Closing the Doors of Perception

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Dylan Charles

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” -William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

We, the people, are the foundation of a vast human pyramid, at the top of which comfortably rests a world elite that manipulates the human population and world events to broaden and maintain their power. The main agents of this global cartel are the banking elite, the military industrial complex, the medical establishment, the mainstream media, the entertainment industrial complex, and the hundreds of corrupt and co-opted world governments that act as henchmen and watchdogs for the unelected world rulers.

Over our heads they hang the constant specter of war, financial collapse, terrorism and pandemic disease, and to keep us from reacting to their deeds they enlist evermore advanced forms of mind control, biological control and social engineering.

The key to their dominance over the human race is the management of public perception, and how the public mind, in turn, affects the individual mind. Reality for us is very narrowly defined, which magnifies the perception of division between human beings, between humans and nature, and between individuals and their own true spiritual nature. As such we are all too easily sidelined or conquered altogether, and doomed to toil as relatively well-off slaves in their matrix of control, constantly struggling with and murdering each other.

They recruit us to enforce this prison of the mind on ourselves, and are creating a rising class of those who willingly support them in their efforts. The rest of us are merely subjects of their tyranny, whether we acknowledge it or not, and until a major cultural upheaval occurs, there is little chance of liberating the human race. Thus we must for now focus on liberating the individual and freeing human consciousness.

This realization is a powerful motivator, for it challenges all life-loving, courageous and compassionate people to hastily wake up, discover who we really are as spiritual beings having a human experience, and then become the best possible version of ourselves so that we me may contribute to the awakening and help to cast light on that which thrives in shadows.

“Sometimes I think this whole wide world is one big prison yard. Some of us are prisoners, the rest of us are guards.” – Bob Dylan

Slamming the Doors

To gain administrative access to our consciousness and constrict our perception to such a narrow band, our vibration is kept humming along chaotically in the lowest possible frequencies of fear, panic, anger, blame, hate, uncertainty and limitation. To parry this onslaught, it is essential that we recognize the many negative influences that invade our minds, bodies and spirits, and fortify ourselves against the shallowness and negativity being marketed to us at every corner.

The mind is the agent of the spirit, and the body is the vehicle of the mind. By attacking first the body, the mind and spirit are thus duly compromised.

We are under continual barrage from industrial environmental pollution, toxic pesticide-laden and overly processed foods, DNA altering genetically modified organisms and vaccines, chemtrails, radiation, EMF’s, pharmaceuticals and so much more. The body’s immune systems are quite capable, but the deliberate trashing of our environment, food supply and health is one of the foremost challenges we must overcome in order to be able to move beyond the limitations imposed upon us. A full rejection of these pollutants (as best as is possible) is warranted in order to detoxify the body, decalcify the pineal gland and prepare the body to support the mind and spirit in its natural evolution of consciousness.

Stress is the weapon of choice for the elite, and the stress of living sedentary, material-driven, worker-bee lifestyles in pursuit of manipulated currencies keeps us focused completely on our personal interests and affairs, and always in competition with our neighbors, peers, friends and family. When our mind and spirit falter and our mental health suffers, we are herded to the clinics for mass-produced psychiatric evaluations that aim to hook us on psychotropic medications which numb us to life’s beauty and keep us entranced in the day-to-day work of supporting the economy with our time and energy.

Human imagination is crushed as today’s children are hammered with rigidity and mind-numbing repetition from an early age, and with the introduction of Common Core, our education system has become even more intolerant, close-minded and non-sensical. This system produces conformists who are good at following directions and working hard for material and superficial rewards. The ability to think clearly, focus, and imagine new possibilities are absolutely critical to understanding who you are, and to understanding your inherent power and flexibility as a human being.

The law and those who enforce it are there to add to the stress and confusion of living in the matrix, and the law is used overtly to cut us from organic and chemical substances which have the potential to help us quickly see through the grand illusion that is crafted for us. Human consciousness, however, naturally pushes to thrive, grow and expand, and as such it has triggered a wave of interest in the spiritual gifts of iboga, ayahuasca, psilocybin and shamanic medicine traditions. We have open access to alcohol, pharmaceuticals and are deliberately over-exposed to other consciousness debilitating substances like aspartame, fluoride, and high-fructose corn syrup, and there is an abundance in availability of parasitic street drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth-amphetamines.

Government plays the roles of spy, censor and thought police, thus robbing the psyche of the freedom of the exploration of thought. Religion seeks to homogenize spiritual experience and externalize divinity. The mind worms of the entertainment-industrial complex pollute the psyche and suck away our precious time by hammering us with insane amounts of celebrity worship and trifling entertainment options, usually in the form of sit-down-and-watch programming that lulls the mind and sub-conscious mind into deep, hypnotic states of trance and suggestiveness. Television has become a theater of the absurd, and constantly works at further blurring the lines between reality and false-reality, tinkering with our ability to accurately perceive the difference between the important and the trivial.

The dogs of war and the military industrial complex are there to enrich the elite while dominating the poor and insubordinate. They heavily propagandize our world to create the perception of constant threats, working to corral us into the narrowest possible ‘us-versus-them,’ reptilian modes of consciousness, and to distract from legitimate issues and concerns.

Heavily beaten down by all of this, most people seek security in the comfort of being part of a collective, some sort of like-minded group, no matter what it may be. As survival mechanisms, people attach labels to themselves and embellish their egos, picking teams and choosing sides, following the leader wherever he may go. Some join the Democrat team or the Republican team, some side with their particular race, some take trivial associations like sports teams and university associations far too seriously. The divisions among us are are driven into the collective conscience which wields heavy influence over the individual by way of peer pressure and conformity. The result is robotic closed-minded madness.

Your Task at Hand

It’s simple to control someone’s reality when you have unlimited resources, a sophisticated media apparatus at your fingertips, and a monopoly on currency and security. Doubly so when you can dumb people down with toxic lifestyles and mindless distractions. The point of this conversation, however, is to promote the simple idea that awareness offers opportunity, and when we acknowledge the many limitations which are criminally placed on most of us here on earth, we give ourselves the creative freedom to seek out and discover ways of being and living that defy heavy currents of conformity.

It is now your personal responsibility to do your best to mitigate the effects of your exposure to all of this insanity, and to fortify yourself physically, mentally and spiritually. By doing so, you’ll quickly become a wizard of sorts, someone who develops a new kind of immunity to the insanity and toxicity of modern life. You’ll become resilient and fearless, a new kind of warrior, if you will. Take this message with you and detox, purge, cleanse, renew, revitalize, reconstruct, restart, and re-awaken yourself, so that the infinite and wonderful experience of being a human being, alive on this amazing planet at this particular time, will not have been stolen from you.

The top of a pyramid is an insignificant part of its structure when compared to the base, for, if even one cornerstone crumbles the capstone itself falls.
Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist esoteric arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. His remarkable journey of self-transformation is a testament to the power of the will and the persistence of the human spirit. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.

“Good al-Qaeda’s” Air Force: The United States Is At War With Syria

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Jim Kavanagh

Source: The Polemecist

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation”
— candidate Barack Obama, December, 2007

The United States has decided to allow airstrikes to defend Syrian rebels trained by the U.S. military from any attackers, even if the enemies hail from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials said on Sunday.
— “U.S. to defend Syrian rebels with airpower, including from Assad,” Reuters, August 3, 2105

The United States just went to war with Syria. With the confirmation today that American planes will shoot down Syrian planes attacking USDA-approved “rebels,” the United States is now overtly engaged in another criminal attack on a sovereign country that poses no conceivable, let alone actual or imminent, threat to the nation. This is an act of war.

Please don’t try any not-really-war “no-fly zone” or “safe zone” bullshit. As the Commander of NATO says, a no-fly zone is “quite frankly an act of war and it is not a trivial matter….[I]t’s basically to start a war with that country because you are going to have to go in and kinetically take out their air defense capability.” Or as Shamus Cooke puts it: “In a war zone an area is made ‘safe’ by destroying anything in it or around that appears threatening.” Inevitably, “U.S. and Turkish fighter jets will engage with Syrian aircraft, broadening and deepening the war until the intended aim of regime change has been accomplished.”¹

Does anybody doubt that this is exactly what’s intended? Perhaps Obama will soothe the discomfort of his purportedly peace-loving progressive fans with some assurance like: “broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” He’ll be lying, as he was four years ago when he said that about Libya.

As an aggressive, unprovoked war, this is totally illegal under international law, and all the political and military authorities undertaking it are war criminals, who would be prosecuted as such, if there were an international legal regime that had not already been undermined by the United States.

As an act of war, to be constitutional, it also demands a congressional act of war, and, at the very least, congressional authorization under the War Powers Act. Will Obama ask for this? Will any Democratic or Republican congresscritter demand it? Is the Pope a Hindu?

Would it make any difference? Don’t forget that Obama completely ignored the War Powers Act, the Constitution, Congress, and his own Attorney General and legal advisers,² and went right ahead with a war on Libya, under the theory that, if we pretend no American troops are on the ground (everybody knows there were, and must be³), it isn’t really a war or “hostilities” at all. So, I guess if the Chinese Air Force starts shooting down American planes in American airspace in defense of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s assault on the White House, China wouldn’t really be engaging in an act of war.

Please don’t complain that the last sentence makes no sense. The U.S. is now officially acting as al-Qaeda’s air force, trying to force a regime change that everybody knows will result in turning Syria into another jihadi playground, Libya 2.0. This makes sense?

Obama is, in fact, now building on the imperial executive arrogance he demonstrated in the Libyan intervention — as Bruce Ackerman said, “betraying the electoral majorities who twice voted him into office on his promise to end Bush-era abuses of executive authority…and the Constitution he swore to uphold,” and asserting the president’s unilateral authority to make war. Per Ackerman: “Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.”⁴

It’s impossible to overstate the danger in these executive war-making prerogatives that Obama has now normalized — with the irresponsible connivance of his sometimes-progressive groupies, who pretend not to know where this leads: “I don’t believe at this stage, therefore, if I’m president that we need to have a war powers approval or special authorization for military force. The president has that capacity now,” said Mitt Romney in 2012, and every Republican thereafter.⁵

It’s also quite clear now, that the War on ISIS is a sham, that ISIS was always just a pretext to get the American military directly involved in attacking the Syrian army and destroying the coherence of the Syrian state. Jihadi horror-show “ISIS” replaced the WMD horror-show “chemical weapons” pretext that Putin so adroitly took off the table in 2013, removing the excuse for the war on Syria Obama was itching to launch then (and earning the lasting enmity of the deep-state neocon cabal). If the U.S. and Turkey wanted to defeat ISIS, they would, besides not sending ISIS arms and fighters, be coordinating their actions with, and not against, the forces who have been most effectively fighting it: the Syrian Arab Army, the Kurds, Iran, and Hezbollah.

Turns out that ISIS and the U.S. have the same enemies. Go figure. Must be some kind of bizarre accident. Doesn’t mean a thing. The U.S. is now even supporting Turkey’s attacks on the Kurds, who have recently won some major victories against ISIS — which is why (Can’t let those Kurds get too uppity.) the Turks are attacking the Kurds! But really, we’re attacking all of ISIS’s worst enemies in order to defeat ISIS. That the American media pretend there is some credibility to this story reveals… well, at least their utter credulity.

By the way, did you know there’s now a “good Al-Qaeda”? The Wild Ones in the picture above. (They just look like the “bad Al-Qaeda.”) They’re the jihadis our Air Force will be fighting for defending. As Daniel Lazare points out: “After years of hemming and hawing, the Obama administration has finally come clean about its goals in Syria. In the battle to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, it is siding with Al Qaeda.” And that’s A-OK with the Serious People in Washington: “[R]ather than protesting what is in fact a joint U.S.-Al Qaeda assault, the Beltway crowd is either maintaining a discreet silence or loudly hailing Al Nusra’s advance as ‘the best thing that could happen in a Middle East in crisis.’” Al-Nusra is the official affiliate of Al-Qaeda in Syria. As Lazare says: “It is as if 9/11 never happened.” Kiss and make up. New fish to fry, don’t you know.⁶
The best thing that could happen. You read that right.
As anyone with one eye and half a brain can reckon, the primary goal in creating a “safe zone” is to make a safe redoubt from which al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS, the Army of Conquest, and all 60 of the U.S.-vetted “moderate” rebels – all jihadi brothers-in-arms against Syrian secular nationalism – can launch their attacks to overthrow the government of Syria.

Really. A total of 60, at $9 million per.⁷ I can’t make this stuff up.

Syria is now under explicit attack by the armed forces of two states – the U.S. and its NATO ally Turkey (sanctioned by NATO) – along with a panoply of jihadi proxy armies supported by at least two other states – Saudi Arabia and Israel (Oh, yes!⁸). The Syrian state and its allies, Iran and Russia, have the right to respond, and any military response of theirs will be legitimate self-defense. Turkish soldiers, and American pilots (and any Special Ops soldiers, who will be on the ground) have no right to be in Syria trying to impose regime change by deadly force. The Syrian Army, on the other hand, has every right to stop them with deadly force, and every right to strike back at the American military apparatus, everywhere.

So please, do not pretend to be shocked, shocked, if Syria and its allies fight back, inflicting American casualties. Don’t pose as the morally superior victim when Americans are killed by the people they are attacking. And don’t be preaching about how everyone has to support our troops in a criminal, unconstitutional, aggressive attack on a country that has not threatened ours in any way. Every casualty of this war, however big it gets, is the ethico-political responsibility of the attacking party – US. The first responsibility of every American is not to “support our troops,” but to stop this war. Right now. Before it gets worse.

Three years ago, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff and another Johnny-come-late (just after he could have made a difference) to the honesty and responsibility party, exhibited either his precognitive powers or the fact that everybody in the deep-state-know has known for a long time what plans were in motion:

I could paint you a scenario where we start a NATO no-fly zone over Syria, and wind up, in a year or two, with a general regional war, and then, within a year or two of that, possibly lots of big players fighting each other, first through surrogates, and then their own troops…I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Russians … begin to sell their most sophisticated air defense missiles to Syria. Then they’re going to start shooting down NATO airplanes; not one or two, but lots of them.⁹

Yup, because Iran and/or Russia may come to Syria’s defense, as they have every right to do, there is a real danger of this quickly developing into a wider regional war. And this, of course, is something that at least one of the parties targeting Syria would welcome. As I’ve said many times before, those who think all this makes no sense need to understand that there are those for whom it does.¹⁰ Israel would love to have the United States and NATO involved in conflict in the region, and would greatly prefer having ISIS/al-Nusra/Army of Conquest/good-or-bad-al-Qaeda misrule Syria, because, as the Association of Arab-American University Graduates said over thirty years ago, commenting on the Yinon plan: “the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.”

A plan? Yes, there is a plan, and it’s being followed. It’s getting hard not to notice. In an essay this week, Roger Van Zwanenberg, founder of Zed Press, comes around to noticing. He asks: “So why do the great powers continue with these policies?” He continues: “My question is whether the cock-up theory is really sufficient to explain the chaos that we are witnessing and whether our foreign policies really are conducted by idiots?” And he goes on the notice the Yinon plan, and “how close Israel is to the USA. There is no equal to these nations’ fraternal relations in the world. There is no doubt that American policy toward the Middle East and Israel’s policy in the region are powerfully coordinated.”¹¹

No, the neocons driving American foreign policy are not idiots (although some of the more public frontmen may be), any more than Lawrence Wilkerson or the Arab-American University Graduates are precogs. They all just understand the plan.

Really, who wants a war with Syria? After Iraq and Libya, who wants this? Who thinks it’s a good idea, and for what reasons? Who wants years of conflict between the Caliph, al-Nusra, and the Army of Conquest over the spoils of Damascus and Aleppo? Who wants another five thousand well-trained, victorious jihadis marching off to take down Lebanon and Jordan, and another ten thousand migrants storming the Greek islands and the Chunnel? Did I miss the tens of thousands of people in the streets of America clamoring for it, and for all the benefits it will bring them? (Although I was in the streets with millions of people throughout the world trying to stop a war in 2003, and being ignored.) Or did I just not see – what was not invisible, but was never highlighted, and required some effort at peeking behind the curtain – those inside the foreign policy apparatus of the United States and its special allies arguing and preparing for this, and refusing to give up on it, tirelessly conjuring up pretext after pretext, and pack of lies after pack of lies, until they got what they wanted? These are not rhetorical questions. Because this – the United States going to war on Syria – is not happening by accident. It is only happening because somebody does want it, for some reasons. Go figure.

Really. Think about it.

Any self-identified “liberal” or “progressive” American who spent (and may still spend) their political energy attacking Bush, et. al., for that crazy war in Iraq, and who goes along with this war for a second – who does not recognize, and immediately and energetically denounce it for the criminal and dangerous adventure that it is, and its authors, from Obama on down, for the dangerous criminals they are – is a political hypocrite. Any politician or presidential candidate who does not immediately and energetically denounce it certainly has no right to pretend to be progressive.

Let’s see what Bernie does and what his followers say. A $15 minimum wage and imperialist chaos? We’ll have to go along with that, ‘cause we can’t bother raising the troublesome questions about militarism, exceptionalism, and what constellation of forces is devastating the Middle East?

Hillary? You’re kidding.

Those who wanted a war with Syria in 2013 have finally gotten what they wanted. It will be a dangerous diversion, at least, for the United States, and a certain disaster for the people of the Middle East. And nobody will stop it.

Let’s talk about Donald Trump some more.

¹ Breedlove: No-fly zone over Syria would constitute ‘act of war’: Why Obama’s “Safe Zone” in Syria Will Inflame the War Zone

² Glenn Greenwald. The illegal war in Libya – Salon.com; Charlie Savage, 2 Top Lawyers Lost to Obama in Libya War Policy Debate – The New York Times

³ “The administration promised not to send ground troops into Libya, but Obama secretly authorized covert action by CIA paramilitary officers to aid the rebels.”

Obama the Conservative | Tracking Obama’s abandoning of the progressive agenda, and the disconnect between his words and deeds.

⁴ Bruce Ackerman, Obama’s Betrayal of the Constitution – The New York Times

⁵ Conor Friedersdorf, How Obama Ignored Congress, and Misled America, on War in Libya – The Atlantic

⁶ Daniel Lazare, Climbing into Bed with Al-Qaeda | Consortiumnews

⁷ Pentagon Recruits 60 “Moderate” Syrian Rebels, Pays $9 Million to Train Each One | Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization; In Syria: $36 million to train 60 opposition fighters? – LA Times
⁸ Israel acknowledges it is helping Syrian rebel fighters | The Times of Israel, Turkey and Israel Are Directly Supporting ISIS and Al Qaeda Terrorists In Syria Washington’s Blog [update on 8/6/2015]

⁹ Thomas Hedges, War Power Abuse Makes Iran Conflict More Likely – Truthdig

¹⁰ America, ISIS, and Syria: We have to bomb the jihadis in order to save them, and other posts on Syria.

¹¹ Middle East chaos: Cock-up or conspiracy? | Middle East Eye

Other Links [update on 8/6/2015]
Tony Cartalucci, US To Begin Invasion of Syria | New Eastern Outlook

Eric Draitser, The Fake War on ISIS: US and Turkey Escalate in Syria | New Eastern Outlook

Mike Whitney, The Brookings Institute Plan to Liquidate Syria

Moon of Alabama – Turkey Lauches War On Islamic State’s Worst Enemies – The Kurds

James Petras, Erodoğan and Netanyahu Declare War

State Dept. ‘frankly doesn’t know’ legal authority behind US airstrikes supporting Syrian rebels — RT USA

They Live, We Sleep: A Dictatorship Disguised as a Democracy

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By John W. Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”—They Live

We’re living in two worlds, you and I.

There’s the world we see (or are made to see) and then there’s the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.

Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America—privileged, progressive and free—is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation, and “freedom,” such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth.

All is not as it seems.

This is the premise of John Carpenter’s film They Live (1988), in which two migrant workers discover that the world’s population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.

It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.

When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them. Likewise, billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”

When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.

This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture. A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.

In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”

We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality. The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers). They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being. They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats. Most of all, they want us to continue to march in lockstep with their dictates.

Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: the moneyed elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.

In fact, a 2014 study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.

In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

Consider this: it is estimated that the 2016 presidential election could cost as much as $5 billion, more than double what was spent getting Obama re-elected in 2012.

Not only do you have to be rich—or beholden to the rich—to get elected these days, but getting elected is also a surefire way to get rich. As CBS News reports, “Once in office, members of Congress enjoy access to connections and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow them to profit even further.”

In denouncing this blatant corruption of America’s political system, former president Jimmy Carter blasted the process of getting elected—to the White House, governor’s mansion, Congress or state legislatures—as “unlimited political bribery… a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over.”

Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain. As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.

By creating the illusion that it preserves democratic traditions, fascism creeps slowly until it consumes the political system. And in times of “crisis,” expediency is upheld as the central principle—that is, in order to keep us safe and secure, the government must militarize the police, strip us of basic constitutional rights, criminalize virtually every form of behavior, and build enough private prisons to house all of us nonviolent criminals.

Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests. We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.

Vast sectors of the economy, government and politics are managed by private business concerns, otherwise referred to as “privatization” by various government politicians. Just study modern government policies. “Every industry is regulated. Every profession is classified and organized,” writes economic analyst Jeffrey Tucker. “Every good or service is taxed. Endless debt accumulation is preserved. Immense doesn’t begin to describe the bureaucracy. Military preparedness never stops, and war with some evil foreign foe, remains a daily prospect.”

In other words, the government in America today does whatever it wants.

Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.

For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary. But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime? The answer is the same in every age: fear.

Fear makes people stupid.

Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.

The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is working on the American populace.

Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist, we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.

We have allowed ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies.

In this regard, we’re not so different from the oppressed citizens in They Live. Most everyone keeps their heads down these days while staring zombie-like into an electronic screen, even when they’re crossing the street. Families sit in restaurants with their heads down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around them. Young people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their hands, oblivious to the fact that they can simply push a button, turn the thing off and walk away.

Indeed, there is no larger group activity than that connected with those who watch screens—that is, television, lap tops, personal computers, cell phones and so on. In fact, a Nielsen study reports that American screen viewing is at an all-time high. For example, the average American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month.

The question, of course, is what effect does such screen consumption have on one’s mind?

Psychologically it is similar to drug addiction. Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the TV, subjects reported feeling more relaxed, and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV viewing with a lack of tension.” Research also shows that regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.

Historically, television has been used by those in authority to quiet discontent and pacify disruptive people. “Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation and counseling, more and more prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet,” according to Newsweek.

Given that the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided through channels controlled by six mega corporations, what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite and, if that elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers, it can do so on a large scale.

If we’re watching, we’re not doing.

The powers-that-be understand this. As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a 1958 speech:

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

This brings me back to They Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.

When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”

We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Racial injustice is growing. Human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.

Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.

America’s Barbaric Logic of Hiroshima 70 Years On

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Finnian Cunningham

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Even if we accept that there was a plausible military imperative to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to bring about a swift defeat of Japan and thus an end to the Pacific War – the horror of civilian death toll from those two no-warning aerial attacks places a disturbing question over the supposed ends justifying the means.

But what if the official military rationale touted by US President Harry Truman and his administration turns out to be bogus? That is, the real reason for dropping the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago on August 6 and 9, 1945, had little to do with defeating imperial Japan and saving the lives of American troops. What if the real reason was the deliberate and cold-blooded demonstration of raw military power by Washington in order to warn the Soviet Union of America’s postwar demarcation of global hegemony?

That leads to the most chilling conclusion – a conclusion far worse than the official American narrative would have us believe. For it means that the act of obliterating up to 200,000 Japanese civilians was an event of premeditated mass murder whose intent was solely political. Or, in other words, an ineffable act of state terrorism committed by the United States.

This conjecture about the ulterior motive for the American atomic bombing of Japan has been around for many years. In January 1995, the New York Times reported: «Indeed, some historians contend that the bombing was not aimed so much at the wartime enemy Japan as at the wartime ally Soviet Union, delivered as a warning against postwar rivalry».

With complacent equivocation, the New York Times did not follow through on the horrendous implications of its own partial admission for why the atomic bombs were dropped. If the official US calculation was indeed «a warning against postwar rivalry» to the Soviet Union, then that makes the act an indefensible political decision that had nothing to do with a moral imperative of promptly ending a war. It was, as noted, a supreme act of terrorism.

Professsor Gar Alperovitz – one of several American historians – has over the decades compiled a compelling case that the Truman administration did in fact make the decision to use the A-bombs as a political weapon against the Soviet Union.

The author of ‘The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb’ wrote: «Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognise that the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force».

Alperovitz cites then US Secretary of War Henry L Stimson and such military luminaries as General Dwight Eisenhower and Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William D Leahy who were explicitly opposed to using the A-bomb on Japan. Eisenhower said it was»completely unnecessary» while Leahy noted: «The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender».

This points to covert political decision-making during the critical three-week period between the Potsdam conference (July 17-August 2 1945) and the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan. During that period it appears that Truman and his aides decided in secret that the then Soviet wartime ally was to be henceforth made the postwar enemy. The Cold War was being formulated.

Bear in mind that for months before Potsdam, the US and Britain were appealing to Russian leader Josef Stalin to join the Pacific War soon after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Two months after the Third Reich was vanquished in May 1945, the Potsdam conference between the Big Three allies achieved the much-anticipated commitment from Stalin to redeploy the Red Army against Japan. The Soviet Union was scheduled to officially enter the Pacific War on August 15. As it turned out, Stalin ordered the Red Army into Manchuria on August 8, a week ahead of the scheduled offensive.

As Harry Truman gleefully wrote in a private letter during Potsdam this commitment from the Soviet Union meant that «the Japs were finished».

However, the successful testing of the first A-bomb by the United States in the desert of New Mexico on July 16 – only the day before begining the Potsdam summit – was a point of no return. With this awesome new weapon, US planners must have quickly realised that they could finish the war against Japan without the Soviet Union entering the Pacific theatre, by dropping the A-bomb.

But the primary US objective wasn’t to finish the Pacific War per se. American and British military chiefs and intelligence were convinced that the mere entry of Russia into the war against Japan would precipitate the latter’s surrender. And besides the American invasion of mainland Japan was not planned to take place until November 1945.

It seems clear then that the Truman administration rushed ahead to use its new atomic weapon on Japan because its concern was to circumscribe any advance by the Soviet Union in Asia-Pacific. Not only was the Red Army poised to take Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula but mainland Japan as well.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki – two civilian centres of no military value – were thus selected as the venues for demonstrating the most spellbinding act of terror, not to an all but defeated Japan, but to the Soviet Union. The atomic bombing of Japan was therefore not the last act of the Pacific War, as the official American narrative contends, but rather it was the first, brutal act of the nascent Cold War by the US towards Soviet Russia.

That puts the horrific events in an altogether different criminal light. Because the atomic bombings can then be seen as a deliberate act of mass murder for no other strategic reason other than to intimidate a perceived geopolitical rival – Moscow.

Seventy years on, history proves that this barbaric logic of the US ruling elite still holds. After the official end of the Cold War nearly a quarter of a century ago, Washington has evidently no intention of disarming its nuclear arsenal. In fact, the US government under President Barack Obama is planning to spend $355 billion over the next decade to upgrade its stockpile of some 5,000 nuclear warheads – each many times more powerful than the A-bombs that were originally dropped on Japan.

Furthermore, Washington has offiicially declared Russia, along with China, as its top strategic enemy, as recent as this month, according to senior Pentagon figures.

The unilateral withdrawal by the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty in 2002 and the ongoing expansion of US missile systems on Russia’s borders and in the Pacific with provocative reference to China are testimony to the inherent bellicose intent that resides in Washington.

As with the first and only use of nuclear weapons 70 years ago, the US logic that led to the holocaust at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a barbaric logic than pertains to this day. It is still being aimed at Russia, as it was seven decades ago.

Only the full exposure and eradication of this uniquely American barbaric logic will lead to peaceful international relations.

NATO and the West Just Became Irrelevant

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By F. William Engdahl

Source: New Eastern Outlook

The dual summits that took place in Russia’s Ufa beginning 9 July were anything but routine. In fact it may be seen by future historians as a signal event that marked the definitive decline of the global hegemony of European civilization including North America. This is no small event in human history. It’s the most significant shift in relative global economic relations since the Fourth Crusade in 1204 when the Republic of Venice emerged as a world power following their brutal, disgraceful capture and sacking of Constantinople, marking the demise of the Byzantine Empire.

First a look at what transpired. Russia was host to two overlapping summits of emerging alternative organizations, the annual meeting of the BRICS nations as well as the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The larger significance has been all but entirely blacked out by western mainstream media such as the New York Times.

First we look at the results from the BRICS meeting where Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the five member states. The BRICS formally put their New Development Bank (NDB) into operation. It has world headquarters in Shanghai, China’s banking and financial center with a branch in South Africa to serve the African region.

It is explicitly operating as an alternative to the post-1945 domination of the IMF and World Bank, the heart of Washington’s Dollar System. It has member contributions of $50 billion for infrastructure projects mainly, but not exclusively, in the BRICS states. As well it has created a $100 billion financial defense fund, a so-called Contingent Reserves Arrangement, in event of speculative attacks such as were launched by Washington with the Soros Quantum Fund in 1997 to destroy the independent Asian Tiger economies.

The NDB bank is in business one year after the last BRICS summit agreed to its creation, and the meeting announced that first approved infrastructure projects will begin at the beginning of 2016. That’s an impressive testament to the mutual will to create an alternative to the IMF and World Bank, both of the latter controlled by Washington where they are headquartered. Notably BRICS agreed for the first time to institute formal cooperation with the leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

As well they agreed to meet the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)–Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

SCO adds major security dimension

For its part, the nations of the SCO–Shanghai Cooperation Organization–in addition to formally admitting both India and Pakistan, agreed to increase its role combating terrorism in the region. The SCO was established in 2001 originally to settle border conflicts between China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in the years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is now undergoing an organic metamorphosis into something quite different and, in combination with China’s One Belt, One Road New Economic Silk Road high-speed rail network crisscrossing Russia and all Eurasia, potentially the kernel of an economic region whose growth over the next century and more can pale anything the debt-bloated OECD economies of the west are capable of.

This year the SCO members admitted Pakistan and India as full members, a move that undercuts some seventy years of Anglo-American geopolitics on the Indian Subcontinent by bringing the two bitter enemies into a forum dedicated to resolving border conflicts diplomatically. The Ufa BRICS declaration also stressed the importance of reaffirming the UN Charter and condemned unilateral military intervention, a clear reference to guess who?

That enlargement to include India and Pakistan into the Eurasian SCO has huge implications for China’s New Economic Silk Road high-speed rail infrastructure network across all Eurasia as well as potential gas and oil pipeline routes in the region. Significantly, for an Obama Administration that wants to pit Iran against Russia and China with the signing of the latest nuclear Geneva 6-power deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attended the BRICS/SCO summits and held private talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tehran will likely join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization after the embargo is withdrawn, perhaps as early as 2016, something that will give the SCO a major presence in the Middle East geographically.

With the planned lifting now of US economic sanctions on Iran, this could mean a huge economic deepening of the Eurasian economic space from Shanghai to St. Petersburg to Teheran and beyond, the nightmare scenario of US geopolitical actors like Zbigniew Brzezinski or Henry Kissinger.

Notably, the BRICS final declaration also pledged greater cooperation on combating terrorism and dealing with security problems of member states. This overlaps the Russia-initiated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), created in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union to provide some semblance of security from rampant CIA monkey business using veterans of the CIA’s Afghani Mujahideen to “stir up” (to use Brzezinski’s term for it) the peoples of former Soviet states with large Muslim populations across Central Asia, especially Azerbaijan and the Caucasus.

Today, the CSTO is emerging as a far more serious organization and a means by which Russia can legitimately provide direct security expertise to weaker states inside the Eurasian Economic Union such as Kyrgyzstan or Armenia, both of whom have been targets of new US-sponsored Color Revolutions to spread chaos across the emerging Eurasian economic space.

What is notable about the joint BRICS-SCO-Eurasian Economic Union summit hosted by Russia’s Putin in Ufa, a city of some one million at the foot of the Ural mountain range near to Kazakhstan, is not only the degree of harmonizing that is taking place among the three vast organizations. It is also the fact that Russia uniquely is a member of all three, facilitating the harmonization of the three in terms of strategic goals. Moreover the member states have everything and everyone necessary to be fully independent of the dollar world and the dying EU with its misbegotten Euro sham.

As The Saker pointed out in a recent perceptive piece, “the full list of BRICS/SCO members will now look like this: Brazil , China , India , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Pakistan , Russia , South Africa , Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The BRICS/SCO will thus include 2 Permanent UN Security Council, 4 countries with nuclear weapons (only 3 NATO countries have nukes!), it’s members account for a full third of the world’s land area: they produce 16 trillion dollars in GDP and have a population of 3 billion people or half of the global world population.”

A new architecture of Eurasia is being formed, something which, were they of a mind to, the nations of the EU, above all Germany, France, Italy, could hugely benefit from cooperating with. Yet, what is the response of Washington and her “vassals” in European NATO, to use the term of Brzezinski?

The NATO Washington response

The response of Washington and NATO to all this is a bleak, pathetic contrast to put it mildly.

The new Obama nominee to become US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, declared Russia to be America’s greatest threat in his Congressional testimony some days ago. Conveniently forgetting all about the “existential threat” from ISIS, an organization US and Israeli intelligence brought into being to spread their chaos, Dunford declared, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia.” The alarming thing is there was scarcely a peep of protest aside from blog remarks by retired Congressman Ron Paul and a few others. The tom-toms of bellicosity are pounding louder along the Potomac these days.

The war rage in Washington goes deeper than just one general. The Pentagon just released its Military Strategy of the United States, 2015. There the focus has clearly shifted away from “non-state actors” such as ISIS as being the greatest threat to the US and refocuses on “state actors” that are “challenging international norms.” The Pentagon strategy document goes on to name Russia, China, Iran, North Korea as the greatest threats. What they do not admit is the “threat” is to the continued sole Superpower hegemony of a United States that insists its will is the only valid one as self-appointed guardian of “democracy” and “human rights,” their New World Order as George Bush senior termed it in 1991.

On the economic front, what is emerging across the vast expanse of Eurasia is the greatest infrastructure investment in real physical infrastructure, which in turn will create new markets where today the remote regions of Siberia or Mongolia remain virtually untouched. By contrast, Obama’s Washington, a once-hegemon that has lost its soul, can only offer the US-dominated secret free trade pact, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), for Asian states absent China, as a way to contain china economically, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that offers the same geopolitical dead end for the economies of the EU. Both trade proposals are a desperate attempt by Washington strategists and their corporate backers in agribusiness such as Monsanto or the pharmaceutical industry to dominate world trade and finance.

Just as an individual can lose themselves through a trauma, so it’s possible for entire nations, even nations as large and apparently mighty as the United States of America, to lose its soul. Once a nation loses its soul, it loses its ability to do good, to be good. That tragically describes America today. The process has been a slow-motion rot from within, much as the Roman Empire in the Third and Fourth centuries AD. The rot has proceeded over decades.

There were many seminal events we as a people let pass without acting. One such over the past century or more was the US Congress’ surrender of the Constitutional responsibility to control the issue of money, handing it over to a private cabal of Wall Street bankers who named it the Federal Reserve. Another was the perfidy of our turning on our wartime allies in Russia and making them the “new Hitler,” so that Nelson Rockefeller’s national security state, complete with a CIA, could be built to justify the devaluation of the essence of the US Constitution. Another was the decision, well, perhaps you can fill in the blanks there are so many, each seemingly minor, but as a cumulative totality toxic to genuine respect for human life and individual freedom. Then, following the events of September 11,2001 we as a nation, crippled by our fear, stood by silently as the Bill of Rights went into the paper shredder of George W. Bush with the misnamed Patriots Act and other police state laws.

Once a people as once-wonderful as the American people lose all that that made them good, it takes a conscious decision and determination to regain that goodness. The first essential step is to become conscious of what is bad in us as a people today. David Rockefeller or George H.W. Bush or Bill Gates or Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush did not do this. We did, and they merely took the use out of our action. There we must begin if we wish to take ourselves seriously again as a nation and as a people. Seeing ourselves as “victims” regardless of what or whoever is a dead end, literally.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

US fall from virtuous republic to tragic-comic empire described exactly by Roman historians

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Carl Herman

Source: The Daily Censored

The ancient Greek historian, Polybius, celebrated the Roman republic of ~ 150 BC under its constitution with balance of powers among the Senate, two elected consuls, and the general citizens:

“Such being the power that each part has of hampering the others or co-operating with them, their union is adequate to all emergencies, so that it is impossible to find a better political system than this.” – The Histories, Book VI, Section V: On the Roman Constitution at its Prime

Americans and people around the world were equally proud of the United States Constitution as “impossible to find a better political system than this.”

About 100 years after Polybius’ account, Rome’s republic had descended into oligarchic competition for power. Contemporary to Julius Caesar, the Roman historian and government insider Sallust blasted the decline of virtue in government:

“To those who had easily endured toils, dangers, and doubtful and difficult circumstances, ease and wealth, the objects of desire to others, became a burden and a trouble. At first the love of money, and then that of power, began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil. For avarice subverted honesty, integrity, and other honorable principles, and, in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion, and general venality. Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart. These vices at first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterwards, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became rapacious and insupportable.” – Conspiracy of Catiline, The Argument

The most prolific Roman historian, Livy, witnessed Rome’s transition into dictatorial empire with Augustus Caesar as first emperor. In his preface to address 700 years of Roman history:

“I have no doubt that the earliest origins and the immediately succeeding period will give less delight to the majority of readers who are hurrying to these recent times in which the might of a most powerful people has long been destroying itself.

… I shall seek this additional reward for my labor (recounting all Rome’s history) so that I may turn away from the contemplation of the evils that our age has seen for so many years.” – The History of Rome, Preface

Tacitus wrote ~ 100 AD, a century into empire. Emperors proclaimed to the public that their government still upheld the highest ideals of their Republic, claiming expanding empire was only and always in “self-defense.”

Emperor Domitian’s assassination in 96 AD (among ~22 murdered emperors), allowed Tacitus to write The Agricola, a biographical text of his father-in-law contrasting claimed virtue of Roman military and citizenry with the emperor’s utterly corrupt despotism.

Importantly, this text describes the problem of virtuous Romans within a psychopathic government. Tacitus describes Agricola attempting to uphold virtue; but without recognition of any evil in serving an expanding dictatorial empire. Tacitus seems to assume the ideal of mos maiorum, “custom/virtue of Roman forefathers” will eventually triumph over the evil of present “leadership.”

In Agricola’s campaign as military and political leader of Roman Britain to expand the empire to modern Scotland from 78 – 84 AD, Tacitus recorded a speech he attributes to Scottish rebel-leader, Calgacus, to voice how those of virtue characterized Roman empire under corrupt emperors:

“It is no use trying to escape their arrogance by submission or good behavior. Robbers of the world, having by universal plunder exhausted the land, their drive is greed. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if poor, they lust for domination. Neither rule of the East nor West can satisfy them. Alone among men, they crave with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To plunder, slaughter, seize with false pretenses, they give the lying name ‘empire.’ And where nothing remains but a desert, they call that ‘peace.’ ” – Tacitus, The Agricola and the Germania (analyses here, here)

Roman imperialists called Calgacus and those who preferred independence from evil empire a name: barbarus. This is translated today as “barbarian,” but its context for using unconventional warfare to oppose the most powerful military in its day is better translated in today’s language with a different word:

Terrorist.

Indeed, Obama combines these terms to call ISIS “barbaric terrorists.”

American Founders created the US Constitution in light of Roman Republic design (here, here, among dozens), and aware previous republics had always self-destructed from corruption within their own nations. Among many of the Founders’ admonitions, James Madison was clear that citizen responsibility was essential to maintain a republic, no matter how well the Constitution was designed:

“A mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits (of government) is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.” – James Madison, Federalist Paper #48, 1788.

On September 18, 1787, just after signing the US Constitution, Benjamin Franklin met with members of the press. He was asked what kind of government America would have. Franklin warned: “A republic, if you can keep it.” In his speech to the Constitutional Convention, Franklin admonished: “This [U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism… when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” – The Quotable Founding Fathers, pg. 39.

These warnings extend to all social science teachers of the present:

“As educators in the field of history–social science, we want our students to… understand the value, the importance, and the fragility of democratic institutions. We want them to realize that only a small fraction of the world’s population (now or in the past) has been fortunate enough to live under a democratic form of government.” – History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, pgs. 2, 7-8

US/UK/Israel today: Current Middle East armed attacks are proclaimed by US/UK/Israel “leaderships” as self-defense, just as Rome claimed. US “leaders” claim to uphold America’s highest ideals of freedom while removing almost all Constitutional Rights, as did Roman emperors. Corruption today, as in Rome, is rampant.

US/UK/Israel wars today are not even close to legal, and based on lies known to be false as they are told. Engaging in unlawful Wars of Aggression is the very opposite of a virtuous republic limited in power under its constitution. This is easy to verify for those with about an hour to look:

Solutions learned from the past applied to the present: Tacitus’ argument was to wait-out tyranny in confidence public virtue of past ideals would triumph.

Tacitus was wrong.

A stronger solution would be critical mass recognition by the public of corruption in an Emperor’s New Clothes analogy, arrests, and a clear forum for whistleblowers to disclose the full extent of corruption.

In today’s world of tragic-comic US/UK/Israel corrupt empire, I propose the solution of:

public demand for “leader” arrests. An arrest lawfully stops crimes.
Truth & Reconciliation to encourage criminal minions to become whistleblowers so we can best discover the extent of the crimes waged by the .01% upon the 99.99%.
With removed criminal oligarchs and corporate media who “covered” these crimes, we’d have honest opportunity for available economic solutions that would transform our beautiful, but historically dominated planet.

Note: I make all factual assertions as a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History, with all economics factual claims receiving zero refutation since I began writing in 2008 among Advanced Placement Macroeconomics teachers on our discussion board, public audiences of these articles, and international conferences. I invite readers to empower their civic voices with the strongest comprehensive facts most important to building a brighter future. I challenge professionals, academics, and citizens to add their voices for the benefit of all Earth’s inhabitants.

Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS, for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at Carl_Herman@post.harvard.edu

Note: Examiner.com has blocked public access to my articles on their site (and from other whistleblowers), so some links in my previous work are blocked. If you’d like to search for those articles other sites may have republished, use words from the article title within the blocked link. Or, go to http://archive.org/web/, paste the expired link into the box, click “Browse history,” then click onto the screenshots of that page for each time it was screen-shot and uploaded to webarchive. I’ll update as “hobby time” allows; including my earliest work from 2009 to 2011 (blocked author pages: here, here).

25 Signs That The Global Elite’s Ship Is About To Sink

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Lance Schuttler

Source: The Mind Unleashed

Make no mistake about it. The tide has turned on the global elite and there will be no going back. A new day is rising for humanity as those who have planned for complete control are now being exposed, cornered and investigated from many different angles. There is no need to buy into the fear-based propaganda the major media and even several alternative media outlets dispense. Very good things are happening and even better things are coming. Let’s take a look at some of the major stories that have occurred in the last 8 weeks alone. Piecing the puzzle together, we see that the jig is up and the events surrounding it are growing in size and speed.

1. 57 Nations approved as founding members of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Notable countries who signed on June 29th, 2015 include Russia, India, Iran, Switzerland, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indonesia, the UK, Italy and Austria. Notables who did not join are the U.S. and Japan.

2. May 12th, 2015: Russia asks Greece to join the BRICS Alliance. Notice the BRICS trend in the stories to follow.

3. May 24th, 2015: The Pentagon released documents to Judicial Watch, a government watchdog law firm,
proving that the US Government played a central role in creating ISIL. Interestingly, the mainstream media failed to cover this story. A few weeks later, ex US Intelligence officials confirm the report.

4. May 31st, 2015: Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras writes an open letter, warns European leaders they are “making a grave mistake,” and suggests they re-read Hemingways’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls.”

5. June 2nd, 2015: The U.S. Federal Government was hacked as the personal data of 4 million current, former and prospective employees believed to have been breached. 3 weeks later FBI Director James Comey told US Senators the actual number could be 18 million. Some believe the hack was coordinated to gather further evidence
of crimes by certain government officials. More on that further down.

6. June 2nd, 2015: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul calls for the U.S. Government to declassify 28 pages in the 9/11 attack report that the Bush Administration blacked out.

7. June 3rd, 2015: Famous musician Akon announces his Solar Academy will bring solar power to over 600 million people in Africa. A major victory for clean energy and humanity.

8. June 4th, 2015: Whistle-blower Edward Snowden says a “profound difference” had occurred since releasing the NSA documents and that the balance of power has shifted in our world. Is he referring to the BRICS Alliance?

9. June 5th, 2015: “There Will Be A Reset of The Financial Industry.” The International Monetary Fund says the Chinese yuan is no longer undervalued. This sets the stage for the yuan to be recognized as a global reserve currency, something the U.S. Dollar (which is backed by war and oil) does not like.

10. June 7, 2015: Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s largest banks, co-CEO’s Jain and Fitschen resign. Two days later, German prosecutors raided the Bank’s headquarters in a criminal tax-fraud probe.

11. June 15, 2015: China says the G-7 Summit in Germany was a “gathering of debtors.” They mean this literally as the Bretton Woods western financial system is based on debt. And in fact, the entire western financial system has been running illegally and is technically bankrupt. For more on the real history of Bretton Woods and its connection to JFK, The Global Collateral Accounts and the gold standard, read here.

12. June 17th, 2015 is quite the day with the next four stories all being reported at that time. First, JP Morgan’s number 2, the Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee, suddenly and unexpectedly passes over. Since late 2013, the list of high-level banking officials to have passed over has grown to 70. Clearly, something is happening.

13. June 17, 2015: Russia and China announced that all natural gas and crude oil sales between
the two countries will now be done in Chinese yuan( formerly the U.S. Dollar) and will be convertible into Russian Rubles. The U.S. Dollar hegemony is waning.

14. June 17, 2015: The State of Texas has signed a bill that calls for the repatriation of their gold from the Federal Government. When asked what would happen if the government tried to steal back the gold, State Representative Giovanni Capriglione said this: There is a motto in the office of almost every state legislator in Texas, and it’s a flag that we have [from the Texas Revolution], it’s below a cannon and what the motto says is, “Come and Take it.”

15. June 17, 2015: Greece’s Hellenic Parliament’s Debt Truth Committee released a report stating that the debt Greece “owes” is illegal, illegitimate and odious, according to international law. Further, they stated the IMF and ECB ( European Central Bank) having illegally and knowingly imposed these illegitimate debts upon Greece and other nations. A direct call out to the global banking cartel.

16. June 18th, 2015: Baron David de Rothschild has been indicted by a French court over financial fraud. French police have been ordered by the court to track down Baron. The Rothschild family has long been viewed as the family sitting atop the global financial ponzi scheme. Lawyer Antonio Flores told reporters, ” it’s a real breakthrough moment for everyone involved.”

17. June 18, 2015: In a 2-1 ruling, the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals says Bush era officials can be held liable for detaining innocent people after the 9/11 attack. Will this lead to some major arrests?

18. June 19, 2015: While European leaders try to save face on the debt crisis, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras was in Russia and gave a speech at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, stating that “the economic center of the planet has already shifted” and that new powers are playing an “important role on an economic and geopolitical level.” * Reread story header number 8…BRICS, anyone? Oh, and Greece and Russia signed a €2 billion gas pipeline deal that day too…a strategic economic and geopolitical game-changer.

19. July 5th, 2015: Greece votes “NO” to the creditors’ bailout offer. This is a massive stance for humanity that Greece just took against the banking elite. As of this writing, a “deal” has been reached but is expected to fall apart in the coming days. Kicking the can down the road does not solve the issue, but rather speeds up the revolution mindset of many frustrated Greek citizens. September/October is when many financial experts are saying that some fireworks are to be expected.

20. July 7th, 2015: The BRICS Bank officially opens for business.

21. July 8th, 2015: On this day, several strange events occurred. The NYSE was taken down for multiple hours, the Wall Street Journal was taken offline just after the stock exchange went down, United Airlines was forced to ground all of its flights nationwide due to computer “issues,” and 2,500 people losing power in Washington D.C. This whistle-blower journalist just wrote that his Pentagon sources said the Pentagon/BRICS Alliance took it down as a “dry run.”

22. July 7th, 2015: Backing up one day we see that the hacking group Anonymous tweeted this on the evening prior to the stock exchange hack: Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for Wall Street….we can only hope.
David Wilcock has previously written a detailed document stating that Anonymous is working with certain patriotic US Military forces to legally take down the banking elite.. This aligns nicely with what the whistle-blower journalist, Benjamin Fulford, just wrote this week about the Pentagon and BRICS Alliance in the previous story.

23. July 14th, 2015: Iran, China, Russia, France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. reach a historic deal on Iran’s nuclear program. Entire books could be written on the geopolitical, financial and technological implications of this move. There are also reports that the reality of this situation is that Iran has free energy technology and will be using this to help bring down the banking/political/oil industry elite. This would make sense as the strongest opponents to this deal have been Israel and its Prime Minister and several American politicians like the Bushes, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

24. July 15th, 2015: Santa Cruz County votes to stop doing business with 5 major banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Barclays, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS. Watch this set off a chain reaction in those who will follow suit.

25. Now: You are here on the planet at this time to make a wonderful contribution. Please continue playing your role for the benefit of us all.

It is clear that something big is happening. Use this information to move forward with optimism and hope. Share with your friends. Discuss with your friends. Continue to search and dig for the truth. Two people I strongly suggest the reader looking into are Benjamin Fulford, the whistleblower who was the Asia Pacific Bureau Chief for Forbes Magazine and is listed in stories number 21 and 22, and Neil Keenan, who is working with many well connected sources to open up the global collateral accounts. These accounts are what President Kennedy was assassinated over and are what the banking elite does not want the public to know exists. This revolution WILL NOT be televised.

The Human Aversion to “Doing the Right Thing”

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Reid Mukai

Does Anyone Want to Make the World a Better Place?

By John Kozy

Source: Global Research

Does anyone want to make the world a better place? Do you know anyone who does? Have you known of anyone who has? Think carefully about these questions, because things are not always as they seem.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued an Executive Order as a wartime measure freeing the slaves in the ten states that were in rebellion. It freed about three quarters of the four million slaves in the United States at the time. The remainder were not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1865. The order did not outlaw slavery and did not confer citizenship on those freed. It was merely a strategic measure, not a humanitarian gesture. Nevertheless, Lincoln has become known in American history as the Great Emancipator.

The war during which the order was issued resulted in the deaths of approximately three quarters of a million people, and the freedmen, as the former slaves were called, were left to fend for themselves. Many joined the army and after the war were sent West to fulfill America’s Manifest Destiny by killing Indians. What a magnificent event the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation was. Men were freed from slavery so they could become Indian slayers. What a great contribution to the improvement of the human condition that was!

Yet in 1861, two years before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Tsar Alexander II, a brutal Russian Autocrat, abolished serfdom in Russia by merely signing a document. Lincoln’s order freed about three million slaves; the Tsar’s edict freed 23 million without firing a single shot, without killing a single person or causing a single person to have to fend for himself. How dastardly! What a barbarian! You would think that he could have killed at least half a million. After all, he was the Tsar! He was a brutal Russian, not a benevolent American!

Really? Who was the greater humanitarian? The Great Emancipator or the Tsar? Did either make the world a better place? Were people any better off after the edicts were issued than before? Did being freed sate any person’s hunger?

Lincoln was elected president of “a house divided.” He went to war to preserve the house, to preserve the union. He succeed marvelously. The house has been divided ever since! Was the world made any better by the war? Was the world any better after the war than it was before? Judge for yourselves. Were America’s Blacks any better off? Are they better off today? These questions are not easy to answer.

In 1889, Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany enacted the world’s first old-age social insurance program which was designed by Germany’s arch-conservative Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. In a letter to the German Reichstag. Wilhelm wrote: “. . . those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state.” How reactionary! Imagine a Kaiser caring about the well-being of workers? What in the world can we make of that?

A short time later—well, quite a bit later in 1935—Franklin Delano Roosevelt basically copied the German program and induced the Congress to enact it. Roosevelt may have been a man of the people, although he was not quick to come to that position, but he was no original thinker. Yet he has an endearing place in the hearts of Americans. German Kaisers do not! Humanitarianism just oozes out of the hearts of America’s political leaders, doesn’t it? Did Roosevelt make the world a better place? If so, did the autocratic Kaiser make it a better place too?

Between 1939 and 1941 New Zealand created the first universal health care system. Other nations soon followed: The United Kingdom in 1948, Sweden in 1955, Iceland and Norway in 1956, Denmark in 1961, Finland in 1964, Japan in 1961, Canada between 1968 and 1972, the Soviet Union in 1969, Australia in 1974 and 1984, Italy in 1978, Portugal in 1979, Greece in 1983, Spain in 1986, South Korea in 1989, Taiwan in 1995, Israel in 1995, the Netherlands in 1986 and 2006, and Switzerland in 1996. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Western European countries of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg expanded their social health insurance systems to provide universal coverage. The United States of America? Well, not yet. Maybe someday. Perhaps never. Obama believes his reform of private health insurance has rendered universal healthcare unnecessary. America’s leading from behind—way behind—does not extend to improving the human condition, and America does not boast of belonging to this international sommunity.

These examples provide evidence for the assertion often inaccurately attributed to Winston Churchill that “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” But things are really much worse than that. When Americans do set out to do the right thing, they often do it so badly and so ineffectively that the pathos of the human condition is hardly improved at all. Healthcare in America is so poorly distributed that many people lack access to it under any conditions and every physical ailment is not covered by medical insurance. Many communities lack even one primary care physician; others boast of scores, and vision, hearing, and dental problems are not covered by most medical insurance plans, not even Medicare! But of course not! Why do people, especially the elderly, need to see, hear, or chew? Making the world a better place is not an American forte. Nor is it a forte in many other countries.

In trying to judge the value of something, the Romans often asked, “Cui bono?” Who benefits? is an important question. So is the question, Who suffers? For instance, when an elderly person whose hearing is impaired is denied a hearing aid, who benefits? Anyone at all? When an unemployed person is denied unemployment compensation, who benefits? Anyone? When a family with little or no income is denied nutritional assistance, who benefits? When an ill person is denied medical care, who benefits? And who benefits when a homeless family is denied a domicile? Who benefits when a school child is denied a lunch? Does anyone benefit? Yet who suffers is obvious, isn’t it? Helping no one and making many suffer is merely cruel, and being cruel is a moral fault. America and many other nations are not people-countries; they do not exist for the welfare of people. Making the world a better place is not something human beings do easily.

When people are denied these benefits, the deniers are engaged in simple cruelty. No, gratuitous cruelty inflicted gratuitously! The Earth is awash in it, and most of it is inflicted by human beings, many of whom are content to do nothing in the face of it. The American Congress has traditionally been know as a “do nothing” institution. And Edmund Burke, a very conservative political philosopher said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” When the American Congress or any political institution anywhere is content to do nothing to alleviate human suffering, it follows that the institution is aiding and abetting “the triumph of evil.” But something else follows as well. Those who do nothing are not good people! That, above all, needs to be made obvious. Bad people do nothing and aid and abet the triumph of evil in the world. So much for making the world a better place!

I asked above whether the American Civil War made the world a better place. Now the world is in a continuous war. The Western world is at war with most of the nations in the Middle East, North Africa, and is promoting war in Ukraine. The Sunnis are now are even being encouraged to kill other Sunnis. How can it possible end well? When the Kurds, who are being encouraged to kill Sunnis too and who live in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, want to form a nation of their own, Kurdistan, and Turkey objects, who is the West going to support? The Kurds or a NATO partner?

Will there be no end to this killing? Is any human being’s life anywhere made better by all this killing? Was the life of any American bettered when Osama bin Laden was assassinated? Did that assassination sate any child’s hunger? Did the American economy suddenly awaken from the doldrums? Can’t you just see how much better off everyone is because of the killing frenzy? Apparently no one but the world’s leaders can.

Abba Eban, an Israeli diplomat, said in June 1967 at the United Nations that “The question is whether there is any reason to believe that . . . a new era may yet come to pass. If I am sanguine on this point, it is because of a conviction that men and nations do behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. Surely the other alternatives of war and belligerency have now been exhausted.”

How “hope springs eternal” even in the hearts of those who blankly stare into the abyss. The West, following America’s lead has proven that the alternatives of war and belligerency have not yet been exhausted. So let peoples everywhere be warned: if you are willing to follow America to the gates of Hell, be prepared to enter it. Those gates swing in only one direction!

The world will not become a better place until human beings want it to. Those who deny benefits to needy people and promote orgies of killing do not want it to. They want to protect the status quo. But denying benefits to the needy and promoting continuous war define the status quo. At least since Alexander the Great, war has been the instrument of what is now called foreign policy. They also comprise domestic policy in most nations. States can just as easily wage war against their own citizens as foreigners. Is this cruelty the essence of human nature? Will it ever be different?

Not until the questions, “Who benefits?” and “Who doesn’t?” are being answered, “The needy!” and “Nobody!”. The goal of human endeavor must become the welfare of human beings. Nothing good comes of doing otherwise.

John Kozy is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who writes on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially, in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has written a number of guest editorials for newspapers. His on-line pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/ and he can be emailed from that site’s homepage.

	You Don’t Have To Wa… on You Don’t Have To Wait For Hal…
	ALL OUT WAR ON THE L… on ALL OUT WAR ON THE LIFE F…
	Pacific.scoop.co.nz… on Killing the Biosphere to Fast-…
	Reid Mukai on Saturday Matinee: Wizards
	Lara/Trace on Saturday Matinee: Wizards

After the Crash

Dispatches From a Long Recovery (Est. 10/2024)

Category Archives: Empire

America’s Barbaric Logic of Hiroshima 70 Years On

NATO and the West Just Became Irrelevant