Monday, December 23, 2019

THE AFGHANISTAN PAPERS

  THE AFGHANISTAN PAPERS


 A secret history of the war
"In a cache of previously unpublished interviews and memos, key insiders reveal what went wrong during the longest armed conflict in U.S. history.

For 18 years, America has been at war in Afghanistan. As part of a government project to understand what went wrong, a federal agency interviewed more than 400 people who had a direct role in the conflict. In those interviews, generals, ambassadors, diplomats and other insiders offered firsthand accounts of the mistakes that have prolonged the war.

The full, unsparing remarks and the identities of many of those who made them have never been made public — until now. After a three-year legal battle, The Washington Post won release of more than 2,000 pages of “Lessons Learned” interviews conducted by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Those interviews reveal there was no consensus on the war’s objectives, let alone how to end the conflict."

 * * * * * 

Part of the Main Stream Media propaganda machine surprisingly reveals important information about the farce that is U.S. foreign policy. The rest of Main Stream Media pretends not to notice.

That war is a racket has been obvious to objective observers of history, and followers of independent journalism for over a hundred years.

Noam Chomsky - The Crimes of U.S. Presidents 
(Interview on YouTube)

* * * * *

Tomgram: William Hartung, Lessons From Battling the Pentagon for Four Decades 
(TomDispatch.com)

"The other day, after a three-year legal struggle, the Washington Post broke a story about a secret Afghan War project of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Its focus was hundreds of interviews with American figures -- from top officials and generals to lesser actors of every sort -- involved in that misbegotten conflict. The overwhelming conclusion reached in private by the very people who prosecuted that never-ending war: that the American people were eternally lied to and kept out of the loop when it came to the “progress” being made there at any moment since 2002. As the Post put it, “In news conferences and other public appearances, those in charge of the war have followed the same talking points for 18 years. No matter how the war is going -- and especially when it is going badly -- they emphasize how they are making progress.”

I already hear the gasps of TomDispatch readers. Okay, I’m kidding (in a grim sort of way). While it's significant that the Post is doing a six-part series based on those previously hidden interviews, the story is being presented as a kind of Pentagon Papers of the twenty-first century.  After all, it features admissions that the U.S. dumped untold amounts of money into Afghanistan over 18 years to no positive effect whatsoever, creating a staggering kleptocracy and corruption on a titanic scale, while essentially building nothing of value or ever achieving actual “progress” in the war against the Taliban. It was, in a word, all lies (sometimes backed by fake or manipulated statistics), constantly promoted by key government officials and U.S. military commanders one after another after another after another.

TomDispatch is proof, however, that this set of revelations, though interesting, adds up to anything but a Pentagon Papers. If you happened to be reading this site or others like it instead of the Washington Post in these years, just about all of this would already have been obvious to you, a set of commonplace conclusions, discussed repeatedly."

* * * * *

 

CHRIS HEDGES


"Chris Hedges talks to Spenser Rapone, former combat veteran and US Army officer, about the Washington Post’s series the ‘Afghanistan Papers’. Drawing on thousands of pages of international government documents about the war in Afghanistan, the series exposes the lies, deceit, mismanagement, waste, corruption, fraud, and failed schemes that both Democratic and Republican administrations pursed in Afghanistan, the longest conflict in US history (18 years and counting), which has claimed tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money."

BONUS VIDEO

 The Afghanistan papers, voter suppression in Wisconsin, digital reputation scrubbing 

 (Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp)

Whistleblower Proves Tulsi RIGHT On Syria & Afghanistan Wars 

(The Jimmy Dore Show)  

Sunday, December 8, 2019

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

DANNY HAIPHONG ON FAKE NEWS

"According to Robert Sirvent and Danny Haiphong, Americans have been exposed to fake news throughout our history—news that slavery is a thing of the past, that we don’t live on stolen land, that wars are fought to spread freedom and democracy, that a rising tide lifts all boats, that prisons keep us safe, and that the police serve and protect.

Thus, the only “news” ever reported by various channels of U.S. empire is the news of American exceptionalism and American innocence. And, as this book will hopefully show, it’s all fake."

* * * * * *
Danny Haiphong's interview with Jimmy Dore was exceptional, genuinely so, not the usual fake narrative we're accustomed to:

How The Ruling Class Implements It’s Agenda with Danny Haiphong 
 (The Jimmy Dore Show - YouTube video)

Friday, December 6, 2019

BERNIE 2020

BERNIE 2020

I started supporting principled independents over the shills in our corporately-controlled political parties after the disastrous Clinton Administration.
 
I liked Bill Clinton initially, I voted for him, but I was also not paying much attention. When I was young I described myself as apolitical; I was a registered Democrat, always voted for Democrats, but considered politics so dull I hardly thought about it. Back in the 80s and 90s I was a perfect dupe. I had picked a team and halfheartedly rooted for them every four years during the U.S. Presidential Super Bowl Shit Show Extravaganza.
 
 I finally started paying attention during the ridiculous Clinton impeachment hearings. Although I've always been strongly opposed to the conservative/right-wing mindset, I now thank the Republican Party for something.
 
  The Republican-led Clinton impeachment circus ignited my political fire. I became aware that the impeachment was over a nonsense issue, instead of far more significant corruption and serious crimes perpetrated by the Clinton Administration, here and abroad. The same is now happening to Trump. There are myriad and tremendously compelling reasons that Trump should be impeached, unfortunately these crimes do not stray from the norm, they are bipartisan crimes. The phone call is weak tea by comparison. The most likely result of the current impeachment circus will be to make Trump more popular.
 
I've been around since the 60s; every administration in my lifetime could have been convicted of war crimes, and violations of The Constitution and their oaths of office. The establishment needs to be voted out and the Constitutional crime of bribery needs to be rationally defined.

* * * BERNIE 2020 * * *

Bernie Sanders is not perfect, his Congressional voting record is very good, but not spotless, and his capitulation to the DNC in 2016 after they screwed him over, though anticipated, was disheartening. The whitewashing of the DNC's systemic election rigging at every level continues to amaze me.
 
I'm a registered Green, so I cannot participate in my state's primaries. Rather than disingenuously registering as a Democrat, I hope there's enough of them with a brain to get Bernie on a ballot I'm permitted to use.

I would have loved a Ralph Nader presidency. Bernie Sanders is sadly not Nader, but he's the very first serious contender for president that excites me. He would be the first Democratic presidential candidate I've voted for since 1996. I even donated to his campaign! If our corrupt media and the DNC successfully suppress the Sanders Campaign, I'm going Green again.

* * * BERNIE 2020 * * *
 
 P.S. I support Bernie knowing that problems in America and throughout the World are not only beyond his ability to solve, they are likely beyond solving, period. But I'd rather encourage a decent guy, than hate a partisan tool.

Monday, April 8, 2019

PEACE PIPE DREAM

PEACE PIPE DREAM

I recall scenes of fighting in Vietnam on the evening news. At that time I preferred watching Captain Kirk or Batman, but at least the fact that we were bombing foreigners was considered newsworthy. Back then war was a big deal and war crimes were considered a bad thing, something to lie about. And there has always been plenty to lie about. But these days a history of war crimes will put you on the fast track to promotion [the list is too long to include here]. We (meaning U.S.) are currently bombing foreigners on a daily basis. And we're talking a lot of bombs. It's become "normal behavior."

Now, not bombing people seems inconceivable. We can thank our political whores and the overpaid mainstream spokes models pretending, often poorly, to be journalists for this management of our perception. Of course this demonic duo of talking heads and heads of state is propped up by corporate cash. They serve moneyed interests, e.g. profit, not the interests of life, including humans as a subset of living things. They should do away with the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, and just have a swim suit competition to help pick a lucky propagandists as Bullshitter of the Year. Years and years of steady propaganda has made peace unthinkable.

We in the U.S. tend to calculate the cost of war in dead American heroes. Even kids who laugh while they kill innocent and unarmed people by shooting machine guns from helicopters are heroes, especially if they eventually get blown up themselves. Better if they don't simply get injured, because then they'll require expensive medical assistance, and may become a veteran peace activist. Private Manning was tortured, imprisoned and is in prison again for exposing among other things video proof of U.S. war crimes. She's a "traitor," those mass murderers remain our heroes. Money is why as a species we are committing murder-suicide, but not before wiping out a significant percentage of wild bystanders, innocent organisms that don't pick sides or even listen to the news. The war machine is by design a destructive killer, it wastes unimaginable amounts of money, is the world's worst polluter, lays waste to people, property, and potentially the entire planet, yet it is the most trusted and respected branch of our government [odd that a "defense" department isn't in The Constitution].

A tiny fraction of all casualties in any conflict we are part of is us, or rather soldiers acting on behalf of the U.S. We can certainly dish it out, but have we ever really had to take it? Our response to a couple thousand deaths on 9-11 has resulted in at least a million deaths in Iraq, and millions of destroyed lives. Literally overkill! The devastation began in 2003 and is ongoing. I've heard many squawking heads claim Iraq was the right thing to do, despite the fact that Iraq posed no threat to our country, nor did it have ANYTHING to do with 9-11. Of course, it was the right thing if you ask a war profiteer.

Chelsea Manning is in jail, not the criminals that stole trillions of dollars, destroyed millions of lives, and caused incalculable environmental travesties. Even during World War II, the "good war," less than half a million Americans died, but about 24,000,000 Russians did. I think it's been estimated that 70 million people died in WWII. Here it was more about making millions. "War is a Racket" by Major General Smedley Butler is a very short book, the evidence that he was right fills the Library of Congress and is spread across the Intertubes.

Although the dollar cost of the war machine occasionally gets mentioned, it's never considered rationally. A rational cost-benefit analysis of our military would eliminate it virtually entirely. If the resources were used to help people, or simply pay countries for their resources, no one would wish to do us harm. The decomposing elephant in the room is that our military actions have done far greater harm than doing nothing. Why do we support an organization that spends most of our tax money and gives us nothing back? As a nation we're brainwashed. We've been convinced that punching the world in the face over and over again will make us safer.

War destroys life indiscriminately. War is antithetical to civilization. During my [slightly more than] half century on this planet I've witnessed a never ending series of purposeless [and undeclared] wars. These corporate adventures are all cloaked in flimsy fabricated pretense, lies that sound and smell like bullshit. Shit that we slurp up like hot fudge sundaes. Unnecessary conflicts deflect funds from meaningful projects, they destroy everything in their path, including any resemblance our foreign policy has to credibility. Only two entities profit from war: plutocrats and pestilence. Whoops! Kinda redundant there.

Two recent among millions of related links:

(Chris Hedges at Truthdig.com)

"Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency, as Max Blumenthal points out in his insightful book “The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump,” was made possible not only by massive social inequality and concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the oligarchic elites but by the national security state’s disastrous and prolonged military interventions overseas."
* * * *
(The Last American Vagabond on YouTube.com)

Sunday, April 7, 2019

RON PLACONE

RON PLACONE

I like Ron, everyone should get their news on with him.

(Ron Placone on YouTube)

Sunday, March 31, 2019

MONOPOLIZING LIFE

MONOPOLIZING LIFE

(On Contact with Chris Hedges)

This week Monsanto/Bayer AG was ordered by a California federal court to pay $80 million to Edwin Hardeman after a jury found its weed killer, Roundup, caused his cancer. The case is just one of thousands of lawsuits filed against the company over plaintiffs’ use of the glyphosate-based herbicide. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans. The Food and Drug Administration has concluded the herbicide is not likely carcinogenic to humans. In August 2018, a jury in California state court awarded a school’s groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, nearly $289 million in damages. The verdict was later reduced to $78 million and is on appeal. In this conversation with Chris Hedges, environmental activist and author, Vandana Shiva, talks about Monsanto/Bayer AG and other big AG players' interests in India and her fight to protect life forms, seed varieties and farmers.

BONUS INTERVIEW

(Ralph Nader Radio Hour)

Toxic Avenger extraordinaire, Walter Hang, joins us to talk about how they outlawed fracking in New York State, why Big Green groups have failed to stop Donald Trump’s anti-environment agenda, and the most effective ways to generate lasting change. Plus, Ralph comments on the Mueller Report and the Boeing Max 8.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

JIFFY COUP OIL CHANGE

JIFFY COUP OIL CHANGE
 The U.S. is playing war-crime games again. While you sleep we destroy another country for its resources. Not for the good of their people, or our people, but so a couple billionaires can make a couple billion dollars. We really are ruled by a few short-sighted sociopaths.

Our official definition of "spreading democracy" should be: crushing millions of people around the world like a bug on the sidewalk, pressing our boots down until the dêmos are spread in a smear that fades quickly into forgotten history. Just sayin'.

There are many paths to the truth about this, my links are just a first look at many decades of salient facts about the oligarchs versus the people here and down there. We should all attempt to find alternative sources of information.

(Redacted Tonight on YouTube)
(Greg Palast on RT America)

THE HAM BURGLAR NOTHING WHOPPER!

 THE HAM BURGLAR NOTHING WHOPPER!

 Russiagate was a fraud!

The faux-Republicans commonly referred to as Democrats deflected attention away from their political loss, their myriad shortcomings, and their own election tampering by pointing incoherently and screaming, "The Russians shaked 'N' baked the 2016 election! And Trump helped!"

This modern Red Scare was tremendously harmful to the U.S., World Peace, Press Freedom, and what's left of our Pitiable Democracy. It was a scheme, an easily verifiable conspiracy to discredit Trump, as if you needed one, and avert attention away from more important and relevant issues. It was also an obvious attempt to reignite a new Cold War to justify our out-of-control Military and Intelligence Industrial Complex, the largest and most destructive entity this planet has ever known.

Of course our various departments of disinformation gave their full support, in yet another idiotic Intelligence effort. The same Spooks who helped establish a torture regime under W, and lie us into the catastrophic and illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and around the world, were ready to help with more deceptions. The alphabet soup of our national security state should rebrand under the banner Lies 'R' US.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the US public believes is false”
* William J. Casey (1981) *

That it was a political scam, like the Ken Starr investigation of President Clinton, was abundantly clear if you ignored Main Stream Media. Both Clinton and Trump are horrible, but somehow lengthy and costly investigations of them didn't expose serious crimes or result in positive policy changes. Results that should have been very easy to accomplish, considering they were both crooks with bad ideas. Of course when the "cops" are also criminals, well...therein lies the rub. These probes only proved those supremely powerful men cheated on their wives. News Flash! That isn't a news flash.

I never considered Russiagate as anything other than a shallow ruse, with deeply grave consequences. Russiagate was the real crime. It wasted tax dollars on a trumped up conspiracy theory to entertain a blind electorate. It will result in harm to all of us, except oddly enough, President Trump. An intentional or unintended consequence? Probably another massive blunder among many perpetrated by the hand-picked stooges that run things for the one percent.

The Mueller nothing burger would have been no surprise to you, if instead of paying attention to the endless spew of nonsense that is Main Stream Journalism and god forbid Televised News, you paid attention to, among others, this short list:

Chris Hedges
Ralph Nader
Glenn Greenwald
Aaron Maté
Matt Taibbi
Caitlin Johnstone
Greg Palast

even
Lee Camp
Jimmy Dore

or
truthdig.com
truthout.org
therealnews.com
consortiumnews.com
see:

So, Trump wins and we all lose. Thanks for nothing Oligarchs and Corporate Media. If everyone stopped watching TV and never voted for another Democrat or Republican we'd still probably be doomed, but we might meet our fate with a little less suffering.

(Rolling Stone)

(Truthout.org)

And so it goes.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

GLENN "NAILED IT AGAIN" GREENWALD

GLENN "NAILED IT AGAIN" GREENWALD


Whatever David Cay Johnston's journalistic credibility might be, and the no doubt good work he's tried to do over the years, this "debate" with Glenn made him appear like a completely useful idiot.

(Democracy Now.org)

"GLENN GREENWALD: This is the saddest media spectacle I’ve ever seen, since I began practicing journalism in 2005. And what makes it even sadder is to watch all of the people who vested their journalistic credibility into what proved to be a complete and total fraud and scam continue to try and cling to some vestige of credibility by continuing to spin conspiracy theories that are even more reckless and more unhinged than the ones to which we’ve been subjected for three years. The great journalist and writer Matt Taibbi wrote in an article over the weekend, and I agree with him completely, that as humiliating as the media debacle was leading up to the Iraq War, what they did over the last three years in the Trump-Russia story makes all of that look like a pimple. Even though obviously the Iraq War was much more destructive because it led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, the errors and lies and falsehoods and recklessness and speculation that we’ve been subjected to, over and over and over, that Robert Mueller just definitively debunked, is far more humiliating journalistically, far more unjustifiable journalistically. And who knows where it will lead to? It’s ratcheted up tensions between the two most dangerous nuclear-armed powers in the world, Russia and the United States, that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says has brought us to two minutes before midnight on their Doomsday Clock. So it’s also been extremely dangerous in ways that we don’t yet know."

P.S.

The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate
 (The late Robert Parry from March 29, 2017  -
Consortiumnews.com)

Three Lessons From ‘Failed’ Mueller Inquiry
(Jonathan Cook at Consortiumnews.com)

Trump Is Going to Thank MSNBC Until November 2020
(Caitlin Johnstone at Consortiumnews.com)
* * * * *
Jimmy Dore and Aaron Maté on Russiagate BS via YouTube:

RussiaGate Skeptics Do Victory Lap w/Aaron Maté

Rachel Maddow Reacts To Collapse Of Russiagate

CNN Looks Humiliated On Russiagate While Backpedaling 

Thursday, March 7, 2019

GLENN "DON'T HATE ME BECAUSE I MAKE SENSE" GREENWALD

GLENN "DON'T HATE ME BECAUSE I MAKE SENSE" GREENWALD

(The Intercept.com)
"GOP Congressman Steve King has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for sixteen years, yet Democrats – who controlled the House for four of those years and now control it again – never formally rebuked or condemned him until last month (they did so at the same time that Republicans removed him from his Committee assignments due to a long history of white supremacist remarks).

By extremely stark contrast, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar – the first black Muslim woman ever elected to the Congress – has served in the House for a little more than two months, and House Democratic leaders have already formally condemned her once and are preparing to so again, this time even more harshly and officially, on Wednesday."
* * * * *
If you would rather read "liberal" bullshit about Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, you can start here:
(National Propaganda Radio)
(Famous Asshole given a platform at The Atlantic)

MEDICRUD FOR ALL

MEDICRUD FOR ALL

(Redacted Tonight)
"This week CNN almost reported on a case of health insurance fraud correctly. They revealed the fraud but failed to tell their audience that fraud is a regular practice in the industry. I also spoke with Aracely Jimenez of Sunrise Movement, a youth-led organization pushing for action on climate change."

MORE PALAST!

MORE PALAST!

Worth watching.

(YouTube)

DEMOCRACY NOW!

DEMOCRACY NOW!

(Democracy Now.org)

Random day of non-network news.

Headlines Include:
Andrew Bacevich: The U.S.-Saudi Relationship Is a Principal Source of Instability in the Middle East

Bacevich: Questioning U.S.-Israel Ties Has Long Been Impermissible in Congress, But That’s Changing

War Crimes in Yemen? U.S. & U.K. Arms Killed & Injured Nearly 1,000 Civilians in Saudi-Led Attack

U.S. Has Supplied UAE $27B in Arms Despite Nation’s Links to Torture, Mercenaries & Child Soldiers

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

WHAT GOD WANTS

WHAT GOD WANTS

(YouTube)

What God wants God gets God help us all
What God wants God gets
The kid in the corner looked at the priest
And fingered his pale blue Japanese guitar
The priest said
God wants goodness
God wants light
God wants mayhem
God wants a clean fight
What God wants God gets
Don't look so surprised
It's only dogma
The alien prophet cried
The beetle and the springbok
Took the Bible from its hook
The monkey in the corner
Wrote the lesson in his book
What God wants God gets God help us all
God wants peace
God wants war
God wants famine
God wants chain stores
What God wants God gets
God wants sedition
God wants sex
God wants freedom
God wants Semtex
What God wants God gets
Don't look so afraid
I'm only joking
The alien comic lied
The jackass and hyena
Took the feather from its hook
The monkey in the corner
Wrote the joke down in his book
What God wants God gets
God wants boarders
God wants crack
God wants rainfall
God wants wetbacks
What God wants God gets
God wants voodoo
God wants shrines
God wants law
God wants organized crime
God wants crusade
God wants jihad
God wants good
God wants bad
What God wants God gets

PALAST!

PALAST!

(The Jimmy Dore Show)

In Venezuela, White Supremacy is a Key to Trump’s Coup
(Greg Palast.com)

"On January 23, right after a phone call from Donald Trump, Juan Guaidó, former speaker of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself president. No voting. When you have official recognition from The Donald, who needs elections?

Say what?

I can explain what’s going on in Venezuela in three photos..."

IFFY DIFI

IFFY DIFI

Only a bold plan like the Green New Deal can slow global warming, and that won't happen if powerful Democrats keep calling for moderation.
(New Republic.com)
"As Trump denies, though, Democrats delay."

The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter with the Young Green New Deal Activists 
(Bill McKibben at The New Yorker.com)

"One imagines that Senator Dianne Feinstein would like a do-over of her colloquy with some young people on Friday afternoon. A group of school students, at least one as young as seven, went to the senator’s San Francisco office to ask her to support the Green New Deal climate legislation. In a video posted online by the Sunrise Movement, she tells them that the resolution isn’t a good one, because it can’t be paid for, and the Republicans in the Senate won’t support it. She adds that she is at work on her own resolution, which she thinks could pass. Then, when the group persists in supporting the Green New Deal, which was introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Feinstein responds, “You know what’s interesting about this group? I’ve been doing this for thirty years. I know what I’m doing. You come in here and you say, ‘It has to be my way or the highway.’ I don’t respond to that. I’ve gotten elected, I just ran, I was elected by almost a million-vote plurality,” she continued. “And I know what I’m doing. So, you know, maybe people should listen a little bit.”

Well, maybe. But Feinstein was, in fact, demonstrating why climate change exemplifies an issue on which older people should listen to the young. Because—to put it bluntly—older generations will be dead before the worst of it hits. The kids whom Feinstein was talking to are going to be dealing with climate chaos for the rest of their lives, as any Californian who has lived through the past few years of drought, flood, and fire must recognize."


(Caitlin Johnstone.com)

“Feinstein told me she was surprised she went viral, because: ‘You know what somebody said to me?–I didn’t see any of this–they said anybody with a cell phone in their hand can get you on international news in two minutes. I never knew that,” Grim tweeted, adding, “She was chair of the Intelligence Committee, and had just come from a hearing.”

"If Feinstein is telling the truth about this, it’s an admission from one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth that she literally just found out how mobile phones, social media and the internet work. If she’s lying about this, one of the most powerful politicians in the most powerful government on earth just used an “I’m too old and befuddled to understand how these newfangled dongle widgets work” excuse for her behavior. Either way, this doesn’t say good things about the sort of person who is at the steering wheel of America’s legislative branch today."


The Viral Confrontation With Dianne Feinstein Had a Political Impact Most Pundits Missed
(The Intercept.com)

"As the protests persist, the lawmakers should be prepared for more of those interactions to go viral, unlike Feinstein, who was caught by surprise. “You know what somebody said to me? — I didn’t see any of this — they said anybody with a cell phone in their hand can get you on international news in two minutes,” Feinstein told an Intercept reporter, tapping her finger on his phone. “I never knew that.”

 
BONUS: 
(The Jimmy Dore Show on YouTube)

Russell Brand - HENRY GIROUX - Brad Evans

 Russell Brand - HENRY GIROUX - Brad Evans

 This is a very important conversation, highly recommended.

(Under the Skin with Russell Brand on YouTube)

"Today's guests are Henry Giroux a Professor with specialisation in Critical Pedagogy at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and Brad Evans a Professor of Political Violence & Aesthetics at the University of Bath, UK. Today we discuss power, corruption, revolution and new systems. This is a proper academic episode, you’re gonna learn. Brad & Henry are brilliant thinkers and brilliant educators."

Monday, March 4, 2019

LET ME THINK ABOUT THIS!

LET ME THINK ABOUT THIS!

(Chris Hedges at Truthdig.com)

"The most dangerous foreign policy decision of the Trump administration—and I know this is saying a lot—is its decision to share sensitive nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia and authorize U.S. companies to build nuclear reactors in that country."

WEED THE PEOPLE

WEED THE PEOPLE

In the following interview some very interesting, not very surprising, facts emerged: in Maryland 95% of arrests for marijuana possession happen to blacks, and when 25 licenses to grow medical marijuana were issued, they went to whites.

(The Real News.com)

  "The push to legalize marijuana has been a struggle, and nowhere is that more clear than here in Maryland. Recently, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said she would stop prosecuting pot possession cases. Her reason, the enforcement of the law falls disproportionately on African-Americans. It’s a pattern that has occurred in other cities, which has also prompted prosecutors in Philadelphia and Brooklyn to roll back pot cases as well. But there is one obstacle, the Trump administration. In the past, the Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions tried to roll back medical marijuana. And while Trump himself has expressed some support for loosening restrictions, his views are often at odds with the law enforcement agencies he runs."

(Drug Policy.org website)

"Many currently illegal drugs, such as marijuana, opium, coca, and psychedelics have been used for thousands of years for both medical and spiritual purposes. So why are some drugs legal and other drugs illegal today? It's not based on any scientific assessment of the relative risks of these drugs – but it has everything to do with who is associated with these drugs.

The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at Chinese immigrants. The first anti-cocaine laws in the early 1900s were directed at black men in the South. The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans. Today, Latino and especially black communities are still subject to wildly disproportionate drug enforcement and sentencing practices."


(YouTube.com)
"This video from hip hop legend Jay Z and acclaimed artist Molly Crabapple depicts the drug war’s devastating impact on the Black community from decades of biased law enforcement. 

The video traces the drug war from President Nixon to the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws to the emerging aboveground marijuana market that is poised to make legal millions for wealthy investors doing the same thing that generations of people of color have been arrested and locked up for. After you watch the video, read on to learn more about the discriminatory history of the war on drugs."

* * * * *

FLAGRANT HYPOCRISY!:

(The Jimmy Dore Show on YouTube)


SAVVY OR SLANTED?

SAVVY OR SLANTED?

It goes without saying that CNN is devoid of credibility, so I was relieved to see that the gross distortions and obvious bias of the CNN-hosted Bernie town hall were scarcely mentioned in The Real News analysis of his performance. The Venezuelan question in question should have been dismissed as a fact-less act of pure propaganda, despite Bernie calling it a "good question."

The Real News take on his answer is interesting, but what a lot of folks want to know is whether Bernie is playing the MSM crowd to maintain his media exposure, or whether he really believes the Venezuelan narrative spewed out by the Neo-liberal lying machine.

(The Real News.com)

"At the CNN town hall, Sanders opposed U.S. intervention in Venezuela, refused to call Maduro a dictator, or recognize Guaido, but he didn’t call for an end to sanctions – with Jacqueline Luqman, Eugene Puryear, Norman Solomon and host Paul Jay"

Sunday, March 3, 2019

PBS

THE PENTAGON BROADCASTING SERVICE
& NATIONAL PROPAGANDA RADIO

Our public airwaves are being exploited to whitewash the toxic agenda of our corporate oligarchs. Broadcasting frequencies are similar to asphalt roads, public infrastructure used freely by big corporations to reap huge profits providing above all a disservice. This is obscenely true of commercial networks, but is no less insidious on "public" platforms.

Fox News is not the only faux news around. It's everywhere you look.

(Common Dreams.org)
"Over the years, without regular critiques by liberal and progressive groups, both NPR and PBS have bent to the continual right-wing antagonism in Congress that decreased public budgets 
-Ralph Nader"

RELATED POST:

(The World According to Jesse on RT America)
Jimmy Dore fills in for Jesse Ventura. Producer Brigida Santos and Jimmy Dore discuss the fate of America’s nuclear arms control treaty with Russia and the looming pension crisis. Journalist and author Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) shares insight from his latest book, ‘Hate Inc. How, And Why, The Press Makes Us Hate One Another.’

NADER TALKS TO CHOMSKY

 
NADER TALKS TO CHOMSKY

(Ralph Nader Radio Hour)

"In only the third public conversation between these two progressive icons, Ralph talks to Professor Chomsky about - among other things - the media, the Green New Deal, nuclear war, Gaza, and Venezuela."


USBS

USBS

(Consortiumnews.com)

"It’s called the “Mail Cover Program” and it’s run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Yes, even the Post Office is spying on us, writes John Kiriakou."

EXCERPT:

The problem is not just the sinister nature of a government agency (or quasi-government agency) spying on individuals with no probable cause or due process, although those are serious problems. It’s that the program is handled so poorly and so haphazardly that in some cases surveillance was initiated against individuals for no apparent law enforcement reason and that surveillance was initiated by Postal Service employees not even authorized to do so. Again, there is no recourse because the people under surveillance don’t even know that any of this is happening.

Perhaps an even more disturbing aspect of the program is the fact that between 2000 and 2012, the Postal Service initiated an average of 8,000 mail cover requests per year. But in 2013, that number jumped to 49,000. Why? Nobody knows and the Postal Service doesn’t have to say.

Friday, March 1, 2019

WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK?

WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK?

(John M. Donnelly at Roll Call.com)

"For those who disclose wrongdoing, even through approved channels, he said, “Your chances of avoiding professional suicide are akin to winning the lottery.”
(Redacted Tonight)