If Moon of Alabama is correct, and there is insight there, we are headed [yet another] into war. Some will say that Obama has capitulated. These are the ones who view American government as being formed by popular mandate. There are indeed struggling factions and they have names that we can use with a little assurance that they are accurate: Neocons, neoliberals, bankers, global corporations. But the interbreeding and interplay among them make it impossible to distinguish them in any meaningful fashion. There are competing factions. We probably would not recognize the names.

American news centers on Obama and pronouncements from the executive branch as an accurate description of the activities of power. That is nonsense, but reality is also very complex, and any in media who try to fathom it are discouraged, or never got to prominence anyway.

It’s hard to watch wanton destruction and slaughter. My inclination is to go into a cave and wait for it to end. I should probably man up and pay attention. There is always unfounded confidence going into war. Events are unpredictable. Should the United States and its underlings fail to prevail in this conflict, the world can breathe a sigh of relief. Each success only raises the possibility for a newer and bigger war.

This is just a point of interest that struck me this morning as I read Polish Wolf’s analysis of the Syrian chemical weapons gambit. It is not a personal attack, as he is young and struggling to understand the world, as we old folks are too. His take is far more sophisticated than others I’ve seen from Democrats, and even hints at forward movement. Progress is slow for all of us.

What struck me was this: In American intellectual culture, all events must be explained without reference to the significance of the JFK assassination and the false-flag nature of 9/11. Given that shortcoming, by necessity such explanations will be laborious and far-fetched. To assume that the American executive has as much power after 11/22/63 as before requires imbuing subsequent occupants of that office with high intellect and character. There have been no men with those qualities since JFK’s death. So it is essential in understanding world and domestic events to elminate democratic governance as a driving force. PW’s closing lines are appeals to current congressional office holders. While essential from his viewpoint, it’s only a faint echo of a time when such people had real power. His whole argument is pointless. He does not understand where the center of power lies. This necessarily follows from his apparent failure to understand or study 11/22/63.

9/11 is similar in that one cannot understand events subsequent without understanding the event itself. And yet the whole of our intellectual culture centers on avoidance of that kind of study. With that deficit apparent, all events are misunderstood. So while it is easily apparent to anyone who understands the meaning of 9/11 that Syria is but another domino that must fall to the bankers and industrialists of the West, those who avoid the subject are forced to construct Rube Goldberg-like explanations. PW claims that the whole of the current intensity of the “crisis” centers on a “blunder” by “Obama.” Understanding 9/11, it’s easier to see Syria as one of many countries lined up for attack that day. The inability (to date) of the American military to bring down that regime, after its successes in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Libya, is encouraging.

Of course we are pressured by propaganda and suggestion to avoid investigating the most important events of our times. Those who brought us those events, our deep state, want us to be asleep, or if awake, ignorant.

This cannot by any means be complete or detailed, but I do want to hit some of the high points of American use and/or approval of use of chemical weapons. The level of hypocrisy in Washington is appalling.

Before I forget, however, isn’t it great that we have elections? The anti-war movement is pretty much dead now because Democrats are making war. Republicans are generally in favor of war, and Democrats oppose Republican wars. George W. Bush’s people had to mount a major scare offensive, complete with the Colin Powell debacle at the UN, to invade Iraq. Democrats then won control of the congress in 2006 by campaigning against the Iraq war. But it turns out they didn’t mean a word of it! But from surface appearances, it seems that we get the same wars with either party. The only difference is the manner in which perceptions are managed.
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Continue reading “A brief history of American use of chemical weapons” →

http://rt.com/news/chemical-weapons-iran-iraq-980/

I have been unable to find San Diego’s Mayor Bob Filner’s full statement on resignation, and so have to piece it together with ellipses. But I thought it instructive as he tells us how it works in politics: Many are called, few are chosen. Anyone in office can be scandalized out of office. A scandal can be manufactured, or in this case blown out of proportion by a tooly media and persistent and nagging victims, probably paid off, who might have gotten unsolicited attention from “Pat McCann,” Car Talk’s sexual harassment counselor. Continue reading “It could happen to anyone” →

The tenor of our times can largely be personified in the form of people who walk free, attend banquets, and enjoy easy access to a clueless and compliant media. George (HW and W) Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Barack Obama, David Petraeus, Robert Ford and a host of others are men and women who should be put on trial for war crimes, walk free and enjoy privileged lives. They will never see the inside of a court room, much less a jail, as they live in a system where only injustice is served.
Continue reading “Back in in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR …” →

If you do not have time to waste, avoid this Reddit thread. It is the first time I have seen a comment thread go viral.

It’s interesting how much of this stuff I already knew:

• Funeral industry is total scam …
• Regular and organic milk is taken from same tete
• … we should avoid touching anything but sheets on bed in a motel.

More interesting stuff is tech talk …

• Software programmers and doctors relying on Google …
• Most investment managers living off inside trading …
• 90% of all tax returns are simple and should be done by the taxpayer. Now it can be told.
• Mutual funds fees eat the retirement account alive before we ever get to enjoy it. (Stick it in savings and don’t touch it. Even low-interest accounts are better than professionally managed ones.)
• I too got scammed royal by a local mechanic shop and am embarrassed that I was so trusting. Now I am leery of all mechanics … Duh. Most of the world already knew this.

Much of it has to do with large companies who are double-faced, one prettied up for the public by PR and ad agencies, the other a monster ghoul that bleeds employees because they can’t quit or are easily replaced. I may never go to a restaurant again, but if I do, I will be really nice to everyone there. They not only deserve it anyway, but can also get validation in their own ways.

One intriguing entry has Apple stores acting as money laundering fronts, drug money being used to buy up iPhones that are then resold around the world. Knowingly done. That’s why they are often short on inventory, says the commenter.

It’s a time sink. If you have work to do today, avoid this thread. I stumbled on it last night around 8 PM and did not cover more than a third of it.

[Note to readers: It is important to understand that “news” in the US is put forward by only a few entities, and is not a random process. The major organs are dominated by intelligence agency moles who sit at critical junctures. This situation was first exposed by the Church Committee in the late 1970’s, and has never again been addressed by an official body. So it is safe to assume it still exists. But there is not unanimity behind the scenes as various powerful factions make power plays to achieve unstated objectives, so that the appearance of “news” that is repeated and emphasized to achieve maximum impact (i.e. the Monica Lewinski tabloid scandal) is public notice to one faction that another faction is making a play. Evidence to support this view can be found on any given day in the important stories that do not see light of day, non-barking dogs. So now we have the Snowden affair, which could easily be suppressed and ignored, as are the Kiriakou and Brown incidents. Instead, it is being heavily promoted in mouthpiece news organs.]
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The Watergate affair that eventually brought down Richard Nixon was both circus and farce. Imagine this: Highly trained CIA/FBI agents commit a clumsy burglary, almost begging to be caught. There is no apparent purpose for it. The men involved all have shady backgrounds, many in the Bay of Pigs. Two were involved in the Kennedy assassination:

• E. Howard Hunt, who confessed on his death bed to his son that he was part of it, but only as a “back bencher;”
• Frank Sturgis, suspected by some in the JFK research community to be one of the gunmen in Dealey Plaza that day.

Continue reading “Here we go again” →

I disregard such news as manipulation, and look to see what is not reported while such stories grab headlines. Suggestions would be useful as I don’t really have time to look for real news today.
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Speaking of news management, which does not happen in the land of the free, Glenn Greenwald was scheduled to testify before an informal hearing chaired by Alan Grayson on the NSA wiretaps.

But as Grayson said, “Obama developed a sudden and newfound interest in House Democrats and scheduled a meeting with them for that same time.” The hearings were canceled. [Politico Link.]

Obama is not known to go to Capitol Hill for anything, much less unannounced and impromptu. See how it works?

When it is all over, I hope to have added one term to the English language: Budgeism. It came from my interactions with the Missoula financial adviser. I began to notice over time that the bulk of his theories on economics were untestable. Yet he addressed matters with certainty – if only we did x instead of y, z would happen instead y … I shortened it to the following:

I believe my theories will work and yours will fail, in the future. Prove me wrong.

From there it’s easy to see how it works as a debate tactic. Take health care – the European systems are working well, adjusting as they must, and are not in any way threatened or unpopular. They will fail in the future. The US health care system is a colossal bust, with worse outcomes and immensely higher costs while inaccessible to a large portion of the population. In the end, it will work.*

Budgeism is useful in understanding the arguments of economists of the Randian, Austrian, or neoclassical schools. They can’t explain the past or present nor predict the future, and yet get paid for it. If neoclassical economics actually worked, they’d be out of a job, right? Don’t markets eliminate bad products?

The video below is of Steve Keen, a rebel who loves taking potshots at the neo’s while advancing his own theories. I certainly don’t have the chops to evaluate his work, but I do like his attitude and humor.

My favorite line:

Neoclassical economics: The application of bad mathematics to wishful thinking.

26-minute video below fold. Enjoy!
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Continue reading “Budgeism debunked” →