Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Brewing a Conflict with China, Military-Industrial Complex's Latest Dastardly Scheme
Washington has pressured the Philippines, whose government it owns, into conducting joint military exercises in the South China Sea. Washington’s excuse is that China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries concerning island and sea rights in the South China Sea. Washington asserts that China’s territorial disputes with the like of Indonesia and the Philippines are a matter of United States’ national interests.Washington has not made it clear what Washington’s stake is in the disputes. The reason Washington cannot identify why China’s disputes with the Philippines and Indonesia are threats to the United States is that there is no reason. Nevertheless, the undefined “threat” has become the reason Washington needs more naval bases in the Philippines and South Korea.
What this is all about is provoking a long-term cold war conflict with China that will keep profits and power flowing into Washington’s military-security complex. Large profits flow to armaments companies. A portion of the profits reflow into campaign contributions to “the people’s representatives” in DC and to presidential candidates who openly sell out their country to private interests. Read More
"Occupy Empire" fighting to keep one version of the "American Dream"
The moneyed version of the American Dream has been perverted, but "Occupy Empire" efforts can hopefully keep the best version of another American Dream of democratic self-government, liberty, equality, justice, and our shared environment on earth alive.I am fairly familiar with the late 19th century US efforts of Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens, Samuel Gompers, John Dewey, et al in forming the "Anti-Imperialist League", which through the leverage of actually 'calling-out' the terms 'Empire/Imperialism' as what America was doing, had a very populist and progressive mass appeal then ---- which we lack today, because the 'term' Empire and/or Imperialism have become taboo words in the corporatist MSM.
I remain very convinced that if the defused message of the current Occupy movement did nothing except articulate a strong and clear statement that our country has been 'captured' and is now "Occupied" by a disguised Empire --- and if they did this aggressively by simply using the the name "Occupy Empire" --- that the elite corporatist media would not be able to avoid mentioning the term, "Occupy Empire", and that consequently the masses of honest, but ill-informed middle/working-class Americans would naturally think, "What Empire?" Then ask themselves the key question, "Is our country really an Empire? Is it acting like an Empire?" And thus become much more educated about this terrible situation in our country and that many Americans would answer their own question, saying to themselves, "Well, Yes. It sure does seem like an Empire, with all those foreign wars, and the looting on Wall Street, and the unresponsive government!" Read More
Neocons Plotting New Preemptive Strike on History
With the 45th anniversary of the Six-Day War of June 1967 coming early next month, With the 45th anniversary of the Six-Day War of June 1967 coming early next month, pro-Israel pundits like syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer are again promoting Israel’s faux-narrative on the reasons behind Israel’s decision to attack its neighbors.The Krauthammers of our domesticated, corporate media seem bent on waging pre-emptive war against an accurate historical rendering of the actual objectives behind that Israeli offensive that overwhelmed Arab armies and seized large swaths of Arab territory, land that hard-line Zionists refer to as “Greater Israel,” i.e. rightly theirs.
With its surprise attacks on June 5, 1967, Israel rapidly defeated the armies of its Arab neighbors. It gained control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
The Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1979 as a result of the Camp David peace accord, a land-for-peace swap that U.S. President Jimmy Carter demanded and that then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin deeply resented. Read More
Neocons and the TSA
The TSA has been shown to be one of those evil metastasizing bureaucracies that are as abusive as they are ineffective in carrying out their supposed duties. Stories of abuse of airline passengers, terrorizing little children, committing theft, and ogling people forced to go through porn scanners have demonstrated without a doubt that the "well-trained federal workers" (as they have been called by the New York Times) are the very people who should not be permitted to touch or give orders to anyone.
While the Democratic Party Left (and every other Democrat I know) has enthusiastically supported the TSA and all of its abuses (when confronted with obvious TSA atrocities, TSA director John Pistole has promised "more training," the Progressive mantra and solution to everything), Republicans have been just as bad. The neoconservative Wall Street Journal is no exception, and one of its editors, James Taranto (emphasis on "rant") assures readers that whatever treatment the TSA recently gave Henry Kissinger, it was OK because the TSA is good. Not surprisingly, "Rant-o" the neocon (emphasis on "con") goes off on TSA critics:
TSA horror stories have been a media commonplace since not long after 9/11. This story makes us suspect the whole genre is far more myth than reality. Before the body scanners were in common use, we received quite a few pat-downs as a result of our prosthetic hip, which sets off metal detectors. It's not an experience we would seek out, but it is hardly the violation that some hysterics make it out to be. Read More
