlantic Article on Hollywood Misses Powerful Points About CIA Control

How the CIA Hoodwinked Hollywood Since its inception, the agency has wooed filmmakers, producers, and actors in order to present a rosy portrait of its operations to the American public. –Atlantic

This is a good article by the Atlantic, a neo-con publication that aspires to be a “thought publication.”

This article rehearses the history of the CIA in Hollywood and, in fact, is fairly comprehensive and touches on a number of compelling points.

More;

The CIA has a long history of “spooking the news,” dating back to its earliest days when the legendary spymaster Allen Dulles and his top staff drank and dined regularly with the press elite of New York and Washington, and the agency boasted hundreds of U.S. and foreign journalists as paid and unpaid assets.

In 1977, after this systematic media manipulation was publicly exposed by congressional investigations, the CIA created an Office of Public Affairs that was tasked with guiding press coverage of intelligence matters in a more transparent fashion.

The agency insists that it no longer maintains a stable of friendly American journalists, and that its efforts to influence the press are much more above board. But, in truth, the intelligence empire’s efforts to manufacture the truth and mold public opinion are more vast and varied than ever before. One of its foremost assets? Hollywood.

This is an honest appraisal so far as it goes. As is the article’s conclusion:

With few exceptions, Hollywood has long functioned as a propaganda factory, churning out jingoistic revenge-fantasy films in which American audiences are allowed to exorcise their post-9/11 demons by watching the satisfying slaughter of countless onscreen jihadis.

This never-ending parade of square-jawed secret agents and bearded, pumped-up commandos pitted against swarthy Muslim madmen straight out of central casting has been aided and abetted by a newly emboldened CIA all too happy to offer its “services” to Hollywood.

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

FBI Caught Planting Microphones Under Rocks, Inside Light Fixtures, and at Bus Stops in California

May 16, 2016

FBI Caught Planting Microphones Under Rocks, Inside Light Fixtures, and at Bus Stops in California

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When a reporter for the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command interviewed Frank Zappa for the commands news syndicate, the story was held by a superior who demanded that Zappa – who had been rather hard on the army – answer one more question: just who does he think will defend the country without the army? 

Zappa’s reply: “From what? The biggest threat to America today is it’s own federal government…. Will the Army protect anybody from the FBI? The IRS? The CIA? The Republican Party? The Democratic Party?….The biggest dangers we face today don’t even need to sneak past our billion dollar defense system….they issue the contracts for them.” The interview was not run. 

*Note: It’s uncertain whether the above exchange ever took place, since the interview was never run. Nevertheless, the point is clear, instructive and serves as the perfect introduction for this post, whether the words were actually said or not.

One of the greatest afflictions affecting these United States at the moment is the general public’s overwhelming gullibility when it comes to government. You may think this sounds insane given surveys that consistently show Congress with a less than 10% approval rating, but I think this clouds the fact that most people have yet to accept just how completely corrupt and authoritarian government has actually become.

I don’t mean for this to become some sort of big rant against government in general. Our founders set up a brilliant system which has served the country well for over two centuries. What people seem to forget is our system of government wasn’t set up to create a new set of parental authority figures for the public.

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

 

Somnolent Europe, Russia, and China

May 6, 2016

Somnolent Europe, Russia, and China

Can the world wake up?

On September 19, 2000, going on 16 years ago, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraphreported:

“Declassified American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement.

“The documents confirm suspicions voiced at the time that America was working aggressively behind the scenes to push Britain into a European state. One memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen. William J. Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.”

The documents show that the European Union was a creature of the CIA. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1356047/Euro-federalists-financed-by-US-spy-chiefs.html

As I have previously written, Washington believes that it is easier to control one government, the EU, than to control many separate European governments. As Washington has a long term investment in orchestrating the European Union, Washington is totally opposed to any country exiting the arrangement. That is why President Obama recently went to London to tell his lapdog, the British Prime Minister, that there could be no British exit.

Like other European nations, the British people were never allowed to vote on whether they were in favor of their country ceasing to exist and them becoming Europeans. British history would become the history of a bygone people like the Romans and Babylonians.

The oppressive nature of unaccountable EU laws and regulations and the EU requirement to accept massive numbers of third world immigrants have created a popular demand for a British vote on whether to remain a sovereign country or to dissolve and submit to Brussels and its dictatorial edicts. The vote is scheduled for June 23.

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

Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance

May 4, 2016

Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance

“I’VE BEEN WAITING 40 years for someone like you.” Those were the first words Daniel Ellsberg spoke to me when we met last year. Dan and I felt an immediate kinship; we both knew what it meant to risk so much — and to be irrevocably changed — by revealing secret truths.

One of the challenges of being a whistleblower is living with the knowledge that people continue to sit, just as you did, at those desks, in that unit, throughout the agency, who see what you saw and comply in silence, without resistance or complaint. They learn to live not just with untruths but with unnecessary untruths, dangerous untruths, corrosive untruths. It is a double tragedy: What begins as a survival strategy ends with the compromise of the human being it sought to preserve and the diminishing of the democracy meant to justify the sacrifice.

But unlike Dan Ellsberg, I didn’t have to wait 40 years to witness other citizens breaking that silence with documents. Ellsberg gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and other newspapers in 1971; Chelsea Manning provided the Iraq and Afghan War logs and the Cablegate materials to WikiLeaks in 2010. I came forward in 2013. Now here we are in 2016, and another person of courage and conscience has made available the set of extraordinary documents that are published in The Assassination Complex, the new book out today by Jeremy Scahill and the staff of The Intercept. (The documents were originally published last October 15 in The Drone Papers.)

We are witnessing a compression of the working period in which bad policy shelters in the shadows, the time frame in which unconstitutional activities can continue before they are exposed by acts of conscience.

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

How the CIA Writes History

April 25, 2016

LAST SUMMER I PAID a visit to Georgetown University’s Lauinger Library as part of my research on legendary CIA counterspy James Jesus Angleton. I went there to investigate Angleton’s famous mole hunt, one of the least flattering episodes of his eventful career. By the early 1960s, Angleton was convinced the KGB had managed to insert a penetration agent high in the ranks of the CIA.

In researching and writing a biography of Angleton, I constantly confront a conundrum: Was the man utterly brilliant? Or completely nuts?

Angleton is one of America’s archetypal spies. He was the model for Harlot in Harlot’s Ghost, Norman Mailer’s epic of the CIA, a brooding Cold War spirit hovering over a story of corrupted idealism. In Robert De Niro’s cinematic telling of the tale, The Good Shepherd, the Angletonian character was a promising product of the system who loses his way in the moral labyrinth of secret intelligence operations.

In real life, Jim Angleton was a formidable intellectual and canny bureaucrat who helped shape the ethos of the Central Intelligence Agency we have today. His doctrine of counterintelligence was widely influential, not only in the CIA but in the intelligence services of all the English-speaking countries. He pioneered pre-digital techniques of mass surveillance via an illicit mail-opening program called LINGUAL. He fed the intel to J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO operatives at the FBI who used it to harass, disrupt, and discredit leftist, antiwar, and civil rights groups from the 1950s to the 1970s. His close liaison with the Mossad in the 1950s and 1960s helped forge a wide-ranging U.S.-Israel strategic relationship that has been central to U.S. foreign policy ever since.

Like them or not, his accomplishments were large. So were his mistakes.

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

The CIA is Investing in Firms That Mine Your Tweets and Instagram Photos

April 15, 2016

SOFT ROBOTS THAT can grasp delicate objects, computer algorithms designed to spot an “insider threat,” and artificial intelligence that will sift through large data sets — these are just a few of the technologies being pursued by companies with investment from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm, according to a document obtained by The Intercept.

Yet among the 38 previously undisclosed companies receiving In-Q-Tel funding, the research focus that stands out is social media mining and surveillance; the portfolio document lists several tech companies pursuing work in this area, including Dataminr, Geofeedia, PATHAR, and TransVoyant.

In-Q-Tel’s investment process.

Screen grab from In-Q-Tel’s website.

Those four firms, which provide unique tools to mine data from platforms such as Twitter, presented at a February “CEO Summit” in San Jose sponsored by the fund, along with other In-Q-Tel portfolio companies.

The investments appear to reflect the CIA’s increasing focus on monitoring social media. Last September, David Cohen, the CIA’s second-highest ranking official, spoke at length at Cornell University about a litany of challenges stemming from the new media landscape. The Islamic State’s “sophisticated use of Twitter and other social media platforms is a perfect example of the malign use of these technologies,” he said.

Social media also offers a wealth of potential intelligence; Cohen noted that Twitter messages from the Islamic State, sometimes called ISIL, have provided useful information. “ISIL’s tweets and other social media messages publicizing their activities often produce information that, especially in the aggregate, provides real intelligence value,” he said.

The latest round of In-Q-Tel investments comes as the CIA has revamped its outreach to Silicon Valley, establishing a new wing, the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which is tasked with developing and deploying cutting-edge solutions by directly engaging the private sector. The directorate is working closely with In-Q-Tel to integrate the latest technology into agency-wide intelligence capabilities.

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

Swiss Bank Whistleblower Claims Panama Papers Was a CIA Operation

April 12, 2016

Swiss Bank Whistleblower Claims Panama Papers Was a CIA Operation

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Bradley Birkenfeld is the most significant financial whistleblower of all time, so you might think he’d be cheering on the disclosures in the new Panama Papers leaks. But today, Birkenfeld is raising questions about the source of the information that is shaking political regimes around the world. 

“The CIA I’m sure is behind this, in my opinion,” Birkenfeld said. 

– From the CNBC article: Swiss Banker Whistleblower: CIA Behind Panama Papers

Last Friday, I published a post titled, Was the Panama Papers “Leak” a Russian Intelligence Operation? Here’s some of what I wrote:

Initially, this seemed to be a theory worth exploring, but in the following days I’ve come to a far different conclusion. The primary divergence between what I currently believe and what Mr. Murray proposed is that I do not think the leaker was a genuine whistleblower motived by the public interest. I think the leaker was working on behalf of a sophisticated intelligence agency.

The fact that we seem to know nothing about “John Doe” concerns me. Say what you will about Edward Snowden, but he came out publicly shortly after his whistleblowing and offered himself up for the world to judge. His life, career and personality have been put on full display, and each and every one of us has had the opportunity to decide for ourselves whether his motivations were noble and pure or not.

With the Panama Papers’ “John Doe” we are given no such opportunity, and in fact, the whole thing reads very much like a script concocted by some big budget intelligence agency. Once I started coming around to this conclusion, the obvious choice was U.S. intelligence; given the lack of implications to powerful Americans, the clownishly desperate attempts to smear Putin, and the appearance of Soros, USAID, Ford Foundation, etc, linked organizations to the reporting.

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

The American Media Is A CIA Front

April 12, 2016

The American Media Is A CIA Front

I reported honestly the facts of the US coup that overthrew the elected Ukrainian government in 2014 (see my columns in February and March 2014). However, the US print and TV media, led by the New York Times, lied through their teeth.

Indeed, the “mainstream” US media functioned as agent and propagandist for the Washington neoconservatives who destroyed Ukrainian democracy and imposed massive suffering and death on Ukrainians.

There is no crime that the American presstitutes will not commit and no lie that they will not tell.

Yesterday (April 11, 2016) Robert Parry held the sordid presstitutes accountable: https://consortiumnews.com/2016/04/11/yats-is-no-longer-the-guy/

Beauty Secrets of the Spies

April 8, 2016

BEAUTY SECRETS OF THE SPIES

CIA’s Venture Capital Arm Is Funding Skin Care Products That Collect DNA

SKINCENTIAL SCIENCES, a company with an innovative line of cosmetic products marketed as a way to erase blemishes and soften skin, has caught the attention of beauty bloggers on YouTube, Oprah’s lifestyle magazine, and celebrity skin care professionals. Documents obtained by The Interceptreveal that the firm has also attracted interest and funding from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The previously undisclosed relationship with the CIA might come as some surprise to a visitor to the website of Clearista, the main product line of Skincential Sciences, which boasts of a “formula so you can feel confident and beautiful in your skin’s most natural state.”

Though the public-facing side of the company touts a range of skin care products, Skincential Sciences developed a patented technology that removes a thin outer layer of the skin, revealing unique biomarkers that can be used for a variety of diagnostic tests, including DNA collection.

Skincential Science’s noninvasive procedure, described on the Clearista website as “painless,” is said to require only water, a special detergent, and a few brushes against the skin, making it a convenient option for restoring the glow of a youthful complexion — and a novel technique for gathering information about a person’s biochemistry.

clearista-1

A screen grab from the Clearista website.     Image: Clearista.com

In-Q-Tel, founded in 1999 by then-CIA Director George Tenet, identifies cutting-edge technology to support the mission of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, and provides venture funding to help grow tech firms to develop those solutions.

“Our company is an outlier for In-Q-Tel,” Russ Lebovitz, the chief executive of Skincential Sciences, said during an interview with The Intercept. 

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

8 Reasons 9/11 Could NOT Have Been An Inside Job

April 4, 2016

8 Reasons 9/11 Could NOT Have Been An Inside Job

Below, we’ll show that 9/11 could NOT have been an inside job …

I. The 9/11 Commission and Congressional Investigation Into 9/11 All Disproved Any Conspiracy

9/11 was thoroughly and exhaustively investigated by the 9/11 Commission, Congress and U.S. scientific agencies.

This horse has already been beat to death, and anyone who raises questions is a nutjob.

True, the 9/11 Commission didn’t believe that the government told the truth about 9/11,  and said the government obstructed their investigation.

For example:

  • The Commission’s co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”

Some examples of obstruction of justice into the 9/11 investigation include:

  • An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House. As the New York Times notes:

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

Blowback Denial, Climate Denial, and Apocalypse

March 30, 2016

Blowback Denial, Climate Denial, and Apocalypse

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Last week Donald Trump suggested something Bernie Sanders would never dare: getting rid of NATO. I took some time to read people’s comments and tweets online about it, and a huge number seemed to believe that NATO and the U.S. military have been performing a service for Europe, and that it’s time for Europe to pay its own bills. But will someone explain to me what the service is?

The United States dragged NATO into a — thus far — over-14-year-long war on the people of Afghanistan that has turned a country in poor shape into hell on earth, compounding the damage inflicted by U.S. (and Soviet) policies since the 1970s.

The United States dragged European nations into a disastrous war in Iraq in 2003, without NATO. But when Belgium allowed a prosecution of U.S. commander in Iraq Tommy Franks to move forward, Donald Rumsfeld threatened to move NATO headquarters out of Brussels. Franks’ apparent crimes suddenly became part of a noble and legal humanitarian effort.

The United States and France used NATO to destroy Libya in 2011 and proliferate weapons across the region. The United States and Turkey have been compounding the chaos by generating reasons for NATO to exist in Syria. And perhaps NATO headquarters views the wars that created ISIS, and the U.S. support for Al Qaeda in Syria in just those terms. But to an ordinary observer, a war on terrorism that continues to increase terrorism has a fundamental flaw.

Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer says the more the U.S. fights terrorism the more it creates terrorism. U.S. Lt. General Michael Flynn, who quit as head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, says blowing people up with missiles is generating more blowback, not less. The CIA’s own report says drone killing is counterproductive.

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

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