Category Archives: propaganda

US Empire: American Exceptionalism Is No Shining City On a Hill

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By Gilbert Mercier

Source: News Junkie Post

The concept of American exceptionalism is as old as the United States, and it implies that the country has a qualitative difference from other nations. This notion of being special gives Americans the sense that playing a lead role in world affair is part of their natural historic calling. However there is nothing historically exceptional about this: the Roman empire also viewed itself as a system superior to other nations and, more recently, so did the British and the French empires.

On the topic of American exceptionalism, which he often called “Americanism”, Seymour Martin Lipset noted that “America’s ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire. The revolutionary ideology, which became American creed, is liberalism in its eighteenth and nineteenth-century meaning. It departed from conservatism Toryism, statist communitarianism, mercantilism and noblesse-oblige dominant in monarchical state-church formed cultures.” Naturally identifying America’s system as a unique ideology, just like calling its successful colonial war against Britain a revolution, is a fallacy. For one, America was never based on social equality, as rigid class distinctions always remained through US history.

In reality, the US has never broken from European social models. American exceptionalism implies a sense of superiority, just like in the case of the British empire, the French empire and the Roman empire. In such imperialist systems, class inequality was never challenged and, as matter of fact, served as cornerstone of the imperial structure. In American history, the only exception to this system based on social inequality was during the post World War II era of the economic “miracle”. The period from 1945 to the mid 1970s was characterized by major economic growth, an absence of big economic downturns, and a much higher level of social mobility on a massive scale. This time frame saw a tremendous expansion of higher education: from 2.5 million people to 12 million going to colleges and universities, and this education explosion, naturally, fostered this upward mobility where the American dream became possible for the middle class.

Regardless of  real domestic social progress made in the United States after the birth of the empire in 1945, for the proponents of American exceptionalism — this includes the entire political class — the myth of the US being defined as a “shining city on a hill” has always been a rationale to justify the pursuit of imperialism. For example, when President Barack Obama addressed the nation to justify the US military intervention in Libya, he said that “America is different”, as if the US has a special role in history as a force for good. In a speech on US foreign policy, at West Point on May 28, 2014, Obama bluntly stated: “In fact, by most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise — who suggest that America is in decline or has seen its global leadership slip away are misreading history. Our military has no peer….  I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.”

In his book, Democracy In America, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville was lyrical in his propaganda-like adulation of American exceptionalism, defining it almost as divine providence. “When the earth was given to men by the Creator, the earth was inexhaustible. But men were weak and ignorant, and when they had learned to take advantage of the treasures which it contained, they already covered its surface and were soon obliged to earn by the sword an asylum for repose and freedom. Just then North America was discovered, as if it had been kept in reserve by the Deity and had risen from beneath the waters of the deluge”, wrote de Tocqueville.

This notion, originated by the French author, and amplified ever since, which defined the US as the “divine gift” of a moral and virtuous land, is a cruel fairy tale. It is mainly convenient to ease up America’s profound guilt. After all, the brutal birth of this nation took place under the curse of two cardinal sins: the theft of Native American lands after committing a genocide of their population; and the hideous crime of slavery, with slaves building an immense wealth for the few, in a new feudal system, with their sweat, tears and blood.

US Military and NATO: Praetorian Guard of the Orwellian Empire

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By Gilbert Mercier

Source: News Junkie Post

The new world order is chaos

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has positioned itself, one administration after another, as a global supercop guarantor of world peace. Indeed, since the end of World War II, even as the US has projected its power worldwide through military might, its clever ideologues have managed to convince a large portion of their public opinion that their ambitions for global hegemony are altruistic and benevolent. This dichotomy between the fictional discourse and the brutal reality of US imperialism, applied globally since 1945, is more blatant than George Orwell’s worse fears expressed in “1984“. In this war-is-peace construct, nothing is what it appears to be, and imperialist wars are sold to a gullible citizenry as being humanitarian. Despite the disinformation propagated by the think tanks and Western mainstream media outlets, factual evidence shows that currently, the clear-and-present dangers to world peace are not ISIS, “Russia‘s aggressive acts” or Ebola but, rather, the US military and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq given by the spin masters of Orwellian imperialism was to “spread freedom and democracy to the Middle East”. Twelve years later, what has spread in Iraq, Libya and Syria is not freedom and democracy, but ashes, ruins, blood baths and despair. The new world order that the ideologues of Orwellian imperialism are striving to impose globally under the cover of fake revolutions, at least until everyone is beaten into submission, is actually controlled chaos. The destructive empire has several wrecking balls at its disposal, but its tools of choice are, in addition to the US military and the troops of its dependable and mostly occupied vassals in NATO, the Israel “Defense” Forces. The creation of controlled chaos works as a tactic to mold the collective psyche of the citizenry, because people usually strive for stability, security and order, even at the expense of their own personal liberty. The collective state of fear that chaos generates makes most people welcome the worst kinds of repression from the most oppressive forms of governments. Fear and paranoia are the essential ingredients of police states.

Global hegemony plan from a warmongering Nobel peace prize laureate Nothing could be more appropriate for the warmongering Orwellian empire than to have as its current public-relations person a Nobel peace prize laureate. The irony and absurdity of it all is tragic. On February 11, 2015, president Obama sent an official request to the US Congress to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against America’s latest elusive enemy: ISIS or ISIL. In the request to Congress, which is a gem in Orwellian rhetoric and legalese, it is mentioned that Obama “has directed a comprehensive and sustained strategy to degrade and defeat ISIL”, further the letter explains the plan to use convenient regional surrogates on the front line of the empire’s new war: “Local forces, rather than the US military should be deployed to conduct such operations. The authorization I propose would provide the flexibility (for the US military) to conduct ground combat operations…..”

Needless to say, the new AUMF will pass unquestioned, with flying colors and wide bipartisan support. After all, could the US Congress say no to a perfect new war that promises very few US casualties, for its patrons of the military-industrial complex? War is the US’ leading export and an extremely lucrative business for everyone associated with the merchants of death. The timing of the AUMF, a few months after the full-scale operation against ISIS started without it, has to do with the budget of the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2016. Added to a “base” defense budget of $534 billion, the Pentagon is asking for $51 billion to pay for “the war on ISIL in Iraq and Syria”. The 2016 budget proposal asks for $168 million of additional funding to “counter Russian aggressive acts”, with $117 million for Ukraine and $51 million for Moldova and Georgia, plus $789 million to bolster NATO in the European Union. The direct and indirect beneficiaries, namely Wall Street and the political class, of the colossal war machine are thrilled with the prospect of more profit from permanent war.

Despite the fact that ISIS was originally the foster child of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with Uncle Sam for its godfather, it has just been labeled enemy number one and is a dream come true to make the “War on Terror” global, permanent and perhaps even more destructive. The Islamic State foreign legion is indeed the perfect enemy: one that can justify a permanent war-without-borders; help finish the job of wrecking the Middle East in preparation for the greater Israel project; and finally, create a clash-of-civilizations fear and discourse in Europe to make people accept a full-blown police state.

In the time of the Orwellian empire, most people not only accept the notion that they must be protected against themselves, but are also conditioned to embrace it happily, as if they are singing cheerfully to the slaughterhouse. Furthermore, the war on ISIS will allow the US military and its NATO surrogate to invade and occupy more countries.

US military: occupier of allies

Facts are still awfully stubborn even in this era. Seventy years after the end of World War II, the US military still occupies the main losers of the conflict and current “allies”. About 40,000 US troops occupy Germany, while  60,000 occupy Japan. Fifty-four years since the end of the Korean war, almost 30,000 troops occupy South Korea. Fourteen years after the invasion of Afghanistan, a Praetorian guard of 11,000 is still in that country, and 12 years after the invasion of Iraq a force of about 5,000 troops, quickly growing, remains there. Some other significant footprints of the US military on so-called sovereign countries are as follows: about 12,000 in Kuwait; 3,500 in Bahrain; 1,500 in Turkey; 11,000 in Italy; 10,000 in the United Kingdom; and 2,000 in Spain.

The overall US military force overseas occupies more than 150 countries and amounts to the staggering number of 160,000 troops, with an additional 70,000 deployed in “contingency” operations with either the Navy, Air Force, or Special Forces. A priority of further military expansion, in this case through NATO, is Eastern Europe using the pretext of necessary defense against “Russia’s aggressions”. In Spring 2015, NATO will establish command centers in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to oversee 5,000 troops.

From time to time, despite the thick fog of disinformation and propaganda where basic truth become meaningless, the empire’s ideologues slip up and become candid. Such a chilling moment of semi-truth happened in the White House National Security Strategy report/statement of February 6, 2015. Vague literary flourishes do not hide the fact that the leadership of Orwellian Empire Inc. does not intend to respect national sovereignty and pull out its Praetorian guards.

“Now, at this pivotal moment, we continue to face serious challenges to our national security, even as we are working to shape the opportunities of tomorrow. Violent extremism and an evolving terrorist threat raise a persistent risk of attacks on America and our allies. Escalating challenges to cybersecurity, aggression by Russia, the accelerating impact of climate change, and the outbreak of infectious diseases all give rise to anxieties about global security. We must be clear-eyed about these and other challenges and recognize the United States has a unique capability to mobilize and lead the international community to meet them. Any successful strategy to ensure the safety of the American people and advance our national security interests must begin with an undeniable truth- America must lead. Strong and sustained is essential to a rules-based international order that promotes global security and prosperity as well as the dignity and human rights of all peoples. The question is never whether America should lead, but how we lead.”

So we have it. The global citizenry must challenge the US’ Orwellian leadership that has driven the world from one war to another for the past seven decades. This is a clear-and-present danger to all of us. Nations, worldwide, must reclaim their sovereignty by firstly recognizing that the Praetorian guard of the Orwellian empire are not allies but occupiers. Contesting the “leadership” of the US is the only way out of a perverse global construct where war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and reality is fiction.

The Beginning is Here

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By Zen Gardner

Source: Waking Times

Waking up to the realities presented before us and even more importantly what they imply is a very profound and personal experience. Once we become aware we are living in a world that’s been deliberately fabricated in ways we never would have imagined and that even our own true nature is anything but what we’ve been told, there’s no turning back.

It may appear to be a lonely path at first, but we are by no means alone in this awakening. It is happening in all walks of life. Whether a banker or corporate employee wakes up to the scam being perpetrated on humanity and pulls out of the matrix, or a normal taxpaying worker realizes they’re contributing to a military industrial machine hell bent on control and world domination, we’re all the same.

And those are just surface issues compared to the deliberate suppression of man’s innate spiritual nature, whether we call it social liberty or the simple freedom to create and manifest as we truly are. Not the least of which control mechanisms we are faced with is religion which works hand in hand with this suppression of humanity. All part of this repressive, controlling matrix.

Triggers for Awakening

There are many such triggers that wake people up. Once someone realizes, for example, how the world was scammed on 9/11 and that the powers that be are willing to continue to perpetrate such atrocities to promote their agenda, the digging begins. When we realize we seem to be at the complete mercy of parasitic central bankers more than willing to not only implode the world’s economy, but finance both sides of any conflict for personal gain and control, and that our governments are complicit in this scheme, we start to grasp the enormity of what befalls us.

That we have rapidly evolved into an advanced militarized surveillance police state is driving many to ask some hard questions – and the answers can be startling and difficult to swallow, especially when you realize they’re attempting to cut off all avenues of recourse.

Another major issue is that it’s more evident by the day that our very health is under attack, again by complicit government and multinational corporations pushing GMOs, adulterated food, vaccines, pharmaceuticals, atmospheric aerosols, genetic alterations and the like, all of which are clearly extremely hazardous to humanity. Yet they push harder by the day, mandating program after destructive program. Meanwhile, natural and organic farming and foods, as well as supplements, are under intense attack by these very same perpetrators.

The truth about these issues and many, many more including awareness of the massive planet harming programs such as fracking, electrosmog, genetic modification, technologically driven transhumanism and the ongoing geoengineering assault on humanity are driving a major perceptual paradigm shift amongst all walks of life as we delve more deeply into who is doing all this and why.

What exactly is their agenda? Volumes of evidence points to not just control, but literal depopulation motives. Is this shadow force literally that Machiavellian?

There Is No “They” – Or Is There?

This is often the final breakthrough point for many people. As the true picture starts to crystallize, the horrific realization that the “powers that be” are fundamentally a clandestine cabal with puppet-like front men comes into focus. These are powerful minions, more interested in weakening and subjugating humanity via health degradation, dumbed down education, mindless “bread and circus” government controlled media, depraved violence and sex oriented entertainment, and a draconian militarized police crackdown. The ugly truth then comes to the fore.

It can be staggering. If you take just 9/11 and other false flag events and realize they were staged to bring about this Orwellian police state where the citizens are now terrorist suspects, it can be very difficult to swallow.

A quick perusal of history soon follows, where people realize these same false flag/false enemy tactics were used to justify almost every war, leading to such totalitarian states as Stalinist Russia, Communist China and Nazi Germany, each of which descended into horrific pogroms, decimating their own populations of anyone potentially daring to question the new regime. With that perspective, the trees we’re amongst on the edge of the forest become strikingly transparent. America and its allies are indeed exactly the same, only much much worse, being pawned off to a numbed down generation who actually believe this is all a fight for liberty and freedom when in fact it is the exact opposite.

It’s not all black and white. There are of course good people working for bad people, powers and programs, wittingly and unwittingly. Many are trying to change and improve our existing structure. Many good people are performing wonderful services within this overarching societal program thinking it can be changed constructively. What we’re addressing are the deceitful and destructive powers and mechanisms at play that are attempting to bring humanity into a weakened subservient role to some sort of worldwide fascist control state, eliminating personal and national sovereignty to support and obey a very few powerful self-appointed elites.

And it’s coming on fast.

This becomes evident as one pursues almost any avenue we’re discussing here. To realize this massive program is being orchestrated by some form of “they” soon becomes obvious. The reality of the conspiracy that JFK so eloquently pointed out before he was surgically removed from office via assassination hits squarely home. Here’s an excerpt from this landmark speech.

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day.

It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. – John F. Kennedy

We Have to Find Out for Ourselves

An essential element to a true awakening is investigating and learning for ourselves. One of the main control mechanisms has been teaching humanity to only trust what they’ve been told by these same agendized so-called authorities. How many times have you heard, “If 9/11 was an ‘inside job’, surely it would have been on CNN. If something was really wrong surely someone would have said something.”

Well, a lot of people have and continue to speak out. And what’s the response? Anything contrary to the official narrative is “outlandish conspiracy theory”, and results in the subsequent demonization and marginalization of any form of questioning or healthy criticism.

Waking up from that media and education entrancement is another shocker. Could they do such a thing? Could we really be facing such a totalitarian crackdown and mind and information control? Do they really have such sway on humanity?

When I was young there were over 60 media companies vying for audiences. Real investigative reporting, although it’s always been tampered with or suppressed, was still available. Today 6 mega corporations own all of the media. The very same corporations that own much of the corporate military industrial infrastructure. Conspiracy is not a stretch – of course these power brokers would twist information to suit their intentions. The word conspiracy has been stigmatized for a reason – don’t ask questions or there will be consequences.

All of this will take some serious researching, most likely in places people have never dared to look before. And this is good. Don’t let anyone tell you what the truth is, find out for yourself and be convinced in your own mind and heart. That’s a new phenomenon for most, as odd as that may seem, but stepping outside the propaganda mainstream is a must. And it is oh so refreshing.

The Shock Does Wear Off – But the Indignation Doesn’t

There are so many interconnected “rabbit holes” of similarly repressed, twisted or hidden areas of information that it can be staggering. Once we realize we’ve been lied to about any one of these serious issues, we begin to question everything. And that is extremely healthy. You may not find support for your new found perspective from those around you, but there are millions who are sharing your experience. Thanks to the internet you can find others undergoing the same transformation quite readily and derive a lot of affirmation, encouragement and support.

Battling through the naysaying of close friends and loved ones seems to act like a chrysalis, much like the cocoon a metamorphosing butterfly has to struggle to escape. And as we know, that is exactly what drives the blood into the wings of the birthing creation that will soon bear the beautiful new awakened soul to glorious new heights and vistas.

One thing that won’t wear off is your absolute disdain for what is being perpetrated on our fellow humans. As the expression goes, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” If you knew your home was under attack and malevolent forces were coming for you and your children, you would do anything in your power to protect your family. That soon becomes an innate awareness regarding the current toxic social and physical world we’re experiencing and the need for a conscious response.

We are Responding – They Know It and Don’t Like It

Globalist adviser to 5 American presidents including Barak Obama, Zbigniew Brzezinski has clearly laid out the plan for global hegemony at any cost. His book, The Grand Chessboard even alludes to the need for a new Pearl Harbor, later echoed by the oft quoted PNAC report issued before 9/11 literally forecasting the event.

In one of his many addresses to the globalist advisory board called the Council on Foreign Relations, he made some very revealing statements. They are very aware of and afraid of the global awakening, and have surreal plans on how to control it.

Not lauding this awakening, but decrying it, Brzezinski chillingly said: [Emphasis mine]

For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination… The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening… That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing… The nearly universal access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches…

The youth of the Third World are particularly restless and resentful. The demographic revolution they embody is thus a political time-bomb, as well… Their potential revolutionary spearhead is likely to emerge from among the scores of millions of students concentrated in the often intellectually dubious “tertiary level” educational institutions of developing countries. Depending on the definition of the tertiary educational level, there are currently worldwide between 80 and 130 million “college” students. Typically originating from the socially insecure lower middle class and inflamed by a sense of social outrage, these millions of students are revolutionaries-in-waiting, already semi-mobilized in large congregations, connected by the Internet and pre-positioned for a replay on a larger scale of what transpired years earlier in Mexico City or in Tiananmen Square. Their physical energy and emotional frustration is just waiting to be triggered by a cause, or a faith, or a hatred…

[The] major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Conscious Awakening

This dark yet ultimately empowering information goes hand in hand with anyone experiencing this paradigm shift. If things here are so massively manipulated, what lies beyond all of this? What are we being kept from? Why do we sense we are so much more?

These are very important questions to pursue. There must be meaning in all of this. “Certainly all of humanity is not as wicked as these psychopathic control freaks.” Yes, that’s true. Unfortunately, the aggressor usually rules the day in this hierarchy of control our world has adopted for millennia. History bears this out.

The beauty of gaining a greater new found spiritual perspective is that it puts these influences in their place. We discover new ways to perceive our true indomitable nature which gives tremendous peace and confidence in spite of what we’re currently faced with. This sense of profound conscious awareness and spirituality only grows as our pursuit for truth, in love, gains momentum.

Awake, But Never Alone

A sense of isolation following the initial awakening is natural. It’s foreign to everything we’ve been taught, with implications that can be mind-boggling as well as heart breaking. However, we are very much connected and sharing a profound common experience. Knowing we are not alone is very important to keep in mind.

Building community also becomes a priority, where we can contribute to the healing of the planet at every level possible. Whether it’s activist or spiritual associations these are very important. It may only be on-line at first, that’s fine. Find kindred spirits and empowering and informative websites and blogs and even attend meet up events in your area on some of these subjects of concern.

This awakening of empowered consciousness is upon us, and is transpiring at an accelerating pace, and something to be very encouraged about. Once you get past the shock of what you’ve “found out”, it becomes easier, but it will drastically alter your life. For the better.

Enjoy it, be empowered, and take action accordingly.

The beginning is here.

Much love, Zen

ZenGardner.com

 

The Never-Ending ISIS Fraud

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By Daniel Spaulding

Source: The Soul of the East

In the midst of Saudi Arabia’s merciless, unprovoked bombing campaign against the people of Yemen comes news that a faction of ISIS-aligned militants has established a beachhead in the south of the Arabian Peninsula for their proclaimed Caliphate. Already media reports have been circulating that the local al-Qaeda affiliate has taken advantage of Riyadh’s bombing campaign to seize control of territory in the southeast of Yemen, with no noticeable Saudi opposition to these acts. The Saudis have not made quelling groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS any sort of priority in their assault; rather it is exclusively the Houthi militias that are in the sights of the Wahhabist kingdom.

This state of affairs apparently suits jihadist factions just fine. They have expressed no noticeable opposition to the Saudi bombing campaign and the mass killing of Yemeni civilians. Rather, ISIS has issued a declaration of war against the Houthis, threatening the mass slaughter of Yemen’s Shiite sect. The aims of Saudi Arabia, and its main backer, the United States, and jihadist factions like ISIS and al-Qaeda converge when it comes to fighting and suppressing the Houthis (cynically presented as Iranian proxies). Or rather, once again, jihadists are deliberately unleashed and encouraged to wage war against the enemies and rivals of Washington and Riyadh, just as they have been previously employed in Libya and Syria.

Despite all the fearmongering rhetoric and disinformation trumpeted by elements of the American media about secret ISIS training camps in Mexico, there have been precisely zero ISIS cells uncovered in the United States. More specifically, no cells not manufactured and managed by America’s own domestic intelligence agencies have been found. On the other hand, ISIS is very active in savagely attacking states, like that of Bashar Assad’s Syria, and other groups, like the Houthis in Yemen, that are in the target sights of Washington and Riyadh. To put it bluntly, ISIS and al-Qaeda are the shock troops of America’s Brave New War.

It is a common and entirely cynical meme among certain factions of the alternative media to place all the blame on Barack Obama for US support of the jihad international, insinuating that he’s a secret Islamist sympathizer and fellow traveler. On the contrary, the joint American-Saudi sponsorship of mujahedin brigades is hardly anything new or unique to the Obama administration. It reaches back to Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who armed the mujahedin in Afghanistan against the Russians. Indeed, the entire sordid love affair goes back even earlier to British imperial policy to divide and rule the Middle East, as enacted by Lawrence of Arabia. Oddly enough, the Iranian government, now opposed by America and Israel, was built up by both countries throughout the 1980’s.

More recently, during the presidency of George W. Bush, the Washington-Riyadh axis funded and facilitated jihadist militants in Iran and Lebanon in a concerted effort to destabilize those countries. The specific aim of this endeavor, according the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story, was to use the Sunni jihadists to undermine and degrade the influence of Shiite powers in the region, especially Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.[1]

Thus the current positions and activities employed by the Obama administration toward this end are merely a continuation of previous Bush-era policies. Collaborating with the Saudis to unleash radical Sunni jihadists in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen against the Shiites of those nations is an attempt to break Iran’s perceived hegemony in the Middle East.

Israel’s role in this criminal enterprise, meanwhile, should not be passed over in silence. Israel has repeatedly bombed the Syrian military, while allowing Syrian jihadists to remain unmolested in the Golan, and even providing various forms of aid to the Syrian jihadists. Tel Aviv officials are quite open about the fact that they are far more comfortable with murderous ISIS and other Sunni radicals in power next door than with Iran and the Shiites.

Between the globalists based in Washington and the Saudi Wahhabists, one hand washes the other. (Lest we dare to mention the cover up of Saudi Arabia’s involvement with 9-11 terror attacks by Washington.)

We would never have any understanding of the monstrous fraud perpetrated against the peoples of the Middle East, as well as ordinary Americans, from ingesting the poison-pill weaponized memes of the mass media. When not chasing their tails with ridiculous celebrity gossip, phony social outrage, or even more trivial and banal items, the press in the Western world, especially the United States, are a non-stop source of disinformation, fake news sets, State Department talking points, and general mind-blowing stupidity.

“We live in a world where there is more and more information,” observed the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, “and less and less meaning.”

The average cable news viewer or social media consumer is saturated with all sorts of images, narratives, and factoids, but they are deprived of any coherent meaning to the items they absorb. Many assume, Baudrillard observed, that “information produces meaning,” but they are wrong, and in fact, “the opposite occurs.”

Instead of finding meaning or even connecting the dots in the ISIS scam, and unaware of elite dialectical manipulations, the average American is left to wallow in his ignorance, blind to what his rulers do in his name. He is easily cowed into fear and terror of the very same jihadist groups that his government has sponsored and promoted for decades, surrendering his freedom and identity while cheering on his own dehumanization in the Brave New War. Murder, mayhem, and a kaleidoscopic spectacle of lies: such are the fruits of the fraud we celebrate.

[1] Russia is the other perpetual target of the American-Saudi sponsored jihadist networks. Russian president Vladimir Putin recently revealed in an interview that he confronted former president Bush about the CIA’s backing of Muslim radicals in the North Caucasus. And in 2013 then head of Saudi intelligence Prince Bandar in a meeting with Putin offered to reign in Chechen militant groups, which he acknowledged where directed by Saudi intelligence, if Russia agreed to end its support for the Assad government in Syria.

When Drug Users Aren’t People

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By Ryan Calhoun

Source: Center for a Stateless Society

Judge Katherine Forrest’s decision to lock up Ross Ulbricht for the rest of his life is a momentous tragedy. There were other tragic circumstances on display during Ulbricht’s trial, however. Submitted as evidence against the integrity of the Silk Road were stories of drug overdoses that were allegedly tied to products bought on the darknet drug market. The loss of life in these cases is something we should never look at as unimportant, but their use in condemning Ulbricht’s market are seriously problematic.

“I have no doubt in my mind, that if Preston had not taken that drug which one of his friends had purchased off the internet Silk Road, he would still be alive today,” wrote one grieving mother from Australia. Her son had jumped to his death after purchasing what he may have thought was LSD, but was actually a synthetic known as NBOMe. First please let us take note of where such synthetics come from, a need to produce new designer chemicals which are often more unstable, untested, and easily passed off as what we know to be much safer psychoactive chemicals. The parents and siblings grieving in these cases misplace their ire. What truly led to many people ingesting dangerous chemicals was in fact the laws that are now being used to send Ross Ulbricht to prison. Also worth recognizing is that at the time of ingestion, there was no federal ban on these substances and, at least in America, they could be found or sold discreetly in wholly legal forms of exchange.

Notice also the subtle dehumanization of drug users masquerading as compassion. When someone overdoses people do not recognize the choice of the individual. They do not talk about these people as individual agents, but as symptoms of the individual. In the Silk Road case, parents condemn what Ulbricht’s venue provided for their children — a safe and discreet way to obtain psychoactive chemicals. They would have never sought out these drugs had it not been for Silk Road. This is doubly dehumanizing. They characterize their son’s purchase as somehow inevitable, that he was too weak to help himself and too ignorant to know the dangers inherent in hard drug use. But what compounds the dehumanization of drug consumers in this treatment is that they declare that drug markets OUGHT to be unsafe, ought to be insecure. Their son is a mere exception to the scummy and disposable drug world, he was corrupted by looking through a window to a drug trade which didn’t pose enormous risk to his safety. Drug users, drug distributors, they don’t deserve safety to these people.

Many who are involved in drug subcultures aim to make consumption safer for those who choose freely to consume these substances. Along with being able to read customer reviews that keep merchants within these bazaars held accountable by reputation, there is frequent encouragement to buy test kits for these chemicals. Across the internet you will find no shortage of FAQs on how to prudently go into an experience with drugs, especially for psychedelic experiences which are often delicate and require a good deal of coaching to ensure the best set and setting. At raves across the country people are encouraged by their peers to consume judiciously, to stay hydrated, and most of all to enjoy their experience — which is a frame of mind directly hindered by drug laws and cultural taboos.

These are all voluntary, spontaneous modes of behavior, many born out of a genuine concern for one’s fellow drug users. They are treated as individuals, not addicts. They are met with care, compassion, and resources both physical and mental. What drove these markets underground, what made them more dangerous than they ever needed to be is the intention behind these laws and tragically behind the condemnation of Ulbricht and others as “psychopaths” from people who lost those they loved. It is this legislation, this judicial process, and these cultural norms that must change. We must recognize drug users not as inherently sick and lascivious, but as people who come from the same world as we do, who sought these chemicals not out of an alien urge that overtook them, but because drugs come with a great deal of reward to the user. We can’t let that reward go unchecked from the dangers that are there for those who choose willingly to accept it. We must abolish not only the laws, but the puritanical attitudes which make us see our neighbors and our loved ones as fraught with illness for wanting to get high. It’s time. We must step out of the shadows, break the back of the system that has kept us there, and bring this enormous wealth of human experience into its proper social context. Free Ross Ulbricht, free all drug criminals, and end this dehumanization campaign once and for all.

Liberation Is Unprofitable

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By Charles Hugh Smith

Source: Of Two Minds

12 examples of how liberation is not profitable and therefore it must be marginalized, outlawed, proscribed or ridiculed.

If we had to summarize the sickness of our economy and society, we could start by noting that liberation is unprofitable, and whatever is not profitable to vested interests is marginalized, outlawed, proscribed or ridiculed. Examples of this abound.

Liberation from digital communication servitude is not profitable. Don’t have a smart phone on 18 hours a day, every day? Loser! Luddite! Liberation from digital communication servitude is not profitable, therefore it is ridiculed.

Liberation from debt is not profitable. Only the wealthy can afford to buy a vehicle without debt, a home without debt or a university education without debt. For everyone else, liberation from debt is not an option, because debt is highly profitable to our financial Overlords and the politicos they buy/own.

This Is How Little It Cost Goldman To Bribe America’s Senators (Zero Hedge)

Liberation from political elites is not profitable. Dependence on the state for monthly payments binds the recipients to the political elites that control the money and payments, and to the financial elites who control the political elites.

Liberation from the staged, soap-opera political drama of elections is not profitable. Election advertising generates staggering profits for media companies, and the ceaseless nurturing of fear, resentment and indignation fuels acceptance of centralized power and control.

Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.

Liberation from the consumerist mindset is not profitable. Aspirational purchases in the pursuit of appearances are the most profitable of all spending; re-use, repair and informal peer-to-peer sharing are all intrinsically unprofitable.

Narcissistic Consumerism and Self-Destruction (October 20, 2012)

Liberation from the tyranny of central banks is not profitable. Our entire financial system is built on the simple dynamic that everyone is forced to use money issued by the central bank (Federal Reserve) to its member banks and their financier cronies.

Money that is decentralized and not issued by central banks is not profitable.

Common-sense, minimal regulations are not profitable. Regulations feed government fiefdoms and the revolving-door spoils system between the state and private industry, and erect formidable barriers to new competitors. As a result, over-regulation is immensely profitable.

Regulation Run Amok—And How to Fight Back

The ability to think independently is not profitable. The control mechanisms that keep the various classes of serfs in permanent servitude all depend on a dumbed-down populace that has been stripped of the ability to think independently by propaganda, group-think, medications, the education industry and lifelong dependency on the state.

Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America

An economy/society without corruption is not profitable. Buying favors, cronyism and cartel control of pricing are the primary sources of corruption. Cartels and the auctioning of favors are highly profitable to politicos and the vested interests who control the tollways of finance, political influence and social mobility.

America’s Main Problem: Corruption

Degrowth is not profitable. Needing fewer, quality things that last for decades is not profitable. Reparing things for nearly-free is not profitable. Giving stuff away to others for free is not profitable. Making do with what you have is not profitable.

Degrowth, Anti-Consumerism and Peak Consumption (May 9, 2013)

A scarcity of stress and anxiety is not profitable. Stress, anxiety and financial insecurity are all highly profitable, as these drive profitably addictive behaviors such as going deep into debt, shopaholic binge buying, multiple anti-anxiety/anti-depression medications, costly therapy and various forms of self-medication.

The Silent Epidemic in a Broken, Deranged System: Stress (April 18, 2013)

Opting out is not profitable. Opting out of debt-serfdom and the burdens of being a tax donkey is not profitable to vested interests or the state. Adopting self-reliance and low-cost/low-impact living and opting out of the status quo culture of consumerism, debt and complicity with a parasitic, exploitive cartel-state Aristocracy/ Plutocracy/ Oligarchy/ Kleptocracy (take your pick–it’s still the same rapacious Elite whatever name you choose)–is not profitable.

Tune In, Turn On, Opt Out (May 17, 2013)

 

Never Mind FIFA, How about a Crackdown on the Banksters?

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By Finian Cunningham

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

FIFA boss Sepp Blatter’s sudden resignation this week only days after being re-elected shows that the US campaign to bust the football federation over alleged financial corruption is probably going to intensify during the weeks and months ahead.

Blatter had been re-elected for the fifth time last Friday as the federation’s president. He had earlier brushed off calls for his resignation from the American and British governments, amid a storm of media allegations over corruption at the World Cup organising body. Now only four days after being re-elected, the FIFA chief executive is quitting, saying somewhat cryptically that he does not have a sufficient mandate in the world of football to continue at the helm of the organisation.

The dramatic bust in a Zurich hotel last week of FIFA executives is «just the beginning», top US law enforcement officials have warned. British authorities have also jumped on the bandwagon with their own announced probe into financial irregularities at the World Cup organiser.

With seven FIFA officials arrested so far and seven more indicted, and the US authorities vowing to pursue others in the footballing federation over alleged financial corruption, it can be anticipated that this scandal will run and run into interminable extra-time.

An ulterior political agenda behind the apparent American-led crackdown on the international footballing federation could very well be the desire by US and British governments to scupper the 2018 World Cup venue in Russia. Both the Americans and the British lost out when Russia won the bid back in 2010 to host the forthcoming quadrennial tournament, following last year’s event in Brazil. A re-run of the selection process would give the US and Britain a second chance to pitch their bids, and with a generated cloud hanging over Russia due to the FIFA scandal, they both stand a better chance of winning if it comes to a re-selection.

The sporting event is highly coveted, being the most popularly watched on the planet – even exceeding the Olympics. Billions of dollars are at stake for corporations, from construction, hospitality, sportswear and media. There is also the immense national prestige that comes with hosting the global spectacle.

A second, more important, political objective for Washington and its British ally is to augment their ongoing campaign to isolate Moscow over the Ukraine crisis. The West accuses Vladimir Putin’s government of annexing Crimea last year and they have mounted a barrage of economic sanctions on Russia seemingly in retribution. Washington and London have been most gung-ho among Western countries in pushing the anti-Russian agenda over Ukraine.

President Putin has shown no sign of weakening under this relentless Western pressure. Moscow denies any impropriety over Ukraine. Indeed, it accuses the West of fomenting an illegal coup in that country and of trying to use the resulting conflict as a way to destabilise Russia. Moscow has retaliated to Western sanctions by imposing its own bans on European trade exports and, in recent days, imposing travel restrictions on 89 European Union parliamentarians.

So, very plausibly, the Americans and their trusty British ally are using the issue of alleged corruption in World Cup organising body, FIFA, as a stalking horse to further get at Russia over the geopolitical tensions in Ukraine.

US law enforcement officials at the highest level – including attorney-general Loretta Lynch and FBI chief James Comey – say their investigation into FIFA will continue until all suspicions of corruption in the organisation are uncovered. This high-level US involvement in targeting FIFA strongly suggests a political direction being given by the Obama administration.

The concerted nature of the American corruption onslaught against FIFA also points to a top-level decision to go after the Swiss-based federation. The British government, from prime minister David Cameron to his foreign secretary Philip Hammond, quickly stepped into the FIFA scandal following the American lead, making highly unusual public calls for the federation’s president Sepp Blatter to resign.

Both the timing of the US-launched corruption probe – in the week of FIFA’s annual conference and leadership election – plus the way that senior American and British officials, not to mention the publicity of Western news media, have weighed-in to rebuke FIFA suggests that it is all part of a coordinated political campaign authored at the highest level of government. That, in turn, suggests that there is an ulterior political agenda behind the supposed criminal crackdown on FIFA, and that the ulterior agenda is the Western objective to undermine Russia.

Another measure for assessing the credibility of the US-led corruption campaign against FIFA is to put the alleged wrongdoing in perspective with other known spheres of financial corruption. Few people believe that FIFA is free from sleaze and dodgy kickbacks. With so much corporate advertising at stake and broadcasting rights for global media audiences, it would be naive to assume that large wads of money have not crossed palms with a wink and a nod.

The US authorities are throwing a book of charges at the organisation, ranging from bribery to commercial fixing, racketeering to tax evasion. It is claimed by the Americans that the corruption at FIFA amounts to $150 million.

That sounds like a lot of sleazy money, but this figure pales in significance to the amount of corruption and criminality attributable to Wall Street banks and other Western financial institutions. For example, British bank HSBC alone has been caught running tax evasion, money-laundering for drug cartels and other illicit schemes that is estimated at $180 billion – or more than a thousand-fold the scale of criminality alleged at FIFA.

Wall Street banks, including JP Morgan, are accused of massive, systematic rigging of gold price markets all in a shady bid to shield the US dollar value. That criminality, affecting the price of basic commodities and livelihoods for billions of people worldwide, is estimated to be in the order of trillions of dollars – or a thousand, thousand-fold the FIFA debacle.

Moreover, these same banks, along with a slew of other global names – Citibank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Credit Agricole among many others – were all directly responsible for the explosion in toxic financial derivatives that made their executives multimillionaires but which led to the global financial and economic meltdown in 2008.

That meltdown – which persists seven years on from its inception – has resulted in millions of lives ruined from unemployment and the collapse of pensions and savings funds. Added to that are the myriad social hardships and crippled lives from the ensuing austerity imposed on the general Western public to pay for the financial catastrophe – a catastrophe that was deliberately and recklessly engineered by the major banks, hedge funds and other capitalist investment agencies.

As Michel Chossudovsky writes in his co-authored book, The Global Economic Crisis: «The meltdown of financial markets in 2008-2009 was the result of institutionalised fraud and financial manipulation. The ‘bank bailouts’ were implemented on the instruction of Wall Street, leading to the largest transfer of money wealth in recorded history, while simultaneously creating an unsurmountable public debt».

It is probable that generations of children to come will be forced to pay for the trillions of dollars of debt that was created by American and European banks, which have now been offloaded on to the public by governments in so-called «bail-outs». Make no mistake, thousands of people have already died from the austerity that Western governments have imposed on their public in order to pay for the corporate fraud, tax evasion, fixing and embezzlement that has taken place in front of our eyes on a massive scale in the order of trillions of dollars.

Yet in the face of this gargantuan, genocidal criminality not one board member or executive from the major banks involved in precipitating the global crash has been charged, let alone prosecuted or imprisoned. In fact, the Wall Street banking elite and their counterparts in the City of London are among the main political donors that helped to re-elect Barack Obama and David Cameron.

The belated focus of American and British authorities on the alleged wrongdoings at FIFA can thus be readily seen as both ludicrous and laughable when we compare that with the absolute dearth of interest by these same authorities in applying law enforcement where it ought to be applied – on the Wall Street and City of London banksters.

Obviously, then, the self-righteous campaign to «root out fraud at FIFA is just so much pious nonsense. The astounding hypocrisy of US and British authorities leaves one with the unmistakable conclusion that the whole media-driven campaign against FIFA is nothing but a self-serving and cynical political agenda. And top of that agenda is to score geopolitical points against Russia.

Until Washington and London governments go after priority financial crime in their midst, then anything they say about FIFA can be taken as very wide off the mark.

Washington Protects Its Lies With More Lies

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By Paul Craig Roberts

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

My distrust has deepened of Seymour Hersh’s retelling of the Obama regime’s extra-judicial murder of Osama bin Laden by operating illegally inside a sovereign country. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/05/11/seymour-hersh-succumbs-disinformation-paul-craig-roberts/ That Hersh’s story, which is of very little inherent interest, received such a large amount of attention, is almost proof of orchestration in order to substantiate the Obama regime’s claim to have killed a person who had been dead for a decade.

Americans are gullible, and thought does not come easily to them, but if they try hard enough they must wonder why it would be necessary for the government to concoct a totally false account of the deed if Washington kills an alleged terrorist. Why not just give the true story? Why does the true story have to come out years later from anonymous sources leaked to Hersh?

I can tell you for a fact that if SEALs had encountered bin Laden in Abbottabad, they would have used stun grenades and tear gas to take him alive. Bin Laden would have been paraded before the media, and a jubilant White House would have had a much photographed celebration pinning medals on the SEALs who captured him.

Instead, we have a murder without a body, which under law classifies as no murder, and a story that was changed several times by the White House itself within 48 hours of the alleged raid and has now been rewritten again by disinformation planted on Hersh.

Perhaps the release of book titles allegedly found in bin Laden’s alleged residence in Abbottabad is part of the explanation. Who can imagine the “terror mastermind” sitting around reading what the presstitute London Telegraph calls bin Laden’s library of conspiracy theories about 9/11 and Washington’s foreign and economic policies? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/11619270/Osama-bin-Ladens-bookshelf-featured-conspiracy-theories-about-his-terror-plots.html

Keep in mind that the government’s claim that these books were in bin Laden’s Abbottabad library comes from the same government that told you Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that Assad used chemical weapons, that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and that Russia invaded Ukraine. There is no evidence whatsoever that bin Laden had these books, just as there is no evidence for any claim made by Washington. In the absence of evidence, Washington’s position amounts to this: “It is true if we say so.”

I would wager that the Hersh story was planted in order to gin up renewed interest in the bin Laden saga, which could then be used to discredit Washington’s critics. Notice that the authors in bin Laden’s alleged library are those careful and knowledgeable people who have severely whipped Washington with the truth. The whip wielders are Noam Chomsky, David Ray Griffin, Michel Chossudovsky, Greg Palast, Michael Scheuer, William Blum. You get the picture. You mustn’t believe these truth-tellers, because bin Laden approved of them and had their books in his library. By extension, will these truth-tellers be accused of aiding and abetting terrorism?

Obama claims to have settled the score in mafia godfather fashion with bin Laden for 9/11. But there is no body and not even a consistent story about what happened to the body. The sailors aboard the ship from which the White House reported bin Laden was given a burial at sea report no such burial took place. The SEAL unit that allegedly supplied the team that killed an unarmed and undefended bin Laden was mysteriously wiped out in a helicopter crash. It turns out that the SEALs were flown into combat against the Taliban in an antique, half-century-old 1960s vintage helicopter. Parents of the dead SEALs are demanding to have unanswered questions answered, a story that the presstitute media has conveniently dropped for Washington’s convenience.

Other than 9/11 itself, never has such a major event as bin Laden’s killing had such an enormous number of contradictory official and quasi-official explanations, unanswered questions and evasions. And the vast number of evasions and contradictions arouse no interest from the Western media or from the somnolent and insouciant American public.

Now it turns out that Washington has “lost” the bin Laden “death files,” thus protecting in perpetuity the fabricated story of bin Laden’s killing. http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-orders-purge-of-osama-bin-ladens-death-files-from-data-bank/5342055

Here is Tom Hartman’s interview with David Ray Griffin: Is bin Laden dead or alive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI5b3Ir012k

Here is Philip Kraske’s OpEdNews article on Steve Kroft’s orchestrated “60 Minutes” interview with Obama on the killing of Osama bin Laden: http://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=143300