I realized the other day, while watching our media's coverage of the war in Ukraine, that no one has accused Ukrainian forces of using their civilians as "human shields". Remember human shields?
All of the nations the U.S. has ever bombed used their citizens as human shields. It wasn't our fault that our bombs were killing thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians. It was the devious machinations of our enemies.

Big Fat Lies

Today I want to feature three one hour long movies to watch during the week. The first, Cereal Killers, is about a young Irishman going to South Africa to work with Dr. Tim Noakes on a low carb, high fat (LCHF) diet for a month. The film follows what he eats, and his results. The next movie is Cereal Killers 2. It looks at endurance athletes improving performance on a LCHF, and features a couple rowing from California to Hawaii. The last film is The Big Fat Fix which focuses on Dr Aseem Malhotra's health journey in Italy. My idea is to provide food for thought... as Aseem suggests, the foods we eat are killing us. We'll also look at some other big fat lies in addition to diet misinformation.

Anniversaries are for remembering. And what I remember about 911 was that it was the day the US public lost its mind. It is dizzying to look back at all the lies the public has been presented with, and largely swallowed, over the last 17 years. It is disheartening to read polls showing that, most of the time, most of the public buys these lies. I thought it would be simple to just list all the lies. But, when I tried, the list got so long I had to get picky.

NOTE: Most of you don't need to hear this. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I need to say it and this is my only forum. I beg your indulgence.

I've come to realize that there's a lot of confusion out there due to people using words with very specific definitions.
For example, when a Republican talks about "freedom" they don't mean "freedom from want".
They mean "freedom from government oppression", but only government oppression.
Private oppression? Republicans will either deny it exists, or justify it.
When a Republican is "pro-life" it only refers to birth.

The politico-economic system of our supposed democracy is, in reality, a defense-in-depth of elite privilege. Layer upon layer of rhetorical cant and mathematical jargon shred any attack upon the fortress of money. Only by challenging the basic premises of conventional economics can we pull out the roots of the pernicious neoliberal dogma that is handing America over to a handful of billionaires and their global megacorporations.

How does a sane person deal with the insanity that is America today? The party line on just about every topic one might mention is the wrong side of stupid. The media zeitgeist is to ignore our falling apart ecology, economy, infrastructure, educational system, political system, and foreign policy. Our duty is to worship the crooks on Wall St. and the warmongers in the Pentagon, both of whom are robbing the citizenry blind while providing negative value to the 99% with their "services".

Back in December Vice President Mike Pence went to Afghanistan and announced "real progress" is being made. A few months earlier Trump told everyone "great progress is being made.”

Lies We Tell Ourselves

Seven of my soldiers are dead. Two committed suicide. Bombs got the others in Iraq and Afghanistan. One young man lost three limbs. Another is paralyzed. I entered West Point a couple of months before 9/11. Eight of my classmates died “over there.”