It was James Whitcomb Riley, a Hoosier, not a Texan, who is credited with having said: "When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." A thing or a party is what it does. This simple epistemological principles applies to everything from sub-atomic particles to mega-galaxies on the very edge of the universe and everything in between to include 'political parties'. Merely putting a name on something does not explain it. Putting the label 'Nazi' on the US GOP does not explain either GOPPS or Nazis; it just helps us sort them out. I am sick of 'labels' and sick of the way labels have subverted American thought processes and debased the quality of debate and discourse. Labeling is passive. Meaningful sentences consist of subjects, ACTIVE verbs and, often, direct objects which are affected by some action that is taken. It is not enough for me to discount a politcian because they 'are' Republican. If I am to make my case, I must allege an 'action' --a GOP action --that has had, in fact, a harmful result. Indeed, it is the panoply of harmful actions that define this 'duck', this web-footed, forked tongued GOP! The wake of WWII left many declaring that it must never happen again. If 'it' was to be prevented, however, it was clear that 'it' must be explained. The origins of WWII, however, could not be understood without first understanding a 'Nazi' mentality that provided it fertile soil and nurtured its growing roots. The Nazi weed grows and is cultivated in the US by bigots, authoritarians, and corporatists i.e, fascists. At war's end, the victorious allies had in their custody the 'super-stars' of Hitler's Third Reich and imprisoned them at Nuremberg. Some believed that they should have been summarily executed. Others advocated trial for crimes against the peace and humanity. This is the legacy of Nuremberg: it left us what I hope is the lasting framework against which future crimes may be prosecuted. I have in mind the crimes perpetrated by the US against the sovereign nations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the peoples in those nations. War criminals are where you find them. In the US, there were war hawks in both major parties, eager to avenge 911 and strike a blow against 'terrorism'. This is simplistic thinking. Terrorism is so vague as to be meaningless, certainly any act against US interests 'not liked' by the US or the specific interests affected. What if the 'interest' itself is illegal --the theft of Iraqi oil, for example. What about acts of terrorism perped by the US? Will the US govt root itself out and bring itself to justice? Don't hold your breath. The US govt has been, of late, fucked up! 'Revenge' is similarly problematic. 911 did not, does not and cannot justify the US invasion of either Afghanistan or Iraq for numerous reasons not the least of which is this: no one had been able to pin the 'rap' on Al Qaeda. Does al Qaeda exist? Could it possibly have pulled off 911? George W. Bush boasted of having killed alleged al Qaeda members though there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Afghanistan had anything whatsoever to do with crime of 911.
All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.
I believe that this statement speaks to George W. Bush's guilt of war crimes that were defined and prosecuted by the US and its allies at Nuremberg. I believe that Bush should be cross examined with regard to this statement. It should be put to Bush: what --specifically --was that fate? Are we saying that the US rounded up Afghanis en masse and subjected them to summary executions? Who ordered these summary executions? Were the executions sanctioned by the President? If so --then the President and those carrying out the murders should be charged and, when found guilty, they should be hanged! How to Know a Nazi When You Find One Nazis are where you find them. In pre-war Germany, they were found in the party which gave them their name. In the US, latter day Nazis will be found in abundance in the GOP and even among the Democratic right wing. Nazis are what Nazis do!
Ritzler and his colleagues saw a socially distant, intellectually pretentious person lacking depth of character...this psychological profiled belonged to a simple man. They speculated that he attained his success by being a good organization man, doing what he was told to do and not making waves. ...no one suggested a person from academia, the clergy or the arts....the experience of learning the subject's identity has been unforgettable. the psychological protocol belonged to Adolf Eichmann!The Quest for the Nazi Personality
As he was tried, Eichmann was portrayed in the media as a 'depraved killer responsible for the deaths of millions'. And so he was but only because he was a bureaucrat, a 'Republican', an 'organization man', a man whose truth was the party line and modus operandi. The very face of 'evil' as it was glimpsed by Dr. Gilbert and, later, Hanah Arendt, turned out to be the banal face of a bureaucrat. Nazis may not have issued membership cards and a subscription to a newsletter! They were defined, however, by a psychological characteristic perhaps first described by Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the American psychologist who 'interviewed' Nazis imprisoned at Nuremberg. It was Gilbert who defined the Nazi mentality by its 'utter lack of empathy', a trait that has been identified in the contemporary US GOP. See John Dean's 'Conservatives Without Conscience'.
The US is much, much worse off these days than Mexico which often takes the blame for the drug trade and 'income disparities'. Fact is --income and wealth inequalities are much, much worse in the US than in Mexico. At the end of the Bush Sr era, the upper quintile alone had benefited from the Reagan tax cuts. Even fewer benefited from Shrub's largesse! So --where do the GOP 'yankees' get off aiming their demagoguery at Mexico?
The piddly amounts of drugs sold across the border are a strawman --peanuts compared to the heist of US wealth pulled off by just one percent of the US population!
The GOP is either nuts or crooked or both! I often wonder what the US might have been if right wing psychopaths had not demagogued every war or every so-called 'crisis' and in ways that enriched only their 'base'! The end result is that just one percent of the entire population owns more than some 95 percent of the rest of us combined! Anyone not of that ruling elite still supporting the elitist GOP and complicit DINOs is nuts! And I have no sympathy for you!
And if Mexican drugs are sold in the US --what of it? Isn't that just good ol' laissez-faire, right wing, GOP 'free enterprise'? How long would that evil drug trade last if 'yankees' were not lined up to buy? And what percentage of the GOP is 'hooked' on cocaine? How long would the border traffic last if 'white shirted', clean shaven GOP faithful were not lined up to buy? If the GOP were truly concerned about the 'streets' of the US, it would get its stupid head out of its stupid ass and support 'leftist' or Keynesian policies that are known and proven to have created jobs and can be depended upon to get people off the streets and back to work! How many folk sell drugs because it represents a 'calling', a mission from God? The trend in which the rich get rich at everyone else's expense abated --briefly --under Clinton. The trend resumed with a vengeance under Bush II. I have the official stats to prove all this and have posted them in numerous articles.Time for the GOP to Put Up or Shut UpThe US is a Third World Nation kept afloat by China. That fact is confirmed by the the CIA's own World Fact Book. The US is listed at the bottom with the world's largest Negative Current Account Balance. China is on TOP with the world's largest positive Current Account Balance. Thus China is in a position to prop up the buck in order to continue selling its crap to us via Wal-Mart. Quick --name just one industry in which the US leads the world!
This was all by design. The elites have no particular allegiance to the US. Certainly, one of the causes for the collapse is the capital drain to offshore tax havens.
I often wonder how great the US might have been had it not committed genocide for the resources it 'won' only to squander them leaving behind vast wastelands where once Native Americans lived peaceably with Buffalo. You've never seen a buffalo? Chances are you never will! The object of US policy was to kill the Buffalo and thus the Native American.
Let's talk about the stupid people who have taken over the US and the shill media which kisses up to them. Let's review the implications of a recent article in the Texas Observer.
On March 25, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° rolled into El Paso to report on Mexican drug-cartel violence. Cooper was one more in a recent wave of national news heavy hitters to parachute in, scare the pants off millions of viewers, then jet off to the next headline destination.
Dressed in military green, Cooper furrowed his brow and squinted solemnly into the camera as the lights of the international border checkpoint glimmered behind him. Guest Fred Burton, identified as a terrorism and security expert with Stratfor Global Intelligence, was beamed in from a studio in Austin to paint a menacing picture of Mexican cartels invading U.S. city streets. “It’s just a matter of time before it really spills over into the United States unless we shore up the border as best we can,” Burton warned.By God, they’re coming to your neighborhood! Looking at another live feed from El Paso, listening to the breathless reports of violence and “expert” analysis about “spillover,” viewers could only assume that the city in which Cooper stood was under imminent assault.
That’s the reality these days for El Pasoans. Or rather, it’s the twisted perception created by border-warrior politicians and national news media, and foisted on Juarez’s relatively peaceful sister city. For El Pasoans and residents of nearby border towns, it might all be a mere oddity—maybe even worth a chuckle—if it didn’t mean the construction of 18-foot border walls, blustery talk about National Guard troop surges, and new resources for the disastrous war on drugs. While “troop surge,” “border wall,” and “drug war” might sound irresistibly sexy to politicians and pundits, it’s border residents who have to live with the fences and tanks and consequences.
The truth differs wildly from the perception. Certainly, El Paso’s symbiotic relationship with Juarez has been disrupted by the explosion of drug violence south of the border, which began to tick up in January 2008. But it’s not the kind of disruption brought to you by CNN, Fox, and the rest of the media pack.
The real impact of the ongoing tragedy in Juarez is felt by El Pasoans in more indirect and personal ways. While the brutality across the river has not caused a wave of kidnappings and murders in El Paso, folks do feel its effects every day. Families are divided. El Pasoans can no longer visit their friends, relatives, doctors or dentists in Juarez. Businesses on both sides suffer. The stories are legion: The high-school student who can’t visit her beloved, 105-year-old grandmother because her parents don’t want to risk her safety. The young Juarez woman who worries that her El Paso friends and relatives won’t be able to attend her wedding. And the many families mourning loved ones lost on the other side of the Rio Grande.
All too often the nightly news portrays Juarez and El Paso as one and the same, with the U.S. city symbolizing the perils of that new buzzword: spillover. Night after night, TV spin-meisters, retired generals, terror analysts and politicians rage on about spillover violence. They call Mexico a “failed state” and argue for militarizing the border. No wonder Americans are scared. No wonder El Pasoans feel doubly besieged.
Lights, Cameras, Mayhem
Consider this gem from former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now a consultant for ABC News, commenting on Juarez: “There is in fact an insurgency on both sides of the American-Mexican border, and it’s stepped up a lot in the last several years because the Bush administration ignored it and put its focus on Iraq.”
After weeks of hearing the war drums beat louder and louder, Sito Negron, editor of El Paso’s online daily news journal, Newspaper Tree, recently decided he’d had enough. An insurgency on both sides? he thought, listening to Clarke’s prime-time pronouncement. Are you kidding me?
According to the FBI, more than 1,600 people were killed by cartel violence in Juarez in 2008. El Paso, a city of 755,000, recorded just 18 murders last year. Laredo had 11; Brownsville and McAllen had three and nine, respectively. By comparison, Washington, D.C., with a population smaller than El Paso’s, had 186 homicides in 2008.
Who Are the IDIOTS?
A native El Pasoan, Negron was fed up with national media feeding the frenzy to militarize his hometown. He published an opinion piece on Newspaper Tree titled, “Who are you idiots, and why are you on national television talking about the border? An open letter to U.S. media":
Get this straight. The violence is not “spilling over the border” into the U.S. No, every time you say that, whether you mean to or not, you’re conjuring up images of crazed Mexicans crossing the border to burn Columbus, and you have it backwards. It spilled over from the U.S. into Mexico and Latin America long ago. ... [F]or the past 20 years, we’ve been slowly turning the border into a militarized zone, so let’s not say there isn’t violence associated with both sides of the drug trade and the Drug War. We could say that we’re now sharing the violence to a higher degree, an important distinction from the simple-minded terminology of “spilling over.”
“I’m happy that the border is an important place,” Negron said a few days after writing the piece. “But I’m not happy about the context in which they place it. I’m generally a little more mainstream, but I got a bit loose with the editorial because I was ticked off.”
Other El Pasoans share his pique. Negron’s piece generated several dozen comments, mostly along this line: “Congratulations on hitting the nail on the head. I am so tired of hearing so-called pundits speak about the border without being here and experiencing it for themselves.”
Negron cops to his own role in whipping up the frenzy. In January he penned an article for Texas Monthly called “Baghdad, Mexico,” comparing the carnage in Juarez to the insurgent violence in Iraq. He wishes he hadn’t made the comparison, he says, because it helped fan the blaze of overheated news coverage.
“I regret using the word ‘Baghdad’ because people from elsewhere who don’t know much about the border or Mexico see that word and think, ‘We better send the military down there,’” Negron says. “The border becomes a backdrop for the nation’s fears and anxieties instead of a place where real people live.”
In late March, constituents criticized El Paso Mayor John Cook for missing a civic forum on the city’s east side. Cook couldn’t make it because he was being interviewed by BBC anchor Katty Kay. The BBC, Kay said, had information that drug violence had spilled into El Paso.
Cook was eager to set the record straight. He’s had plenty of practice lately, with national and international media frequently asking him about the situation in Juarez and in his own city. “I’ll speak with them and tell them there hasn’t been any spillover of violence into El Paso,” he says, “and then they will turn around and report that there is. Mostly I feel like I’ve wasted my time.”
He’s not the only border mayor who feels that frustration. In March, McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez got into an on-air tussle with CNN anchor Don Lemon. With archival footage of masked soldiers and body bags in Sinaloa, Mexico—960 miles from McAllen—rolling in the background, Lemon informed Cortez what was happening in his city. ...When folks around El Paso and McAllen hear rhetoric [i.e, bullshit, EC] about sending troops to the border, they can’t help remembering what happened in Redford, four hours east of El Paso, in 1997. With drug trafficking having been declared a “threat to national security,” thousands of soldiers were dispatched to the border. Residents’ worst fears were realized when 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez was shot and killed by a Marine while tending his family’s herd of goats 100 yards from his home. Hernandez was the first American killed by U.S. military forces on native soil since the Kent State massacre in 1970. The Marine who shot him was not charged with murder, though the federal government eventually paid the Hernandez family $1.9 million to settle a wrongful death claim.
Shortly after Hernandez’s death, military operations along the border were suspended. Almost a decade later, from June 2006 to July 2008, 6,000 National Guardsmen were sent to the border as part of Operation Jump Start. This time they were assisting Border Patrol officers with technical, logistical, and administrative work to free up the patrol to focus on detaining more illegal immigrants. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster says the National Guard troops in his area spent most of those two years parked outside the city in Humvees, dressed in camo fatigues. “I came back from a trip and thought, ‘My God, what happened while I was away?’” he recalls. This time, at least, there were no murders—just a couple of bored soldiers who got into trouble for shooting off rounds on the outskirts of town one night.
Tired of living under virtual house arrest, mayors, county judges and business leaders formed the Texas Border Coalition in 2006, the first year of Operation Jump Start. The coalition has tried ever since to educate state and federal policymakers about what U.S. border towns are really experiencing and what they really need. They’ve spent a lot of time pleading their case in Washington. It’s been uphill all the way. --Texas Observer, Lights, Cameras, Mayhem!
The US presumes to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq even as it creates conditions of 'occupation' within its borders. As it declines, the US becomes an increasing danger to almost every nation on the globe. What is the threat posed by Afghanistan? None! What was the threat posed by Iraq? None! If you think it was, then show me the WMD! What was the threat posed by Viet Nam? After some thirty or forty years I am still awaiting a credible answer to that one!
Enough is enough!
A good start will consist of shutting up the right wing media. Turn off CNN, Fox and the bullshit peddlers all over the tube! Secondly, the people of the US must effect the complete and utter repudiation of right wing practices which have, in fact, enriched just one percent of the entire population as some 95 percent of the rest of us have gotten poorer, impoverished utterly.Secondly, the GOP must be held to account for war policies that have, in fact, bankrupted the US.
Why I moderate comments
SPAM: 'comments' that link to junk, 'get rich' schemes, scams, and nonsense! These are the worst offenders.
Ad hominem attacks: 'name calling' and 'labeling'. That includes the ad hominem: 'truther' or variations!
FASCISM is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political policy defined by a corporatist economic ideology enforced by a dictatorial regime which, in turn, is supported by a symbiotic business/corporate community. In pre-war Germany, Hitler held a meeting with his corporate backers. He cut them all a 'deal' and, in turn, was rewarded with their enduring support and they by his LUCRATIVE DEFENSE CONTRACTS. It was I.G. Farben which manufactured Zyklon 'B' used to murder Jews, gypsies and non-Nazis in concentration camps.In the US just one percent of the nation's population has benefited from GOP (right wing) tax cuts. I have charged that the 'tax cuts' are, rather, an elaborate money laundering scheme in which the 'ruling elite' is paid a return on its investment, that is, the purchase of the US government by way of its pimps on K-Street. Read the US govt stats re: income inequalities. Income inequalities in the US are instructive, the result of an ongoing auction of the US government to domestic and foreign lobbies. Glaring correlations not accidental: terrorism is worse under GOP regimes and --at the same time --income disparities increase. US tax policy, for example, favors the rich and, of late, just one percent of the US population which is enriched by those policies.
The area around K Street in Washington, D.C., abounds with lobbyists, many of whom represent foreign governments or entities. Although some major foreign governments continue to work mainly through their embassies in Washington, nearly one hundred countries rely on lobbyists to protect and promote their interests. The subculture of public relations and law firms that do this kind of work reflects a steady decline and privatization of diplomacy -- with an increasing impact on how the United States conducts its own foreign policy.The strongest lobbies promoting foreign interests are driven by cohesive ethnic population groups in the United States, such as Armenia, China, Greece, India, Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, and, historically, Ireland. Even countries that have strong bilateral relations with the United States, such as Australia, Japan, and Norway, need lobbyists as well as embassies. Lobbyists can operate within the system in ways that experienced diplomats cannot. A lobbying group can identify with a domestic ethnic bloc even though it is paid by a foreign government. Ethnic politics can trump corporate interests and, more important, influence what agencies within the U.S. government may see as the national interest.Illustration by Ib OhlssonThe United States is a nation of immigrants -- a strength that has also created vulnerabilities. Although ethnic population groups have at times offset isolationist tendencies in the United States, they also can find themselves conflicted on issues that could divide the motherland from the adopted country, the United States. In other cases, these so-called hyphenated groups unhesitatingly side with the United States and, in effect, become more royalist than the king.--Diplomacy Inc., The Influence of Lobbies on U.S. Foreign Policy
Unlike 911, Lockerbie was investigated but, like 911, the case is obviously not solved. It it was Mossad, according to Time, which issued the first 'tip' that a bomb had been placed among the luggage. That may be sufficient grounds for reasonable suspicion. Mossad, after all, is probably second only to the US CIA among the world's largest 'official' terrorist organizations!
Memorial services were held to mark the 20th anniversary of the crash of Pan Am 103 near Lockerbie, Scotland. Like 911, 'Lockerbie', an alleged 'terrorist' attack named for the nearby township, raises more questions than are answered. But there is one important difference. In Lockerbie there is identifiable wreckage. In New York and at the Pentagon, the laws of physics --we are expected to believe --were suspended! In Lockerbie, southern Scotland, eleven people were killed when large sections of aircraft fell on, in and around the township, bringing total fatalities to 270. Many have called it the 'Lockerbie bombing'. Unlike 911, Lockerbie was investigated but, like 911, the case is obviously not solved.
Precisely how a rogue bag containing the bomb eluded the Frankfurt airport security system is still not known.
If bomb-laden luggage replaced an innocent bag, what happened to the displaced suitcase?
It so happened that the flight from Berlin to Frankfurt was delayed. While all the passengers ultimately made the connection to London, 11 suitcases, including the pilot's two bags, remained behind in Frankfurt. They were entered into the airport computer system and rerouted via the Pan Am flight. But only one of the pilot's suitcases was recovered at Lockerbie. The other had been mysteriously left behind in Frankfurt, and arrived safely in Seattle a day later. That story, which TIME has corroborated, doesn't prove Pan Am's claim that terrorists used al-Kassar's drug pipeline to pull a suitcase switch in Frankfurt. But it does support the theory that a rogue bag was inserted into the automated baggage-control system, as the secret FBI report indicates was possible.
George Bush's [Bush I] letter of condolence, written almost four months after the shattered remains of Pan Am Flight 103 fell on Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, expressed the usual "my heart goes out to you" sorrow. "No action by this government can restore the loss you have suffered," he concluded. But deep inside, Mrs. McKee suspects it was a government action gone horribly awry that indirectly led to her only son's death. "I've never been satisfied at ( all by what the people in Washington told me," she says.Today, as the U.S. spearheads the U.N.-sanctioned embargo against Libya for not handing over two suspects in the bombing, Mrs. McKee wonders if Chuck's background contains the secret of why this plane was targeted. If her suspicions are correct, Washington may not be telling the entire story. Major Charles Dennis McKee, called "Tiny" by his Army intelligence friends, was a burly giant and a superstar in just about every kind of commando training offered to American military personnel. He completed the rugged Airborne and Ranger schools, graduated first in his class from the Special Forces qualification course, and served with the Green Berets. In Beirut he was identified merely as a military attache assigned to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). But his hulking physique didn't fit such a low- profile diplomatic post. Friends there remember him as a "walking arsenal" of guns and knives. His real assignment reportedly was to work with the CIA in reconnoitering the American hostages in Lebanon and then, if feasible, to lead a daring raid that would rescue them.McKee's thick, 37-page Army dossier contains so many blacked-out words that it's hard to glean the danger he faced. Surviving the censor's ink was his title, "Team Chief." Under "Evaluation," it was written that he "performs constantly in the highest-stress environment with clear operational judgment and demeanor . . . Especially strong in accomplishing the mission with minimal guidance and supervision . . . Continues to perform one of the most hazardous and demanding jobs in the Army."For Beulah McKee the mystery deepened six months after Chuck's death, when she received a letter from another U.S. agent in Beirut. It was signed "John Carpenter," a name the Pentagon says it can't further identify. Although the letter claimed that Chuck's presence on the Pan Am plane was unrelated to the bombing, Carpenter's message only stirred her suspicions. "I cannot comment on Chuck's work," he wrote, "because his work lives on. God willing, in time his labors will bear fruit and you will learn the true story of his heroism and courage."A four-month investigation by Time has disclosed evidence that raises new questions about the case. Among the discoveries:
According to an FBI field report from Germany, the suitcase originating in Malta that supposedly contained the bomb may not have been transferred to Pan Am Flight 103 in Frankfurt, as charged in the indictment of the two Libyans. Instead, the bomb-laden bag may have been substituted in Frankfurt for an innocent piece of luggage.
The rogue bag may have been placed on board the plane by Jibril's group with the help of Monzer al-Kassar, a Syrian drug dealer who was cooperating with the U.S.'s Drug Enforcement Administration in a drug sting operation. Al- Kassar thus may have been playing both sides of the fence.
Jibril and his group may have targeted that flight because on board was an intelligence team led by Charles McKee, whose job was to find and rescue the hostages.--Pan Am 103: Why Did They Die
The wreckage found near Lockerbie is clearly traceable to a specific flight. The aircraft was largely re-assembled. By contrast, 'scraps' left behind on 911 were hurriedly disposed of by executive order of George W. Bush. No attempt was made to investigate the crime. It was, rather, covered up. At the Pentagon, the glaring lack of wreckage was 'explained away'. The fuselage of Flight 77, we are told, vaporized. Aluminum does not vaporize at temperatures less than 11000 degree F, according to NASA some 1000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. In any case, the dead were said to have been DNA id'd! But DNA literally 'melts' at temperatures well under 500 degrees F. So --which is it? Did the fuselage vaporize OR were the bodies identified via DNA. It cannot be both ways. Willful destruction of evidence is a crime and those ordering it should be prosecuted! Moreover, it is my belief that only those guilty of a crime are sufficiently motivated to order the destruction of admissible evidence that might surely convict them of the crimes of mass murder and high treason. Bush Jr, should you happen to read this while surfing the net, you know who and what you are! I defy anyone to produce a scrap, a shred of Pentagon wreckage traceable to Flight 77. Secondly, I defy anyone to produce a scrap of admissible evidence that any Arab hijacker was ever on board. Certainly, there are no Arab names whatsoever on the ONLY official document of Flight 77 passengers and that is the official autopsy report released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. I have never had any reason --compelling or otherwise --to believe a word of Bush's 'official conspiracy theory' of 911. No aspect of this conspiracy theory can be believed. No part of it is credible. While it is time to fully investigate the events of 911, it might be advisable to begin a wider inquiry: why are there more terrorist attacks against US interests during GOP regimes than Democratic at least since the assumption of the office of President by Ronald Reagan? I'm waiting for a credible story from any Republican holding public office or supporting GOP officials holding any office in the nation!
New allegations about CIA involvment in the murder of JFK put a glaring spotlight on the current bankster crisis. Those who pull off crimes are, naturally, most motivated to lie about them! The CIA, therefore, looks very guilty of two murders that ripped America apart: the murders of JFK and RFK.
As news broke this week that CIA lies about the JFK murder had been exposed, I recalled that among the motives for JFK's murder was his threat to abolish the FED, the very source of the government's 'funny money' and most certainly, the root cause of the current banking collapse. JFK had threatened to strip the power of the FED, smash the CIA into 'a thousand pieces' and abolish the oil industry's sacred cow: the Oil Depletion Allowance. No President since has dared piss off so many powerful and ruthless people. JFK tried to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest
The move would have bypassed the Fed by restoring to the government the power and authority to issue currency. Executive Order 11110 gave the US government the ability to create its own money --backed by silver! It just might have put the FED out of business.
Some background and basic economics: to pay it's bills, the US government borrows money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Federal Reserve Notes are not backed up by anything. 'Silver certificates' issued under the authority of JFKs order would have been backed up by government owned silver. The government would no longer borrow from the FED to pay its obligations. It would have done so with 'silver certificates' issued by the government itself.
Like any commodity, Federal Reserve notes are subject to the laws of supply and demand. The demand for Federal Reserve notes might have collapsed altogether and the FED itself might have been forced out of business.
Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level. It would have would have made it possible for the government to repay its debt without having to borrow worthless 'notes' from the Fed and having to repay them later at interest.
Executive Order 11110 was never repealed. One wonders why no other President ever bothered to utilize it. Could it have had anything to do with the fact that JFKs order made him very, very unpopular throughout the banking establishment? JFK was brutally murdered in Dallas just five months after issuing the order. No more silver certificates were issued. The FED's gravy train was still intact.
FED owners do not have ready access to $trillions$ needed to float the U.S. debt and deficit. They don't need it! The FED 'creates' money with a bookkeeping entry, writing out a check to the US government in exchange for US bonds. Cashing the check is easy; the US Government banks at the Federal Reserve.
It's a scam in which no "real" money, no hard currency is exchanged. Government agents are never seen walking out of the FED offices --under armed guard --carrying bullion, coins, or, indeed, anything of real value. The Fed makes an 'entry' in the books! The government makes an entry in its books!
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
--Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson, I believe, had foreseen what has happened in fact. That is the context in which the latest news should be considered.
The October 17 Times story was another such example. It revealed, perhaps for the first time in any major US newspaper, that the CIA has been deceiving the public about its own relationship to the JFK assassination.
On the Kennedy assassination, the deceptions began in 1964 with the Warren Commission. The CIA hid its schemes to kill Fidel Castro and its ties to the anti-Castro Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or Cuban Student Directorate, which received $50,000 a month in CIA support during 1963. In August 1963, Oswald visited a New Orleans shop owned by a directorate official, feigning sympathy with the group’s goal of ousting Mr. Castro. A few days later, directorate members found Oswald handing out pro-Castro pamphlets and got into a brawl with him. Later that month, he debated the anti-Castro Cubans on a local radio station.
That the October 17 story was published at all is astonishing. According to Lexis Nexis, there have only been two earlier references to the CIA Joannides documents controversy in any major US newspaper: a brief squib in the New York Daily News in 2003 announcing the launching of the case, and a letter to the New York Times in 2007 (of which the lead author was Jeff Morley) complaining about the Times’ rave review of a book claiming that Oswald was a lone assassin.
Just last year, the BBC reported that it was the CIA that was behind the murder of RFK, JFK's younger brother.
The new video and photographic evidence -- the result of a three year long investigation --"puts three senior CIA operatives" at the scene of the murder.
Three of these men have been positively identified as senior officers who worked together in 1963 at JMWAVE, the CIA's Miami base for its Secret War on Castro.
David Morales was Chief of Operations and once told friends: "I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard."
Gordon Campbell was Chief of Maritime Operations and George Joannides was Chief of Psychological Warfare Operations. Joannides was called out of retirement in 1978 to act as the CIA liaison to the Congressional investigation into the JFK assassination. Now, we see him at the Ambassador Hotel the night a second Kennedy is assassinated.
As with the 1963 murder of JFK in Dallas, lingering questions dog the official theories. Powder burns indicated that three shots had been fired from very close range from 0 to 1-1/2 inches though no witness could place Sirhan closer than three feet. Sirhan's gun held only eight bullets but a total of ten were recovered. Three were found in Kennedy. Two were lodged in a pantry door frame. One was found in an airspace. Presumably four more were found elsewhere. Significantly, four bullets 'touched' Kennedy to include the three that were recovered --lodged --in his back. At no time was Sirhan ever behind RFK.
Inexcusably, the door frames were burned, the Los Angeles Police Dept. claimed no bullets were found lodged in the "bullet holes", and two expended bullets (inexplicably dug out of wood) were soon found in the front seat of Sirhan's car. The LAPD then destroyed their records of the tests that had been done on the "bullet holes" in the doorframe.
Like the fatal flaws in the official conspiracy theory of 911, the holes in the government's JFK story are fatal.
No competent or sane sniper/hit man would choose to shoot anyone from the TSBD. The 'view to a kill' was obscured by branches and leaves as photos taken that day prove! It was and remains the worst of several possible locations!
Zapruder frame 313 proves conclusively that the fatal shot came from the front, the so-called Grassy Knoll
No sniper in his right mind would choose a kill spot providing no possibility of egress or escape! Oswald would have had to have ditched his rifle and run down some six flights! No 'hit man' would have tried it! It's stupid! The place would have been 'sealed'!
I have visited Dealy Plaza! The picket fence afforded cover, egress and a clear unobstructed shot of the 'target' from a distance about one third that of a site in TSBD.
From TSBD, the motorcade is moving laterally and then away; from the picket fence, the target's lateral motion relative to the 'shooter' is minimal. A non-expert could have made the shot but, in fact, it was an expert who did!
I interviewed a witness to the JFK murder many years after the fact. Rosemary Willis was but a child on that fateful day and her story has been ignored by the mainstream media. When we met, she produced several boxes of color slides that had been taken by her father that fateful day in Dealy Plaza.
Referred to in the literature of the assassination as the "little girl in the red dress", she is seen in the Zapruder film running along the south side of Elm Street. Her father, Phillip Willis, taking 35mm color slides, can also be seen in the Zapruder film, looking forward at his daughter, perhaps calling to her. She stops suddenly just as the Presidential limousine is partially blocked by a sign between the motorcade and Abraham Zapruder's camera.
The FBI seized the Willis photos but returned them years later. I looked at them on a light table with a loupe. I immediately recognized Dealy Plaza, the limousine, the motorcade, the Texas School Book Depository, the Pergola, the Grassy Knoll, the Triple Underpass, place names now burned into the consciousness of a scarred nation.
One Phillip Willis took a series of 12 photos of Dealy Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, in the minutes before and after the assassination. Mr. Willis' photos and testimony before the Commission appear in the report.
He was not questioned about the eighth photo, a shot of the Book Depository entrance shortly after the shooting. As Willis later pointed out, one of the men in the photo "looks so much like (Jack Ruby), it's pitiful". FBI agents questioning Willis agreed with him that the man bore a powerful resemblance to Ruby. When Willis mentioned this to the Commission, no interest was shown. When the photo was published in the Warren Report, a considerable part of the face of the Ruby look-alike had been cropped away.
At last, Rosemary (if I may be so familiar) pointed out some especially interesting slides. One of them was a shot of the Pergola, above the grassy knoll, taken from her father's position on the south side of Elm Street. Through the columns, all was clear. Then Rosemary produced an old copy of Look Magazine and turned to a double page spread. Reproduced over facing pages was her father's photograph of the limousine with the Pergola behind it.
"Do you notice anything unusual?" she asked.
I had noticed something, something which I now believe was the result of FBI complicity in the cover-up of a murder! In the magazine spread, a train locomotive could plainly be seen between the columns. Indeed, there are railroad tracks in that area to this day as Google earth reveals. Those tracks were there in 1963 as well --as photos of the time reveal. It was in that rail yard that three "tramps" had been arrested prior to the Kennedy assassination. [See: JFK Conspirator Wanted Every Kennedy Dead ]
But why was there a locomotive in the published picture but no locomotive in the "slide"? Rosemary explained that after Look Magazine published her father's pictures, FBI agents took all her father's slides. As I recall, the slides were kept for several years. When they were returned at last, every slide that had depicted the train had been doctored. The train was gone. Only the FBI could have 'removed' the depicted train --but why?
It was clear to me that the answer to that question might very well have solved the JFK murder case! The removal of the train was intended to protect the guilty and it was equally clear that by removing the evidence, the FBI was overtly obstructing justice, protecting the identity/identities of murderers and traitors! The murder of JFK was not just a murder. It was an act of high treason!
Why would the FBI find it necessary to remove a train? What did the FBI find threatening about a train? I've speculated that the train was the egress, the perfect getaway for the assassins who fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll just as Mark Lane had theorized years ago. That raises the question: why would the FBI protect an assassin's get-away? Unless the FBI was a part of the plot, lately called a coup d'etat, it would not.
However speculative my thoughts, it is fair to say that when you have uncovered the FBI's motive for removing the seemingly innocent picture of a train, you will have gone a long way toward explaining why the Warren Commission insisted upon the theory that the fatal shot came from the rear when any examination of the Zapruder film will reveal otherwise. Those who cover up are guilty! Count on it! Addendum
Here's more about Rosemary Willis from Wikipedia:
Rosemary Willis (born 1953) was a close witness during the assassination of President Kennedy.
Clearly seen in the Zapruder film at the start of the assassination wearing a white, hooded coat and a red skirt, located to the limousine's left, she runs southwestward and parallel with the limousine. She races for a short while when the limousine was to her direct right.
At Zapruder film frame 190 (hereafter "Z-190"), she is seen slowing, then she stops running. Simultaneous with her slowing/stopping, she slightly turns her head to look upward toward the southwest corner of the Texas School Book Depository.
Immediately after the sitting upright President Kennedy is first hidden at Z-207 by the "Stemmons Freeway" traffic sign in the Zapruder film, Rosemary suddenly, and beginning at Z-214, snaps her head very rapidly 90 to 100 degrees westward --completely away from the depository southwest corner-- within only 0.16 second to then face Abraham Zapruder and the grassy knoll by Z-217.
Precisely 0.60 second after starting her extremely quick westward headsnap towards Mr. Zapruder and the grassy knoll, President Kennedy's head then emerges back into the Zapruder film view at Z-225 still sitting upright with his face and arms already displaying a physical reaction to having already been impacted by a bullet.
Importantly, in 1978 Rosemary was interviewed by investigators from the House Select Committee on Assassinations and stated that she heard at least 4 shots during the assassination. She also stated to the HSCA that while she was still facing the grassy knoll picket fence, she was attracted to view the quick movement of a person who quickly dropped down behind a "wall" out of her view. Rosemary was also documented in the HSCA report that her father, military veteran Phillip Willis, became upset when the Dallas policemen, sheriffs, and detectives --who first quickly ran onto the grassy knoll where he thought the shots came from-- then the authorities ran away from the grassy knoll.
Rosemary's sister, Linda, stated to assassination researcher and author Richard Trask (“Pictures of the Pain” 1994) that after the assassination she and Rosemary also saw someone find a piece of the president's head that had landed in the grass located at least twenty-two feet to the left of the president.
After the assassination Willis, along with her sister, father (Phillip), and mother (Marilyn) were present at the Kodak photographic laboratory getting her father’s assassination related photo slides developed when the Zapruder film was also developed and first shown to approximately nineteen persons.
Rosemary Willis was never called to testify to the Warren Commission.
--Wikipedia, Rosemary Willis
In theory, a near worthless dollar is great for American manufacturers, American jobs. Lower costs for American goods means US exports should rise, reducing our trade deficit and helping pay off the national debt! That's the theory, the rationale behind Richard Nixon's decision to take the US off the so-called 'gold standard' back in the 70s.
The reality is this: despite the right wing's subversion of the dollar, despite the deals Nixon and subsequent GOP regimes cut with China, US exports have decreased, US jobs have decreased, the US standard of living has decreased as just one percent of the population has prospered at everyone else's expense. That has been the case at least since Ronald Reagan's tax cut of 1982, a tax cut which benefited only this rich base of GOP/right wing supporters. These downward trends have defined US history since the 1970s despite temporary gains made during the Carter and Clinton years. I have previously posted the key 'stats' which prove this to have been the case.
Check out the CIA's World Fact Book which lists the US at the very bottom of the list with the world's largest negative Current Account Balance. China, which pegs the Yuan to the dollar, is at the top of the list with the world's largest positive Current Account Balance. If the GOP had been correct, US exports should have risen! The 'balance of trade deficit' i.e, the NEGATIVE Current Account Balance would have been reduced! If the GOP had been correct, the US could have paid off huge amounts of national debt run up in incompetent and dishonest GOP regimes. The US might have survived decades of conservative budgets which forced the US to borrow from other countries. But --not surprisingly --things have not worked out as the GOP would have you believe.
Many economists, myself included, believe that China’s asset-buying spree helped inflate the housing bubble, setting the stage for the global financial crisis. But China’s insistence on keeping the yuan/dollar rate fixed, even when the dollar declines, may be doing even more harm now.
Although there has been a lot of doomsaying about the falling dollar, that decline is actually both natural and desirable. America needs a weaker dollar to help reduce its trade deficit, and it’s getting that weaker dollar as nervous investors, who flocked into the presumed safety of U.S. debt at the peak of the crisis, have started putting their money to work elsewhere.
But China has been keeping its currency pegged to the dollar — which means that a country with a huge trade surplus and a rapidly recovering economy, a country whose currency should be rising in value, is in effect engineering a large devaluation instead.
Foreign Policy magazine goes on to say that, as dismal as the effects of Chinese policy on the US and US consumers, 'It's the rest of the world -- particularly Europe and the Pacific Rim -- that are getting royally screwed by China's policy.' FB claims these countries now suffer because their products are 'less comptetive' in the US vis a vis Chinese exports.
Keep in mind, that it was Nixon who took the dollar off the gold standard because of 'pressures' on the value of the dollar. Simply, had there been a run on the buck, the gold in Fort Knox would not have covered it. The question is: is there any gold in Fort Knox?
Secondly, it was hoped that by removing the dollar from an unrealistic standard, US products would enjoy greater sales abroad. So what happened? Someone please tell me what the US produces? Cars? Nope, it imports them! Take a look at Flint Michigan if you are interested in knowing the effects this has had! Electronics? Nope! Since the early 1960s, it is Japan that has flooded the US market with transistor radios, calculators, etc! Aerospace? Nope! Ask a Californian! The Aerospace industry which had driven the SOCAL boom, is but a shadow of its former glory. What of 'Silicon Valley'. What of it? IT is outsourced to India!
The enormous scale of foreign borrowing and money creation necessary to finance Washington’s wars are sending the dollar to historic lows. The dollar has even experienced large declines relative to currencies of third world countries such as Botswana and Brazil. The decline in the dollar’s value reduces the purchasing power of Americans’ already declining incomes.
Despite the lowest level of housing starts in 64 years, the US housing market is flooded with unsold homes, and financial institutions have a huge and rising inventory of foreclosed homes not yet on the market.
Industrial production has collapsed to the level of 1999, wiping out a decade of growth in industrial output.
--Paul Craig Roberts, "The US as Failed State"
If the US is a 'failed state', it is because it has been impoverished by at least two trends: 1) the transfer of US wealth upward to just one percent of the US population which now owns more than 95 percent of the rest of the nation combined; 2) the decline of the US dollar, a trend begun when Richard Nixon eschewed the Bretton-Woods agreement.
Richard Nixon Takes U.S. Off Gold Standard
The United States now no longer controls many of its domestic industries. Over the last 10 years alone foreigners have spent $1.2 trillion to acquire more than 8,000 key US companies. As of 2002, foreigners owned fully 20 percent of American manufacturing. In many high-tech and defense-related industries, the proportion is far higher. Such US industries as mining, cement, publishing, engine and power transmission equipment, rubber and plastics, and sound recording and motion pictures are now largely foreign owned. Even in industries like pharmaceuticals, chemicals, industrial machinery, transportation equipment, electronics, metal industries, and coal and petroleum industries, foreign ownership has recently become very high.
Increasingly therefore profits and technological secrets in such industries accrue to foreign owners. Moreover many of the key jobs (in research and development, for instance) go to foreign workers, while the profits that accrue to foreign holding companies boost the tax revenues of foreign governments. We are no longer capable of producing many critical components needed in our high-tech and defense industries.
I tried to learn the truth about those GOP/China deals back in the late seventies when I had a rare opportunity to put a microphone in front of George H.W. Bush in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt-Regency in downtown Houston. Had I known then, what I know now, it might have been a much, much better interview. I left unhappy with getting Bush's goofy story about eating "aeromatic meats" (dog lip) in the Forbidden City.
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Texas oil man T. Boone Pickets typifies what is dead wrong about America and what passes for 'foreign policy'. Pickens claims the US is 'entitled' to Iraqi oil. How convenient for the oil barons who conspired with Dick Cheney to carve up the oil fields of Iraq before 911 would give Bush the pretext he would need to attack and invade Iraq, a nation that had nothing whatsoever to do with 911.
Nevertheless, it would be claimed that Iraq was --somehow --a part of the 'war on terror'. Is there no end to the lies? Might I remind that on 911, it was a gang of Israelis, perhaps criminals from Mossad, who were seen dancing and celebrating! It was NOT Iraqis who celebrated the deaths of innocent Americans! Clearly --Bush waged war on everyone but the 'real terrorists'.
Mossad is just as crooked as is the CIA about which I have written, possibly, thousands of pages [See: Why the CIA is the world's number one terrorist organization] Secondly, the US is perpetually auctioned off to the highest bidders on K-Street! And the the most powerful lobby on K-street is most certainly the Jewish Lobby. Meanwhile, Israel is breaking every international law with respect to Palestine as we write and post.
Every cover, every rationalization, every pretext for war was a treasonous lie from traitors who betrayed the people of the US, the Constitution, and specific US Codes that make any death resulting from such a war a crime punishable by death. If you are reading this, George W. Bush, you are not out of the woods.
Now for the idiot du jour:
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are "entitled" to some of Iraq's crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.
Boone, speaking to the newly formed Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, complained that the Iraqi government has awarded contracts to foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms, to develop Iraq's vast reserves while American companies have mostly been shut out.
"They're opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world ... We're entitled to it," Pickens said of Iraq's oil. "Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars."--Reuters, Pickens says U.S. firms 'entitled' to Iraqi oil
T. Boone Pickens is either stupid, ignorant or just doesn't care! I am referring to various kinds of law, specifically English Common Law upon which most US laws and Constitution are based and, secondly, US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 which makes what the US did in and to Iraq and to the people of Iraq a war crime punishable by death.
That applies, of course, to Bush who ordered the attack and invasion as well as his close associates who conspired with him knowing that Iraq had no WMD. It applies as well to the Army brass in an all volunteer army. They must take responsibility for having willingly participated in the commission of war crimes for which the penalty is death as prescribed by US law.
Now --are we to believe that US laws are no longer valid? Certainly --there must be a reason the Bush crime family is never brought to justice! There must be a reason that a certain 'class' in America is --in fact --above the law! Perhaps the law has become quaint replaced by a sophisticated but unjust two-tiered affair in which the criminal justice system enforces laws on behalf of an elite 'ruling class' which is itself place above the rule of law to which everyone is expected to pay obeisance and tribute! This elite ruling class of just one percent of the total US population own more than about 95 percent of the rest of us combined and is, in fact, the only beneficiary of US wars of aggression and oil theft in Iraq and elsewhere. Big Brother has arrived! FACT TIME: there is only ONE justification for war under International Law and that is ''imminent threat'. Iraq POSED no such threat to the US or its interests. That's why Bush tried to claim that Iraq was a part of the so-called 'war on terrorism'' though there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that Iraq had anything at all to do with 911.
I say revolution now! I say bring down this elite! I say arrest the war criminal who continue to rape the sovereign nation of Iraq! I say file capital charges against George W. Bush, his guilty staff and the Pentagon brass who knowingly and willing planned the entire heist on behalf of big oil!
I say charge every member of the Dick Cheney 'Energy Task Force' for planning it all, literally carving up the oil fields of Iraq before the all-too-convenient Riechstag Fire called 911 gave them the broad and wide ranging pretext to begin a perpetual war in which the US would plunder the Middle East.
Secondly, the US has an all volunteer army. Should that army commit war crimes, are not the willing participants of those crime subject to prosecution?
Is the legacy of the GOP/Reagan/Bush era the abolition of the rule of law? Clearly --unless things change, unless Bush and a gang of war criminals in the Pentagon are brought to justice, the very concept of the 'rule of law' will have become a macabre and ludicrous joke.
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are "entitled" to some of Iraq's crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.
Boone, speaking to the newly formed Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, complained that the Iraqi government has awarded contracts to foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms, to develop Iraq's vast reserves while American companies have mostly been shut out.
"They're opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world ... We're entitled to it," Pickens said of Iraq's oil. "Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars."--Reuters, Pickens says U.S. firms 'entitled' to Iraqi oil
What the US did in and to Iraq and to the people of Iraq is a war crime punishable by death. That applies to Bush who ordered the attack and invasion as well as his close associates who conspired with him in the knowledge that Iraq had NO WMD. It applies as well to the Army brass who must take responsibility for having willingly participated in the commission of war crimes.
A Nation of Laws or Outlaws?
Clearly --unless things change, unless Bush and a gang of war criminals in the Pentagon are brought to justice, the very concept of the 'rule of law' will have become a macabre and ludicrous joke.
Goodbye America, you sold your soul to the likes of T. Boone Pickens!
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
I believe that this statement speaks to George W. Bush's guilt of war crimes that were defined and prosecuted by the US and its allies at Nuremberg. I believe that Bush should be cross examined with regard to this statement. It should be put to Bush: what --specifically --was that fate? Are we saying that the US rounded up Afghanis en masse and subjected them to summary executions? Who ordered these summary executions? Were the executions sanctioned by the President? If so --then the President and those carrying out the murders should be charged and, when found guilty, they should be hanged! How to Know a Nazi When You Find One Nazis are where you find them. In pre-war Germany, they were found in the party which gave them their name. In the US, latter day Nazis will be found in abundance in the GOP and even among the Democratic right wing. Nazis are what Nazis do!
