The Sweetest Deal EVER made—

…. who made it and who was in on it????

Okay folks– just for the sheer sake of jumpstarting your nervous system today. Read this report. I promise you that in it you will discover one sentence that will make you pause your breath for a second– and then you will think “ How did I not already figure that was coming”. What a deal folks, what a deal!!!!!!!!!!!

European Stocks Climb for Sixth Day; BMW, BP Shares Advance
July 13, 2010, 12:14 PM EDT

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-13/european-stocks-climb-for-sixth-day-bmw-bp-shares-advance.html

July 13 (Bloomberg) — European stocks climbed for a sixth day to a three-week high as Alcoa Inc. began the U.S. earnings season with profit that beat estimates, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG raised its forecast and BP Plc gained.
BMW, the world’s biggest maker of luxury cars, jumped the most in 15 months after saying higher volumes in 2010 will boost profit. BP increased 2.9 percent after installing a new cap on its leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and as Abu Dhabi said it’s considering making an investment in the company.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 1.9 percent to 255.99, erasing this year’s losses. The measure has risen 8.2 percent over the past six days amid easing concern about the economic recovery and speculation that the selloff in equities since April has overshot the outlook for company profits. The gauge remains 5.9 percent below this year’s high.
Earnings “forecasts look too low and we expect a strong majority of companies to beat their numbers,” said Graham Bishop, the London-based head of pan-European equity strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. “We already know a great deal about the performance of the global economy through the second quarter. Consensus economic forecasts have actually been revised materially higher.”
Portugal’s PSI-20 Index was the second-weakest western European market today as Moody’s Investors Service cut the nation’s credit rating by two notches to A1 because of a growing debt burden and weak economic growth prospects. The gauge gained 0.1 percent, while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 surged 2 percent. Germany’s DAX rallied 1.9 percent.
Greek Bond Sale
Greece’s ASE Index surged 2.6 percent as the nation sold 1.63 billion euros ($2.1 billion) of 26-week Treasury bills at a rate below the 5 percent charged by the European Union for its bailout package, easing concern the country faces punitive costs to borrow.
BMW rallied 8.3 percent to 42.13 euros, leading a gauge of auto stocks to the biggest gain among 19 industry groups in the Stoxx 600. The luxury-car maker forecast 2010 sales volumes will rise by about 10 percent to more than 1.4 million units, with a full-year profit margin of more than 5 percent expected for the automobiles segment. Rival Daimler AG advanced 5.4 percent to 43.81 euros.
Automakers Advance
Peugeot SA climbed 5.3 percent to 24.37 euros and Volkswagen AG preferred shares gained 5.2 percent to 77 euros. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its price estimate on the French carmaker by 3 percent to 34 euros and on the German automaker by 4 percent to 78 euros, saying increased demand and “attractive valuations” favor the industry, according to a report today.
BP advanced 2.9 percent to 410.35 pence, extending yesterday’s 9.4 percent jump. The oil company installed a new cap on its leaking Gulf of Mexico well and will start testing today whether this will stop the gusher while work continues on a permanent plug. Separately, the Financial Times reported that BP expects to be able to write off the oil-spill cleanup costs against taxes, without saying where it got its information.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said the emirate is considering making an investment in BP.
‘Still Thinking’
“We are still thinking about it,” he said in an interview in Abu Dhabi today, when asked about potentially buying a stake in the London-based oil producer. “We are looking across the board. We have been partners with BP for years.”
Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer reported second- quarter profit that topped analysts’ projections as higher metal prices boosted sales. Earnings from continuing operations were 13 cents a share, exceeding the 11-cent average estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Profits for S&P 500 companies are projected to have increased 34 percent in the second quarter and by the same amount in 2010, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Intel Corp., the biggest maker of semiconductors which reports quarterly earnings after the close of U.S. exchanges today, is among 23 companies in the index to announce results this week.
Burberry Group Plc surged 3.7 percent to 818.5 pence, the highest level since at least 2002. The U.K.’s largest luxury retailer posted a 27 percent gain in first-quarter sales, beating analysts’ estimates, led by growth in Asia and deliveries to wholesale customers.
Unilever, BAT
Unilever, the world’s second-largest maker of consumer products, gained 2.9 percent to 1,898 pence and British American Tobacco Plc advanced 2.6 percent to 2,277 pence as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. upgraded both companies to “buy” from “neutral.”
SEB AB surged 4.9 percent to 48.75 kronor after the second- largest bank in the Baltic countries returned to profit in the second quarter as loan losses in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania decreased.
DNO International ASA rallied 4.9 percent to 8.74 kroner, the highest close since April, after the Daily Telegraph reported that RAK Petroleum Pcl has made an offer to buy the remainder of the Norwegian oil producer. DNO Chief Executive Officer Helge Eide said he had “no comment and no information” on the report.
–Editors: Andrew Rummer, David Merritt.

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Redstate Revolt or WordPress.com

RIP Granny-D

The power of one!
Granny not only walked across America for Campaign Reform– she stayed actively involved staying on-top of things in Washington. She passed this week– I hope her spirit stays alive within us all to keep being watch-dogs!Her legendary 3200 mile, 2 year walk across the country at 90 years of age raised awareness about campaign finance reform and resulted in the passage of the Mccain-Feingold Bill

BBC Starts In Tennessee…

… to see what is obvious to the rest of us.
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/the_p_word/newsid_10000000/newsid_10002600/10002666.stm

Story and audio at above link…

Barack Obama was elected on 4 November 2008 after a campaign that promised change.
One year on, BBC’s Newsbeat traveled across the country to find out how people feel in Obama’s America.
In the first of five reports, Jonathan Blake travels to Tennessee where unemployment is highest among young people to see how he’s trying to fix the economy.

The Day Capitalism Died by Gary Corseri

The Day Capitalism Died

by Gary Corseri
World Prout Assembly
September 5th, 2009

I forgot to pay my phone bill
So they shut off my phone.
So when I saw the Terrorist
Assembling his bomb
I couldn’t make the call
To Homeland Security.
So the bomb went off
Under powerful noses
That harrumphed and snorted
We were under attack
By alien forces
And,
Only absolute curtailment
Of freedom of speech
Would win ultimate victory
(After the obligatory
Twilight struggle).
So they closed all the schools
And sent the kids packing
To watch real-time and re-runs
Of “American Idol,”
Certain of congealing
Public opinion
For the sake of supporting
Whatever the judges
Judged worthy of judging.
Meanwhile, back at the piazza,
On reality TV,
Someone killed someone
In real life,
While the cameras were rolling,
But everyone forgave him
Because he was a good team player
Who just really wanted,
For the good of the team,
To win one for the Gipper.
The President gave a speech and said
We should all lend a hand
And we would get through it
Because we are Americans
And that’s what we do.
Somebody launched
A nuclear missile
Straight at Iran
Which then sank some ships
That blocked up the Gulf.
Gas shot up
To ten bucks a gallon
And half the stooges
At the town hall meetings,
Happy with their insurance,
(And to hell with the rest of us!)
Died of swine flu anyway
(And the other half died
Of the vaccines),
But so did a lot of glaze-eyed kids
In the middle of voting for
Their “American Idol.”

The stock market crashed
Just like ’29,
It took wheelbarrows of bucks
To buy Coca Cola
And the radio nuts
Blamed it all
On Mexican liberals
Crossing our borders.

I’ve been wondering lately
Should I pay off my bills?
But I haven’t decided
Whose side I’m on!
Am I with’em
Or agin’em,
Am I blue state or red,
Am I better off hoping
Or better off dead?

This world’s a delusion,
A junkie’s chimera,
A vampire’s kiss
Hissing in a cavern,
Pissing in the wind.
For the sake of a dollar,
A ribboned medallion,
We die for our country,
Kill for sweet liberty
As defined by,
As circumscribed by,
As constrained by,
Straight-jacketed by
Power and fear,
Glory and cupidity.

Maybe heaven
Is about starting over
With a fresh deck
Where the dice aren’t loaded.
Maybe it’s helping
Where it’s most needed,
With nothing ulterior,
Truth out in the open.

Hail, Mary, full of grace. …
Hail, Caesar,
We who are about to die
Salute you.
Heil! Heil! Heil!

Gary Corseri has had his work published at Dissident Voice and hundreds of other venues, performed at the Carter Presidential Library, had dramas on Atlanta-PBS and elsewhere. He has taught in prisons and universities. His books include Holy Grail, Holy Grail, A Fine Excess, and Manifestations (edited). He can be reached at: gary_corseri@comcast.net.

Los Angeles, Guatemala

This is what your beloved Health Insurance Companies would love to have in place for those they refuse to cover or cannot afford coverage.

Am I the only real life redneck who thinks that this shit is absurd?

Stan Brock says it all when he says, “This could be Guatemala. There is no difference.”

h/t Organizing Notes:

These “health care fairs” are popping up all over the country as currently almost 50 million Americans have no real health care. Is this the kind of reform the health insurance corporations suggest we have?

Last night at the cultural rally in Seoul one of the songs had a chorus line that went: “Say good-bye to the world you thought you lived in”……a fitting way to describe America’s race to the bottom of the barrel.

Isn’t it past time that we began to demand more and to fight for it?

We have become a colonized people in the US by the corporate powers but we still seem to suffer from the illusion that we are a democracy and that the people are in charge. The sooner we wake up from this misbegotten dream the better for us all.

And then California does THIS (h/t WorldProutAssembly):

A state board voted Thursday to begin terminating health insurance for more than 60,000 children Oct. 1 as a result of the budget amendments signed into law recently by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those children would be up for an annual review of their coverage next month, but instead they may be dropped from the California Healthy Families program under the action by the state Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board. The board is scrambling to secure funding from other sources, including money set aside by voters for early childhood education, but so far it has come up short. If additional funds are not found, board officials said, the program could ultimately drop 669,296 children in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2010. Currently, 921,000 people age 18 and younger are enrolled in Healthy Families.

By Patrick McGreevy and Evan Halper

Yes, cut healthcare for the neediest. I know I ain’t no California Dude, but this sure seems fucked up to me.

Heather, at C&L, has a clip of  Real Time’s Real Reporter, Dana Gould, as he examines the difference between visiting the right-wing nutcases and the RAM gathering in California. Can you imagine the upside down rationale for the people WITH healthcare being all pissed off about Single payer (or any kind of change), when the people hurting the most are the most cordial and helpful?

RT-Gould-081409

►

But the Brutal Truth About America’s Healthcare is described by the founder of RAM, Stan Brock in this interview and article first published at The Independent/UK and also featured at CommonDreams. You keep hearing the Rush maniacs scream at TownHall events, but they are mum about this issue. Here is a snippet:

…

President Obama’s healthcare plans had been a central plank of his first-term program, but his reform package has taken a battering at the hands of Republican opponents in recent weeks. As the Democrats have failed to coalesce around a single, straightforward proposal, their rivals have seized on public hesitancy over “socialized medicine” and now the chance of far-reaching reform is in doubt.

Most damaging of all has been the tide of vociferous right-wing opponents whipping up skepticism at town hall meetings that were supposed to soothe doubts. In Pennsylvania this week, Senator Arlen Specter was greeted by a crowd of 1,000 at a venue designed to accommodate only 250, and of the 30 selected speakers at the event, almost all were hostile.

The packed bleachers in the LA Forum tell a different story. The mobile clinic has been organized by the remarkable Remote Area Medical. The charity usually focuses on the rural poor, although they worked in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Now they are moving into more urban venues, this week’s event in Los Angeles is believed to be the largest free healthcare operation in the country.

Doctors, dentists and therapists volunteer their time, and resources to the organization. To many US medical professionals, it offers a rare opportunity to plug into the public service ethos on which their trade was supposedly founded. “People come here who haven’t seen a doctor for years. And we’re able to say ‘Hey, you have this, you have this, you have this’,” said Dr Vincent Anthony, a kidney specialist volunteering five days of his team’s time. “It’s hard work, but incredibly rewarding. Healthcare needs reform, obviously. There are so many people falling through the cracks, who don’t get care. That’s why so many are here.”

Ironically, given this week’s transatlantic spat over the NHS, Remote Area Medical was founded by an Englishman: Stan Brock. The 72-year-old former public schoolboy, Taekwondo black belt, and one-time presenter of Wild Kingdom, one of America’s most popular animal TV shows, left the celebrity gravy train in 1985 to, as he puts it, “make people better”.

Today, Brock has no money, no income, and no bank account. He spends 365 days a year at the charity events, sleeping on a small rolled-up mat on the floor and living on a diet made up entirely of porridge and fresh fruit. In some quarters, he has been described, without too much exaggeration, as a living saint.

Though anxious not to interfere in the potent healthcare debate, Mr Brock said yesterday that he, and many other professionals, believes the NHS should provide a benchmark for the future of US healthcare.

“Back in 1944, the UK government knew there was a serious problem with lack of healthcare for 49.7 million British citizens, of which I was one, so they said ‘Hey Mr Nye Bevan, you’re the Minister for Health… go fix it’. And so came the NHS. Well, fast forward now 66 years, and we’ve got about the same number of people, about 49 million people, here in the US, who don’t have access to healthcare.”

“I’ve been very conservative in my outlook for the whole of my life. I’ve been described as being about 90,000 miles to the right of Attila the Hun. But I think one reaches the reality that something doesn’t work… In this country something has to be done. And as a proud member of the US community but a loyal British subject to the core, I would say that if Britain could fix it in 1944, surely we could fix it here in America.

Healthcare compared

Health spending as a share of GDP

US 16%

UK 8.4%

Public spending on healthcare (% of total spending on healthcare)

US 45%

UK 82%

Health spending per head

US $7,290

UK $2,992

Practising physicians (per 1,000 people)

US 2.4

UK 2.5

Nurses (per 1,000 people)

US 10.6

UK 10.0

Acute care hospital beds (per 1,000 people)

US 2.7

UK 2.6

Life expectancy:

US 78

UK 80

Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births)

US 6.7

UK 4.8

Source: WHO/OECD Health Data 2009

It Is Time To Demand Truthful Answers To 9/11

Jim Marrs

h/t DeProgram

I wrote a blog post about the Pentagon “attack” and included video comparing all the eye witnesses’ accounts to the official report (which is totally destroyed by these interviews). In that particular video, the focus was on exactly where the Jet was seen that day and its path towards the Pentagon. The witnesses all said something contrary to the report, which in and of itself, may not be enough to cause concern. But in lieu of that information and then the fact that the so-called “pilot” of that 757 couldn’t even fly a Cessna 172 or pass an automobile driver’s test or even speak English after being here for 10 years (which is a requirement for an US Commercial Jet Pilot’s license).

Mark H Gaffney wrote an article for Information Clearing House which was also posted at World Prout Assembly. In this article, Mark examines all the contradictory media claims about Hani Hanjour’s piloting abilities: first suggesting he must have been trained militarily, but then after further review of all the many flight schools he attended in the US (being kicked out of some for being such a bad pilot), finding that he sucked as a pilot and was confused by the cockpit simulator of a 737 (which is less difficult to fly than the 757, as many Commercial Airline Pilots have come forth to say).

Ironically, The 9/11 Commission had contradictory things to say about his skills, as well. In one instance claiming he couldn’t fly well and in another instance saying he was the best of all the hijackers. They then leaned on the ONLY testimony they could find that would support Hanjour’s great flying abilities, when there are countless others saying different. That he could not fly at all.

Essentially, after you remove the single story you see below, there is not another “witness” that makes the same claim. Funny how the only person to claim Hani Hanjour could fly is an Israeli and not a single American made the claim. Funny how he can’t be found today for questioning when his is the sole rationale for the theory to move forward.

You should read the entire article, but if nothing else, take this away from it for this is the lie caught red handed:

How the FBI and 9/11 Commission Suppressed Key Evidence about Hani Hanjour, alleged hijack pilot of AAL 77

So, Who is Eddie Shalev?

The record compiled by the FBI for the purpose of to authenticating Hani Hanjour’s flight skills fails to provide convincing substantiation. Notice, for this reason it also fails to support the testimony of the other flight instructor, Eddie Shalev, who certified Hanjour to rent a Cessna 172 from Congressional Air Charters just three days after Marcel Bernard, the chief instructor at Freeway, refused to rent Hanjour the very same plane. The 9/11 Commission Report makes no mention of the incident at Freeway airport, nor does it discuss Eddie Shalev, other than alluding to Hanjour’s certification flight in a brief endnote. This is curious, since it now appears that Shalev’s testimony was crucial. By telling the commission what it was predisposed to hear, Shalev gave the official investigation an excuse to ignore the preponderance of evidence, which pointed to the unthinkable.

So, who is Eddie Shalev? His identity remained unknown for more than seven years, but was finally revealed in one of the files released in January 2009 by the National Archives. The document, labelled a “Memorandum for the Record,” is a summary of the April 2004 interview with Eddie Shalev conducted by commission staffer Quinn John Tamm.[32] The document confirms that Shalev went on record: “Mr Shalev stated that based on his observations Hanjour was a ‘good’ pilot.” It is noteworthy that Tamm also spoke with Freeway instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, as revealed by yet another recently-released document.[33] Although I was unable to reach Tamm or Baxter for comment, I did talk with Conner, who confirmed the conversation.[34] Conner says he fully expected to testify before the commission. Perhaps not surprisingly, the call never came.

But the shocker is the revelation that Eddie Shalev is an Israeli and served in the Israeli army. The file states that “Mr. Shalev served in the Israeli Defense Forces in a paratroop regiment. He was a jumpmaster on a Boeing C-130. Mr. Shalev moved to the Gaithersburg area in April 2001 and was sponsored for employment by Congressional Air Charters…[which] has subsequently gone out of business.”

The memorandum raises disturbing questions. Consider the staffer’s strange choice of words in describing Shalev’s employment. What did Quinn John Tamm mean when he wrote that Shalev “was sponsored for employment”? Did the commission bother to investigate Congressional Air Charters? It is curious that the charter service subsequently went out of business. But the most important question is: just how thoroughly, if at all, did the commission vet Eddie Shalev?Does his military record include service in the Israeli intelligence community?

Real people have known addresses. But the whereabouts of Eddie Shalev has been unknown for years. As reported by David Griffin, a 2007 search of the national telephone directory, plus Google searches by research librarian Elizabeth Woodworth, turned up no trace of him. A LexisNexis search by Matthew Everett also came up dry.[35] Recent searches by Woodworth and myself indicate that an “Eddy Shalev” resided in Rockville, Maryland as recently as 2007. However, the associated phone number is no longer in service. The 9/11 memorandum raises the possibility that Shalev may have returned to Israel. Clearly, the man needs to be found, subpoenaed and made to testify under oath before a new investigation, even if this necessitates extradition. Quinn John Tamm and the two Freeway instructors, Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, should also be subpoenaed. All are key witnesses and obvious starting points for a new 9/11 investigation.

Given his identity, the search for and possible extradition of Eddie Shalev could become controversial. But 9/11 investigators must not be turned aside. We must follow the trail of evidence, regardless. Should it lead into a dark wood, we must resolve to go there; and if it takes us to the gates of hell, so be it. When our search obtains a certain critical mass, momentum will shift decisively in our favor. Public support for a new 9/11 investigation will become irresistible. The light of truth will do the rest.

Mark Gaffney is the author of The 9/11 Mystery Plane (2008). For more details check out Mark’s web site www.the911mysteryplane.com Mark can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@earthlink.net

Open Letter To The American People on Independence Day, 4th July

from Professor Mohammad Al-Ani, Chairman, Iraqi Consultants Council

Monday, 06 July 2009 01:43

On the 4th of July of each year, you celebrate your independence day, which you consider America’s most precious day, as it represents your freedom and true independence that you achieved by resisting British Occupation. You sacrificed for this day and fought for eight years to achieve your just aim, by simply refusing any kind of occupation and loss of true sovereignty.

Your country became the strongest nation in the world. But instead of spreading peace and freedom between mankind, your governments started to enslave nations economically in your name; punishment for anyone who does not want to be under your sphere of influence became the name of the game. This attitude was clearly crystallised when your government decided to break international law by invading Iraq under the disguise of weapons of mass destruction. But the whole world knows now the fallacy of this claim, and it has become crystal clear for all that the true aim is to have hands on control on the natural resources of Iraq. Your government believes that it has achieved this aim by imposing an ideologically polarized political system and constitution, and embedding wide spread corruption in the system, in order to reap the reward of controlling oil fields and other natural resources through false and orchestrated auctions.

But let me tell you what your country has achieved for you. Your government has committed the most evil act against humanity for the sake of controlling the resources of another nation in your name, in the name of your humanity and your civilisation. It tried to legalise this evil crime by initiating a so called treaty with the so called government of Iraq. History will Judge those Iraqis who signed, voted and who are quite about it as having committed high treason against the people of Iraq; it is simply an attempt to legalise the most evil act committed in the history of humanity. I do not mean the millions of orphans, or the millions of widows, or the millions of displaced people, or the crimes committed by your military army against detainees, or the destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure. I mean the use of the American military of at least 2000 tons of depleted uranium in the war against Iraq, which has polluted more or less all aspects of the environment in my beloved Iraq.

Depleted uranium is the true weapon of mass destruction, especially the way its pollution affects all aspects of normal life, land and water. To find out the true effect of this weapon, go and visit what ever is left of Iraqi hospitals; to see with your own eyes the crimes of your government and military. This inhumane weapon has caused wide spread cancer especially in women and children, and even unborn foetuses and genes. Yes it will affect genes for ten and probably hundred of years to come. An if you can not visit Iraqi hospitals, visit the hundred of thousands of your own veterans who are suffering from long term illnesses caused by depleted uranium according to the reports of your own institutions. That is correct; your government has even committed hideous crimes against your own soldiers.

You need to stop this hypocrisy of yours. On your independence day, I would like to remind you that resisting occupation is the right of all free people in the world, and it is the right of the people of Iraq to resist your occupation and hijacking their true sovereignty. You are not aware of the true losses Iraqi resistance has inflected on your military. The findings of your own academics and research institution indicate that the causalities are as high as half a million dead and disabled veterans with terminal illnesses. This is what your government has achieved in this unjust war on the people of Iraq as a result of the actions of the heroic Iraqi resistance. As to the so called withdrawal of the US military from Iraqi cities and towns and the charade of handing over sovereignty, I can assure you that free Iraqis are all too aware of this deception and will not be deceived by it. Free Iraqis will continue their resistance until all foreign troops are withdrawn from Iraq, and gain true independence and sovereignty. Just like their grandfathers in the last century who fought British rule until they gained independence. In order to know the willpower and tenacity of free Iraqis, read about the twenties revolution, as your future generations will read about the war of the twenty first century.

You must understand that the people of Iraq will not forgive you until you apologies and compensate justly for all the crimes and damages your government and military have committed again the people of Iraq and their environment. You can rest assure that if you do not, Iraqi people including future generations will hold you legally accountable for these crimes to gain a just compensation even after independence.

Lastly, I say to you that your country is less than two hundred and fifty years old. But the cradle of civilisation in Mesopotamia is thousands years old. This free land went through trials and tribulation from time to time over the centuries, but it has always regained its freedom and independence at the hands of its free sons.

Professor Mohammad Al-Ani
Chairman, Iraqi Consultants Council
4th July 2009

h/t World Prout Assembly

America’s Unemployment Rate: The Reality

By now you should realize that our government officials lie to us with abandon. They have to or we would rebel (or, at least, in theory we would). They hide things like where they get their money for their campaigns (thank goodness for entities such as OpenSecrets.org). They lie about their intentions and plans for their constituents. They use a media to gloss over their lies and generally the worst come out on a Friday evening because they know that most Americans will be too busy watching football, playing golf or spend their money at malls to pay attention to what they did.

And it is true with almost every subject you can think of. The only time they actually use the truth is if it is expedient for them to do so (and then they will taint it to bolster their view or ideology). There simply is little to NO truth in the vast majority of these pricks and the propaganda arms they are supported by. World Prout has a ditty by Steve Clemons of the Washington Note that delves into the real Unemployment numbers and how we are being told HALF truths. In that article, Steve quotes from Leo Hindery’s monthly update on “America’s effective unemployment rate”, which breaks down the underemployed and those that can’t find a job and are tired of looking:

Here is a June 2009 version of the summary that calculates the Effective Unemployment Rate, which is now 18.70%, and the Effective Number of Unemployed, which is now 30,172,000.

There are currently 14,729,000 officially unemployed workers, as just announced. However, this figure does not include the combined 15,443,000 workers either (1) in the “labor force reserve” because they have abandoned their job searches (i.e., 4,278,000) or (2) underemployed because they are “part-time of necessity” (i.e., 8,989,000) or “otherwise marginally attached” (i.e., 2,176,000).

The effective unemployment rate is therefore 18.70%, instead of the official 9.51%.

And you know what? That fits my own little poll in my small town, except there are likely closer to 25% who are underemployed/tired of looking/out of a job because there are none.

Look around you and 1 in 5 people are not working or not making enough to get by. Maybe they are working several part time jobs with none giving health care assistance.

The point is that these numbers are going up. The fact of the matter is that we must provide over 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the rise in population. However, we have been shedding 2 to 3 times that regularly for  a very long time. And there is no real end in sight. As a matter of fact, the employment sector is expected to be the last one to come back around (which seems like putting the cart before the horse).

If you are losing 400,000 + jobs a month AND we are not generating the 125,000 just to keep up, we are essentially over a 1/2 Million jobs short per MONTH.

Thank goodness I have my garden…

Untold Truths About The American Revolution

By Howard Zinn, July 3, 2009
The Progressive

There are things that happen in the world that are bad, and you want to do something about them. You have a just cause. But our culture is so war prone that we immediately jump from, “This is a good cause” to “This deserves a war.”

You need to be very, very comfortable in making that jump.

The American Revolution–independence from England–was a just cause. Why should the colonists here be occupied by and oppressed by England? But therefore, did we have to go to the Revolutionary War?

How many people died in the Revolutionary War?

Nobody ever knows exactly how many people die in wars, but it’s likely that 25,000 to 50,000 people died in this one. So let’s take the lower figure–25,000 people died out of a population of three million. That would be equivalent today to two and a half million people dying to get England off our backs.

You might consider that worth it, or you might not.

Canada is independent of England, isn’t it? I think so. Not a bad society. Canadians have good health care. They have a lot of things we don’t have. They didn’t fight a bloody revolutionary war. Why do we assume that we had to fight a bloody revolutionary war to get rid of England?

In the year before those famous shots were fired, farmers in Western Massachusetts had driven the British government out without firing a single shot. They had assembled by the thousands and thousands around courthouses and colonial offices and they had just taken over and they said goodbye to the British officials. It was a nonviolent revolution that took place. But then came Lexington and Concord, and the revolution became violent, and it was run not by the farmers but by the Founding Fathers. The farmers were rather poor; the Founding Fathers were rather rich.

Who actually gained from that victory over England? It’s very important to ask about any policy, and especially about war: Who gained what? And it’s very important to notice differences among the various parts of the population. That’s one thing were not accustomed to in this country because we don’t think in class terms. We think, “Oh, we all have the same interests.” For instance, we think that we all had the same interests in independence from England. We did not have all the same interests.

Do you think the Indians cared about independence from England? No, in fact, the Indians were unhappy that we won independence from England, because England had set a line–in the Proclamation of 1763–that said you couldn’t go westward into Indian territory. They didn’t do it because they loved the Indians. They didn’t want trouble.

When Britain was defeated in the Revolutionary War, that line was eliminated, and now the way was open for the colonists to move westward across the continent, which they did for the next 100 years, committing massacres and making sure that they destroyed Indian civilization.

So when you look at the American Revolution, there’s a fact that you have to take into consideration. Indians–no, they didn’t benefit.

Did blacks benefit from the American Revolution?

Slavery was there before. Slavery was there after. Not only that, we wrote slavery into the Constitution. We legitimized it.

What about class divisions?

Did ordinary white farmers have the same interest in the revolution as a John Hancock or Morris or Madison or Jefferson or the slaveholders or the bondholders? Not really.
It was not all the common people getting together to fight against England. They had a very hard time assembling an army. They took poor guys and promised them land. They browbeat people and, oh yes, they inspired people with the Declaration of Independence. It’s always good, if you want people to go to war, to give them a good document and have good words: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, when they wrote the Constitution, they were more concerned with property than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You should take notice of these little things.
There were class divisions. When you assess and evaluate a war, when you assess and evaluate any policy, you have to ask: Who gets what?

We were a class society from the beginning. America started off as a society of rich and poor, people with enormous grants of land and people with no land. And there were riots, there were bread riots in Boston, and riots and rebellions all over the colonies, of poor against rich, of tenants breaking into jails to release people who were in prison for nonpayment of debt. There was class conflict. We try to pretend in this country that we’re all one happy family. We’re not.

And so when you look at the American Revolution, you have to look at it in terms of class.
Do you know that there were mutinies in the American Revolutionary Army by the privates against the officers? The officers were getting fine clothes and good food and high pay and the privates had no shoes and bad clothes and they weren’t getting paid. They mutinied. Thousands of them. So many in the Pennsylvania line that George Washington got worried, so he made compromises with them. But later when there was a smaller mutiny in the New Jersey line, not with thousands but with hundreds, Washington said execute the leaders, and they were executed by fellow mutineers on the order of their officers.

The American Revolution was not a simple affair of all of us against all of them. And not everyone thought they would benefit from the Revolution.

We’ve got to rethink this question of war and come to the conclusion that war cannot be accepted, no matter what the reasons given, or the excuse: liberty, democracy; this, that. War is by definition the indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain. Think about means and ends, and apply it to war. The means are horrible, certainly. The ends, uncertain. That alone should make you hesitate.

Once a historical event has taken place, it becomes very hard to imagine that you could have achieved a result some other way. When something is happening in history it takes on a certain air of inevitability: This is the only way it could have happened. No.

We are smart in so many ways. Surely, we should be able to understand that in between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.
_________________
Howard Zinn is the author of “A People’s History of the United States.” The History Channel is running an adaptation called “The People Speak.” This article is an excerpt from Zinn’s cover story in the July issue of The Progressive.

h/t World Prout Assembly

Obama’s Hitler’esque Style

My mother is full blooded German who was raised in the aftermath of the war. She was born on June 10, 1944 (today is BuelahMama’s Birthday!!!!)

My Mom left Germany in 1960 after meeting my Dad who was stationed there. I was born in 1961 to a woman barely 18 years old and hardly knew three words in English. She was the oldest of 4 girls (her Dad was killed in the war) and her Mother did anything and everything she could to keep the family together and fed (her Mom died last year about this time).

She has told me the horror stories of death, bombing, starvation (all the atrocities the German people had to endure after their leadership took them to the very brink of total annihilation). She also told me another story about how the people of Germany were “fooled” into believing the crap that Hitler said. She explained how devastating economic situation was and that the people were ready to do or go along with virtually anything to feed their kids.

Hitler used all of this to his advantage and to propel his country into an all-out power grab of the rest of the world.

Today, I read an article at World Prout Assembly from William Blum that includes a translated speech of Hitler’s to the German people. Do me a favor… read it and compare it to Obama’s speeches and style.

Am I saying that Obama is another Hitler? No. But, are you saying there is no similarity in the speeches and fluffy bullshit that Obama spews? Do you think that the German people listening to Hitler’s speech didn’t reap praise and Messiah-ness on Hitler because he used the words “peace”?

Team Obama/Cult Obama

by William Blum
World Prout Assembly
June 10, 2009

The praise heaped on President Obama for his speech to the Muslim world by writers on the left, both here and abroad, is disturbing. I’m referring to people who I think should know better, who’ve taken Politics 101 and can easily see the many hypocrisies in Obama’s talk, as well as the distortions, omissions, and contradictions, the true but irrelevant observations, the lies, the optimistic words without any matching action, the insensitivities to victims. Yet, these commentators are impressed, in many cases very impressed. In the world at large, this frame of mind borders on a cult.

In such cases one must look beyond the intellect and examine the emotional appeal. We all know the world is in big trouble — Three Great Problems: universal, incessant violence; financial crisis provoking economic suffering; environmental degradation. In all three areas the United States bears more culpability than any other single country. Who better to satisfy humankind’s craving for relief than a new American president who, it appears, understands the problems; admits, to one degree or another, his country’s responsibility for them; and “eloquently” expresses his desire and determination to change US policies and embolden the rest of the world to follow his inspiring example. Is it any wonder that it’s 1964, the Beatles have just arrived in New York, and everyone is a teenage girl?

I could go through the talk Obama gave in Cairo and point out line by line the hypocrisies, the mere platitudes, the plain nonsense, and the rest. (“I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States.” — No mention of it being outsourced, probably to the very country he was speaking in, amongst others. … “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons.” — But this is precisely what the United States is trying to do concerning Iran and North Korea.) But since others have been pointing out these lies very well I’d like to try something else in dealing with the problem — the problem of well-educated people, as well as the not so well-educated, being so moved by a career politician saying “all the right things” to give food for hope to billions starving for it, and swallowing it all as if they had been born yesterday. I’d like to take them back to another charismatic figure, Adolf Hitler, speaking to the German people two years and four months after becoming Chancellor, addressing a Germany still reeling with humiliation from its being The Defeated Nation in the World War, with huge losses of its young men, still being punished by the world for its militarism, suffering mass unemployment and other effects of the great depression. Here are excerpts from the speech of May 21, 1935. Imagine how it fed the hungry German people.
———————
I conceive it my duty to be perfectly frank and open in addressing the nation. I frequently hear from Anglo-Saxon tribes expressions of regret that Germany has departed from those principles of democracy, which in those countries are held particularly sacred. This opinion is entirely erroneous. Germany, too, has a democratic Constitution.

Our love of peace perhaps is greater than in the case of others, for we have suffered most from war. None of us wants to threaten anybody, but we all are determined to obtain the security and equality of our people.

The World War should be a cry of warning here. Not for a second time can Europe survive such a catastrophe.

Germany has solemnly guaranteed France her present frontiers, resigning herself to the permanent loss of Alsace-Lorraine. She has made a treaty with Poland and we hope it will be renewed and renewed again at every expiry of the set period.

The German Reich, especially the present German Government, has no other wish except to live on terms of peace and friendship with all the neighboring States.

Germany has nothing to gain from a European war. What we want is liberty and independence. Because of these intentions of ours we are ready to negotiate non-aggression pacts with our neighbor States.

Germany has neither the wish nor the intention to mix in internal Austrian affairs, or to annex or to unite with Austria.

The German Government is ready in principle to conclude non-aggression pacts with its individual neighbor States and to supplement those provisions which aim at isolating belligerents and localizing war areas.

In limiting German air armament to parity with individual other great nations of the west, it makes possible that at any time the upper figure may be limited, which limit Germany will then take as a binding obligation to keep within.

Germany is ready to participate actively in any efforts for drastic limitation of unrestricted arming. She sees the only possible way in a return to the principles of the old Geneva Red Cross convention. She believes, to begin with, only in the possibility of the gradual abolition and outlawing of fighting methods which are contrary to this convention, such as dum-dum bullets and other missiles which are a deadly menace to civilian women and children.

To abolish fighting places, but to leave the question of bombardment open, seems to us wrong and ineffective. But we believe it is possible to ban certain arms as contrary to international law and to outlaw those who use them. But this, too, can only be done gradually. Therefore, gas and incendiary and explosive bombs outside of the battle area can be banned and the ban extended later to all bombing. As long as bombing is free, a limitation of bombing planes is a doubtful proposition. But as soon as bombing is branded as barbarism, the building of bombing planes will automatically cease.

Just as the Red Cross stopped the killing of wounded and prisoners, it should be possible to stop the bombing of civilians. In the adoption of such principles, Germany sees a better means of pacification and security for peoples than in all the assistance pacts and military conventions.

The German Government is ready to agree to every limitation leading to abandonment of the heaviest weapons which are especially suitable for aggression. These comprise, first, the heaviest artillery and heaviest tanks.

Germany declares herself ready to agree to the delimitation of caliber of artillery and guns on dreadnoughts, cruisers and torpedo boats. Similarly, the German Government is ready to adopt any limitation on naval tonnage, and finally to agree to the limitation of tonnage of submarines or even to their abolition, provided other countries do likewise.

The German Government is of the opinion that all attempts effectively to lessen tension between individual States through international agreements or agreements between several States are doomed to failure unless suitable measures are taken to prevent poisoning of public opinion on the part of irresponsible individuals in speech, writing, in the film and the theatre. The German Government is ready any time to agree to an international agreement which will effectively prevent and make impossible all attempts to interfere from the outside in affairs of other States. The term ‘interference’ should be internationally defined.

If people wish for peace it must be possible for governments to maintain it. We believe the restoration of the German defense force will contribute to this peace because of the simple fact that its existence removes a dangerous vacuum in Europe. We believe if the peoples of the world could agree to destroy all their gas and inflammable and explosive bombs this would be cheaper than using them to destroy one another. In saying this I am not speaking any longer as the representative of a defenseless State which could reap only advantages and no obligations from such action from others.

I cannot better conclude my speech to you, my fellow-figures and trustees of the nation, than by repeating our confession of faith in peace: Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos. We, however, live in the firm conviction our times will see not the decline but the renaissance of the West. It is our proud hope and our unshakable belief Germany can make an imperishable contribution to this great work.[1]

– End of speech excerpts –

How many people in the world, including numerous highly educated Germans, reading or hearing that speech in 1935, doubted that Adolf Hitler was a sincere man of peace and an inspiring, visionary leader?

NOTES
[1] The entire speech can be found at: http://members.tripod.com/~Comicism/350521.html

The Truth About Israel: Racists For Democracy

“Racists for Democracy”

Uri Avnery
30/05/09

HOW LUCKY we are to have the extreme Right standing guard over our democracy.

This week, the Knesset voted by a large majority (47 to 34) for a law that threatens imprisonment for anyone who dares to deny that Israel is a Jewish and Democratic State.
The private member’s bill, proposed by MK Zevulun Orlev of the “Jewish Home” party, which sailed through its preliminary hearing, promises one year in prison to anyone who publishes “a call that negates the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State”, if the contents of the call might cause “actions of hate, contempt or disloyalty against the state or the institutions of government or the courts”.

One can foresee the next steps. A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic. And, in addition, there are also Jews who do not want Israel to be defined as a Jewish State in which non-Jews have the status, at best, of tolerated outsiders.

The consequences are inevitable. The prisons will not be able to hold all those convicted of this crime. There will be a need for concentration camps all over the country to house all the deniers of Israeli democracy.

The police will be unable to deal with so many criminals. It will be necessary to set up a new unit. This may be called “Special Security”, or, in short, SS.

Hopefully, these measures will suffice to preserve our democracy. If not, more stringent steps will have to be taken, such as revoking the citizenship of the democracy-deniers and deporting them from the country, together with the Jewish leftists and all the other enemies of the Jewish democracy.

After the preliminary reading of the bill, it now goes to the Legal Committee of the Knesset, which will prepare it for the first, and soon thereafter for the second and third readings. Within a few weeks or months, it will be the law of the land.

By the way, the bill does not single out Arabs explicitly – even if this is its clear intention, and all those who voted for it understood this. It also prohibits Jews from advocating a change in the state’s definition, or the creation of a bi-national state in all of historic Palestine or spreading any other such unconventional ideas. One can only imagine what would happen in the US if a senator proposed a law to imprison anyone who suggests an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

THE BILL does not stand out at all in our new political landscape.

This government has already adopted a bill to imprison for three years anyone who mourns the Palestinian Naqba – the 1948 uprooting of more than half the Palestinian people from their homes and lands.

The sponsors expect Arab citizens to be happy about that event. True, the Palestinians were caused a certain unpleasantness, but that was only a by-product of the foundation of our state. The Independence Day of the Jewish and Democratic State must fill us all with joy. Anyone who does not express this joy should be locked up, and three years may not be enough.

This bill has been confirmed by the Ministerial Commission for Legal Matters, prior to being submitted to the Knesset. Since the rightist government commands a majority in the Knesset, it will be adopted almost automatically. (In the meantime, a slight delay has been caused by one minister, who appealed the decision, so the Ministerial Commission will have to confirm it again.)

The sponsors of the law hope, perhaps, that on Naqba Day the Arabs will dance in the streets, plant Israeli flags on the ruins of some 600 Arab villages that were wiped off the map and offer up their thanks to Allah in the mosques for the miraculous good fortune that was bestowed on them.

THIS TAKES me back to the 60s, when the weekly magazine I edited, Haolam Hazeh, published an Arabic edition. One of its employees was a young man called Rashed Hussein from the village of Musmus. Already as a youth he was a gifted poet with a promising future.

He told me that some years earlier the military governor of his area had summoned him to his office. At the time, all the Arabs in Israel were subject to a military government which controlled their lives in all matters big and small. Without a permit, an Arab citizen could not leave his village or town even for a few hours, nor get a job as a teacher, nor acquire a tractor or dig a well.

The governor received Rashed cordially, offered him coffee and paid lavish compliments to his poetry. Then he came to the point: in a month’s time, Independence Day was due, and the governor was going to hold a big reception for the Arab “notables”; he asked Rashed to write a special poem for the occasion.

Rashed was a proud youngster, nationalist to the core, and not lacking in courage. He explained to the governor that Independence Day was no joyful day for him, since his relatives had been driven from their homes and most of the Musmus village’s land had also been expropriated.

When Rashed arrived back at his village some hours later, he could not help noticing that his neighbors were looking at him in a peculiar way. When he entered his home, he was shocked. All the members of his family were sitting on the floor, the women lamenting at the top of their voices, the children huddling fearfully in a corner. His first thought was that somebody had died.

“What have you done to us!” one of the women cried, “What did we do to you?”

“You have destroyed the family,” another shouted, “You have finished us!”

It appeared that the governor had called the family and told them that Rashed

had refused to fulfill his duty to the state. The threat was clear: from now on, the extended family, one of the largest in the village, would be on the black list of the military government. The consequences were clear to everyone.

Rashed could not stand up against the lamentation of his family. He gave in and wrote the poem, as requested. But something inside him was broken. Some years later he emigrated to the US, got a job there at the PLO office and died tragically: he was burned alive in his bed after going to sleep, it appears, while smoking a cigarette.

THESE DAYS are gone forever. We took part in many stormy demonstrations against the military government until it was finally abolished in 1966. As a newly elected Member of Parliament, I had the privilege of voting for its abolition.

The fearful and subservient Arab minority, then amounting to some 200 thousand souls, has recovered its self-esteem. A second and third generation has grown up, its downtrodden national pride has raised its head again, and today they are a large and self-confident community of 1.5 million. But the attitude of the Jewish Right has not changed for the better. On the contrary.

In the Knesset bakery (the Hebrew word for bakery is Mafia) some new pastries are being baked. One of them is a bill that stipulates that anyone applying for Israeli citizenship must declare their loyalty to “the Jewish, Zionist and Democratic State”, and also undertake to serve in the army or its civilian alternative. Its sponsor is MK David Rotem of the “Israel is Our Home” party, who also happens to be the chairman of the Knesset Law Committee.

A declaration of loyalty to the state and its laws – a framework designed to safeguard the wellbeing and the rights of its citizens – is reasonable. But loyalty to the “Zionist” state? Zionism is an ideology, and in a democratic state the ideology can change from time to time. It would be like declaring loyalty to a “capitalist” USA, a “rightist Italy”, a “leftist” Spain, a “Catholic Poland” or a “nationalist” Russia.

This would not be a problem for the tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews in Israel who reject Zionism, since Jews will not be touched by this law. They obtain citizenship automatically the moment they arrive in Israel.

Another bill waiting for its turn before the Ministerial Committee proposes changing the declaration that every new Knesset Member has to make before assuming office. Instead of loyalty “to the State of Israel and its laws”, as now, he or she will be required to declare their loyalty “to the Jewish, Zionist and Democratic State of Israel, its symbols and its values”. That would exclude almost automatically all the elected Arabs, since declaring loyalty to the “Zionist” state would mean that no Arab would ever vote for them again.

It would also be a problem for the Orthodox members of the Knesset, who cannot declare loyalty to Zionism. According to Orthodox doctrine, the Zionists are depraved sinners and the Zionist flag is unclean. God exiled the Jews from this country because of their wickedness, and only God can permit them to return. Zionism, by preempting the job of the Messiah, has committed an unpardonable sin, and many Orthodox Rabbis chose to remain in Europe and be murdered by the Nazis rather than committing the Zionist sin of going to Palestine.

THE FACTORY of racist laws with a distinct fascist odor is now working at full steam. That is built into the new coalition.

At its center is the Likud party, a good part of which is pure racist (sorry for the oxymoron). To its right there is the ultra-racist Shas party, to the right of which is Lieberman’s ultra-ultra racist “Israel is our Home” party, the ultra-ultra-ultra racist “Jewish Home” party, and to its right the even more racist “National Union” party, which includes outright Kahanists and stands with one foot in the coalition and the other on the moon.

All these factions are trying to outdo each other. When one proposes a crazy bill, the next is compelled to propose an even crazier one, and so on.

All this is possible because Israel has no constitution. The ability of the Supreme Court to annul laws that contradict the “basic laws” is not anchored anywhere, and the Rightist parties are trying to abolish it. Not for nothing did Avigdor Lieberman demand – and get – the Justice and Police ministries.

Just now, when the governments of the US and Israel are clearly on a collision course over the settlements, this racist fever may infect all parts of the coalition.

If one goes to sleep with a dog, one should not be surprised to wake up with fleas (may the dogs among my readers pardon me). Those who elected such a government, and even more so those who joined it, should not be surprised by its laws, which ostensibly safeguard Jewish democracy.

The most appropriate name for these holy warriors would be “Racists for Democracy”.

B’Man’s Patriot Watch: Italy

Yoo Arrested? Thank God we have some decent, law-abiding citizens in this world. From World Prout Assembly (I hope this is true and no April Fools joke):

Former U.S. Official Arrested in Italy

ohn C. Yoo, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States, was arrested on Tuesday in Milan, Italy, and is being held for possible extradition to Spain, where he and five other retired officials who served under former President George W. Bush are expected to be indicted by a Spanish court for violations of the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Yoo, 41, is a visiting professor of Law at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, California, on leave from the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He served in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003. Yoo authored memos permitting the use of torture. Torture is banned by both U.S. law and international conventions.

Milan prosecutor Andrea Spolini released a statement indicating that Yoo can be held for up to 90 days awaiting an indictment in Spain under the international standard of “Rompi Testiculo.”

(Edited by Antonio Gramsci) © Chompson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Doom, Bloom & Gloom: Thank Goodness They Have A Place For Us When It All Falls Apart

I hold no faith or belief in these types of people’s “prophecies”. If David Wilkerson’s prophecy is any measure, then you folks should look to me as the Christ. Hell, I have been talking about such calamity for quite some time (my fear was Martial Law under Bush, but the Financial breakdown is even far worse). Thus far I am about 100% correct in my prognostications of this financial crisis.

Famed pastor predicts imminent catastrophe

Best-selling author, Teen Challenge founder, sees ‘earth-shattering calamity about to happen’

A respected pastor, best-selling author and founder of a major ministry to teens predicts an imminent “earth-shattering calamity” centered in New York City that will spread to major urban areas across the country and around the world – part of what he sees as a judgment from God.

David Wilkerson, author of “The Cross and the Switchblade,” a book about his ministry to troubled New York street kids that was later made into a movie starring Pat Boone, tells readers of his blog this weekend that he is “compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message” about his prediction.

“An earth-shattering calamity is about to happen,” he writes. “It is going to be so frightening, we are all going to tremble – even the godliest among us.”

Wilkerson’s vision is of fires raging through New York City.

“It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires – such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago,” he explains. “There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting – including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Hey, Preacher Man. The foundations of our country (The Constitution) have long ago been destroyed. You and your ilk are complicit in its demise, so you have no credibility. Each and every one of you money making preachers creating their own wealth and personal kingdom are just as guilty as anyone for this mess. It will not be you, your God, or anyone except for the American citizenry that can fix this mess. Thank goodness we can all still work and grow our own food, right?

Can you survive economic crisis?

Booming preparedness industry says Americans are stockpiling

To some, the term “survivalist” conjures images of camouflage-clad men stockpiling freeze-dried food in a mountain cabin, but in the current economic crisis, the people quietly preparing to survive catastrophe may just be your next-door neighbors.

In his column in last month’s Financial Times, business and technology expert Ade McCormack writes, “The world is in crisis and with it the world of business. Many of us have two plans. Plan A involves President Barack Obama performing some economic magic. Plan B involves a revolver, a vegetable patch and a subscription to Survivalist Monthly.”

And while McCormack was writing

with a hint of jest, dissent over the president’s trillion-dollar spending approach to the economy has left many average, everyday Americans considering something looking suspiciously like plan B.

But we have a slight little wrinkle to Plan B, don’t we? Oops. Sorry, that’s right. You have no idea what is going on in real life, so maybe you should read this as a basis for explanation. Thank goodness for those who are looking out for our best interests in Congress, right?

HR 875 The food police, criminalizing organic farming and the backyard gardener, and violation of the 10th amendment

HR 875 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c1112RD9bb:e11439:

This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor.  One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it.  As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying.  Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation.  Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few.

I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers.  This legislation is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property siezed.   It will effect anyone who produces food even if they do not sell but only consume it.  It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods.  If people choose to farm without industry standards such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers they will be subject to a vareity of harassment from this completely new agency that has never before existed.  That’s right, a whole new government agency is being created just to police food, for our own protection of course.

DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, READ THIS LEGISLATION FOR YOURSELF.  The more people who read this legislation the more insight we are going to get and be able to share.  Post your observations and insights below.  Urge your members to read this legislation and to oppose the passage of this legislation.

Pay special attention to

• Section 3 which is the definitions portion of the bill-read in it’s entirety.
• section 103, 206 and 207- read in it’s entirety.

Red flags I found and I am sure there are more………..

• Legally binds state agriculture depts to enforcing federal guidelines effectively taking away the states power to do anything other than being food police for the federal dept.
• Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn’t actually use the word organic.
• Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
• Effects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
• Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal.  There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.
• Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation.  It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation.  Who do you think they are going to side with?
• Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities.  The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
• Section 207 requires that the state’s agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements.  This takes away the states power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.
• There are many more but by the time I got this far in the legislation I was so alarmed that I wanted to bring someone’s attention to it. (to the one person who reads my blog)

Wow. Do you think it even minutely feasible that people in our government would actually try to stop regular folks from growing their own food? What do you think you rednecks are going to think when your little old Mama can’t plant her garden, or worse, you end up starving your children because the government has made it impossible for you to grow your own food or hunt your own meat?

Yeah, I am just the crazy old street corner preacher. Never mind me. I have no idea what I’m talking about, right…

US prison population at record high

A record high-number of 7.3 million Americans were behind bars or under a correction system in the US in 2007, according to a research.

The record-high number, one in every 31 adults, includes people in prison or jail, and on probation or parole.

The results of the research conducted by Pew Center further indicated on Monday that America’s prison population has skyrocketed over the past quarter century.

In 1982, 1 in 77 adults were in the correctional system in one form or another, totaling 2.2 million people.

“New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened and expanded, not scaled back,” said Adam Gelb, director of Pew’s Public Safety Performance Project.

“Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn’t. It will fuel the cycle of more crime, more victims, more arrests, more prosecutions, and still more imprisonment,” he continued.

Most of those in the US corrections system — one in 45 — are already on probation or parole, with one in 100 in prison or jail, the Pew study found.

Those numbers are higher in certain areas of the country, and Georgia tops all states with one in 13 adults in the justice system. The other leading states are Idaho, where one in 18 are in corrections and Texas, where the rate is one in 22. In the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., nearly 5 percent of adults are in the city’s penal system.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the biggest prison population of any country in the world, according to figures from the US Department of Justice.

The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison inmates, the center said.

RB/DT

Thanks go to DeProgram, Campaign For Liberty, Disinformation, and World Prout Assembly

How does a cot and three hots sound? Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo, Tyson, Big Prison and the religious nutcases rejoice, for the end of times is near and now you have virtually sewed up your complicit cronies in government to fulfill your wishes of corporate domination and control of this country.

And may the Sheople said, “Amen!”

B’Man’s Sabbath Watch: The Shiny Little Objects That Command Our Attention

What’s is your biggest reason why you didn’t vote for Barack Obama, redneck? Because he was black?

How about any of them (if you happened to be insightful enough to think outside the box and look at a third party)? Was there a key reason (or two) that decided it for you?

Where I live in SW TN, the majority of folks voted for McCain. Of those I spoke to, the vast majority said because of abortion (it may have been the black thing, but the majority didn’t admit it). You see, in the minds of most of us rednecks, we are more apt to focus on that shiny little object that the people who run shit use to distract us and wedge us against each other… all so that we don’t see the truth. There may be other distractions, but I would say that this is one HUGE wedge issue that divides people.

But, in the scheme of things, is THIS really the most pressing issue that makes a decision for a vote? This ONE issue?

Religion is what keeps the poor from killing the rich

February 26, 2009

by Doug Morrison

Where it is a Duty to worship the Sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the Laws of Heat-
John Marley

One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh-
Robert Heinlein

Pope Benedict XVI recently told Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and one of the most prominent abortion rights politicians in America, that she must reject abortion and become anti-abortion. Unlike George W. Bush, Pelosi seemed to ignore that demand while still expressing pride in her religious heritage and “great joy” that she met Pope Benedict.

In 1960, JFK had to reassure US voter’s worries about the Pope having too much influence in American politics. Today, we have five US Supreme Court who are Catholic, very, very conservative and right wing. Things have changed.

This is not the first time that Benedict has intruded in American politics. Near the end of the 2004 Presidental campaign, the Vatican announced that no Catholic should vote for Kerry because he supported abortion. That statement came from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith- formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Yes, that Inquisition. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, referred to in the Vatican press as “the Pope’s enforcer” and “God’s rottweiler”. Some say he’s the ‘evil Pope’, some say he’s laid back, mild and humble. His shades and red patent leather Prada shoes belay that humble image.

Ratzinger was also in the Hitler Youth in 1941, as all 14 year old Germans were forced to do. There have been a lot of questions about Christianity and Naziism. They are important questions and observations. The belt buckles of the enlisted men in the German Army said “Gott mit uns”- God is with us. Germany has been a Christian country for centuries. There were Catholic Germans and Protestant Germans. The Protestant were much more traditionalist and militant. Then there was the German Christian Church, the Nazi’s own church with their imagery and ideology. Millions of Germans belonged to that church with its Nazi Protestantism. German Imperialism, fueled by Nazi power and Christianity, was on the move again. The Train was moving. Fascism, Christianity, Anti-Semitism, Capitalism plus a hatred of Bolshevikism and Communism were the engines on that Nazi Train. German Christianity would never be the same again.

It’s popular among Christian apologists to claim that Hitler and the Nazis were all consequences of atheism, secularism and liberalism. That wasn’t the reality. Hitler regularly proclaimed his faith in God; Nazi ideology was committed to supporting Christianity (on Nazi terms, of course). The actions of Hitler and the Nazis were about as “Christian” as the actions of people during the Crusades or the Inquisition. People can’t imagine Christians doing the horrible crimes of the Nazis, but it’s true. Hitler explicitly appealed to Christianity on a regular basis and that’s part of why he was so popular. He was most popular among conservative Christians seeking a restoration of “traditional values, Christian Nationalism, anti-communnism and anti-semitism”. Christians may not like acknowledging that Nazi actions had anything to do with Christianity, but Germany saw itself as a fundamentally Christian nation and millions of German Christians enthusiasticlly endorsed Hitler and the Nazi Party believing they showed both German and Christion ideals.

Fast forward to 2009. As far as abortion ideas (or culture war ideas), Pope Benedict has no special information; his views are just his opinion. When Benedict talks abortion, he means that life begins at conception. It’s a very political viewpoint. The Biblical view of when life begins, birth or conception, seems to favor birth.

The Bible often identifies life with ‘breath”, (Gen. 2:7) suggesting that life begins at birth, not conception. In Job 33:4 it states: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Ezekiel 37: 1-14 suggests that which is consistent with Genesis 2:7. Adam did not become a “living soul” until the “breath of life” entered his nostrils, after his body was formed. There are other examples, Joshua 10:40, 1 Kings 15:29 and many otheres where “breath” is treated as a synonym for “life”. In Biblical terms, it seems clear that life begins at birth, not conception.

Jewish law and Jewish Biblical scholars traditionally consider that life begins at birth. That’s good enough for me.

If life begins at birth, then there can be no death or killing of a human being. Life begins when a human being first draws a breath outside of Mom’s body. Until then, it’s just a Potential inside Mom and definitely not separate.

In my opinion, right wing views of abortion are really not about “saving a baby from death”. They’re about demonizing liberals and their worldview. The debate is framed and made to seem that liberals actively seek abortions as a means of birth control. Liberal mothers are shown as the type of mother who would kill her own children for convenience. Right wingers say this shows what kind of people liberals are; the liberal agenda is corrupt, their viewpoints are rediculous and they should never have any political power because they would destroy America from within with loose morals, ethics and decay. Right wingers and conservatives actually believe this.

Oh, what an argument liberals and conservatives have about when life begins. It goes on and is usually a right wing smoke screen to cover their grab for power.

Pope Benedict should go out into the sunshine and look at his passport to see his Birth Date. It’s just like all the passports in the world; there is a birth date, not a date of conception. Everyone marks their life by date of birth, not date of conception. Everyone. Imagine what this says about abortion.

Belief that a human being then exists at the moment of conception is a faith, a wishful thinking, definitely not backed up by the Department of Licensing or the Passport Office. I like it that way.

h/t World Prout Assembly

Faux Progressives And Their Undying Support of W2

How many of you truly believe that things are changing in this country because Barack Hussein Obama was elected? I have dear friends who have fallen all over themselves in defense of Mr Obama because he “just started the job” or better yet, simply because he is NOT George W Bush.

You folks that feel this way are equivalent to the lemmings who still believe W did a good job (about 24 to 25%). Add both of those numbers up and it shows (AGAIN) that 1/2 of America is apparently clueless to the real issues and the wool being pulled over their eyes. The problem is that when there are 50% of Americans this out of touch, we are truly set up for a major fall.

You poor, gullible sheople are going to fuck up my life even more.

I want any of you to use fact (not your fuzzy-wuzzy feelings about Mr Smooth or your hatred for W) to explain to me how virtually anything of substance being done is any different than what W’s crew did?

(crickets chirping)

It is easy for me to list the things that are the same, but that isn’t good enough for you, is it? Damn, if you aren’t going to be another ignorant Sheople-like 24% who, in the face of all fact and evidence, will support Obama to the very end (instead of Bushies, you are Obamies… or better yet, Obamalies; as in anomaly).

As you are falling off the cliff you will be bitching me out for telling it like it is. Then when we splat together at the bottom, it will be too late. I will be a splattered spot on the pavement because of you ignorant-assed lemmings.

I have also had a dear friend insinuate things like Obama is just getting started and he can’t be judged yet. Oops, sorry, but that is ludicrous. That is the same mentality we had with W. Can’t you people learn from history and the big cock that was shoved up your poopy hole by the neo-cons? Have you forgotten so soon that he had a 90% approval rating BECAUSE they lied to us. BECAUSE you lemming Americans needed a “cowboy” hero.

With a 90% approval rating, there would be few that can make the claim I can make. I saw through his shit, too. I didn’t vote for him. I was very outspoken regarding the Iraq War while MOST of you were chummily cheering the Chumster along. Forgive me if I give you ZERO credibility and expect you to give me immense credibility. But I know how people are… afraid to even admit your idiocy and belief in W’s criminal activities. Even at a 90% approval rating, how many now will say they disagreed with him just to save face.

I am not fooled. And you have ZERO credibility now (I think I mentioned your inadequacy in the cred department).

Mr Obama’s approval rating is skyrocketed and even the Scar said he had been wrong because the opinion polls agreed with Barack. Jesus, strike us down now that the Scar is in agreement with O.

I wish I could get it through your fat skulls that they have played you. That you are doing precisely what they want. You are a part of the show and you don’t even know it. In spite of the facts that prove nothing substantial is changing.

Margaret Kimberly is one of my favorite bloggers and I have linked to her work on many occasions. Read what she says about the situation and what she is calling for. Now, I will bet that at least 24% (probably more) will disagree with her, but you will not be able to with fact. Just your fuzzy-wuzzies that mean nothing to me or to truth.

This is found at World Prout Assembly and you can read Margaret at her blog “Freedom Rider” and at the Black Agenda Report.

Freedom Rider: When Will We March Against Obama?

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“The Obama administration’s position is not change. It is more of the same.”
In just three weeks, the Barack Obama administration has demonstrated its determination to hold on to the same presidential prerogatives claimed by George W. Bush. Bush’s successor evidently wants the same prerogatives and he wants to get them through by the same means. Obama supporters either don’t care or are too deep in denial to admit this now obvious fact.

The much talked about Obama administration changes in interrogation policy and intelligence gathering are nothing more than talk. Leon Panetta, CIA director nominee, made it official during his confirmation hearing.

Initially Panetta stated an incontrovertible and well documented fact, that the Bush administration kidnapped people around the world for the purpose of interrogating and torturing them. When republican Senator Kit Bond took Panetta to task for being truthful, Panetta obediently remembered his place, backtracked and told an enormous lie. “I am not aware of the validity of those claims.”

The Senate wasn’t finished with Panetta, who must have forgotten that under no circumstances was he to stand up for truth and justice. The Obama administration made a big deal about following the rules regarding prisoner treatment laid out in the Army Field Manual. Panetta was then asked/told if he would ever violate those rules if he felt he needed too. Once again, he folded and used the same rationale for torture that the Bush administration used. “If we had a ticking bomb situation, and obviously, whatever was being used I felt was not sufficient, I would not hesitate to go to the president of the United States and request whatever additional authority I would need.” A predictable plot line from stale movie thrillers is still directing official government policy instead of American and international law.

“Panetta said that renditions to third countries may continue.

Republican Senators weren’t finished showing Panetta who is boss. He ended his session reassuring the minority party members he would check to see if “enhance interrogation techniques” ever provided useful information. Panetta also said that renditions to third countries may continue. “Using renditions, we may very well direct individuals to third countries. I will seek the same kinds of assurances that they will not be treated inhumanely.” I certainly wouldn’t want to be a prisoner who got an assurance from the American government.

As Panetta disabused anyone of the notion that the two parties behave differently, a court in London, England revealed that the Bush administration and now the Obama administration threatened to withhold intelligence information if courts in that country persisted in asking questions about the treatment of Britons held in Guantanamo. The British judges were not amused. “Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials … relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be.”

Those judges with their fancy wigs just don’t get it. Neither Bush nor Obama cares that much about democracy. The Obama administration issued a statement saying just that. “The United States thanks the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information and preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens.”

The American Civil Liberties Union assessed the situation clearly. “The Obama administration’s position is not change. It is more of the same. This represents a complete turn-around and undermining of the restoration of the rule of law. The new American administration shouldn’t be complicit in hiding the abuses of its predecessors.”
“Neither Bush nor Obama cares that much about democracy.”

So, when do we march? We have an administration that has officially upheld the lawlessness of the previous administration. The same people who took to the streets or at the very least engaged in righteous indignation over Bush administration actions should not silently sit by and allow Obama to do the same things.

It isn’t too soon to protest. He told us right away that there is no change we can believe in. We don’t have to wait for bombs to fall on Iran or for more prisoners to be denied their human rights.

It is not only acceptable but imperative that we speak up now. We must say that Iran has the right to have nuclear power or nuclear weapons or satellites or anything else it wants without being threatened by the United States. We must say that the continuation of Bush administration human rights abuses will not be excused under the guise of giving Obama one hundred magical days to learn his new job.

It is time to take not only Obama to task, but faux progressives to task as well. They are the Obamites who claimed they would hold his feet to the fire if we would just shut up and let him get elected. It is time to protest against them too and call them out for being the hypocrites they are.

That means a lot of protesting needs to be done. Why waste time when Obama isn’t wasting any. We must get started now.
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Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com