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America: The Country that Wrote the Playbook on the Destabilization of a Neighbor

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By Wayne Madsen

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

 

A nuclear-armed superpower deployed intelligence operatives to a neighboring country. The intelligence agents immediately set about the infiltrate a radical secessionist movement in order to push it toward committing acts of kidnapping, assassination, and other violence. After the kidnapping of a foreign diplomat, the central government invoked draconian national security and war measures statutes, suspending civil liberties. The secessionists, who demanded their language, cultural, and political rights within a supposed «federal» system, were demonized by the foreign-led infiltration and radicalization of their movement.

This scenario is not Ukraine in 2014 but Canada, and, particularly Quebec, in 1970. That year, the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ) launched a campaign of violence against the Quebec provincial government and the federal government in Ottawa. The radicalization of the FLQ was largely carried out by agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency who were infiltrated into Quebec in an effort to portray Quebec nationalists as radical «terrorists». Today, the United States falsely accuses Russia of carrying out a similar scenario in Ukraine. However, what the United States is claiming is coming from one of the most hypocritical nations in recent world history. And, as far as the Obama administration is concerned, what the CIA carried out in Quebec and Canada in 1970 is a long forgotten footnote of history, however, the same destabilization playbook being used by the United States and Canada in the late 60s and early 70s is being copied today by the CIA and its partners in Kiev.

By the late 1960s, the CIA became concerned about the possibility that the majority French-speaking province of Quebec may opt for independence from the rest of Canada. An independent Quebec, which the CIA believed would drift to the left and withdraw from NATO, was a nightmare for the trans-Atlantic status quo enthusiasts at the CIA and its affiliated think tanks, as well as the Pentagon brass and the Wall Street minions of the Bilderberg Group.

The warnings signs for the CIA included a series of events. On July 24, 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle, declared «Vive le Québec libre!» (Long live free Quebec!), from the balcony of the Montreal City Hall. That same year, de Gaulle withdrew France from the military command structure of NATO and ordered NATO headquarters and other activities to leave France. De Gaulle, arriving in Montreal on the French warship «Colbert» to help celebrate the opening of Expo 67, bypassed the federal capital Ottawa, and was wildly cheered by Quebecois who used the occasion to loudly boo the Governor General of Canada during the playing of «God Save the Queen».

De Gaulle’s proclamation gave a morale boost to Quebec’s nascent separatist movement. However, in Ottawa, the French-speaking Justice Minister and future Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, along with Prime Minister Lester Pearson, grew alarmed at what they considered French involvement in the domestic affairs of Canada. Secretly, the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, at the time, Canada’s primary foreign intelligence agency, contacted their colleagues in the CIA for assistance to deal with what was perceived as an existential threat to Canada posed by the Quebec nationalists.

The CIA was fearful of the leftward drift of Quebec nationalism, as shown by the nationalization of Quebec’s hydro-electric resources by Hydro-Quebec, owned by the province of Quebec, and the rising popularity of Rene Levesque, a former Liberal Party member of the Quebec National Assembly, who, in the euphoria surrounding De Gaulle’s 1967 visit and proclamation, founded the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association that same year. Levesque merged his party with another autonomist party, the Ralliement National, forming the Parti Québecois (PQ).

The RCMP Security Service and the CIA decided to begin infiltrating a small radical Quebec secessionist movement, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ). Almost overnight, the FLQ, which had only been a nuisance, began carrying out serious bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations, culminating in the «October Crisis» of 1970. Targeted for kidnapping by the FLQ were James Cross, the British Trade Commissioner to Canada, and Pierre Laporte, a vice premier in the Liberal government of Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa. Laporte was murdered a few days after his kidnapping.

Not only Bourassa, but clandestinely, the CIA and RCMP joint Quebec task force convinced Prime Minister Trudeau to invoke the War Measures Act in Quebec. Canadian rule of law was suspended and police began rounding up Quebecois who were strong supporters of Quebec independence. Of the 497 people detained by police, 435 were later deemed to be innocent and were freed. The invocation of the War Measures Act by Trudeau proved to the CIA that the vocally anti-U.S. prime minister could be counted on to support a status quo that was beneficial to the United States and NATO. Trudeau’s son, Justin Trudeau, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party today, is viewed in much the same light as someone who will continue to carry Washington’s water domestically and internationally if the sycophantically pro-U.S. Stephen Harper ever leaves office.

Although the FLQ collapsed after the October Crisis, the damage sought by the CIA and RCMP to the cause of Quebec sovereignty was accomplished. Levesque’s PQ failed to win control of the Quebec National Assembly in the 1970 and 1973 elections and Levesque, himself, failed to win a seat in the assembly in both elections. However, in 1976, Levesque and his PQ won control of the National Assembly and the new government and carried out a plebiscite on sovereignty association with Canada in 1980. After a concerted propaganda barrage by Ottawa, Washington, and Montreal’s influential Jewish community, the referendum resulted in a 60 percent vote against and 40 percent vote for the sovereignty-association status. The following year, federal Justice Minister Jean Chretien hammered out a new Canadian constitution with the agreement of all the provincial premiers except for Levesque, the British Parliament and Queen Elizabeth, and the Canadian Supreme Court, which ruled that a new constitution of Canada was legal even though it did not have the approval of Quebec. To this day, Canada’s constitution was never approved by Quebec.

In 1995, the PQ, once again in power, held another referendum on independence. It failed with a 50.6 percent vote of «no» and a «yes» vote of 49.4 percent. A clear majority of French-speakers voted for separation from Canada but the same coalition of English-speakers and Montreal Jews who were able to defeat the 1976 plebiscite did so again.

This year, PQ Premier Pauline Marois and her party lost the election to the Liberal Party, although most major polls predicted the PQ would easily win re-election. There were suspicions in a number of political quarters that the Harper government in Ottawa, working with the U.S. and the Mont Royal clique, pulled off a massive election fraud. But with the defeat of the PQ and Marois, who lost her own seat, the notion of Quebec independence was, once again, dead on arrival.

The repeated repression of the PQ in Quebec is directly tied to CIA activities. A CIA agent named Jules «Ricco» Kimble was later reported to have not only infiltrated the FLQ in the 1960s but maintained a CIA station in the Mont Royal neighborhood. Kimble said he committed two murders that were pinned on the FLQ, although it is not known if one of them was the assassination of Laporte.

In 1991, a former Quebec minister, who spoke anonymously, confirmed Kimble’s status as a CIA agent. The ex-minister said, «I heard about this place on Mont Royal and its work with the CIA».

In 1971, the Montreal Star published a TOP SECRET CIA memorandum dated October 16, 1970, which stated that the CIA was behind the violence committed in the name of the FLQ. The memo stated, «Some sources recommend that we take urgent measures to temporarily cease contacts with the measures of FLQ militants because of Canadian undesirable consequences with the Canadian government». In other words, the CIA admitted to have conducted «false flag» terrorist operations in Canada. Expectedly, the Richard Nixon administration and Trudeau denounced the CIA document as a forgery.

The chief of counter-intelligence for the RCMP Security Service, Leslie J. Bennett, confirmed, in 1973, that Montreal was infiltrated by a number of CIA agents during the October Crisis of 1970. Shortly after he made this statement, Bennett was falsely accused by the RCMP of being a Soviet KGB mole and he was forced to move to exile in Australia. It was not until 1993 that the Canadian government admitted that its charges against Bennett being a Soviet double agent were a fabrication.

It has also been revealed by arrested members of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, in addition to CIA and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sources, that the CIA has been busy destabilizing by shipping weapons to Mexican drug cartels using the U.S. Justice Department’s «Fast and Furious» operation as cover. Some sources claim that the Obama administration authorized weapons transfers to the two main Mexican drug cartels, the Sinaloa and Los Zetas gangs, in order to generate a national security crisis in Mexico, thus paving the way for the election in 2012 of globalist and pro-privatization and pro-American candidate Enrique Pena Nieto and the defeat of the leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Many of the paramilitary leaders of the Los Zetas and Sinaloa cartels were trained under the watchful eyes of the CIA, by the infamous U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, now the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in Fort Benning, Georgia.

The entire gamut of false flag operations currently being waged in eastern and southern Ukraine by the CIA and its Ukrainian partners should be viewed through the lens of the CIA’s sordid activities in committing terrorist acts, libeling innocent people, and, perhaps, illegally manipulating elections in Quebec from the early 1960s to the present day. There is only one nuclear-armed country that has destabilized one neighboring nation that has demanded linguistic, cultural, and political rights and another seeking to wrest itself from domination by its more powerful northern neighbor. That country is the United States.

 

Will Ukraine Be NYT’s Waterloo?

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By Robert Parry

Source: Consortium News

For Americans interested in foreign policy, the New York Times has become the last U.S. newspaper to continue devoting substantial resources to covering the world. But the Times increasingly betrays its responsibility to deliver anything approaching honest journalism on overseas crises especially when Official Washington has a strong stake in the outcome.

The Times’ failures in the run-up to the disastrous Iraq War are, of course, well known, particularly the infamous “aluminum tube” story by Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller. And, the Times has shown similar bias on the Syrian conflict, such as last year’s debunked Times’ “vector analysis” tracing a sarin-laden rocket back to a Syrian military base when the rocket had less than one-third the necessary range.

But the Times’ prejudice over the Ukraine crisis has reached new levels of extreme as the “newspaper of record” routinely carries water for the neocons and other hawks who still dominate the U.S. State Department. Everything that the Times writes about Ukraine is so polluted with propaganda that it requires a very strong filter, along with additives from more independent news sources, to get anything approaching an accurate understanding of events.

Screen shot of the fire in Odessa, Ukraine, on May 2, 2014. (From RT video)

From the beginning of the crisis, the Times sided with the “pro-democracy” demonstrators in Kiev’s Maidan square as they sought to topple democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych, who had rebuffed a set of Western demands that would have required Ukraine to swallow harsh austerity measures prescribed by the International Monetary Fund. Yanukovych opted for a more generous offer from Russia of a $15 billion loan with few strings attached.

Along with almost the entire U.S. mainstream media, the Times cheered on the violent overthrow of Yanukovych on Feb. 22 and downplayed the crucial role played by well-organized neo-Nazi militias that surged to the front of the Maidan protests in the final violent days. Then, with Yanukovych out and a new coup regime in, led by U.S. hand-picked Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the IMF austerity plan was promptly approved.

Since the early days of the coup, the Times has behaved as essentially a propaganda organ for the new regime in Kiev and for the State Department, pushing “themes” blaming Russia and President Vladimir Putin for the crisis. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine, Though the US ‘Looking Glass.’”]

In the Times’ haste to perform this function, there have been some notable journalistic embarrassments such as the Times’ front-page story  touting photographs that supposedly showed Russian special forces in Russia and then the same soldiers in eastern Ukraine, allegedly proving that the popular resistance to the coup regime was simply clumsily disguised Russian aggression.

Any serious journalist would have recognized the holes in the story – since it wasn’t clear where the photos were taken or whether the blurry images were even the same people – but that didn’t bother the Times, which led with the scoop. However, only two days later, the scoop blew up when it turned out that a key photo – supposedly showing a group of soldiers in Russia who later appeared in eastern Ukraine – was actually taken in Ukraine, destroying the premise of the entire story.

Soldiering On

The Times, however, continued to soldier on with its bias, playing up stories that made Russia and the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine look bad and playing down anything that might make the post-coup regime in Kiev look bad.

On Saturday, for instance, the dominant story from Ukraine was the killing of more than 30 ethnic Russian protesters by fire and smoke inhalation in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odessa. They had taken refuge in a building after a clash with a pro-Kiev mob which reportedly included right-wing thugs.

Even the neocon-dominated Washington Post led its Saturday editions with the story of “Dozens killed in Ukraine fighting” and described the fatal incident this way: “Friday evening, a pro-Ukrainian mob attacked a camp where the pro-Russian supporters had pitched tents, forcing them to flee to a nearby government building, a witness said. The mob then threw gasoline bombs into the building. Police said 31 people were killed when they choked on smoke or jumped out of windows.

“Asked who had thrown the Molotov cocktails, pro-Ukrainian activist Diana Berg said, ‘Our people – but now they are helping them [the survivors] escape the building.’”

By contrast, here is how the New York Times reported the event in its Saturday editions as part of a story by C.J. Chivers and Noah Sneider focused on the successes of the pro-coup armed forces in overrunning some eastern Ukrainian rebel positions.

“Violence also erupted Friday in the previously calmer port city of Odessa, on the Black Sea, where dozens of people died in a fire related to clashes that broke out between protesters holding a march for Ukrainian unity and pro-Russian activists. The fighting itself left four dead and 12 wounded, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. Ukrainian and Russian news media showed images of buildings and debris burning, fire bombs being thrown and men armed with pistols.”

Note how the Times evades placing any responsibility on the pro-coup mob for trying to burn the “pro-Russian activists” out of a building, an act that resulted in the highest single-day death toll since the actual coup which left more than 80 people dead from Feb. 20-22. From reading the Times, you wouldn’t know who had died in the building and who had set the fire.

Normally, I would simply attribute this deficient story to some reporters and editors having a bad day and not bothering to assemble relevant facts. However, when put in the context of the Times’ unrelenting bias in its coverage of the Ukraine crisis – how the Times hypes every fact (and even non-facts) that reflect negatively on the anti-coup side – you have to think that the Times is spinning its readers, again.

For those who write for the Times – and the many more people who read it – the question must be whether the Times is so committed to its prejudices here that the newspaper will risk whatever credibility it has left. The coup regime from Kiev may succeed in slaughtering many ethnic Russians in the rebellious east — as the Times signals its approval — but will this bloody offensive become a Waterloo for whatever’s left of the newspaper’s journalistic integrity?

 

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

The Alleged Assassination of Osama Bin Laden

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Today marks the 3rd anniversary of the alleged assassination of Osama Bin Laden. I emphasize the word “alleged” because claims from medical experts such as Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik assert he died in 2001 from Marfan syndrome. Others such as Pakistan President Benazir Bhutto (who was later assassinated) claimed Bin Laden was assassinated in 2002 by Omar Sheikh. Though it remains inconclusive exactly how Bin Laden died, what we may conclude with certainty is that the official story of his death is a lie. Ample evidence dismantling the official story of how Bin Laden died as well as some of the evidence “proving” Bin Laden was the mastermind behind 9/11 are contained in the following articles from WhatReallyHappened.com:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/bin_laden_death.html

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/galleryoffakebinladens.php

Towards the End of U.S. Propaganda

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Source: Information Clearing House

The Anglo-Saxon Empire is based on a century of propaganda. It managed to convince us that the United States is “the land of the free” and that it engaged in wars to defend its ideals. But the current crisis over Ukraine has changed the rules of the game. Now Washington and its allies are not the only speakers. Their lies are openly challenged by the government and media of another major state, Russia. In the era of satellites and the Internet, Anglo-Saxon propaganda no longer works.

By Thierry Meyssan

Rulers have always tried to convince their subjects of the correctness of their actions, because crowds never follow men they know to be bad. The twentieth century has seen new ways of spreading ideas unburdened by the truth. Westerners trace modern propaganda to Nazi minister Joseph Goebbels. It is a way to forget that the art of distorting the perception of things was previously developed by Anglo-Saxons.

In 1916, the United Kingdom created Wellington House in London, followed by Crewe House. Simultaneously, the United States created the Committee on Public Information (CPI). Considering the First World War was between masses and no longer between armies, these organizations tried to intoxicate their own people as well as those of their allies and those of their enemies with propaganda.

Modern propaganda started with the publication in London of the Bryce Report on German war crimes, which was translated into thirty languages. According to this document, the German army had raped thousands of women in Belgium. The British Army was thus fighting against barbarism. At the end of the First World War it was discovered that the entire report was a hoax, made up of ​​false testimony with the help of journalists.

For his part, in the United States, George Creel invented a myth that World War II was a crusade by democracies for peace to protect the rights of humanity.

Historians have shown that World War I was responding to causes as deep and as profound, the most important being the competition between major powers to expand their colonial empires.

The British and U.S. bureaus were secret organizations working on behalf of their states. Unlike Leninist propaganda, which aspired to “reveal the truth” to the ignorant masses, the Anglo-Saxons sought to deceive in order to manipulate them. To this end, Anglo-Saxon state agencies had to hide and usurp false identities.

After the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States neglected propaganda and favoured public relations. It was no longer a matter of lying, but of holding journalists’ hands that they may see only what they are shown. During the Kosovo war, NATO appealed to Alastair Campbell, an adviser to the British Prime Minister to tell the press an uplifting dayly story. While journalists reproduced this story, the Alliance could bomb “in peace.” The story telling was less designed to lie than to distract.

However, story telling is back with a vengeance with the September 11 attacks : it consisted of focussing public attention on the attacks on New York and Washington so that people would not perceive the military coup organized that day : the transfer of the executive powers of President Bush to a secret military unit and the house arrest of all parliamentarians. This intoxication was especially the work of Benjamin Rhodes, now an adviser to Barack Obama.

In subsequent years, the White House installed a system of propaganda with key allies (the UK, Canada , Australia and of course Israel). Every day these four governments received instructions or pre-written speeches from the Office of global media to justify the war in Iraq or vilify Iran. [1]

For the rapid spread of its lies since 1989, Washington relied on CNN. Over time, the United States created a cartel of satellite information (Al- Arabiya , Al- Jazeera , BBC , CNN, France 24 , Sky) channels. In 2011, during the bombing of Tripoli , NATO surprisingly convinced Libyans that they had lost the war and that it was useless to continue resisting. But in 2012, NATO failed to replicate this model and to convince the Syrians that their government would inevitably fall. This tactic failed because the Syrians were aware of the operation carried out by international television in Libya and were able to prepare [2]. And this failure marked the end of the hegemony of the “information”cartel.

The current crisis between Washington and Moscow about Ukraine has forced the Obama administration to review its system. Indeed, Washington is now no longer the sole speaker, it must contradict the Russian government and media accessible anywhere in the world via satellite and Internet. Secretary of State John Kerry appointed a new deputy for propaganda, in the person of the former editor of Time Magazine, Richard Stengel [3]. Before taking the oath on April 15, he was already occupying his office and, on March 5, sent a “fact sheet” to major Atlanticist media on “10 counter-truths” that Putin would have pronounced on the Ukraine [4]. He reoffended on April 13 with a second sheet with “10 other counter-truths ” [5].

What strikes one in reading this prose is its ineptitude. It aims to validate the official history of a revolution in Kiev and discredit the Russian discourse on the Nazi presence in the new government. However, we know today that in fact this “revolution” was indeed a coup staged by NATO and implemented by Poland and Israel by mixing recipes for “color revolutions” and the “Arab spring”. [6] Journalists who received these files and relayed them are fully aware of the recordings of telephone conversations between the Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland and Minister for Estonian Foreign Affairs, Urmas Paets, on how Washington would change the regime at the expense of the European Union, and on the true identities of the Maidan snipers. In addition, they learned later revelations of the Polish weekly Nie about the training two months before the events of the Nazi rioters at the Academy of Polish police. As to denying the presence of Nazis in the new Ukrainian government, this amounts to a claim that the night is luminous. It is not necessary to go to Kiev but just to read the writings of the current ministers or listen to their remarks to see this is the case. [7]

Ultimately, if these arguments help give the illusion of a consensus in the large Atlanticist media, they have no chance of convincing curious citizens. Instead, it is so easy with the Internet to discover the deception that this type of manipulation cannot but further undermine Washington’s credibility.

The unanimity of the Atlanticist media on September 11 helped convince international public opinion, but the work done by many journalists and citizens, of which I was the precursor, showed the physical impossibility of the official version. Thirteen years later, hundreds of millions of people have become aware of these lies. This process will only grow with the new propaganda devices manipulated by the US. In short, all those who relay the arguments of the White House , including the governments and media of NATO, destroy their own credibility.

Barack Obama and Benjamin Rhodes , John Kerry and Richard Stengel act only in the short term. Their propaganda convinces the masses for only a few weeks and then helps create revulsion when the people understand they are being manipulated. Unwittingly, they undermine the credibility of the state institutions of NATO who consciously relay them. They forget that the propaganda of the twentieth century could only succeed because the world was divided into blocks that did not communicate with one another, and this monolithic principle is incompatible with the new means of communication.

The crisis in Ukraine is not over, but it has already profoundly changed the world : by publicly contradicting the President of the United States, Vladimir Putin has taken a step that henceforth prevents the success of U.S. propaganda.

Thierry Meyssan

French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

Translation – Roger Lagassé – Source – Al-Watan (Syria)

[1] “Un réseau militaire d’intoxication” , Voltaire Network, 8 December 2003.

[2] “NATO preparing vast disinformation campaign“, by Thierry Meyssan, Komsomolskaya Pravda , Voltaire Network, 10 June 2012.

[3] “TIME Magazine Managing Editor becomes new US propaganda chief“, Voltaire Network , 16 April 2014.

[4] “State Department Fact Sheet on Putin’s False Claims About Ukraine” , Voltaire Network , 5 March 2014.

[5] “Media Note by the U.S. Departement of State on Russian Support for Destabilization of Ukraine” , Voltaire Network , 13 April 2014.

[6] “Ukraine : la Pologne avait formé les putschistes deux mois à l’avance“, by Thierry Meyssan , Réseau Voltaire, 17 April 2014 .

[7] “Who are the Nazis in the Ukrainian government ?“, By Thierry Meyssan , Voltaire Network , 2 March 2014.

Inventing a ‘Russian Threat’: Washington’s Full-Spectrum Subversion

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By Mark Hackard

Source: 21st Century Wire

What do postmodern exhibitionists, Islamic holy warriors and marauding ultra-nationalists share in common?

Seemingly little, aside from the fact that these bizarre bedfellows are the star assets of US policy in Eurasia. And despite their use of very different tactics, they all are tasked with the same mission: to undermine Russia, the only great power consistently opposed to American hegemony.

The Sochi Diversion

Today East and West contemplate the possibility of war over the fate of Ukraine, but the popular narrative was tailored for just such a standoff well in advance. Any attentive reader of Western press sources over recent months will have noticed that a dramatic upswing of negative Russia coverage began after Vladimir Putin thwarted Washington’s planned assault on Syria last summer. For just one example of the establishment’s dissemination of absurd Russophobia, look no further than the recent spy film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, which features Kremlin-directed Orthodox Christian suicide bombers attacking Mammonism’s Holy of Holies, the New York Stock Exchange.

As the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics got underway, executives at the six US media giants plus their counterparts at the BBC and elsewhere had a green light to inflict maximum damage. Journalists were looking to fan the flames of any possible scandal at the games, but the stories didn’t add up to their hype.

A number of issues were used to paint Russia in an unflattering light, one at times approaching caricature. Was there some amount of corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency in constructing the new Olympic village in Sochi? Few Russians would doubt it, yet were American reporters really so insular as to expect nothing less than Switzerland? Exposure of bribery and fraud, lest we forget, featured as the epilogue to squeaky-clean Salt Lake City’s 2002 Winter Games. Meanwhile, threats by Islamic terrorists – the same Mujahedin operatives serving as proxies of US policy from Libya and Syria to Kosovo and Chechnya – against the Black Sea resort were amplified considerably with helpful leaks from “concerned” officials in Washington, to the point of convincing American Olympians’ families to stay home in fear[i]. But where were such warnings before two Chechens with connections to US intelligence allegedly bombed the Boston Marathon in April of 2013?

The media’s favorite manufactured controversy at the Olympics, moreover, had nothing at all to do with winter sports. Western audiences were led to believe that Russia’s laws banning the promotion of sodomy to children had cast a sinister pall over the games; in an expression of unfeigned displeasure, President Barack Obama skipped attendance (Killing Pashtun and Yemeni villagers with drone-launched Hellfire missiles is praiseworthy – upholding any measure of traditional morality is not[ii]). Try as they might, the press corps could find no evidence of “oppression” of homosexuals at Sochi, with the gay American skater Johnny Weir stating that he was treated “fantastically” by the Russian people during his stay. Even State Department-sponsored provocateurs from the cultural Marxist outfit Pussy Riot, famous for previous acts of obscenity and sacrilege, made a sorry attempt at spectacle before beating a hasty retreat. Unfazed, the Russian national team would go on to win first place for both gold medals and the overall count.

Flashpoint: Ukraine

Western vitriol over the Sochi Olympics represents one component of an information campaign, itself part of a wider US-led geopolitical offensive against Moscow. A variety of policy instruments are used for the objective of “containment,” from NATO expansion and power projection to sanctions against Russian companies. Yet by far the most economical means in the quest to weaken and demoralize Russia has been covert action, operations run under plausible deniability and comprising a broad range of activities. From the years of the Cold War, the Trans-Atlantic establishment has built an entire covert-action apparatus that encompasses not only intelligence services and special units of the military, but also nationalist paramilitaries, crime syndicates, transnational terror networks and a host of well-funded NGOs deeply intertwined with academia, major corporations and the media. In other words, an arsenal for full-spectrum subversion[iii].

Secret wars are waged just as intensively as the overt ones, and on multiple fronts. All the commotion over the Olympics amounted to a distraction from the central theater of action – Ukraine. As the curtain closed on Sochi, political unrest in Kiev climaxed with the overthrow of the undoubtedly corrupt but still legitimate President Viktor Yanukovych by pro-Western forces on February 22nd. The liberal-nationalist coalition that took power through mass protests and street fighting enjoyed extensive support – both public and clandestine – from the United States government. Timed for precisely the moment when Russia’s leadership was absorbed with showcasing its Olympics to the world, the coup’s main objective was to finally incorporate Ukraine as an EU/NATO satrapy.  The Washington-Wall Street agenda envisions stripping the country of its agricultural and industrial wealth and the deployment of US missile defense architecture just a day’s drive from Red Square.

What the events of early 2014 show is how quickly “soft power” can transition to the hard variant; subversion makes inroads for aggression. Washington spent two decades and $5 billion to make Ukraine safe for Chevron and Exxon-Mobil, but now it is reaping far more than it anticipated. Moscow has moved decisively to secure its vital interests in the region, leading to Crimea and the key naval base of Sevastopol being reunited with Russia after 60 years of estrangement. And the Russian-oriented south and east of Ukraine are also rising against an illegitimate regime resolved on virtually giving away strategic assets to multinationals – while sending ultra-nationalist militias to enforce the sales[iv]. From the port of Odessa to the Don River Basin, both Russians and Ukrainians share one thousand years of a unified Eastern Slavic civilization, an ideal that endures in blood and spirit; this reality will long outlive predatory IMF “structural adjustments” and the deformed chauvinism on offer from the current junta in Kiev.

After twenty years of eastward encroachment, the US push into Ukraine is the logical application of a policy to cripple Russia’s recovery and attain unchallenged dominance over the Eurasian heartland and its natural resources. Several consecutive rounds of NATO enlargement, the criminal bombardment of Serbia and subsequent overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, a string of CIA-orchestrated color revolutions in the former Soviet space and the 2008 Georgia War – far from isolated occurrences, these events show an ever-tightening ring of encirclement. For Kremlin strategists, the Maidan takeover in Kiev proved the point of no return; they’ve seen that the Pax Americana plays for keeps. With their very future on the line, the Russians are fighting back.

Targeted for destabilization, Russia has demonstrated the will to use force in order to protect its people and interests. Short of outright military action, it possesses formidable covert capabilities. The ruthless Cheka-KGB pioneered the practice of human intelligence, and we should remember that most of Ukrainian territory was once the arena of unrelenting partisan campaigns during the Second World War. Given Ukraine’s importance to Russia’s overall geopolitical position, it’s a safe assumption that the contemporary FSB and GRU have developed robust agent networks and operational infrastructure for just the sort of contingency that Moscow confronts today. At the same time, the West’s feverish search for spetsnaz troops in the country is wholly beside the point; resistance in the pro-Russian southeast is organic and growing.

Russia is perhaps the one nation preventing the United States from becoming the last empire, the progenitor of a tyrannical world-state; it is therefore positioned squarely on the front line of a sustained twilight struggle. Globalist oligarchs, the actual controllers of the liberal order, employ multiple vectors of subversion in their ferocious attack on faith, sovereignty and identity. Whether our telescreens depict jihadists wreaking destruction from the Levant to the Caucasus, cells of NGO “activists” waging psychological warfare through the propagation of deviance, or deranged Ukrainian nationalists bent on fratricide, we are assured that all are heroes marching in the grand cause of democracy.

Though retaining effective deterrence is essential for any independent state, the ultimate strength of a Third Rome resurgent lies in its eternal tradition, that ancient Christianity once adopted by a rough-hewn Viking ruler from Kiev. When the Russian lands were threatened by ideological aggression from the West some eight centuries ago, soldier-prince Aleksandr Nevsky defended his people with spirit and sword:

From Adam to the flood, from the flood to the division of tongues, from the mixing of tongues to the beginning of Abraham, from Abraham until Israel’s passing through the Red Sea, from Israel’s Exodus to the death of Tsar David, from the beginning of Solomon’s reign to Tsar Augustus, from the beginning of Augustus to Christ’s Birth, from Christ’s birth unto the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord, from His Resurrection to His Ascension into heaven, from His Ascension into heaven until the reign of Constantine, from the beginning of Constantine’s reign to the First Council, from the First Council until the Seventh – all of this we know well, and from you we accept no doctrine.

In our age Russia is accused by American officialdom of “betraying the New World Order” when the New World Order is betrayal itself, the very crowning of modern apostasy. Let the words of Aleksandr Nevsky be the answer of every free and noble people to the masters of subversion: From you we accept no doctrine.

[i] Dmitro Yarosh, the leader of Ukraine’s fascist Right Sector, called upon the Chechen militant Doku Umarov to carry out terror attacks in Russia just weeks before the latter was killed in March by an FSB special unit. Ukrainian nationalists are known to have fought on the side of Chechen rebels during the 1990s and 2000s. One such figure, the now-deceased Oleksandr Muzychko, “Sashko Biliy,” tortured and murdered at least 20 captured Russian soldiers.

[ii] Coincidentally or otherwise, the top financial donors for the Human Rights Campaign, America’s premiere homosexual lobbying organization, are drone manufacturers from the military-industrial complex.

[iii] Many are unaware that the CIA is far from a simple intelligence service; like Britain’s MI5 and MI6, its business has been social engineering both at home and abroad. Under the guidance of tax-exempt foundations, its programs have included funding and promoting not just jihadists and nationalist paramilitaries, but control of the media, feminism, the arts, the psychedelic revolution and narcotics trade. This is only a short rendering of cases of dialectics in action, giving one nonetheless a more definite sense of the aims of the “New World Order.”

[iv] Another odd partnership forged on the Maidan against Moscow has been that of Right Sector and Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, the head of the European Jewish Congress and a prominent patron of Zionist causes.

–

Read this and more of Mark Hackard’s work at his online project, Soul of the East.

 Author Mark Hackard is an independent foreign policy analyst. He earned a BA in Russian Language from Georgetown University and an MA in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University. He studies the intersection of political culture, religion and strategic issues, which he approaches from a traditionalist-conservative position. Some of his major influences are Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortes, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Rene Guenon and Fr. Seraphim Rose.

William K. Zabel on the Columbine Cover-Up

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To mark the 15th anniversary of Columbine, featured below are a mindblowing trio of interviews with William K. Zabel from the Binnall of America podcast examining oddities surrounding the Columbine either ignored or suppressed by corporate media:

4/20/09

http://host1.cyberears.com//13065.mp3

6/15/12:

http://host1.cyberears.com//16762.mp3

9/10/13:

http://host1.cyberears.com//21105.mp3

 

Saturday Matinee: Memorial Triple Feature

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Today happens to be the day of two pivotal events in American history: the WACO massacre (1993) and the Oklahoma City bombing (1995). In both cases there’s much evidence pointing towards state terrorism and cover-up. Two of the best documentaries which build convincing cases in support of this are “WACO: Rules of Engagement” and “A Noble Lie: Oklahoma City 1995”, both presented here in their entirety.

Lastly, I have recently and belatedly heard the news that whistleblower, investigative journalist and author of “Crossing the Rubicon” Michael C. Ruppert is dead. He reportedly killed himself last Sunday shortly after his final broadcast. Given the nature of Ruppert’s research it would be natural to suspect foul play, but the story is supported by the following statement from a close friend:

Sunday night following Mike’s Lifeboat Hour radio show, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. This was not a “fake” suicide. It was very well planned by Mike who gave us few clues but elaborate instructions for how to proceed without him. His wishes were to be cremated, and as of this moment, there are no plans for a memorial service. However, I will be taking his show this coming Sunday night, April 20, and the entire show will be an In Memoriam show for Mike with opportunities for listeners to call in. It was my privilege to have known Mike for 14 years, to have worked with him, to have been mentored by him, and to have supported him in some of his darkest hours, including the more recent ones. I am posting this announcement with the blessing of his partner Jesse Re and his landlord, Jack Martin. Thank you Mike for all of the truth you courageously exposed and for the legacy of truth-telling you left us. Goodbye my friend. Your memory will live in hour hearts forever. I have no more details to share than I am posting here. We should have much more information by Sunday night.

Carolyn Baker

Many including myself discovered Ruppert’s work through his early independent 9/11 research on his From the Wilderness website. A few years ago his work on Peak Oil was brought to a larger audience through the critically acclaimed documentery “Collapse” (2009). Rest in peace, Mike Ruppert.

The Global Money Matrix: The Forces behind America’s Economic Destruction

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By Dr. Gary Null

Source: GlobalResearch.ca

On the Brink of Economic Calamity

We are witnessing unprecedented low points in American economic history as 50 million Americans—17 million of them children—are living below the poverty line[i],[ii] while 47 million citizens rely on food stamps[iii].  All told, the 2008 economic collapse cost over $20 trillion globally[iv]. Millions of people lost their homes and jobs, while many of our nation’s children fell deeper into hunger. According to some figures, 53 million people entered the poverty ranks.[v] In the US and other developed nations, suicide rates skyrocketed due to financial stress and disruption of families. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has listed unemployment at 7.5% — a rate that is irreconcilable with reality. The more reliable figure, calculated by economist John Williams from Shadow Government Statistics, places unemployment at 22%. If we are to believe the analyses of Tyler Cowen at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, we might be looking at an unemployment rate as high as 41%, since 33% of Americans are not working and no longer have the desire to find jobs.[vi]  This group is categorically removed from the government’s labor radar and is absent from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ fudged data. 

 The Global Money Matrix

In the midst of this economic turmoil there is one group that still manages to flourish: the global elite. With more than $32 trillion stashed in offshore banks around the world, the wealth of the so-called “1%” is staggeringly obscene and grows by the day.[vii]  Their aggregate wealth, larger than the US GDP and national debt combined, is a testament to the tremendous influence and lobbying power held by a coterie of private interests that dominate nearly every sector of society.

Instead of reining in the inordinate control exercised by the elite, most of our elected officials have become little more than shills for these corporate overlords, creating policies that favor their campaign donors instead of the American people. Hundreds of millions of dollars were funneled into Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign by donors whose business affiliations run the gamut from real estate and finance to media and law firms. According to Opensecrets.org, “Together, 769 elites are directing at least $186,500,000 for Obama’s re-election efforts — money that has gone into the coffers of his campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee.”[viii] This figure doesn’t even account for the massive contributions to Obama’s reelection by corporate-driven SuperPACs. Obama is just one example of how our politicians are beholden to the elite agenda. A quick glance at the campaign donation figures presented at Opensecrets.org reveals just how much special interests control Washington’s policymakers.

Given the corporatist influence that infects our halls of power, it is little wonder that our tax dollars continue to fund unconstitutional spying, perpetual war, and neoliberal policies that extend the powers of the world’s richest individuals and organizations. As Americans struggle financially, our social safety nets are increasingly losing priority to military and security expenditures that are historically unmatched anywhere in the world. Increasingly, the actions taken by the world’s most powerful corporations and governments seem to be at odds with public perception and wellbeing. Here are a few examples of how this combined influence has increased at the expense of the average American:

ALEC – This conservative group, funded by donors like the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil and fueled by politicians including Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker,[ix] writes model legislation calling to “privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws, and more.”[x] They do so with the stated aim to “form formal internal Task Forces to develop policy covering virtually every responsibility of state government.”[xi] ALEC’s website claims, “Each year, close to 1,000 bills, based at least in part on ALEC Model Legislation, are introduced in the states. Of these, an average of 20% become law.”[xii]

Federal Taxes and Expenditures – In 2014, President Obama plans to spend 57% of his discretionary budget on military, with 6% going to education, 3% to science, and 1% to food and agriculture.[xiii] And while the federal corporate tax rate is 35% in America, a variety of loopholes means that the average rate paid by corporations is 25%, with some companies paying as low as 10%.[xiv]

Citizens United – This US Supreme Court case set the legal precedent for unlimited campaign donations in US elections, qualifying corporate donations as a form a free speech. Since this case concluded, campaign expenditures have tripled.[xv]

TARP, or “the Bailout” – Following the economic crisis of 2008, US taxpayers handed $700 billion to major players in the automotive, financial, and insurance industries[xvi]. According to The New York Times, “Treasury…provided the money to banks with no effective policy or effort to compel the extension of credit. There were no strings attached: no requirement or even incentive to increase lending to home buyers, and…not even a request that banks report how they used TARP funds.”[xvii]  The Huffington Post reports, “Twenty-five top recipients of government bailout funds spent more than $71 million on lobbying in the year since they were rescued.”

In the Name of Security

The most concerning imbalance of power, however, may lie in the ‘security state’. In 2010, there were over 1900 private corporations with government contracts working for Homeland Security and NSA intelligence projects. Just one of these firms, Booz Allen Hamilton, where Edward Snowden was employed, has over 25,000 employees, nearly half of whom have security clearance of “top secret or higher”.[xviii]  Overall, there are an estimated half million individuals in private firms with access to intelligence secrets.[xix]  The federal intelligence agencies only employ 107,000 individuals; therefore, the bulk of intelligence and surveillance operations are conducted by private workforces.[xx] For fiscal year 2013, the country’s budget for intelligence, across 16 agencies, was approximately $52.6 billion, with 70% going to private contractors.[xxi]

Recent revelations by Edward Snowden unearthed the breadth and scope of this surveillance network. The National Security Agency has collected vast amounts of data to spy upon American citizens, elected legislators in Congress, leaders and populations of other nations, multilateral and international administrations, non profit organizations, and a variety of public and environmental advocacy groups. This defines the current trajectory of the US as a failed republic degenerating into a fascist regime.  For both corporate Republicans and Democrats, the rise of surreptitious surveillance on citizens, in direct violation of the Constitution, is perceived as a matter of national security to protect both the country’s domestic and foreign interests.

NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander claimed publicly that intelligence surveillance of the American public “foiled” 54 terrorist attacks by extremists. Independent research confirmed that in fact only one, and a possible second attack, could be directly associated with the war on terrorism.  Speaking on the matter, Vermont Senator Patrick J. Leahy stated,

“There is no evidence that [bulk] phone records collection helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots….These weren’t all plots and they weren’t all foiled.”.[xxii]

The Washington Times reported that “Keith B. Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist plots foiled by the NSA’s huge database of every phone call made in or to America was only one or perhaps two—far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration.” General Alexander, under the questioning of Senator Leahy, also admitted that only 13 of the 54 cases were in any way connected to the U.S.  As the Washington Times clarifies,

“The [NSA phone records] database contains so-called metadata—the numbers dialing and dialed, time and duration of call—for every phone call made in or to the U.S.”[xxiii] 

This is but one example highlighting how the consolidation of corporate and political power comes at the cost of human rights and personal liberties for the average citizen.

 Obama has lied to the American people repeatedly about the extent of the security state and its infiltration into the lives of average citizens, including massive data collection of private phone calls, emails, and internet activity. The NSA revelations of Edward Snowden provide documented proof that intelligence surveillance is far more extensive than ever believed. The activities of the FBI, CIA, Pentagon, FISA courts, USDA and FDA, and the Justice Department contribute to the deterioration of citizens’ privacy and freedom. And a recent report by Essential Information entitled Spooky Business describes how some of America’s largest corporations have engaged in corporate espionage to spy on non-profit organizations. Ralph Nader writes, “In effect, big corporations have been able to hire portions of the national security apparatus, and train their tools of spycraft on the citizen groups of our country.”[xxiv] Thus, the powers of government and corporations are fostered and increased by one another, while those of the average American continue to dwindle

Groupthink and the 15%

It is unrealistic to frame the problem of control and socio-economic manipulation as a war between the 1 and the 99.  The 1 percent cannot achieve its goals without support from armies of technocrats and workforces willing to sacrifice moral values to secure careers in corporations and political parties, regardless of the inhumane ruthlessness behind their undemocratic agendas. The private industrial complexes of Too Big to Fail corporations require minions of technocrats and employees—as well as a large network of contracted small businesses, advisors, and consultants—to exert control over the population.  Therefore, we should realistically be speaking of a 15 versus 85 percent in the war on inequality, control, and power.

 When this additional 45 million people, or 15 percent of the population, are added to the formula for who controls the major stakes of power, wealth, influence and policymaking today, we can more easily understand how the psychology of “group think” creates a protective shield around the power brokers calling the shots.  When the psychologist Irving Janis first used the term “groupthink”, he referred to a collective weakening of individuals’ “mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgment” through pressure to stick with the corporate plan.[xxv]  Among the characteristics common to groupthink, which enables the privileged elite to exert compliance to their mission without dissent, is a false belief in the inherent morality of their jobs. For example, the neoliberal free-market ideology posits that trickle down economics from the top will create more jobs and raise families’ personal income—a persistent myth that has no historical example to prove it as fact.  

The actual facts, according to the 2012 Global Wealth Data Book, show that since the implementation of neoliberal economics in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the financial health of America’s middle class has fallen to 27th globally, behind Qatar, Taiwan, Cyprus and Kuwait. Simultaneously, the US has the most millionaires and billionaires of any other nation.[xxvi]  Groupthink also generates an “illusion of invulnerability,” an insincere and narrow confidence that enables workers to take extreme risks and a distorted group rationalization to deny facts to the contrary of their optimism.  Other characteristics include stereotyping enemies, managerial pressure on nonconformists, and self-censorship of doubts within the organization.  An illusion of unanimity is sustained whereby the image is created and perpetuated that the majority agree with organization’s purpose and mission.[xxvii]

Without the possibility of groupthink and this additional 15 percent passively serving the most powerful 1 percent’s destructive acts, life in the US would be far more democratic, just, and free today. Unfortunately, our society currently necessitates profit for both legitimacy and survival. This unprecedented economic and political atmosphere is giving birth to a new face of fascism.

 The Dominant Culture

When considering the human element in our societal structure, the question arises as to how human beings can act with such blatant disregard for damage incurred. There are varying figures assessing the percent of psychopathology among high level financial and corporate executives. In the general population, approximately 1% can be clinically diagnosed with sociopathic and psychopathic disorders[xxviii]. However, for the wealthy and power elite, estimates are higher.

Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Robert Hare estimates that 4 percent of corporate executives are clinically sociopathic.[xxix] Sherree DeCovny, a former high-powered investment banker now with CFA Financial Magazine, believes it is as high as 10 percent.[xxx] Figures from psychological surveys in the UK place estimates even higher. Psychologist Clive Boddy has argued that the psychopathological behavior of financial executives was a major cause for the 2007 economic collapse. He also notes that individuals with the strongest psychopathic tendencies are those who tend to be promoted fastest.[xxxi]

Research supports this claim. In a survey of 500 senior executives in the US and UK, 26 percent observed firsthand wrongdoing in the workplace and 24 percent believed that it was necessary for professionals in the financial sector to engage in unethical and even illegal conduct in order to be successful. Sixteen percent said they would commit insider trading if they were certain they could get away with it, and 30 percent said that the pressures of compensation plans were an incentive to break the law.[xxxii]

Today, this banking elite owns the lives of millions of Americans by imprisoning them in debt. In the third quarter of 2013, consumer indebtedness reached $11.28 trillion.[xxxiii]  2014 and every year thereafter will see household debt increase. The majority of this debt, in the form of mortgages and outstanding home equity, student loans, auto loans, and credit cards, is money owed to the banking industry. It is by keeping the masses indebted, securing government allegiance and protection to extract money from citizens, that bankers are able to control the economy.

In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Representative Alan Grayson and three of his Congressional colleagues raised their concern over large investment banks taking over the real economy.  According to their investment relations reports, both banks are engaged in the “production, storage, transportation, marketing and trading of numerous commodities.”[xxxiv] These include crude oil and oil products, natural gas, coal, electric power, agricultural and food products, and precious and rare metals. Additionally, JP Morgan markets electric power and “owns electricity generating facilities in the US and Europe.”[xxxv] Goldman Sachs has entered the uranium mining market.  According to Rep. Grayson, none of these activities have anything to do with the business of banking, and there is no indication that the Fed or any other agency is regulating these irregular business undertakings.[xxxvi]

In early 2013, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich conducted the most thorough analysis of the financial ties between over 43,000 transnational banks and corporations. This was the first empirical study to identify a network where global power and wealth is most heavily concentrated. Their startling results observed that a small faction of 147 super companies controls over 40 percent of the entire transnational network, with an additional 36 million companies below them. 

Predictably, almost all of the 147 super companies were financial institutions, with Barclays, Capital Group, the Vanguard Group, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Bank of New York among the top of the list.[xxxvii]  With financial instruments of speculative trade insufficient to satisfy greed, such companies have every incentive to move into new territory, particularly resources and services that are essential to life. This includes fuel, water, food and minerals. As it stands, at least twenty-five major US companies have more wealth than entire countries.[xxxviii]

The prediction can be suggested that with current trends, the largest global banks will become the world’s most powerful “nations,” acting with complete autonomy outside of international laws that apply to sovereign states.  As corporate groupthink increases and infiltrates the larger civilian community, the transnationalist mind will persist as a breeding ground for psychopathology.

Conclusion

The consequences of today’s cowboy free market culture have sent the US middle class and economic mobility spiraling downward. Laid off workers have nowhere to use their skills to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families. Consequently, the worker is unable to meet expenditures and falls into a lower income bracket or poverty.  Mortgage defaults, credit card payments, and loans drag him further into debt. Without work and hence unable to pay taxes, the state, county and town suffer. In turn, local entities are forced to reduce their workforce and public services. The final result is the decline in the national quality of life, and the gradual deterioration of the US.  The inequality gap widens as the wealthy get richer and more powerful, while growing numbers of families become destitute.

A clear conflict exists between the values that we promote in the home and those values that are rewarded in the workplace. Unless we apply the same moral requirements to governments and corporations as we do to ourselves, friends, and families, the revolving door at the top of society will continue to consolidate power and wealth at any cost.

Notes

[i] Fessler, Pam. “How Many Americans Live In Poverty?” NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/11/06/243498168/how-many-americans-live-in-poverty (accessed December 2, 2013).

[ii] National Center for Children in Poverty. “Child Poverty.” NCCP. http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html (accessed December 1, 2013).

[iii] Plumer, Brad. “Why are 47 million Americans on food stamps? It’s the recession — mostly.” WashingtonPost.com. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/23/why-are-47-million-americans-on-food-stamps-its-the-recession-mostly/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

[iv] Melendez, Eleazar. “Financial Crisis Cost Tops $22 Trillion, GAO Says.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/financial-crisis-cost-gao_n_2687553.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [v] Moench, Brian. “Death by Corporation, Part II: Companies as Cancer Cells.” Truthout. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17705-death-by-corporation-part-ii-companies-as-cancer-cells (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [vi]  “The real jobs numbers: 41% of America unemployed, 1 in 3 doesn’t want work at all – RT USA.” RT.com. http://rt.com/usa/jobs-us-employment-welfare-749/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [vii] Vellacott, Chris. “Super Rich Hold $32 Trillion in Offshore Havens.” Reuters.com. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/22/us-offshore-wealth-idUSBRE86L03U20120722 (accessed December 13, 2003).

 [viii] “Barack Obama’s Bundlers.” Opensecrets RSS. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/bundlers.php

[ix] “What is ALEC?.” ALEC Exposed. http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F#Who_funds_ALEC.3F (accessed December 3, 2013).

[x] Nichols, John. “ALEC Exposed.” The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/article/161978/alec-exposed# (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xi] “History.” ALEC American Legislative Exchange Council. http://www.alec.org/about-alec/history/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] “Where Does the Money Go? Federal Budget 101.” National Priorities Project. http://nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ (accessed December 2, 2013).

[xiv] The Economist Newspaper. “The Trouble with Tax Reform.” The Economist. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/02/corporate-tax_reform (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xv] “Daily Kos.” : Buying Elections: Campaign Spending TRIPLES Since Citizens United. If You Can’t Win, Cheat + News!. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/11/1193246/-Buying-Elections-Campaign-Spending-TRIPLES-Since-Citizens-United-If-You-Can-t-Win-Cheat# (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xvi] Stein, Sam. “Top Bailout Recipients Spent $71 Million On Lobbying In Year Since Bailout.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/top-bailout-recipients-sp_n_346877.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xvii] Barofski, Neil. “Where the Bank Bailout Went Wrong.” NYTimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opinion/30barofsky.html (accessed March 12, 2013).

[xviii] Murphy, Dan. “Booz Allen Hamilton, federal contractor.” Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2013/0610/Booz-Allen-Hamilton-federal-contractor (accessed December 4, 2013).

[xix] Jonathan Fahey, Adam Goldman. “NSA Leak Highlights Key Role of Private Contractors,”  Huffington Post. June 10, 2013  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/nsa-leak-contractors_n_3418876.html

[xx] Barton Gellman, Greg Miller.  “US Spy Network’s Successes, Failures and Objectives Detailed in ‘Black Budget’ Summary,”  Washington Post. August 29. 2013  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-29/world/41709796_1_intelligence-community-intelligence-spending-national-intelligence-program

[xxi] Aubrey Bloomfield. “Booz Allen Hamilton: 70% of the US Intelligence Budget Goes to Private Contractors,”  Policymic.  http://www.policymic.com/articles/48845/booz-allen-hamilton-70-of-the-u-s-intelligence-budget-goes-to-private-contractors

[xxii] Waterman, Shaun. “NSA chief’s admission of misleading numbers adds to Obama administration blunders.” Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Nader, Ralph. “Corporate espionage undermines democracy.” The Great Debate RSS. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/11/26/corporate-espionage-undermines-democracy/ (accessed December 2, 2013).

[xxv] “Groupthink in Service of Government.” BATR. http://www.batr.org/wrack/080413.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxvi] “How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally?.” A Lightning War for Liberty. http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/07/23/how-does-americas-middle-class-rank-globally-27/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xxvii] BATR.  Ibid.

[xxviii] Hare, Robert. “Focus on Psychopathy.” FBI. http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/july-2012/focus-on-psychopathy (accessed December 1, 2013).

 [xxix] Bercovici, Jeff. “Why (Some) Psychopaths Make Great CEOs.” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/ (accessed December 2, 2013).

[xxx] Decovny, Sherree. “The Financial Psychopath Next Door.” CFA Magazine, Mar. – Apr. 2012. http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/cfm.v23.n2.20 (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxxi] Boddy, Clive R.. “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory Of The Global Financial Crisis.” Journal of Business Ethics 102, no. 2 (2011): 255-259.

  [xxxii] LaCapra, Lauren Tara, and Leslie Adler. “Many Wall Street Executives Say Wrongdoing is Necessary: Survey.” Reuters. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/10/business-us-wallstreet-survey-idUKBRE86906G20120710 (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xxxiii] Salas Gage, Caroline. “Household Debt in US Climbed 1.1% in Third Quarter, Fed Says.” Bloomberg.com. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/household-debt-in-u-s-climbed-1-1-in-third-quarter-fed-says.html (Accessed December 4, 2013.)

 [xxxiv]“Giant Banks Take Over Real Economy As Well As Financial System … Enabling Manipulation On a Vast Scale.” Washingtons Blog. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/giant-banks-take-over-real-economy-as-well-as-financial-system-enabling-manipulation-on-a-vast-scale.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

  [xxxv] Hopkins, Cheyenne. “Fed Said to Review Commodities at Goldman, Morgan Stanley.” Bloomberg.com. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-01/fed-said-to-review-commodities-at-goldman-morgan-stanley.html (accessed December 3, 2013). 

[xxxvi] “Giant Banks Take Over Real Economy As Well As Financial System … Enabling Manipulation On a Vast Scale.” Washingtons Blog. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/giant-banks-take-over-real-economy-as-well-as-financial-system-enabling-manipulation-on-a-vast-scale.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxxvii] Upbin, Bruce. “The 147 Companies That Control Everything.” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/ (accessed December 3, 2013).