Yearly Archives: 2016

Saturday Matinee: True Legend

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“True Legend” (2010) was directed by legendary director/fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping (best known for Drunken Master, Iron Monkey, Wing Chun, and his work on films such as The Matrix, Kung Fu Hustle, and Fist of Legend among other classics of the genre). The film’s plot is not unlike countless old school martial arts films, following the journey of former general Su Can (Vincent Zhao of The Blade) whose life is shattered by a jealous adopted brother (Andy On). With support from his wife (Xun Zhou), his doctor (Michelle Yeoh), the God of Wushu (Jay Chou) and an old sage (Gordon Liu), Su Can strives to overcome great odds to reunite his family. If you ever hoped to see a Shaw Brothers film with a larger budget and made using modern film techniques, True Legend won’t disappoint. The cast of martial arts veterans are great across the board as are David Carradine (in one of his last roles) and assorted lesser-known western actors as minions.

Watch the full English subtitled film here.

68 Monsanto-Owned Companies To Boycott

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(Editor’s Note:  Tomorrow marks the 4th annual international March Against Monsanto. Whether or not you participate, you can take action in solidarity all year round by refusing to buy products from the companies listed below.)

Monsanto Company Inc. is a well-known, American-owned, multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation. It has been a leading force behind the widespread use of genetically modified seeds, the production of GM food products, and the development and application of associated chemicals.

Specifically, Monsanto’s infamous contribution has been Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide that is promoted as safe and harmless to humans, but is believed by a multitude of experts to be quite the opposite. While the company’s GMO seeds are advertised as requiring a reduced use of pesticides, this has been exposed as a false claim. The company also previously produced such evils as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, aspartame and bovine growth hormone.

All of these chemicals are considered by many to be a threat to global ecosystems, water safety and biodiversity. The residues of Roundup, which remain in genetically modified foods, are believed to cause many dangerous effects to human health, including the death of embryonic cells and extreme damage to the intestinal microbiome.

These foods are ubiquitous, with soy, maize, corn, sorghum, canola, alfalfa and cotton being largely contaminated with Roundup. In a world of modern processed foods, a surprising majority of ingredient lists contain at least one of these items. Many forward-thinking companies and restaurants are now excluding GMOs from their product offerings.

Even more upsetting is that the processed foods containing GMOs are often targeted toward children. Check out this link for a video of Daniel Bissonnette, a nine-year-old Canadian boy who asks why children in particular are subjected to the most toxic food by our society.

Tami Monroe Canal, founder of the worldwide March Against Monsanto movement, sums up the issue by saying, “Monsanto’s predatory business and corporate agricultural practices threatens [this] generation’s health, fertility and longevity.”

Here is the list of companies and brands that are either owned by Monsanto, or are known to use genetically modified seeds sold by Monsanto:

  • Aunt Jemima
  • Aurora Foods
  • Banquet
  • Best Foods
  • Betty Crocker
  • Bisquick
  • Cadbury
  • Campbell’s
  • Capri Sun
  • Carnation
  • Chef Boyardee
  • Coca-Cola
  • ConAgra Foods
  • Delicious Brands cookies
  • Duncan Hines
  • Famous Amos
  • Flowers Industries
  • Frito Lay
  • General Mills
  • Green Giant
  • Healthy Choice
  • Heinz
  • Hellmann’s
  • Hershey
  • Holsum
  • Hormel
  • Hungry Jack
  • Hunt’s
  • Interstate Bakeries
  • Jiffy
  • KC Masterpiece
  • Keebler
  • Kellogg’s
  • Kid Cuisine
  • Knorr
  • Kool-Aid
  • Kraft
  • Lean Cuisine
  • Lipton
  • Loma Linda Foods
  • Marie Callender’s
  • Minute Maid
  • MorningStar Farms
  • Mrs. Butterworth’s
  • Nabisco
  • Nature Valley
  • Nestlé
  • Ocean Spray
  • Ore-Ida
  • Orville Redenbacher’s
  • Pepperidge Farm
  • Pepsi
  • Philip Morris
  • Pillsbury
  • Pop Secret
  • Post cereals
  • PowerBar brand
  • Prego
  • Pringles
  • Procter & Gamble
  • Quaker
  • Ragú
  • Rice-A-Roni & Pasta Roni
  • Schweppes
  • Weight Watchers Smart Ones
  • Stouffer’s
  • Tombstone frozen pizza
  • Totino’s
  • Uncle Ben’s
  • Unilever
  • V8

So what is a concerned consumer to do? We recommend getting on the organic train, and staying there. Certified USDA organic products do not contain GMOs and are therefore safe for consumption. However, certain processed organic foods may still be owned by Monsanto. That’s why it’s even more important to buy local, seasonal organic produce and free-range, pastured animal products from small brands that you know and trust. Anything that comes in a box, bag, can or package is better left alone.

If you do choose to buy packaged foods, try using an app such as Buycott, which is able to determine the “family tree” of a company and let you know if it is associated with Monsanto. Then you can pop that product back on the shelf and choose a different one. Boycotting these companies and brands will strengthen the force against the dangerous agricultural practices they are promoting.

We encourage you to join the movement against Monsanto and say “NO!” to everything it represents by boycotting these products. Learn more about anti-GMO efforts here.

Welcome to 1984

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By Chris Hedges

Source: truthdig

The artifice of corporate totalitarianism has been exposed. The citizens, disgusted by the lies and manipulation, have turned on the political establishment. But the game is not over. Corporate power has within its arsenal potent forms of control. It will use them. As the pretense of democracy is unmasked, the naked fist of state repression takes its place. America is about—unless we act quickly—to get ugly.

“Our political system is decaying,” said Ralph Nader when I reached him by phone in Washington, D.C. “It’s on the way to gangrene. It’s reaching a critical mass of citizen revolt.”

This moment in American history is what Antonio Gramsci called the “interregnum”—the period when a discredited regime is collapsing but a new one has yet to take its place. There is no guarantee that what comes next will be better. But this space, which will close soon, offers citizens the final chance to embrace a new vision and a new direction.

This vision will only be obtained through mass acts of civic mobilization and civil disobedience across the country. Nader, who sees this period in American history as crucial, perhaps the last opportunity to save us from tyranny, is planning to rally the left for three days, from May 23 to May 26 at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., in what he is calling “Breaking Through Power” or “Citizen’s Revolutionary Week.” He is bringing to the capital scores of activists and community leaders to speak, organize and attempt to mobilize to halt our slide into despotism.

“The two parties can implode politically,” Nader said. “They can be divided by different candidates and super PACs. But this doesn’t implode their paymasters.”

“Elections have become off-limits to democracy,” he went on. “They have become off-limits to democracy’s fundamental civil community or civil society. When that happens, the very roots shrivel and dry up. Politics is now a sideshow. Politics does not bother corporate power. Whoever wins, they win. Both parties represent Wall Street over Main Street. Wall Street is embedded in the federal government.”

Donald Trump, like Hillary Clinton, has no plans to disrupt the corporate machinery, although Wall Street has rallied around Clinton because of her predictability and long service to the financial and military elites. What Trump has done, Nader points out, is channel “the racist, right-wing militants” within the electorate, embodied in large part by the white working poor, into the election process, perhaps for one last time.

Much of the left, Nader argues, especially with the Democratic Party’s blatant rigging of the primaries to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination, grasps that change will come only by building mass movements. This gives the left, at least until these protofascist forces also give up on the political process, a window of opportunity. If we do not seize it, he warns, we may be doomed.

He despairs over the collapse of the commercial media, now governed by the primacy of corporate profit.

“Trump’s campaign has enormous appeal to the commercial mass media,” Nader said. “He brought huge ratings during the debates. He taunted the networks. He said, ‘I’m boycotting this debate. It’s going to cost you profit.’ Has this ever happened before in American history? It shows you the decay, the commercialization of public elections.”

The impoverished national discourse, fostered by a commercial mass media that does not see serious political debate as profitable and focuses on the trivial, the salacious and the inane, has empowered showmen and con artists such as Trump.

“Trump speaks in a very plain language, at the third-grade level, according to some linguists,” Nader said. “He speaks like a father figure. He says, ‘I’ll get you jobs. I’ll bring back industry. I’ll bring back manufacturing. I’ll protect you from immigrants.’ The media never challenges him. He is not asked, ‘How are we going do all of this? What is step one? Step two? Is the White House going to ignore the Congress and the courts?’ He astonishes his audience. He amazes them with his bullying, his lying, his insults, like ‘Little Marco,’ the wall Mexico is going to pay for, no more entry in the country by Muslims—a quarter of the human race—until we figure it out. The media never catches up with him. He is always on the offensive. He is always news. The commercial media wants the circus. It gives them high ratings and high profit.”

The focus on info-entertainment has left not only left the public uninformed and easily manipulated but has locked out the voices that advocate genuine reform and change.

“The commercial media does not have time for citizen groups and citizen leaders who are really trying to make America great, whether by advancing health safety or economic well-being,” Nader bemoaned. “These groups are overwhelmed. They’re marginalized. They’re kept from nourishing the contents of national, state and local elections. Look at the Sunday news shows. No one can get on to demonstrate that the majority of the people want full Medicare for all with the free choice of doctors and hospitals, not only more efficient but more life-saving. There was a major press conference a few days ago at the National Press Club. The leading advocates of full Medicare for all, or single-payer, were there, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the heads of Physicians for a National Health Program. This is a group with about 15,000 physicians on board. Nobody came. There was a stringer for an indie media outlet and the corporate crime reporter. There are all kinds of major demonstrations, 1,300 arrests outside the Congress protesting the corruption of money in politics. Again no coverage, except a little on NPR and on ‘Democracy Now!’ ”

“The system is gamed,” he said. “The only way out of it is to mobilize the civil society.

“We are organizing the greatest gathering of accomplished citizen advocacy groups on the greatest number of redirections and reforms ever brought together in American history under one roof,” he said of his upcoming event. “The first day is called Breaking Through Power, How it Happens. We have 18 groups who have demonstrated it with tiny budgets for over three decades on issues such as road safety, removing hundreds of hazardous or ineffective pharmaceuticals from the market, changing food habits from junk food to nutrition and rescuing people from death row who were falsely convicted of homicides. What if we tripled the budgets and the staffs of these groups? Eighteen of these groups have a total budget that is less than what one of dozens of CEOs make in a year.”

Nader called on Sanders to join in the building of a nationwide civic mobilization. He said that while Clinton may borrow some of his rhetoric, she and the Democratic Party establishment would not incorporate Sander’s populist appeals against Wall Street into the party platform. If Sanders does not join a civic mobilization, Nader warned, there would be “a complete disintegration of his movement.”

Nader also said he was worried that Clinton’s high negativity ratings, along with potential scandals, including the possible release of her highly paid speeches to corporations such as Goldman Sachs, could see Trump win the presidency.

“I have her lecture contract with the Harry Walker lecture agency,” he said. “She had a clause in the contract with these business sponsors, which basically said the doors will be closed. There will be no press. You will pay $1,000 for a stenographer to give me, for my exclusive use, a stenographic record of what I said. You will pay me $5,000 a minute. She has it all. She can’t say, ‘We will look into it or we’ll see if we can find it.’ She has been dissembling. And her latest rant is, ‘I’ll release the transcripts if everyone else does.’ ‘Who is everybody else?’ as Bernie Sanders rebutted. He doesn’t give highly paid speeches behind closed doors to Wall Street firms, business executives or business trade groups. Trump doesn’t give quarter-of-a-million-dollar speeches behind closed doors to business. So by saying ‘I will release all of my transcripts if everyone else does,’ she makes a null and void assertion. This is characteristic of the Clintons’ dissembling and slipperiness. It’s transcripts for Hillary. It’s tax returns for Trump.”

While Nader supports the building of third parties, he cautions that these parties—he singles out the Green Party and the Libertarian Party—will go nowhere without mass mobilization to pressure the centers of power. He called on the left to reach out to the right in a joint campaign to dismantle the corporate state. Sanders could play a large role in this mobilization, Nader said, because “he is in the eye of the mass media. He is building this rumble from the people.”

“What does he have to lose?” Nader asked of Sanders. “He’s 74. He can lead this massive movement. I don’t think he wants to let go. His campaign has exceeded his expectations. He is enormously energized. If he leads the civic mobilization before the election, whom is he going to help? He’s going to help the Democratic Party, without having to go around being a one-line toady expressing his loyalty to Hillary. He is going to be undermining the Republican Party. He is going to be saying to the Democratic Party, ‘You better face up to the majoritarian crowds and their agenda, or you’re going to continue losing in these gerrymandered districts to the Republicans in Congress.’ These gerrymandered districts can be overcome with a shift of 10 percent of the vote. Once the rumble from the people gets underway, nothing can stop it. No one person can, of course, lead this. There has to be a groundswell, although Sanders can provide a focal point”

Nader said that a Clinton presidency would further enflame the right wing and push larger segments of the country toward extremism.

“We will get more quagmires abroad, more blowback, more slaughter around the world and more training of fighters against us who will be more skilled to bring their fight here,” he said of a Clinton presidency. “Budgets will be more screwed against civilian necessities. There will be more Wall Street speculation. She will be a handmaiden of the corporatists and the military industrial complex. There comes a time, in any society, where the rubber band snaps, where society can’t take it anymore.”

The U.S. Military Suffers from Affluenza

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Showering the Pentagon with Money and Praise

By William J. Astore

Source: TomDispatch.com

The word “affluenza” is much in vogue. Lately, it’s been linked to a Texas teenager, Ethan Couch, who in 2013 killed four people in a car accident while driving drunk. During the trial, a defense witness argued that Couch should not be held responsible for his destructive acts. His parents had showered him with so much money and praise that he was completely self-centered; he was, in other words, a victim of affluenza, overwhelmed by a sense of entitlement that rendered him incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. Indeed, the judge at his trial sentenced him only to probation, not jail, despite the deaths of those four innocents.

Experts quickly dismissed “affluenza” as a false diagnosis, a form of quackery, and indeed the condition is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Yet the word caught on big time, perhaps because it speaks to something in the human condition, and it got me to thinking. During Ethan Couch’s destructive lifetime, has there been an American institution similarly showered with money and praise that has been responsible for the deaths of innocents and inadequately called to account? Is there one that suffers from the institutional version of affluenza (however fuzzy or imprecise that word may be) so much that it has had immense difficulty shouldering the blame for its failures and wrongdoing?

The answer is hidden in plain sight: the U.S. military. Unlike Couch, however, that military has never faced trial or probation; it hasn’t felt the need to abscond to Mexico or been forcibly returned to the homeland to face the music.

Spoiling the Pentagon

First, a caveat. When I talk about spoiling the Pentagon, I’m not talking about your brother or daughter or best friend who serves honorably. Anyone who’s braving enemy fire while humping mountains in Afghanistan or choking on sand in Iraq is not spoiled.

I’m talking about the U.S. military as an institution. Think of the Pentagon and the top brass; think of Dwight Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex; think of the national security state with all its tentacles of power. Focus on those and maybe you’ll come to agree with my affluenza diagnosis.

Let’s begin with one aspect of that affliction: unbridled praise. In last month’s State of the Union address, President Obama repeated a phrase that’s become standard in American political discourse, as common as asking God to bless America. The U.S. military, he said, is the “finest fighting force in the history of the world.”

Such hyperbole is nothing new. Five years ago, in response to similar presidential statements, I argued that many war-like peoples, including the imperial Roman legions and Genghis Khan’s Mongol horsemen, held far better claims to the “best ever” Warrior Bowl trophy. Nonetheless, the over-the-top claims never cease. Upon being introduced by President Obama as his next nominee for secretary of defense in December 2014, for instance, Ash Carter promptly praised the military he was going to oversee as “the greatest fighting force the world has ever known.” His words echoed those of the president, who had claimed the previous August that it was “the best-led, best-trained, best-equipped military in human history.” Similar hosannas (“the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known”) had once been sprinkled liberally through George W. Bush’s speeches and comments, as well as those of other politicians since 9/11.

In fact, from the president to all those citizens who feel obliged in a way Americans never have before to “thank” the troops endlessly for their efforts, no other institution has been so universally applauded since 9/11. No one should be shocked then that, in polls, Americans regularly claim to trust the military leadership above any other crew around, including scientists, doctors, ministers, priests, and — no surprise — Congress.

Imagine parents endlessly praising their son as “the smartest, handsomest, most athletically gifted boy since God created Adam.” We’d conclude that they were thoroughly obnoxious, if not a bit unhinged. Yet the military remains just this sort of favored son, the country’s golden child. And to the golden child go the spoils.

Along with unbridled praise, consider the “allowance” the American people regularly offer the Pentagon. If this were an “affluenza” family unit, while mom and dad might be happily driving late-model his and her Audis, the favored son would be driving a spanking new Ferrari. Add up what the federal government spends on “defense,” “homeland security,” “overseas contingency operations” (wars), nuclear weapons, and intelligence and surveillance operations, and the Ferraris that belong to the Pentagon and its national security state pals are vrooming along at more than $750 billion dollars annually, or two-thirds of the government’s discretionary spending. That’s quite an allowance for “our boy”!

To cite a point of comparison, in 2015, federal funding for the departments of education, interior, and transportation maxed out at $95 billion — combined! Not only is the military our favored son by a country mile: it’s our Prodigal Son, and nothing satisfies “him.” He’s still asking for more (and his Republican uncles are clearly ready to turn over to him whatever’s left of the family savings, lock, stock, and barrel).

On the other hand, like any spoiled kid, the Defense Department sees even the most modest suggested cuts in its allowance as a form of betrayal. Witness the whining of both those Pentagon officials and military officerstestifying before Congressional committees and of empathetic committee members themselves. Minimalist cuts to the soaring Pentagon budget are, it seems, defanging the military and recklessly endangering American security vis-a-vis the exaggerated threats of the day: ISIS, China, and Russia. In fact, the real “threat” is clearly that the Pentagon’s congressional “parents” might someday cut down on its privileges and toys, as well as its free rein to do more or less as it pleases.

With respect to those privileges, enormous budgets drive an unimaginably top-heavy bureaucracy at the Pentagon. Since 9/11, Congressional authorizations of three- and four-star generals and admirals have multipliedtwice as fast as their one- and two-star colleagues. Too many generals are chasing too few combat billets, contributing to backstabbing and butt-kissing. Indeed, despite indifferent records in combat, generals wear uniforms bursting with badges and ribbons, resembling the ostentatious displays of former Soviet premiers — or field marshals in the fictional Ruritarian guards.

Meanwhile, the proliferation of brass in turn drives budgets higher. Even with recent modest declines (due to the official end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan), the U.S. defense budget exceeds the combined military budgets of at least the next seven highest spenders. (President Obama proudly claims that it’s the next eight.) Four of those countries — France, Germany, Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia — are U.S. allies; China and Russia, the only rivals on the list, spend far less than the United States.

With respect to its toys, the military and its enablers in Congress can never get enough or at a high enough price. The most popular of these, at present, is the under-performing new F-35 jet fighter, projected to cost $1.5 trillion (yes, you read that right) over its lifetime, making it the most expensive weapons system in history. Another trillion dollars is projected over the next 30 years for “modernizing” the U.S. nuclear arsenal (this from a president who, as a candidate, spoke of eliminating nuclear weapons). The projected acquisition cost for a new advanced Air Force bomber is already $100 billion (before the cost overruns even begin).  The list goes on, but you catch the drift.

A Spoiled Pentagon Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

To complete our affluenza diagnosis, let’s add one more factor to boundless praise and a bountiful allowance: a total inability to take responsibility for one’s actions. This is, of course, the most repellent part of the Ethan Couch affluenza defense: the idea that he shouldn’t be held responsible precisely because he was so favored.

Think, then, of the Pentagon and the military as Couch writ large. No matter their mistakes, profligate expenditures, even crimes, neither institution is held accountable for anything.

Consider these facts: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya are quagmires. The Islamic State is spreading. Foreign armies, trained and equipped at enormous expense by the U.S. military, continue to evaporate. A hospital, clearly identifiable as such, is destroyed “by accident.” Wedding parties are wiped out “by mistake.” Torture (a war crime) is committed in the field. Detainees are abused. And which senior leaders have been held accountable for any of this in any way? With the notable exception of Brigadier General Janis Karpinskiof Abu Ghraib infamy, not a one.

After lengthy investigations, the Pentagon will occasionally hold accountable a few individuals who pulled the triggers or dropped the bombs or abused the prisoners. Meanwhile, the generals and the top civilians in the Pentagon who made it all possible are immunized from either responsibility or penalty of any sort. This is precisely why Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling memorably wrote in 2007 that, in the U.S. military, “a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.” In fact, no matter what that military doesn’t accomplish, no matter how lacking its ultimate performance in the field, it keeps getting more money, resources, praise.

When it comes to such subjects, consider the Republican presidential debate in Iowa on January 28th. Jeb Bush led the rhetorical charge by claiming that President Obama was “gutting” the military. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio eagerly agreed, insisting that a “dramatically degraded” military had to be rebuilt. All the Republican candidates (Rand Paul excepted) piled on, calling for major increases in defense spending as well as looser “rules of engagement” in the field to empower local commanders to take the fight to the enemy. America’s “warfighters,” more than one candidate claimed, are fighting with one arm tied behind their backs, thanks to knots tightened by government lawyers. The final twist that supposedly tied the military up in a giant knot was, so they claim, applied by that lawyer-in-chief, Barack Obama himself.

Interestingly, there has been no talk of our burgeoning national debt, which former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen once identified as the biggest threat facing America. When asked during the debate which specific federal programs he would cut to reduce the deficit, Chris Christie came up with only one, Planned Parenthood, which at $500 million a year is the equivalent of two F-35 jet fighters. (The military wants to buy more than 2,000 of them.)

Throwing yet more money at a spoiled military is precisely the worst thing we as “parents” can do. In this, we should resort to the fiscal wisdom of Army Major General Gerald Sajer, the son of a Pennsylvania coal miner killed in the mines, a Korean War veteran and former Adjutant General of Pennsylvania. When his senior commanders pleaded for more money (during the leaner budget years before 9/11) to accomplish the tasks he had assigned them, General Sajer’s retort was simple: “We’re out of money; now we have to think.”

Accountability Is Everything

It’s high time to force the Pentagon to think. Yet when it comes to our relationship with the military, too many of us have acted like Ethan Couch’s mother. Out of a twisted sense of love or loyalty, she sought to shelter her son from his day of reckoning. But we know better. We know her son has to face the music.

Something similar is true of our relationship to the U.S. military. An institutional report card with so many deficits and failures, a record of deportment that has led to death and mayhem, should not be ignored. The military must be called to account.

How? By cutting its allowance. (That should make the brass sit up and take notice, perhaps even think.) By holding senior leaders accountable for mistakes. And by cutting the easy praise. Our military commanders know that they are not leading the finest fighting force since the dawn of history and it’s time our political leaders and the rest of us acknowledged that as well.

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a TomDispatchregular. He blogs at Bracing Views.

Govt-Hollywood Complex to Sell “Patriotic” Martial Law Lockdown in New Boston Bombing Films

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By Berie Suarez

Source: Truth and Art TV

A massive wave of government propaganda is coming and the method of transmission will be Hollywood. Hollywood is one of the most important brainwashing tools to keep the masses ignorant of reality and government corruption. And as we’ve seen in the past, it is designed to reinforce numerous government lies the masses are supposed to believe. Whenever Hollywood releases a film endorsing a government narrative it usually represents the final phase of a false flag, staged event narrative being sold.

Remember what former CIA director William Casey said. Until EVERYTHING that everyone believes is a lie, the control system feels they are not done lying to you yet.

When it comes to propaganda Hollywood operates under a different set of rules as they have the liberty to fictionally represent a story under the guise of “entertainment” without having to be accurate about what really happened. A close look at this issue reveals how powerful and effective the Hollywood-Government complex is at cementing massive government lies in the psyche of the general public.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that it is being reported that Hollywood producers are in race to put out not one but two films about the Boston bombing hoax staged in April of 2013 featuring numerous crisis actors. One film “Patriots Day” will serve to not only reinforce the Boston bombing staged event but to glorify “lockdown” and deceive viewers into worshiping police and psychologically re-accepting that lockdown was necessary to catch the “bad guys”, thus serving to authenticate future lockdowns as necessary as well. Another film being scheduled for release this year “Boston Strong” is also based on the Boston bombing false flag event and the concept of heroism. Both films appear to correlate “strength” with obedience to lockdown as well as “patriotism” and obedience to lockdown, and both are psychological operations on the general public being likely secretly funded by the state.

So without any shame, the storyline behind Patriots Day admits the idea is to sell the manhunt against the Tsarnaev accused patsy brothers itself and the lockdown of Watertown which ensued. The lockdown itself seems to be the focus of the emotion and heroism in these movies more so than the overall false flag narrative which has been debunked and exposed on many levels.

The story of course, is told by lucky Ed Davis, the commissioner that just so happened to get a phone call right at the time of the pressure cooker detonation, and like lucky Larry Silverstein on 9/11 he wasn’t blown up. Davis was just as “lucky” as all those “Craft International” operatives clearly seen all over the place with suspicious backpacks and communicating suspiciously before during and after the explosion.

Commissioner Davis, who was right there are the marathon finish line and walked away to take a phone call moments before the blast occurred, played an integral role working with the FBI, Watertown Police Department, Boston Police Department, Massachusetts State Police and local first responders to track, identify and apprehend the suspected bombers. Their tactics included the use of sophisticated identity technology (they actually discovered the murderers acting differently than the crowd) and giving the historic order to put the city of Boston on lockdown as they rushed to catch the suspects.

The story is envisioned as an intense thriller, spanning the five-day search up to the infamous siege where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was pulled from a boat in Watertown. Three lost their lives at the Marathon blast site, 264 were injured, and a police officer was killed and several injured in the shootout that ended in the death of Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan. The younger mass murderer is currently on trial. Victims were eulogized in a touching ceremony at Fenway Park, something that most certainly will be part of each of those feature films, including an unforgettable exhortation of defiance by Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.

This is a clever attempt to appeal to everyone’s emotional and “patriotic” feelings, 9/11 Bush Jr style, while selling them that martial law lockdown is somehow “patriotic” because it helped catch the bad guys.

“There is nothing more compelling than a real story populated by real heroes,” said CBS Films President Terry Press. “The team that we have assembled for this project is determined to give audiences a very personal look at what occurred during the days when the eyes of the world were on the city of Boston and how a group of contemporary patriots faced this crisis.”

Anyone who cares about truth, freedom, and morality should be outraged by this in-your-face propaganda. This also serves as a warning of things to come. Very likely they are rushing these two films because something is coming and they need to condition the masses for a major lockdown.

I’m calling for readers to help take a stand against “lockdown” now before it’s too late. I’m currently in the process of researching how to properly draft a petition that can be used broadly across the U.S. to demand that lockdown is criminalized as illegal, not to mention it’s an ineffective and unproven tactic for catching law breakers. If anyone wants to help and contribute to the process please do or by all means carry out the idea yourself.

This entire effort by the Hollywood-Government complex to expedite the production of these two films which will glorify lockdown should concern everyone. Ask yourself: Why are they moving so fast to glorify lockdown? And why now? I’m sure we’ll soon find out.

Neocons and Neolibs: How Dead Ideas Kill

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By Robert Parry

Source: Consortium News

For centuries hereditary monarchy was the dominant way to select national leaders, evolving into an intricate system that sustained itself through power and propaganda even as its ideological roots shriveled amid the Age of Reason. Yet, as monarchy became a dead idea, it still killed millions in its death throes.

Today, the dangerous “dead ideas” are neoconservatism and its close ally, neoliberalism. These are concepts that have organized American foreign policy and economics, respectively, over the past several decades – and they have failed miserably, at least from the perspective of average Americans and people of the nations on the receiving end of these ideologies.

Neither approach has benefited mankind; both have led to untold death and destruction; yet the twin “neos” have built such a powerful propaganda and political apparatus, especially in Official Washington, that they will surely continue to wreak havoc for years to come. They are zombie ideas and they kill.

Yet, the Democratic Party is poised to nominate an adherent to both “neos” in the person of Hillary Clinton. Rather than move forward from President Barack Obama’s unease with what he calls the Washington “playbook,” the Democrats are retreating into its perceived safety.

After all, the Washington Establishment remains enthralled to both “neos,” favoring the “regime change” interventionism of neoconservatism and the “free trade” globalism of neoliberalism. So, Clinton has emerged as the clear favorite of the elites, at least since the field of alternatives has narrowed to populist billionaire Donald Trump and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.

Democratic Party insiders appear to be counting on the mainstream news media and prominent opinion-leaders to marginalize Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and to finish off Sanders, who faces long odds against Clinton’s delegate lead for the Democratic nomination, especially among the party regulars known as “super-delegates.”

But the Democratic hierarchy is placing this bet on Clinton in a year when much of the American electorate has risen up against the twin “neos,” exhausted by the perpetual wars demanded by the neoconservatives and impoverished by the export of decent-paying manufacturing jobs driven by the neoliberals.

Though much of the popular resistance to the “neos” remains poorly defined in the minds of rebellious voters, the common denominator of the contrasting appeals of Trump and Sanders is that millions of Americans are rejecting the “neos” and repudiating the establishment institutions that insist on sustaining these ideologies.

The Pressing Question

Thus, the pressing question for Campaign 2016 is whether America will escape from the zombies of the twin “neos” or spend the next four years surrounded by these undead ideas as the world lurches closer to an existential crisis.

The main thing that the zombie “neos” have going for them is that the vast majority of Very Important People in Official Washington have embraced these concepts and have achieved money and fame as a result. These VIPs are no more likely to renounce their fat salaries and overblown influence than the favored courtiers of a King or Queen would side with the unwashed rabble.

The “neo” adherents are also very skilled at framing issues to their benefit, made easier by the fact that they face almost no opposition or resistance from the mainstream media or the major think tanks.

The neoconservatives have become Washington’s foreign policy establishment, driving the old-time “realists” who favored more judicious use of American power to the sidelines.

Meanwhile, the neoliberals dominate economic policy debates, treating the “markets” as some new-age god and “privatization” of public assets as scripture. They have pushed aside the old New Dealers who called for a robust government role to protect the people from the excesses of capitalism and to build public infrastructure to benefit the nation as a whole.

The absence of any strong resistance to the now dominant “neo” ideologies is why we saw the catastrophic “group think” over Iraq’s WMD in 2003 and why for many years no one of great significance dared question the benefits of “free trade.”

After all, both strategies benefited the elites. Neoconservative warmongering diverted trillions of dollars into the Military-Industrial Complex and neoliberal job outsourcing has made billions of dollars for individual corporate executives and stock investors on Wall Street.

Those interests have, in turn, kicked back a share of the proceeds to fund Washington think tanks, to finance news outlets, and to lavish campaign donations and speaking fees on friendly politicians. So, for the insiders, this game has been a case of win-win.

The Losers

Not so much for the “losers,” those average citizens who have seen the Great American Middle Class hollowed out over the past few decades, watched America’s public infrastructure decay, and worried about their sons and daughters being sent off to fight unnecessary, perpetual and futile wars.

But inundated with clever propaganda – and scrambling to make ends meet – most Americans see the reality as if through a glass darkly. Many of them, as Barack Obama indelicately said during the 2008 campaign, “cling to guns or religion.” They have little else – and many are killing themselves with opiates that dull their pain or with those guns that they see as their last link to “freedom.”

What is clear, however, is that large numbers don’t trust – and don’t want – Hillary Clinton, who had a net 24-point unfavorable rating in one recent poll. It turns out that another indelicate Obama comment from Campaign 2008 may not have been true, when he vouched that “you’re likable enough, Hillary.” For many Americans, that’s not the case (although Trump trumped Clinton with a 41-point net negative).

If the Democrats do nominate Hillary Clinton, they will be hoping that the neocon/neolib establishment can so demonize Donald Trump that a plurality of Americans will vote for the former Secretary of State out of abject fear over what crazy things the narcissistic billionaire might do in the White House.

Trump’s policy prescriptions have been all over the place – and it is hard to know what reflects his actual thinking (or his genuine ignorance) as opposed to what constitutes his skillful showmanship that made him the “survivor” in the real-life reality TV competition for the Republican nomination.

Does Trump really believe that global warming is a hoax or is he just pandering to the know-nothing element of the Republican Party? Does he actually consider Obama’s Iran nuclear deal to be a disaster or is he just playing to the hate-Obama crowd on the Right?

Opposing the ‘Neos’

But Trump is not a fan of the “neos.” He forthrightly takes on the neocons over the Iraq War and excoriates ex-Secretary of State Clinton for her key role in another “regime change” disaster in Libya. Further, Trump calls for cooperation with Russia and China rather than the neocon-preferred escalation of tensions.

In his April 27 foreign policy speech, Trump called for “a new foreign policy direction for our country – one that replaces randomness with purpose, ideology with strategy, and chaos with peace. …It’s time to invite new voices and new visions into the fold. …

“My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people, and American security, above all else. That will be the foundation of every decision that I will make. America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.”

Such comments – suggesting that “new voices” are needed and that “ideology” should be cast aside – were fighting words for the neocons, since it is their voices that have drowned out all others and their ideology that has dominated U.S. foreign policy in recent years.

To make matters worse, Trump outlined an “America First” strategy in contrast to neocon demands that the U.S. military be dispatched abroad to advance the interests of Israel and other “allies.” Trump is not interested in staging “regime changes” to eliminate leaders who are deemed troublesome to Israel.

The real estate tycoon also has made criticism of “free trade” deals a centerpiece of his campaign, arguing that those agreements have sold out American workers by forcing them to compete with foreign workers receiving a fraction of the pay.

Sen. Sanders has struck similar themes in his insurgent Democratic campaign, criticizing Hillary Clinton’s longtime support for “free trade” and her enthusiasm for “regime change” wars, such as those in Iraq and Libya.

Examining her long record in public life, there can be little doubt that Clinton is a neocon on foreign policy and a neolib on economic strategies. She stands firmly with the consensus of Official Washington’s establishment, which is why she has enjoyed its warm embrace.

She has followed Wall Street’s beloved neoliberal attitude toward “free trade,” which has been very good for multinational corporations as they shipped millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries. (She has only cooled her ardor for trade deals to stanch the flow of Democratic voters to Bernie Sanders.)

Wars and More Wars

On foreign policy, Clinton has consistently supported neoconservative wars, although she might shy from the neocon label per se, preferring its less noxious synonym “liberal interventionist.”

But as arch-neocon Robert Kagan, who has recast himself as a “liberal interventionist,” told The New York Times in 2014, “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Summing up the feeling of thinkers like Kagan, the Times reported that Clinton “remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes.”

In February 2016, distraught over the rise of Trump, Kagan, whose Project for the New American Century wrote the blueprint for George W. Bush’s Iraq War, openly threw his support to Clinton, announcing his decision in a Washington Post op-ed.

And Kagan is not mistaken when he views Hillary Clinton as a fellow-traveler. She has often marched in lock step with the neocons as they have implemented their aggressive “regime change” schemes against governments and political movements that don’t toe Washington’s line or that deviate from Israel’s goals in the Middle East.

She has backed coups, such as in Honduras (2009) and Ukraine (2014); invasions, such as Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011); and subversions such as Syria (from 2011 to the present) all with various degrees of disastrous results. [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon” and “Would a Clinton Win Mean More Wars?”]

Seeking ‘Coercion’

A glimpse of what a Clinton-45 presidency might do could be seen in a recent Politico commentary by Dennis Ross, a former special adviser to Secretary of State Clinton now working at the staunchly pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In the article, Ross painted a surreal world in which the problems of the Middle East have been caused by President Obama’s hesitancy to engage militarily more aggressively across the region, not by the neocon-driven decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and the similar schemes to overthrow secular governments in Libya and Syria in 2011, leaving those two countries in ruin.

Channeling the desires of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ross called for the United States to yoke itself to the regional interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in their rivalry against Shiite-led Iran.

Ross wrote: “Obama believes in the use of force only in circumstances where our security and homeland might be directly threatened. His mindset justifies pre-emptive action against terrorists and doing more to fight the Islamic State. But it frames U.S. interests and the use of force to support them in very narrow terms. …

“The Saudis acted in [invading] Yemen in no small part because they feared the United States would impose no limits on Iranian expansion in the area, and they felt the need to draw their own lines.”

To counter Obama’s hesitancy to apply military force, Ross calls for a reassertion of a muscular U.S. policy in the Middle East, much along the lines that the neocon establishment and Hillary Clinton also favor, including:

–Threatening Iran with “blunt, explicit language on employing force, not sanctions” if Iran deviates from the Obama-negotiated agreement to constrain its nuclear program (the bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran zombie lives!);

–“Contingency planning with GCC states and Israel … to generate specific options for countering Iran’s growing use of Shiite militias to undermine regimes in the region”;

–A readiness to arm Sunni tribes in Iraq if Iraq’s prime minister doesn’t;

–Establish “safe havens with no-fly zones” inside Syria if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not force Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

Employing the classic tough talk of the neocons, Ross concludes, “Putin and Middle Eastern leaders understand the logic of coercion. It is time for us to reapply it.”

One might note the many logical inconsistencies of Ross’s arguments, including his failure to note that much of Iran’s supposed meddling in the Middle East has involved aiding the Syrian and Iraqi governments in their battle against the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Or that Russia’s intervention in Syria also has been to support the internationally recognized government in its fight against Sunni extremists and terrorists.

But the significance of Ross’s prescription to “reapply” U.S. “coercion” across the region is that he is outlining what the world can expect from a Clinton-45 presidency.

Clinton made many of the same points in her speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and in debates with Bernie Sanders. If she stays on that track as president, there would be at least a partial U.S. military invasion of Syria, a very strong likelihood of war with Iran, and an escalation of tensions (and possible war) with nuclear-armed Russia.

The logic of how all that is supposed to improve matters is lost amid the classic neocon growling about showing toughness or reapplying “coercion.”

So, the Democratic Party seems to be betting that Hillary Clinton’s flood of ugly TV ads against Trump can frighten the American people enough to give the neocons and the neolibs one more lease on the White House – and four more years to wreak their zombie havoc on the world.

 

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Pugnacious Parasites and the Provocation

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By Zen Gardner

Source: ZenGardner.com

Everyone knows the unscrupulously manipulative always accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of. It’s an age old trick to obfuscate the obvious and buy time to accomplish their purposes.

Lying is their pathological language.

Such behavior, especially in high profile public figures, is unthinkable, yet for some inexplicable reason it is not just tolerated, but ironically readily expected.

People still buy into it. And the reaction always remains the same. Complacency on the most part, and a rising sense of anger in others. No doubt a byproduct of cognitive dissonance and range of other deliberately triggered mechanisms, but surreal just the same.

A Bald Faced Lie is a Punch in the Face

This is essentially what transpires when someone knowingly lies to your face. It jars your mind and pushes you back on the defensive and you’re left to try and understand why your heart and head are not matching up with what you just heard.

Everyone, except these willingly possessed psychopaths, has a conscience. And it’s faithful to speak to us. This is why humanity has been conditioned to not respond to it, and also why fear is so essential to their game. When our signals are scrambled, our gut reaction belittled and intuition denied we’re left in a daze.

This is exactly what they want to happen. It gives them time to keep executing their programs, especially when a complicit media candies and bandies it about as if it’s true and nothing to question.

This is the whirled we’re in and up against. Again, another reason to stay fully conscious and circumspect and thoroughly educated as to their techniques and true nature. Not pretty stuff to look at, but understand it we must.

Abject bullies like Israel are relatively easy to spot – if we grasp their obvious odious nature and where they’re coming from. The bully in the playground works by pure intimidation and force and will resort to any form of expression they can – loud mouthed intimidation, brandishing weapons, and all bathed in swaggering bravado right up to and including physical force to get their point across.

Send a signal is their MO. And those who don’t cower, teach them a lesson. Again, just look at the abject genocidal insanity of the Israeli occupiers. Now that they’ve gained control of most of the world’s media, especially in the west, what they say goes. And if the media or governments don’t toe their line well enough they’ll hear from these vociferous, self serving elitist beasts.

The Provocation

Another aspect of bullying is provoking your supposed enemy. The US is at this big time, deliberately firing up the conservative right and constitutionalists. It’s full on deliberate. The opulent extravagance of the Obamas, the clearly deliberate crashing of the economy, the flagrant trashing of patriotism and removal of individual rights are all carefully planned. Threatening to disarm fiercely independent Americans is an essential part of this agenda.

The mass migration agenda is the same. While the US gets inundated with needy Central Americans with clear governmental manipulation, Europe is similarly being swept with an influx that threatens their economies and cultural identities.

What’s most amazing about this is anyone can read this agenda for themselves from UN statements and documents and the Agenda 21 or 2030 programs. That so many can’t be bothered to look into much of this is outright frightening.

Israel again is a master example of aggressive agendas designed to push back common sense and reason as well as true empathy for the plight of others. A clearly apartheid state while claiming they were the victims of such treatment is completely nonsensical. It flies in the face of simple reason and logic. Yet they get away with it. How? They’ve taken over the media and political structures through the same tactics of intimidation and potential consequence by their massive Mossad/CIA/MI6 black hand of control.

Strategy of Tension and Not Just Provoking, but Demonizing Your Subjects

What’s amazing is the thoroughness of psychopathic social engineers. This is where we need to wake up and get smart.

They operate according to something called the Strategy of Tension, keeping peoples and nations nervous and afraid and more inclined to rely on government and enforcement to protect them. It also homogenizes cultures in a form of group think and a state of malleability due to this state of fear.

The extension of their influence is far and wide. Mass shootings, weird mass “accidents” at certain interims, and most of all false flags, never mind assassinations and the like. This has been the weapon of choice for every totalitarian regime for eons and a real favorite of this latest push for world dominion by these psychopaths.

The end result, ironically, is not entirely to direct everyone’s attention to a foreign enemy. That’s just a ruse and excuse for genocide and expansion. The enemy to them is within – us. We must be contained like animals and malleable to their every whim.

So-called domestic terrorism has been a meme on the rise. The deliberate migration of “potential muslim extremists” is a key part of this, as any and every incident they stage can more and more be justified and conveniently blamed on outside influences. The end result is the same: clampdown on the populace.

Just look at this propaganda piece brought to you by the Rothschild/Rockefeller owned and CIA/Mossad/MI6 et all run Reuters news agency:

U.S. eyes ways to toughen fight against domestic extremists

The U.S. Justice Department is considering legal changes to combat what it sees as a rising threat from domestic anti-government extremists, senior officials told Reuters, even as it steps up efforts to stop Islamic State-inspired attacks at home.

Extremist groups motivated by a range of U.S.-born philosophies present a “clear and present danger,” John Carlin, the Justice Department’s chief of national security, told Reuters in an interview. “Based on recent reports and the cases we are seeing, it seems like we’re in a heightened environment.” (source)

The agenda is obvious. If we’re looking. The language as well is a giveaway, the smooth talking and use of buzz phrases like “clear and present danger”, “national security” and the like are rife.

The Subtler Techniques of Deceit

This may seem a bit tangential to the main point I’m making here but is nonetheless essential information if we’re to more fully understand how these tactics are carried out on subtler levels.

You’ll see the following logical fallacy tactics in use continually, but unfortunately most people fall for them for lack of discernment as well as awareness of just what deceitful people are capable of doing.

This is a big subject well worth researching on your own but here are a few to get you started:

1. The Strawman Argument – Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack.

Example: After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending.

You’ll see this in use continually especially in the political and government arenas. It’s very clever really, side-stepping the real issue and misdirecting the argument to a false issue having nothing to do with the original question or discussion.

2. The False Choice Dilemma – Giving an extremely narrow range of choice to an issue or situation that is much wider than is being portrayed with virtually unlimited possibilites.

Baby Bush’s carefully framed post 9/11 statement is the classic geopolitical example: “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.”

You have to admit that’s pretty damn galvanizing. But in what way? Now you can’t question what the “good guys” are doing or you might be with “axis of evil”? That’s what it’s since come down to. Again, cleverly staged propaganda by these very intelligent psychopaths. Keeping the public drugged and dumbed down would sure work in their favor, wouldn’t it?

3. Correlation versus Causation. You can apply this across the board. It’s so easy to assume what we’re told is true in this context. Beware.

The easiest example is when two events occur at the same time, or in close apparent relation with each other. One is then seen as the cause of the other. An increase in robberies occurs at the same time that jobs cuts are announced, for example. There is no evidence to support the claim that the expected job losses caused the increase in robberies.

This is best seen in false flag events when the enemy or culprit is named before any investigation whatsoever. If someone “claims” responsibility it’s case closed, as they go after their pre-selected patsy to confirm this or already executed this planted persona on the spot. Done deal.

4. Overgeneralization or Oversimplification.

This is another framework for logical fallacies. Generalizing from too small of a population, or reducing complex social issues to only one choice or the other, and leaving out the complex issues that do not support the claim are examples of fallacies that stem from overgeneralization and oversimplification. (source of last two citations)

These are just a few examples. It’s a field well worth exploring and getting a handle on. When you dissect and analyze these mechanisms it is extremely empowering.

All That To Say…

Be on the look out. Stay alert and awake and aware. What we see around us is not what we get, unless we fall for it and thereby make it our reality. Personal empowerment in such an environment as we’re living in is essential.

But you have to do the work.

Psychopaths are running the external world. It’s more evident by the day to more and more people. Those not fully on board even at higher and middle levels are being bullied into it within the power structure. They can see who the apparent heirs are to the coming positions of power so they’re buckling under the pressure in an effort to save their hides.

Others at many levels of society are waking up and looking for ways to expose this nefarious agenda and help humanity push back in whatever way it can. We need to keep our voices loud and clear and distinctly truthful and helpful.

There may be many vectors by which they’re coming at us, be they geoengineering, manipulated food, societal crackdowns, media programming and the like, but we’re clearly up to the challenge.

After all, we’re here! We’re thriving just fine in spite of all they do, and we’re growing stronger by the day.

Never forget that, let down your guard, nor grow weary in well doing.

This is our day – not theirs. Let’s fulfill our mission, and use the massive spiritual weapons at our disposal – love, truth, our connection to Source and essential eternal nature which can never be taken away.

Stay true.

Love always, Zen