A Breathtakingly Immoral Plan
Submitted by gjohnsit on Sun, 05/10/2015 - 11:45pmOne of the largest humanitarian dramas on the planet is playing out in the waters off the coast of Libya. Thousands upon thousands of desperate refugees are risking their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean, and many of them aren't making it.
Monsters Inc. - Starring Hillary T. Inevitable
Submitted by joe shikspack on Sun, 05/10/2015 - 4:47pmEvery now and then one of our "representative" leaders lets the mask slip and Americans get a peek at the monster behind the mask. The monsters that represent us are well-known elsewhere in the world by the people who are variously invaded, bombed, incinerated by flying death robots, disappeared, held in gulags, tortured, sanctioned, starved, treated to heaping helpings of depleted uranium, attacked with banned weapons like white phosphorus, brutalized by authoritarian dictators and puppets that our monsters support with weapons Made in America(tm). I could go on, but you get the picture.
Court rules NSA spying is illegal
Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 05/07/2015 - 11:13amThis is HUGE!
The Duplicitous Roles of the OFA and the Daily Kos
Submitted by praenomen on Sun, 05/03/2015 - 6:51amWhen Markos Moulitsas informed members of the Daily Kos that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy was “inevitable” the response from Democratic supporters was predictable. Traditional progressives -- understanding that anointed candidates are the antithesis of Democracy -- slammed their collective feet on the brakes. The last thing they wanted was another untrustworthy neo-liberal politician leading the Democratic Party.
As one Democratic Underground member noted:
Why Syria needs an earthquake
Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 04/30/2015 - 11:15pmSeventeen Useful Techniques for Suppressing the Truth, Online
Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Thu, 04/30/2015 - 12:00amDo you ever get the feeling that the mainstream news you receive online is filtered? That the whole story is not coming through? That the narrative is biased and propagandized? That the inconvenient truths are suppressed?
How do you feel when entire news stories are concocted to manipulate you politically? Reuters is usually behind the most egregious lies written at geopolitical levels. For example, on April 28, 2015 it was reported that a US cargo ship was by seized by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and the ship was fired upon by Iran. Every aspect of that headline was a context-free lie. But within minutes it was on all the US news channels and raging across the hate-radio nation, embellished by even more lies.
(For context, the US Navy and Coast Guard stop and board an average of 50 ships per month in the Strait of Hormuz; Iran about 30. It's a non-story about a routine daily event. Furthermore, the ship involved was not a US cargo ship or connected to the US in any way. The issue was a legal one related to past-due payments for passage. However, most Americans currently believe that Iran attacked a US ship. Who benefits from reinforcing the paranoid notion that Iran is a terrorist nation and blocking any movement toward peaceful diplomacy and normalcy? Which military/industry profit-pumps and congressional corporate-poodles want Americans to believe such dangerous lies? Is the new congressional budget sitting on the President's desk right now, complete with a massive demand for increased war spending? What timing! This your Neocon-infested pseudo-government at work.)
Every government has a propaganda hose that they use on their people to a greater or lesser extent. Educated and informed citizens anywhere can find alternative news sources and incorporate the information into their critical analysis of world events. The blast of corporate-generated news Americans endure every day reflects deliberate and sanctioned government propaganda. During critical national issues, enabling propaganda is endlessly spewed in the US by such CIA mouthpieces as the New York Times. (Waves to war-crimes enabler, Judith Miller.) The media monopolies follow suit with so-called analysis, using false equivalence and spoken lies to manipulate the audience. They unleash a firehose of blatant suppression in the US, where it is actually legal to lie to citizens about matters of national security over public-owned airwaves. As a result, Americans grow dumber month over month, year over year.
And then, they vote.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Part 3 - Fiscal Costs
Submitted by gulfgal98 on Wed, 04/29/2015 - 7:00amIn my first diary in this series, I noted how far removed most of us in the United States are from those who serve in our armed forces. The number of Americans who have a close family member who is or has served in the military has steadily decreased over the last several decades from 75% to around 33%.
Negative interest rate blowback
Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 04/27/2015 - 2:19pmThe insanity of negative interest rates is one of the most under-reported, under-appreciated developments in recent days.
For instance, consider this.
I'm a Nobody, and you can be, too.
Submitted by joe shikspack on Sat, 04/25/2015 - 1:23pmSomebody has been screwing up. We Americans are in the midst of some serious problems - endless wars, an endless cycle of economic depressions, recessions and panics and the failure to address climate change (except in giving lip service) which has the potential to make the planet uninhabitable by humans, just to mention a few of the screwups of the Somebodies.
You might ask, how did these Somebodies manage to get into a position to screw up so badly and why are they still in place?