caucus99percent

I began this piece in January 2015, shortly after the election of Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras. I had not really been following the Greek elections, but just days after it occurred, I saw in a European newspaper Alexis Tsipras' "Open Letter to Germany: That Which You Were Never Told About Greece".

I read it, and I was hooked.

It was a letter of the times we live in. A letter about people who feel crushed by the increasingly powerful financiers of the West. It struck me as frank and oddly personal. I had not read anything quite so stark and pure coming from a current national leader.

It was a very logical, irreversible declaration of independence.

Today, on this day of the Greek default, I wanted to share that moment of history I found so moving and significant. The original message has since been lost in the noise and propaganda — but I do believe this is what a "tipping point" in history looks like, at the very moment it is happening.

All eyes are on Greece this weekend.

This article comes from the most polluted city in the world where small children have already damaged lungs. Most of the pollution comes from fossii fuelled transportation and open burning. The recognition of the dangers of pollution has come too late for them. Why do we wait until we reach this level before the realization sets in that we cannot continue our way of life.

Do you know how many countries we are bombing? Go ahead. Try to guess how many.

You probably can't, and that is an incredibly awful thing about our country.
We've bombed brown-skinned people in seven different countries in the past few months and most Americans couldn't care less.

When grassroots activists and union leaders threatened to withhold campaign donations from Democratic Congressmen who voted for Fast Track, it should have been a wake up call for all Democrats. If party members have been reduced to threatening representatives just to ensure voter interests are protected, then you know the party has lost its way.

In two days about a quarter of a million people will be made stateless. They will have no homes, no passports, and no civil rights. There are several reasons for this, but the primary reason is racism.

The TPP agreement has never been about helping average Americans obtain jobs. Its overarching purpose has been to ensure US corporations gain enough power to dominate international trade markets. More specifically, it was designed to deter China’s expansionist ambitions.

As CNN noted in April:

Really, this is about China.

President Obama has declared that the temporary defeat of the TPP in Congress by the Democratic Party "will directly hurt" American workers.
The CATO Institute, most congressional Republicans, and Wall Street agrees.

I just posted this brief diary at the Dkos:

Long before the 2014 midterm-elections, I was one of the few people on this site warning members of the Democratic Party to prepare themselves for huge losses during the midterm elections. For holding that position, I was vilified. But in the end, I was proven right.

All the politicians and economists will tell you that the economy has recovered. While things aren't as bad as they were in 2008-2010, it certainly doesn't feel like we've ever gotten over the crash.

I am acquainted with a neurophysicist who maintains that it is breezingly easy, when reading brain scans, to determine which images reflect the skull-mush of a homo-sapien female, as compared to the skull-mush of a homo-sapien male.

This is because, so says the neurophysicist, scans of the female brain reveal many folds: folds being the way information in the brain is stored. And human females are interested in many things. Thus: many folds.

Next week Hillary Clinton's confidant Sidney Blumenthal will testify in front of Congress about Benghazi. The session will be closed to the media.

Kickback: The payment of something of value to a recipient as compensation or reward for providing favorable treatment to another party.

A kickback in the form of money, gifts, credit, or anything of value may be viewed as a corrupt practice that interferes with an employee or official’s ability to make unbiased decisions. - Investopedia

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The Fall of Ramadi is becoming a game-changer. Not for the defeat itself, but for the response. In particular, the military offensive to retake Ramadi.
The most obvious element of how things have changed is the composition of the Baghdad army.

to think Bernie loses the general election. Comparing Bernie in 2016 to McGovern in 1972, saying Bernie loses like George did is a bit of a stretch. One should remember that the 1972 Democratic primary was a 4 man race, Humphrey [4.1 million], Wallace [3.7] & Muskie [1.8] got 9.6 million votes to McGoverns 4 million. Humphrey would have been the nominee on the basis of the popular primary vote.

If Hillary Clinton is a true liberal, as Markos Moulitsas has so definitively asserted, then it creates a framework for healing the wounds that have divided the Democratic Party.

At the same time, it stands to reason that Hillary Clinton’s refusal to acknowledge the growing rift between party members creates an almost insurmountable obstacle. As is common in all sick families, a problem that isn’t acknowledged can’t be cured. And there are many grievances to be healed.

It was all a lie – one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. .

We thought we were just letting a friend crash at the house for a few days; we ended up with a family of hillbillies who moved in forever, sleeping nine to a bed and building a meth lab on the front lawn - Matt Taibi

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I just can't, not no more, raise no, not even a whisper, of a woody, for Memorial Day.

Leading up to the 1968 Tet Offensive, the Pentagon tried to convince the American public that it was winning the war.
General Bruce Palmer, Jr., one of Westmoreland's three Field Force commanders, claimed that "the Viet Cong has been defeated" and that "He can't get food and he can't recruit. He has been forced to change his strategy from trying to control the people on the coast to trying to survive in the mountains."

Ottawa cites hate crime laws when asked about its 'zero tolerance' for Israel boycotters

One 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.

Every 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.

This is HUGE!

When 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:

The earthquake that struck Nepal killed around 6,000 people and displaced nearly half a million. It was a horrible humanitarian crisis that justifiably got the world's attention.

If only Syria could be so lucky.

Do 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.

In 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%.

The insanity of negative interest rates is one of the most under-reported, under-appreciated developments in recent days.
For instance, consider this.

Somebody 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?

Franklin D. Roosevelt at his first inaugural address encouraged Americans to stand up to that “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
It may have taken a few more generations, but America finally lost the war against that “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror".