Obama Defends Corruption On Wall Street Betraying His Supporters Faux Progressives Defend Obama and Militarization of Police Forces And Racism Real Reason Religious Right Became Fanatically Anti-Abortion

The militarization of America's Police Forces leads to a battlefield mindset in which all civilians are seen as the potential if not in fact enemy.

 photo Members of the Johnston, Rhode Island, Police Department SWAT team stand outside the station with some of the surplus military equipment they have accumulated. (Photo: Glenn Osmundson/The Providence Journal)

" When you dress, train and arm civilian police officers like combat soldiers, eventually they’re going to start acting like their fighting a war and the American people are the inevitable enemy. This has almost always been the case for communities of color and political activists, whose civil rights are routinely violated by police decked out in military gear eerily similar to that of a soldier in Afghanistan. "

Rania Khalek at Dispatches From the Underclass,Feb. 1, 2013.
Pentagon Arms Zoos and Universities with M16s


Obama Betrayed His True Believers By Defending Wall Street Crooks

Obama's Department Of Justice was concerned over damaging careers of individuals and Wall Street firms than with justice. Justice has become a dirty word in the Obama administration's lexicon except when Obama makes speeches to get re-elected and to boost polling numbers.

What is most disturbing about Obama's about face in his concerns and his claimed intentions during his campaigning and how he operates in the White House is that so many self-proclaimed liberals and progressives defend many of Obama's most egregious criminal actions from expanding the Global War on Terror and taking part in unwarranted criminal attacks on or in sovereign nations in acts akin to Wars of Aggression ie Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Syria , Iran and a dozen or more other nations.

Even when it was disclosed that the White House may have been involved in the secretly orchestrated brutal crackdown on the Occupy movement these Faux progressives defended Obama or attacked the FBI but not the FBI's real boss President Obama.

Obama has not only betrayed his followers and proven himself to be a liar he has also become a war criminal and has breached American laws and the US Constitution knowing his base would take no action and might chastise him from time to time but this did not and will not lead to any action being taken against him.

As George W,. Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld knew that their conservative base and its media would defend their policies no matter what Obama depended on his supporters and the supposedly liberal media to defend him and make excuses for his actions or lack of action..In taking part in drone attacks murdering civilians ("collateral Damage" in News Speak) and in continuing renditions, torture , taking down one dictator while defending a dozen other dictators and Regimes who are just as anti-democratic, corrupt and brutal ; to codifying into law indefinite detention ; abuse of prisoners of war ("detainees" in Newspeak); continuing and expanding warrantless wiretaps; to going after Whistleblowers ;to refusing to deal with a corrupt racist system of justice which preys upon minorities and the poor; to giving Wall Street and to giving a free pass to the most environmentally unfriendly industries such as the oil and coal industries .

After recently reading Ron Suskind's book The Confidence Men one gets an insight of how Obama was and is not in charge when it comes to a variety of issues but rather for example Obama forgets he is the president and so defers to the same usual suspects such as Larry Summers who helped to create the Wall Street crash of 2008 and rather than go after all of those who took part and /or enabled the Bush Regime in its lies and propaganda and it's use of torture and its War Of Aggression and illegal occupation of Iraq and so forth instead Obama reassured the CIA and other agencies responsible for these misdeeds and criminal actions that he had somehow unilaterally absolve them all of these crimes giving them a blanket pardon and exoneration while tracking down with a vengeance to persecute those who did their public duty by leaking information about these ongoing crimes which are still occurring.

Obama defends Wall Street because as they say America is built upon corruption and without it America would be much poorer so they claim. These self-serving Wall Street experts convinced Obama that if he started arresting CEOs or shut down some Wall Street firms America's economy would fail and the world's economy with it ie the Sky will fall (Chicken Little) So allowing corruption to go unpunished like Bush's War Crimes was the only solution???

Ethics, morality and the Rule Of Law are just empty vacuous terms used in speeches to cover up Wall Street and Obama's own on going crimes.

What America needs is a new Teddy Roosevelt the trust buster or an FDR who would stand up to the Wall Street bankers and the rich and powerful in favor of the American people.

Instead Obama supports these unpatriotic crooks who outsource jobs and investments and ships large sums of money to offshore accounts without any real concern for average Americans or the American economy.

The main problem with this expose by PBS on the Wall Street scandal is that the producers do not go after Obama himself since he as president was the one who could decide upon what legal and investigative actions the Department of Justice and others would be permitted to do. Video removed .

Pentagon Arms Zoos and Universities with M16s by Rania Khalek ,Dispatches From the Underclass, Feb. 1, 2013

While the militarization of domestic law enforcement is nothing new, there’s always surprises to be found in the increasingly combat-ready arsenals of local police departments.

An investigation by Chicago’s local ABC Affiliate, WLS, reveals that the military surplus program has left local law enforcement agencies throughout Illinois armed for battle, with everything from high powered automatic weapons and armored battlefield vehicles to combat helicopters.

The police department at Benedictine University, a catholic school in Lisle, Illinois, has two M-16 rifles and a Humvee, courtesy of the Military Surplus program.

The University’s police chief, Michael Slatino, told WLS that “Short of a weapon of mass destruction, you can get any kind of military gear that’s out there.” He added that the automatic rifles and Humvee, which is used as a command center, “gives the community a sense that they’re dealing with a professional law enforcement agency.” I think he’s mistaking “law enforcement agency” with “military soldiers.”

Police at Brookfield Zoo, located in the Chicago suburb of Brookfield, acquired M-16 and M-14 combat rifles thanks to the Pentagon program. The crazy part is that they actually believe they need them:

A Brookfield spokesperson would not say how many guns they got but said zoo police are thankful that they are better able to protect the public, the animals and save money.

Police in Round Lake Park, Illinois, which has a population of just around 7,500, didn’t want to be left out:

In far north suburban Round Lake Park, the police department is fully outfitted by the LESO program equipment, from a Hummer used for patrols and SWAT deployments to an armored vehicle, a snowmobile, a segway and an ATV.

The department’s 17 officers each have a military patrol rifle but they also have this battering ram.

“Somebody is not responding to the door, maybe an elderly person or somebody disabled, we may need to make entry into their home,” Round Lake Park Police Department Chief Dan Burch said.

The Round Lake Park Police also have special forces night vision devices, an expensive digital evidence camera, a brand new Apple computer, two flat-screen televisions and even the carpet tiles on the floor came from the program.

Even more disturbing is that the Chicago Police Department lost some of their military hand-me-downs, among them body army and night vision goggles. If they can’t keep track of those, whose to say they won’t lose an M16 or two?

Based on heavily redacted documents WLS obtained throughout the FOIA, they learned that Illinois law enforcement agencies have received $37 million dollars worth of equipment from the Pentagon. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing exactly the type of weapons police departments have obtained because that information is blacked out because otherwise, say defense officials, it would be a threat to homeland security.

The most common critique of the military surplus program is that it’s a waste of taxpayer money, which isn’t wrong. But the bigger issue here that often gets missed is the increasing militarization of domestic law enforcement, whose supposed to be tasked with keeping the peace while upholding the constitution.

When you dress, train and arm civilian police officers like combat soldiers, eventually they’re going to start acting like their fighting a war and the American people are the inevitable enemy. This has almost always been the case for communities of color and political activists, whose civil rights are routinely violated by police decked out in military gear eerily similar to that of a soldier in Afghanistan.

 And more revelations  from insider Paul Weyrich about the real reasons the religious right became fanatically anti-abortion . More to do with with being upset over Jimmy Carter's new laws forcing these religious institutions to desegregate or lose subsidies from the US government and lose their tax exemption status.

The Not-So-Lofty Origins of the Evangelical Pro-Life Movement By Jonathan Dudley Religion Dispatches, Feb 4, 2013

...Although evangelicals were mostly silent on abortion after Roe v. Wade, they were not silent on other political issues. Paul Weyrich, one of the evangelical right’s most influential founders, recalls that the movement initially emerged to defend racially segregated Christian schools from government intrusion:

[W]hat galvanized the Christian community was not abortion, school prayer, or the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment]. I am living witness to that because I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed. What changed their minds was Jimmy Carter’s intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation.

In other words, as Randall Balmer has succinctly put it: “the religious right of the late twentieth century organized to perpetuate racial discrimination.”

Only after the movement was underway did it begin advocacy on abortion. It did so, in large part, based on highly dubious arguments advanced by the popular writer Francis Schaeffer.

Schaeffer held a master’s degree from Westminster Theological Seminary (though he went by “Dr. Schaeffer”) and argued, in 1979’s Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (co-written with the surgeon C. Everrett Koop, and offered as both book and film series), that legalized abortion represented an abandonment of the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage. He is introduced in the film as “one of the world’s most respected thinkers”—a generous title given that Schaeffer plays loose with history, neglecting to mention that abortion was in fact legal when the nation was founded.

Schaeffer and Koop advance the argument that if evangelicals don’t mobilize to stop abortion, infanticide and involuntary euthanasia will soon become widespread.

They have to go back to Roman theologian Tertullian to reinforce their claim that the “orthodox position” is that life begins at conception, conveniently leaving out the fact that Church fathers Augustine and Aquinas—and most evangelicals up until the 1970s—are on the other side of the argument. As Aquinas put it (in a view that remained the official position of the Catholic Church from the medieval era to the mid-1800s), “The rational soul ought to be united to a body which may be a suitable organ of sensation... before the body has organs in any way whatever, it cannot be receptive of the soul.”

More sophisticated anti-abortion arguments were advanced once the movement was already underway, notably the 1982 publication of Michael Gorman’s Abortion and the Early Church or the 1984 publication of John Jefferson Davis’ Abortion and the Evangelical. But Schaeffer’s arugments are often cited by the founders of the evangelical right as what convinced them to take up the cause against abortion.

Conspiracy Theories, Guns, Survivalist, Wacky Libertarians , Racism, New World Order And The Apocalypse

It is time for the mainstream media to stop playing the Republican extremists' game. It is time for us to talk about racism and white Southern males who can't get with the program. Let's talk about what's really going on with "gun rights." It has nothing to do with hunting or home protection or even the Second Amendment. It is about the delusional paranoia of people who really believe the world is out to get them because society is changing from white to brown; from homophobic to tolerant; from exclusionary to inclusionary; from anti-woman to pro-woman.

and:

...The paranoid belief that the president and the federal government will confiscate guns as a precursor to a declaration of martial law is a feature of most gun groups and their far-right conspiracy theories. It’s a line the NRA has pushed. And it edges as close as a statement can to calling for the death of government officials.

The NRA and Gun Owners of America and other pro-gun groups maybe front organizations for the American arms industry so their bread and butter is finding reasons that people need to buy more guns and more powerful guns such as assault weapons and keep a large supply of ammo on hand. So these organizations tend to prey on certain groups of Americans feeding into their paranoia raising the alarm over the changes taking place in America and why they are taking place and what the real agenda and end-game of government and those they consider to be on the left. So they are not above pushing various irrational conspiracy theories such as a coming race war ala the Turner Diaries or the New World Order 's agenda to create a tyrannical abusive and brutal one world government.

Gun Control Agenda Is Launching White Paranoid Extremists to Prepare for Armed Revolution
Peel back the code word of "defending" America and you have a treasonous movement in the works. Frank Schaeffer,Alternet.org, Jan. 30, 2013

The battle over gun control has exposed a truth the mainstream media is apparently too shy to mention: A bunch of far-right, white, mostly Southern, paranoid extremists are preparing for armed revolution and apocalypse. They speak treason: literally.

They are preparing to "defend" America from America with arsenals of weapons and stockpiles of ammunition. Their "enemy" is everyone in America not like them.

They think the world is ending and/or that the government is out to get them. That doesn’t mean it will happen. But expect violence and assassinations. Their ideology is made up of equal parts racism, evangelical Christian fascination with the “end times,” hatred of President Obama, resentment of the “Old “South” variety and a Fox News/Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh version of world history.

...The Republican/white/Southern extremists make reasonable gun control impossible. Their cataclysmic irrationality risks taking the debate into the twilight zone, and that “zone” is a zone of violence: call it the civil war continued by other means.

Some “leaders” in the pro-gun lobby have literally said they will kill to protect their right to arm themselves with arsenals that are fit for nothing but murder and war. These delusional Americans are a vocal minority, and they have extreme fears — gun confiscation, civil instability, a tyrannical government, a “takeover” of the US by the UN and that Obama is a communist.

If you pay attention to the rhetoric, you hear code words calling out to the types of people who called January 19 and Martin Luther King’s birthday “Gun Appreciation Day." The event chairman, Larry Ward, said in the press release, “The Obama administration has shown that it is more than willing to trample the Constitution to impose its dictates upon the American people.”

...As the Southern Poverty Law Center notes, the number of so-called patriot groups surged after President Obama was first elected president. “The swelling of the Patriot movement since that time has been astounding,” the report said. “From 149 groups in 2008, the number of Patriot organizations skyrocketed to 512 in 2009, shot up again in 2010 to 824, and then, last year, jumped to 1,274.”

Martin Bashir on Gun Control

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Conspiracy theories have been around since ancient times in human history. There always seems to be some group of people who are characterized as being "the Other" and up to no good or things are explained through religious beliefs including the existence of evil forces or demons. So if these religious beliefs are no longer satisfying human beings who are open to such things will search for other more human explanations or even pseudo-scientific theories as such.

In themselves such conspiracy theories are in fact intriguing to study but they have a more sinister side when people begin to act in accordance with such nonsense that is either if possible persecuting them such as limiting the rights of the targeted group or seeking out and imprisoning or killing whatever group they believe is involved in such a conspiracy whether their target groups are Witches, Muslims, Jews, Roma,Irish, Catholics and on and on.

Gun Appreciation Day January 19 was not held on that day by accident. The 19th is also Martin Luther King Jr. 's birthday. So connecting the dots Martin Luther King was assassinated by someone with a gun and now the USA has a black president. Talk about audacity these fanatics are not very subtle .So are they putting such thoughts of harming the president into the minds of their followers and true believers .

They believe President Obama as the first Black President is not to be trusted and has his own nefarious Black Power/Communist/Fascist anti-White agenda. While others believe he is part of the New World Order Conspiracy out to destroy America's sovereignty and to help make all countries to be part of a Global State. Part of the scenario for the Global state is the outlawing of all guns for personal use which means confiscating all guns .

These conspiracy theories connect everything that happens not just in the USA but around the globe as all part of machinations of the conspirators. So for instance the Arab Spring uprisings are in fact orchestrated by the New World Order individuals and organizations to further their agenda. Global warming is they believe either just made up as in a False Flag operation or is occurring due to the actions of those who work in the shadows.

How far do these conspiracy wackos go well after each mass murder in the USA or elsewhere they believe are False Flags which are either conducted by the secret cabal who arranged the murders possibly with the help of those highest up in government and in their view the government controlled media or the whole incident is not real its just created to appear like a massacre took place all in order to advance the narrative for gun control or other reasons .

Of course at the further edges of conspiratorial thinking and paranoia are those who's imaginations are working over time connecting False Flag operations such as Sandyhook or 9/11 as somehow involving UFOs, a hollow earth theory or cities on the dark side of the moon and the Reptilian Race which includes president Obama and other world leaders including Queen Elizabeth who run the whole show. It sounds like madness and is but people get drawn into these explanations which in a twisted bit of logic presents the believer with a fool proof explanation of why the nation or the world appears to be messed up.

Again as we know people in general want the world to make sense to them and when presented with various rational explanations which may not explain everything for them or goes against some of their basic beliefs some people will grab at whatever bizarre theory fills their own psychological need and that is their need for certainty. For the racist for instance gravitates towards unwarranted explanations of racial differences and that of course their own race and culture and religion is superior to all others.

Think of a simple example involving the enslavement of millions of Africans in America the people involved in the slave trade and those using slaves on their plantations need to convince themselves that slavery is not bad because the enslaved are not quite human and therefore this eases the slave owner conscience or the pro-slavery group finds justification in their Holy Scriptures ie the Bible.

So any fact about those enslaved which proves that those enslaved are the equal to those who enslave them such facts must be rejected . And Southern Whites in America since before the American War of Independence up til today many of them are still convinced that African Americans are a different kind of animal from white people. These white Nationalists or White Supremacists or just your average white racist stereotype African-Americans as lazy, shiftless, work-shy , untrustworthy over sexed, unclean, dirty and extremely dangerous and without the ability to be civilized which of course is all nonsense.

So for these present day racist , bigoted white Americans they are dumbfounded and angry that a Black man could be president so since in their view this is against the natural order of things and common sense that Obama getting into office must be part of a secret conspiracy by those who work behind the scenes- up until recently these secret Cabals were often thought to be run by Jews ie for example the notorious hoax created by the Russian Secret Police in 1905 entitled Protocols Of The Elders of Zion laid out the entire though fanciful baseless Jewish Conspiracy but anti-semitism was alive from the early days of the Christian Church and continued with the culmination of Hitler's Holocaust ,Shoah .

There are now in America and Europe those who adhere to a belief in the Islamic stealth Jihadist conspiracy and that all Muslims are part of a plan to take control of America and Europe even though there is no factual bases for such a belief. The Islamophobes use all the tried and true stereotypes and racist tropes similar to those used by anti-semites in their depictions of all Jews. The Jews they erroneously claimed were bit by bit taking over the world while the Islamophobe believe again erroneously that they want to set up a Caliphate controlling the world. See pages at top of this blog on Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism.

Other conspiracy theory true believers also blame for instance the Illuminati , the Masons or the Reptillians (David Icke) from a parallel universe outer space or from inside the hollow earth or the dark side of the moon and so forth. Every few years new conspiracies arise then fade like a fad while other take their place . But much of elements are the same. Also see Alex Jones bizarre conspiracies & False Flag operations at Youtube Why People Think Sandy Hook is A Hoax

Some of the pro-gun groups and sponsors for Gun Appreciation Day have ties to extremist White Nationalists groups and survivalists and evangelicals who are convinced we are living in the End-Times as described in the Bible in The Book of Revelation.

As Glenn Beck claimed a few years back that 'Obama Has A Deep-Seated Hatred For White People' and so is a racist who resents and hates all white Americans. As we have discussed before Obama is far from being a Communist or a socialist or even a moderate socialist in fact he barely makes it as a liberal.

If Obama were a socialist he would have taken down the Wall St. giants instead once in power he defended the Wall Street millionaires and Billionaires and bailing them out without any substantive pre-conditions. As for foreign policy he has been as hawkish if not more so than President George W. Bush.

Right-wing extremists, conspiracy theorists behind Gun Appreciation Day Zachary Roth, Jan. 9,2013

The lead organizer of Gun Appreciation Day, gun-rights backers’ most prominent public effort to fight off gun-control legislation, helps run a group that warns of “armed government oppression” and a “world government.” Another group involved in the event stokes fear that “Barack Hussein Obama” will impose “martial law.” A third promotes a fringe constitutional theory beloved by the Tea Party, and a post on its website describes public schools as “progressive indoctrination camps.”

Gun Appreciation Day has received widespread media coverage since it was announced Monday.

...But several of the groups that are centrally involved traffic in some extremist conspiracy theories that are popular on the far-right fringes of the political debate.

Gun Appreciation Day, planned for January 19, is being spearheaded by Larry Ward, who runs Political Media, a Washington, D.C.-area Republican media consulting firm, specializing in online campaigns. Many of the early participants in the event have ties to Ward or Political Media.

Alan Gottlieb, whose Washington-state-based group, the Second Amendment Foundation, is another backer of Gun Appreciation Day, told MSNBC.com that the response from gun owners and gun-rights supporters to the announcement of the event has been overwhelming.

But some of the “sponsors” listed on the event’s website... appear motivated in part by the kind of outlandish and paranoid ideas often found among right-wing extremist groups.

One, the Social Security Institute's ...website offers warnings about “world government”—a bête noire of the extreme right, which fears that a government gun grab could lead to a U.N. takeover, often referred to in extremist circles as a “New World Order.” And SSI’s president, Lawrence Hunter, wrote recently that “[a] heavily armed citizenry is not about armed revolt; it is about defending oneself against armed government oppression.”

Ward, Gun Appreciation Day’s chief organizer, is listed as a member of SSI’s board, and as the group’s “director of new media.” The website for his company, Political Media, displays SSI’s site as an example of its work. Ward describes himself in his bio on SSI’s site as a protégé of GOP political consultant Dick Morris. Morris himself said last year on Fox News that he feared Obama would try to make the U.S. “a vassal state to a globalist entity.”

...Another listed sponsor of Gun Appreciation Day, RightMarch.com, urges supporters to “help STOP Barack Obama from grabbing unconstitutional powers to declare martial law through all of his new Presidential Executive Orders.” The notion that the federal government will confiscate guns as a precursor to a declaration of martial law is a feature of numerous far-right conspiracy theories.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Sodastream Boycott And Jesus, Freedom & Guns And Obama: Rule Of Law Does Not Apply To His Buddies On Wall Street

Anti-Soda Stream Videos- via Mondoweiss & Youtube

Published on 22 Jan 2013

Soda Stream is a popular little machine. Makes our life bubbly. But it's made in an illegal settlement in the West Bank, and all such companies must be brought to their senses by the diversion of our dollars to their competitors.

Check out this fantastic little tiny homemade SodaStream Spoof Ad by Amal, produced by St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee. This teen puts SodaStream's marketing to shame. Mondoweiss




Anti-gun control protesters admit that the reason they believe they should be permitted to own automatic-and semi-automatic rifles is not for hunting or skeet shooting or personal pleasure but to be ready to shoot at police and others representing the government insisting that the gun owners register their weapons or that certain guns are to be made unlawful and seized. They truly believe that Obama is planning to seize all guns to facilitate the creation of a socialist/fascist/collectivist police state.

Jesus, Freedom and Guns By LAWRENCE DOWNES, New York Times, Jan. 31, 2013

Here is a video shot at a gun-rights rally on Jan. 19 at the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix. It’s a good window into the life of Arizona, a state where the Tea Party, birtherism and anti-immigrant radicalism regularly combine to raise the political temperature from overheated to boiling.

Once again we can conclude that President Obama for all his talk about the Rule of Law that he in fact tends to cherry pick which laws to obey. Obama has gone after whistleblowers with a vengeance and after those who like Aaron Swartz want to keep the internet as free from censorship as possible .

Julian Assange of Wikileaks is seen by the Obama administration as America's no. 1 enemy . Julian Assange's and Wikileaks crime is that they are in favor of freedom of information and against government's unnecessarily classifying as " secret " without justification documents which should be available to the public .

Obama as candidate in 2008 was supposedly in favor of legislation to protect whisleblowers and insist on more transparency and less secrecy by the government. But as president Obama has acted in favor of prosecuting Whistleblowers as if they were spies and enemies of the state. This is understandable since Obama has continued and added to the illegal or unethical or immoral actions and policies of the Bush administration. This would as we have discussed many times explain why Obama did not insist on real substantive investigations into the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Bush Regime since he is now guilty of similar crimes besides the crime of shielding from justice those who committed these crimes previous to his taking office.

Obama has widened the Global War on Terror and has introduced legislation and policies further undermining the freedom of American citizens. Obama has shown in his draconian response to the Occupy Movement that he is on the side of Wall Street's thieves , thugs and banksters, lobbyists and others who committed criminal acts or at least engaged in unethical practices robbing trillions of dollars from the US government and the American people. Obama over and over again has sided with the rich and powerful and has shown himself to be an enemy of average Americans just like his predecessors who favored the rich and powerful.

One has to wonder if Obama has defended these crooks on Wall Street because they happen to be friends of his part of the autocracy or because he doesn't want to do anything that might harm his own personal investment portfolio.

Papantonio: Frontline -- Obama's Pals Go Unpunished

Published on 25 Jan 2013

Mike Papantonio appears on The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann to talk about the lack of prosecutions for the crimes perpetrated by Wall Street, and why, ultimately, President Obama bears the blame for that failure.

Lack of Criminal Prosecutions Linked to Obama and Holder's Wall St. Connections

Published on 29 Jan 2013

Dimitri Lascaris: Department of Justice under George Bush secured convictions of major figures from the business community in complex financial frauds and Obama and Holder have not done so following the worst epidemic of financial fraud in the modern era

FRONTLINE | Preview "The Untouchables" | PBS

Published on 20 Jan 2013

Watch the full-length episode at http://video.pbs.org/video/2327953844

http://to.pbs.org/WKwdIT Coming January 22, 2012. FRONTLINE investigates why Wall Street's leaders have escaped prosecution for any fraud related to the sale of bad mortgages.

More than four years since the financial crisis, not one senior Wall Street executive has faced criminal prosecution for fraud. Are Wall Street executives "too big to jail"?

Harry Belafonte On Gun Violence In America and One Third Of Americans Believe God Takes Sides In Sporting Events And Public Schools In Texas Push Christian Agenda And God Given Right To bear Arms

“In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children...” “Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?”

Quote by Harry Belafonte from article Harry Belafonte challenges African-Americans at NAACP awards ceremony: ‘In the gun game, we are the most hunted’ by paul Harris , The Guardian ,feb. 2, 2013

“We can’t just gloss over this,” said Dennis Traynor of Acronym TV. “A majority of U.S. citizens in 2013 think that the all-knowing creator of the universe is sitting in the heavens looking down upon the extreme poverty and misery that encompass the world that he created in six days and sees that half of his beautiful creatures live on less than $2.50 a day and 80 percent of humanity living on less than $10 a day and not only gives a shit what happens on Super Bowl Sunday, but will be rewarding one team over the other based on the purity and faithfulness of the football players’ religion on either team.”

Quote from: One-third of Americans believe God decides who wins sporting events David Ferguson via Raw Story,Feb. 2, 2013



Photo below of Obama skeet shooting with a 12 gauge shotgun to prove he is not in favor of banning all guns. So the White House released this photo to appease the pro-gun lobbyists and gun owners thereby we believe restricting what he can or cannot do in regards to stricter gun control. Per usual Obama is far to eager to compromise with a particular group even though that group ie NRA have no interest in compromise or making any substantive concessions on the issue of gun control. They believe the 2nd Amendment is sacrosanct and is a God Given Right.

Harry Belafonte speaks out about the need for strict gun control in America .
He notes that it is Black Americans who suffer most because of the gun violence in America.
He also points out that the USA has the largest prison population than any other nation and the majority of inmates are Black Americans.
The prison system in the USA as we have noted before is just another way to control Black Americans and keep the majority in a state of impoverishment without the same opportunities of white Americans. Once someone has been incarcerated for a felony conviction after serving their sentence they lose many of their basic rights. So the punishment continues even after incarceration like the main character in Les Miserables.

NAACP Image Awards | Harry Belafonte Speaks on Gun Control in Acceptance Speech | Feb 1, 2013

The Young Turks :Christianity Aggressively Pushed in Texas Schools

Published on 29 Jan 2013

"Students in Texas' public schools are still learning that the Bible provides scientific evidence that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that astronauts have discovered "a day missing in space in elapsed time" that affirms biblical stories of the sun standing still and moving backwards, and that the United States was founded as a Christian nation based on biblical Christian principles."*

Texas public schools are teaching creationism in schools. It's not a balanced religious studies class either- strictly Christian lessons are being taught, even pushed in the schools. How is this teaching allowable? Would a similarly-structured Islam class be okay? Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian break it down.

To believe that a God takes sides in wars is a common belief. Christians believe God is on their side . Jews and Muslims each believe God is on their side. In all wars each side believes that their God or Gods are on their side . If they lose the war then they argue that for some reason their God allowed them to be defeated or the other sides 'God is more powerful than their God.

The very notion though that God picks sides not just in dealing out justice and rewards and punishments sending those who please God to paradise or Heaven and those who do not please God to Hell after one's physical death is one thing but to believe God takes sides in sports events seems to be a trivialization of a belief in God .


One-third of Americans believe God decides who wins sporting events David Ferguson via Raw Story,Feb. 2, 2013

A recent study by the Center for Public Religion has found that nearly 3 out of every 10 Americans believes that God decides the outcome of sporting events by favoring players who are virtuous and who God perceives as good.

According to the study, “Americans are less likely to believe that God plays a role in the outcome of sporting events than they are to believe God rewards religious athletes. While only about 3-in-10 (27%) Americans, believe that God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event, a majority (53%) believe that God rewards athletes who have faith with good health and success, compared to 42% who disagree.”

“We can’t just gloss over this,” said Dennis Traynor of Acronym TV. “A majority of U.S. citizens in 2013 think that the all-knowing creator of the universe is sitting in the heavens looking down upon the extreme poverty and misery that encompass the world that he created in six days and sees that half of his beautiful creatures live on less than $2.50 a day and 80 percent of humanity living on less than $10 a day and not only gives a shit what happens on Super Bowl Sunday, but will be rewarding one team over the other based on the purity and faithfulness of the football players’ religion on either team.”

In America many Christians believe even who is to become president is at the end of the day decided by the Christian God as are all political contests including who gets to go to Congress or appointed to head federal departments or who is to become governor or belong to state assemblies or who's to be Sheriff or dog catcher all are choices God makes. God they believe is an interventionists who guides a voters mind and hands to vote for the God Chosen candidate . They also believe God takes sides in sporting events and that the right to bear arms is a God Given Right. Jesus they tell us was in favor of citizens owning and carrying weapons from swords to Ak 47s .


The American myth is that America was formed under the guidance of the Christian God and the creation of America as a sovereign nation state was due to God's providence and therefore is not just another human construct. There is a tendency of many Americans to treat the founding fathers and their drafting of the declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights the judicial and legislative architecture as if they were blessed and guided by God.

So the American Constitution and other founding documents are treated as being as sacred as the Bible . So the rights of American citizens is based upon God's will. Therefore making any changes to these sacrosanct documents is to question God's original intentions.

If we are to take this seriously as the defenders of the 2nd amendment do then the right to bear arms is a god given right which cannot be tampered with in any way. But if this is true than other parts of the founding documents are also God given and if so slavery and denying women their rights must be part of God's plan. So abolishing slavery is therefore a contravention of God's law. Granting rights to women or to non-whites or to white Christian men who are not property owners are also contraventions of God's Law.

As some might argue religious beliefs are not the same as magical thinking and superstitions . But how can one differentiate amongst these belief systems.

How does someone conclude that their religion is the true one and all other contenders are false . Do they believe that those who believe in a different religion are merely making an error in judgement or do they believe that believing in a different religion is more insidious and sinister ie the work of evil forces ie Satan .


National Review Writer: 'God-Given Right' To Guns, Jesus Would Approve Meredith Bennet-Smith ,Huffinton Post, Jan. 29, 2013

One of the leading voices of the conservative political movement has published an editorial that argues that gun control legislation seeks to limit Americans' God-given rights to guns.

In the National Review, David French cites various Bible passages to make his point.

The Old Testament showed that "the morality of self-defense is not only presumed, the act of self-defense is permitted and even mandated by key Biblical figures," French writes.

French then goes on to say that Jesus' disciples carried swords, "and Jesus even said in some contexts the unarmed should arm themselves."

On Jan. 22, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said that "No government gave [the right to bear arms] to us and no government can take them away," Breitbart reports.

And on Dec. 4, a spokesman for the American Family Association claimed the "whole concept of using a weapon for self-defense is rooted in the teaching of Christ."

Bryan Fischer referred to an anecdote about Jesus recorded in the Book of Luke.

“Jesus Christ said this to his own disciples, ‘my recommendation to you is if you don’t have a weapon of lethal force that you can use in self-defense, sell your cloak and go buy one,’” Fischer said.

Going through the Bible gleaning passages which support one's argument while ignoring or dismissing contrary passages in the Bible is referred to as proof reading. It is a disingenuous means of argument .

Since besides discovering passages defending the right to bear arms and the essential right of self-defense in the Bible we also find passages defending slavery and racial segregation and that only Christians or Israelites have the right to self-government or to hold public office or even to vote. The Bible does not support the notion of equal rights for women while demanding the death penalty for adultery, blasphemy , homosexuality and so forth.



The Biblical and Natural Right of Self-Defense By David French The National Review, Jan. 25, 2013

In Mosaic law, God obviously continued his mandate of the death penalty for murder (as well as for blasphemy and other crimes) — but not for all killing. He specifically carved out an exception for the defense of one’s home: “If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him . . .” (Exodus 22:2). There was bloodguilt if the thief was killed during the day, however. Note the grace that God gives the citizen in the midst of the fear and ambiguity of a nighttime invasion — even a “thief” (not a rapist, not a murderer) can be killed at night, but in the clarity of day, the “thief” (again, not a rapist, not a murderer) should not be killed.

Second, the morality of self-defense is not only presumed, the act of self-defense is permitted and even mandated by key Biblical figures. This principle flows of course from a moral law that reveres human life. It should be protected, not merely avenged. Nehemiah, when he was rebuilding Jerusalem in the face of hatred (not in wartime, but when tribal neighbors were seeking to carry out vigilante attacks on Jews) instructed his people: “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.” (Nehemiah 4:14).

It’s often-forgotten that the climax of the Book of Esther involves the Jews gathering together in an act of self-defense, where a despotic king was persuaded to allow them to fight against their attackers: “The king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods.” (Esther 8:11). The Jews then “struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those that hated them.” (Esther 9:5). Before Esther’s intervention, the king would have denied the Jews their right of self-defense. After Esther’s intervention, the Jews didn’t merely look to law enforcement for salvation but took matters into their own hands.

...Essentially that gun control represents not merely a limitation on a constitutional right but a limitation on a God-given right of man that has existed throughout the history of civil society. All rights — of course — are subject to some limits (the right of free speech is not unlimited, for example), and there is much room for debate on the extent of those limits, but state action against the right of self-defense is by default a violation of the natural rights of man, and the state’s political judgment about the limitations of that right should be viewed with extreme skepticism and must overcome a heavy burden of justification.

If we are to take self-defense as being approved by the Bible and by Natural Law and the likes of John Locke then we could argue that citizens who believe they are targeted by police and those in authority would therefore be permitted to fight back when attacked or even to take preemptive measures that is attacking those who are planning to attack you or your community.

So if a community feels threatened in this way they can take measures to defend themselves. So for communities to set up a defense force would be permitted and sanctioned by God and the Bible .

Now would the pro-2nd amendment groups defend communities of primarily Black residents to create such a force ie militias to defend themselves against other citizens who would harm them or against authorities who are using police forces to overtly harass and terrorize Black communities. So we could argue any community that believes it is being specifically targeted by the local police or other policing agencies have the right to "stand their ground' and not permit these hostile armed individuals or group no matter what authority they believe they have from entering these communities.


Wayne LaPierre to Obama: 2nd Amendment Protects God-Given Rights Breitbart Jan. 22, 2013

Speaking at the 56th Annual Weatherby Foundation International Hunting and Conservation Dinner on Jan. 22, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre responded to Obama's inaugural speech by pointing out that the 2nd Amendment protects God-given rights.

Of these rights--the right to keep and bear arms and the right to self-defense--LaPierre said: "No government gave [them] to us and no government can take them away."

LaPierre made it clear that Obama doesn't like to hear this because it shows that the 2nd Amendment is not in flux but is fixed, and the rights it protects are beyond the reach of government.

He said this is why Obama talked of trading "absolutism" for "principle" in his inaugural speech--a ploy which LaPierre described as Obama's not-so-subtle attempt to convince us to move past what the words of the 2nd Amendment really mean so that gun grabbers can apply their own meanings to them.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Obama's Twisted View of The Rule Of Law and Branding as Traitors Critics Of USA/NATO's Military Interventionism

As usual, anyone who questions the militarism of western governments is instantly smeared as a sympathizer or even supporter of tyrants. Thus, those who opposed the aggressive attack on Iraq were pro-Saddam; those who now oppose bombing Iran love the mullahs; those who oppose NATO intervention in Syria or Libya harbor affection for Assad and Ghadaffi--

 just as those who opposed the Vietnam War 50 years ago or Reagan's brutal covert wars in Latin America 30 years ago were Communist sympathizers, etc., etc. Cameron's outburst was just the standard smear tactic used for decades by western leaders to try to discredit anyone who opposes their wars.

Quote from: Cameron's Attack On George Galloway Reflects The West's Self-Delusions" Glenn Greenwald ,The Guardian, Jan. 31, 2013

"The implications are enormous. The government can now criminalize political, religious and social ideology and speech. Donating to peace groups, participating in protests, attending church, mosque or synagogue, entertaining friends, and posting material on the Internet, for example, could later be found to be illegal because of 'associations,' manufactured by anonymous experts, which in some way allegedly support designated terrorist organizations one has never heard of." by Paul Craig Roberts

Saudis and Jihadi Extremists creating turmoil in Mali and West Africa while Western Nations back Jihadi Extremists in Syria and Libya. Once again we see the contradictory and hypocritical policies of the Western Powers who are just playing the new updated version of "The Great Game" while ignoring the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

'Saudi Arabia, Qatar fuel militancy in Africa' 

Published on 20 Jan 2013

An analyst says terror in Mali caused by Saudi, Qatar Salafist terror groups and France going in could destabilize Africa and this is by design. In the background of this, France has begun military action in the resource-rich African nation of Mali with 2,000 French troops in what could become a prolonged presence. The pretext is to fight terrorism, which incidentally compromises of terrorists that France fought side by side with in Libya.





And here's another example of the Obama administration indefinitely detaining someone in this case an Iranian scientists without having any real evidence to charge let alone get a conviction. But he is of course guilty just by being an Iranian in America rather than a Saudi . So it appears even Obama has his own set of prejudices. It's odd since the majority of highjackers on 9/11 were Saudis and Asama Bin-laden was also a Saudi but don't let facts get in the way of your prejudices or your agenda. America hates Iran why who knows . In part because the Iranian people rose up demanding reform and then ousted America's favorite brutal dictator the Shah of Iran . The Americans at that moment could have just dumped the Shah and supported the Iranian people's uprising which might have prevented some of the more extremist take power at that time .

While Israel has been assassinating Iranian scientists the Americans are locking them up when Iran is not a threat but if they keep pushing Iran; Iran might take action but this maybe what Obama and his buddy Netanyahu want to give them an excuse to destroy Iran.

US sentences Iranian scientist to jail
Published on 21 Jan 2013

Iranian scientist Seyyed Mojtaba Atarodi, the professor of Tehran's Sharif University of Technology has been reportedly sentenced to at least 57 months in jail in the US for allegedly violating the US export law, after trying to buy high-tech equipment for his personal lab.

Press TV's Ghanbar Naderi reports from Tehran.

 Paul Craig Roberts laments that the USA is no longer a country that abides by the rule of law as we have come to understand it but rather governments even the Obama government makes up new laws as it goes along and changes what counts or does not count as evidence in a case so if need be the courts can use hearsay evidence or evidence from an anonymous expert witness or whatever it takes to win their case. We see it in the case of whistleblower Bradley Manning who has been held according to the new rules passed by Obama on "indefinite detention". Candidate Obama was all for whisleblowers while President Obama hates and if he can will keep them in jail til they die. Obama has been trying to get Julian Assange sent to the USA so Obama can incarcerate indefinitely and abuse and torture Assange as Obama has done to Bradley Manning.

Paul Craig Roberts believes the situation worsens each day as the government ignores the rule of law and international law. Citizens once accused have no recourse to legal means to fight their accusers and so are silenced placed in isolation if need be. That's the Chicago way.

" In Amerika Law No Longer Exists: The Extermination Of Truth " by Paul Craig Roberts opEdnews, Jan. 31, 2013

In the 21st century Americans have experienced an extraordinary collapse in the rule of law and in their constitutional protections. Today American citizens, once a free people protected by law, can be assassinated and detained in prison indefinitely without any evidence being presented to a court of their guilt, and they can be sentenced to prison on the basis of secret testimony by anonymous witnesses not subject to cross examination. The US "justice system" has been transformed by the Bush/Obama regime into the "justice system" of Gestapo Germany and Stalinist Russia. There is no difference.

In an article...Stephen Downs, formerly Chief Attorney with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct and Kathy Manley, a criminal defense attorney and member of the New York Civil Liberties Union, report on how the US government destroyed a charity, the Holy Land Foundation, which provided money for feeding the poor and for building schools and hospitals in Palestine.

The charity, aware of the perils of being based in the US and doing anything for Palestinians, relied on the US State Department and the US Department of Justice (sic) for guidance on where to send humanitarian aid. The charity sent its aid to the same aid committees in Palestine that the US Agency for International Development and the UN used to distribute aid to the Palestinians.

In the first trial of the Holy Land Foundation, the US government admitted that none of the charity's donations had gone to terrorist organizations, and the federal prosecutors failed to achieve a conviction. So the prosecutors tried the charity again.

In the second trial, the judge permitted the prosecutors to call an "anonymous expert" to tell the jury that some of the committees used by USAID and the UN and approved by the US Department of State were controlled by Hamas, the elected government of Palestine that Israel requires the US government to brand as "terrorist."

As Downs and Manley point out, an "anonymous expert" cannot "be challenged because he is unknown." There cannot be a cross examination. The "expert" could be anyone -- someone paid to lie to the jury, a Jew who believes all help to Palestinians comprises "aid to terrorists," or a member of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service that has throughly infiltrated the US according to US intelligence experts.

Injustices are everywhere, the authors admit, so why is this important to you? The answer is that the due process clause of the US Constitution requires that criminal laws give fair notice as to what conduct is prohibited. According to Downs and Manley, the Holy Land Foundation followed the US State Department's list of designated terrorist organizations and avoided all contact with organizations on the list, but were indicted and convicted regardless. This tells us that federal prosecutors are viciously corrupt and that jurors are so inept and propagandized that they are useless to defendants.

The US Supreme Court refused to review this most blatant case of wrongful conviction. By so doing, the US Supreme Court established that the court, like the US House of Representatives, the US Senate, and the executive branch, is not only a servant of the police state but also a servant of Israel and supports the destruction of the Palestinians by designating aid to Palestine as an act of terrorism.

What this means for you is that your involvement in legal transactions or associations can be declared ex post facto by secret witnesses to be criminal involvements. The criminality of your past behavior can now be established, according to Downs and Manley, by "anonymous experts," mouthpieces for the government prosecutors who cannot "be confronted or cross-examined within the meaning of the 6th Amendment."

Downs and Manley write:

"The implications are enormous. The government can now criminalize political, religious and social ideology and speech. Donating to peace groups, participating in protests, attending church, mosque or synagogue, entertaining friends, and posting material on the Internet, for example, could later be found to be illegal because of 'associations,' manufactured by anonymous experts, which in some way allegedly support designated terrorist organizations one has never heard of."

The authors could have added that if the government wants to get you, all it has to do is to declare that someone or some organization somewhere in your past was connected in a vague undefined way with terrorism. The government's assertion suffices. No proof is needed. The brainwashed jury will not protect you.

Glenn Greenwald in a recent article in The Guardian points out that when George Galloway (MP) asks Prime Minister Cameron to explain Britain's policy in the Middle East which appears contradictory in reply the Prime Minister accuses Galloway of supporting Arab Tyrants . Galloway wonders how the government can support Islamic extremists in Syria while claiming to be at war with all Islamic extremists whom they designate as terrorists . As Greenwald Notes PM Cameron doesn't give a substantive answer to the question but rather flippantly accuses Galloway of giving support to the terrorists and brutal dictators.

George Galloway MP exchange with Prime Minister David Cameron during question period in the British Parliament




Glenn Greenwald argues that the USA and the UK and other Western Nations are hypocritical and contradictory in their policies concerning the Middle East and the Global War on Terror. On the one hand they claim to favor reform and democratization in the region while still where possible propping up various brutal dictators in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain , Yemen etc. and selling arms to them so these regimes can suppress even peaceful protesters who are calling for reform. Meanwhile At the same time the USA and its NATO allies while supposedly fighting Islamic extremists in the Global War on Terror they are in fact giving support to such extremists groups with ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban as we saw in Libya and now in Syria.

For instance Greenwald notes:

In 2010, the UK granted licenses for the sale of arms to Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the UAE and Yemen. In July of that year, shortly after Cameron assumed office, "the Scrutiny of Arms Exports report by the Parliamentary Committee on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) show[ed] that there are still 600 existing arms exports licences in place for the sale of goods including assault weapons, ammunition, and surveillence equipment, to Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen." In 2011, Der Spiegel reported:

"Britain exported over 100 million ($142 million) in weapons to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the last two years alone. Included in those shipments are sniper rifles that may currently be in use against the Libyan opposition. Furthermore, Gadhafi's terror police are British-trained."

In fact these massive arms sales to all of these nations seem to be a large part of the UK's and other Western powers " Raison D'etre " for having diplomatic relations with these nations.

And if we look at Iraq we can see how America's foreign policy and its bombing, invading and then occupying Iraq only led to chaos and the deaths of a million or more Iraqi citizens . Some of these citizens who were not terrorists before the invasion or supporters of Saddam's Baathist Regime joined the so called insurgency to fight those who had invaded and were brutally occupying their country.the Occupation .

Many Iaqi citizens joined not because they were extremists Jihadists but because they had witnessed the wanton carnage of the the occupying Western forces and watched their country being destroyed their homes and villages and towns and cities reduced to rubble while innocent civilians including women and children were gunned down by US troops or young girls and women were sexually assaulted by American and British troops and other civilians were incarcerated and tortured or saw other fellow Iraqis being abused and tortured .

Faced with such an invasion and occupation wouldn't citizens in any nation be justified in fighting back no matter the odds. And wouldn't those who co-operated with the invaders be branded as traitors and collaborators. Once again we are reminded of the Vietnam War in which the citizens fought against the foreign occupiers first the French and then the Americans . In Vietnam the insurgency finally drove the Americans out of their country . Similarly as is well known outside the American media the US left Iraq because the government and people of Iraq finally had enough and kicked the Americans out .Both wars ended in dishonor for the Americans. The US in Vietnam and Iraq were in deed the 'Bad Guys' .

So these Western powers including the USA, Britain and Canada support citizens in Iran who hold protests demanding government reform or even Regime Change and criticize the Iranian government as not just being oppressive but as being downright evil and Demonic and therefore beyond compromises or negotiations while these Western nations happily supply armaments to other governments so they can suppress such protests by citizens calling for reform and protection of their civil and human rights in their respective countries.

So these policies in the Middle East have nothing to do with bringing freedom and democracy to the peoples of the region.
The policies of the United States and its allies is driven by their own agendas such as access to cheap oil and other resources including cheap labor to defending Israel to simply exerting control over the region so nationalist do not arise who put their nation and their citizens before the needs of the Western powers etc.

And as Glenn Greenwald notes and we have also noted over the past few years the about face on the part of Hilary Clinton who supported Mubarak of Egypt and even said he was a close personal friend and we could add she has said the same thing about the King of Bahrain and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the former leader of Pakistan so no matter how ruthless these dictators are as long as they work on behalf of the United States and various American run International/Multinational Corporations its fine by Clinton or Obama or any other American politician .

...The outgoing US Secretary of State on Wednesday unleashed this bizarre description of the Egyptian people: "It's hard going from decades under one-party or one-man rule, as somebody said, waking up from a political coma and understanding democracy." As As'ad AbuKhalil astutely replied: "The US and not the Egyptian people were in denial about the true nature of the Sadat-Mubarak regime. No, in fact they were not in denial: they knew full well what they were doing against the Egyptian people."

Indeed, it was Hillary Clinton -- not the Egyptian people -- who proclaimed in 2009: "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States."

For decades the USA and its allies defended the brutal Egyptian dictator Mubarak until the peaceful protests by the citizens of Egypt grew to a point where the Egyptian people were supported by the International Community and so the USA was forced to abandon him not because they were in favor of reform or democracy but rather because Mubarak was no longer of any use to them given the circumstances and so was seen as a liability. In other words for the USA and its allies its all just policies and business as usual without any real concern for the average citizens of Egypt or any other nation. Though they will fein concern for the citizens as part of a propaganda strategy in the same way they demonize some leaders such as the leaders of Iran but not others whose regimes may be no better and even possibly worse such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Israel etc.

Here's another little example of the outrageous judicial system in Saudi Arabia one of America's greatest allies . The most outrageous examples of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia is often ignored ,dismissed downplayed by the USA and is therefore tolerated where as similar laws in Iran are condemned as evil incarnate. In this particular case a Saudi cleric faces no prison time or other punishment for raping, torturing and killing his six year old daughter. Saudi preacher spared after raping, killing daughter Agence-France-Presse via Raw Story Feb. 2, 2013



" Cameron's Attack On George Galloway Reflects The West's Self-Delusions" Glenn Greenwald ,The Guardian, Jan. 31, 2013

In an act of supreme projection, the British PM accuses a critic of lending support "wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator": the core policy of the US and UK

Galloway stood to ask Cameron about a seeming contradiction in the policy of the British government (one shared by the US government). He wanted to know why it is that the British government is so intent on fighting and bombing Islamic extremists in Mali, while simultaneously arming and funding equally brutal Islamic extremists in Syria (indeed, although it was once taboo to mention, it is now widely reported in the most establishment venues such as the New York Times that while many ordinary Syrians are fighting against the savagery and tyranny of Assad, Islamic extremists, including ones loyal to al-Qaida, are playing a major role in the war against the regime). The same question could have been posed regarding Libya, where NATO-supported rebel factions were filled with fighters with all sorts of links to al-Qaida.

There certainly are reasonable answers to Galloway's point, but whatever one's views might be on those points, there's no denying it's a reasonable question. It is simply the case that the British government, along with its NATO allies including the US, were -- in both the wars in Syria and Libya -- on the same side as, and even arming and funding, the very extremists, "jihaidists," and even al-Qaida-supporting fighters they claim pose the greatest menace to world peace.

In lieu of addressing the substance of the question, Cameron unleashed a 10-second snide attack on Galloway himself. "Some things come and go," proclaimed the Prime Minister, "but there is one thing that is certain: wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator in the world, he will have the support of [Galloway]."

As usual, anyone who questions the militarism of western governments is instantly smeared as a sympathizer or even supporter of tyrants. Thus, those who opposed the aggressive attack on Iraq were pro-Saddam; those who now oppose bombing Iran love the mullahs; those who oppose NATO intervention in Syria or Libya harbor affection for Assad and Ghadaffi -- just as those who opposed the Vietnam War 50 years ago or Reagan's brutal covert wars in Latin America 30 years ago were Communist sympathizers, etc., etc. Cameron's outburst was just the standard smear tactic used for decades by western leaders to try to discredit anyone who opposes their wars.

The more important point here is that of all the people on the planet, there is nobody with less authority to accuse others of supporting "brutal Arab dictators in the world" than David Cameron and his NATO allies, including those in the Obama administration. Supporting "brutal Arab dictators in the world" is a perfect summary of the west's approach to the Arab world for the last five decades, and it continues to be.

...As Maryam Al-Khawaja of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said: "The US, UK and France attack Russia for providing weapons to Syria, but that's exactly what they are doing for the Bahrain government; Russia is criticised for a naval base in Syria, but the US has one here." Of course, Bahrain wasn't the only close UK ally to violently attack democratic protesters in the kingdom. "During last year's uprising, Saudi Arabia sent forces to Bahrain in British military trucks."

Then there's Britain's long-standing support for the Mubarak dictatorship, and Cameron's personal support for Mubarak as the protest movement unfolded. In January, 2011, as tens of thousands of Egyptians assembled to demand an end to their dictatorship, he sat for an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, who asked him whether Mubarak should resign. Cameron said: "What we support is evolution, reform, not revolution." As Egyptian police were killing protesters, this exchange then occurred:

"ZAKARIA: Is Mubarak a friend of Britain?

"CAMERON: He is a friend of Britain. Britain has good relations with Egypt."

The following month, as Mubarak's crackdown intensified, "the British government refuse[d] to say whether it would follow the example of Germany and France and suspend exports of arms and riot control equipment to Egypt." In 2009, Britain sold 16.4m worth of arms to the regime in Egypt.

In 2010, the UK granted licenses for the sale of arms to Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the UAE and Yemen. In July of that year, shortly after Cameron assumed office, "the Scrutiny of Arms Exports report by the Parliamentary Committee on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) show[ed] that there are still 600 existing arms exports licences in place for the sale of goods including assault weapons, ammunition, and surveillence equipment, to Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen." In 2011, Der Spiegel reported:

"Britain exported over 100 million ($142 million) in weapons to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the last two years alone. Included in those shipments are sniper rifles that may currently be in use against the Libyan opposition. Furthermore, Gadhafi's terror police are British-trained."

So who exactly is it that is guilty of supporting every "brutal Arab dictator in the world"? At the top of any honest list, one would find David Cameron, along with the leaders of most leading NATO countries, beginning with the US (see here and here). Indeed, as Der Spiegel noted in April 2011 about yet another of Cameron's trips to visit Arab tyrants: "Cameron flew on to Kuwait, where he got down to the real purpose of his trip: selling weapons to Arab autocrats."

Cameron's so-called "slapdown" of Galloway was predictably celebrated in many precincts. The reality, though, is that it was quite cowardly: he refused to answer Galloway's question, then smeared him, knowing that he could not reply, then simply moved on to the next questioner. Galloway was able to respond afterward only by posting an open letter on his website, noting the multiple Arab dictators steadfastly supported not by Galloway but by his accuser, David Cameron.

...In sum, any list of those lending support "wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator in the world" must begin with the leaders of the US and the UK in order to have any minimal credibility.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Republicans Trash Two State Solution For Palestine & Chuck Hagel Compares Iraqi Debacle to Vietnam & UN Chastises Israeli' Settlements & Israel's Anti-Ethiopan Racist Policy & Obama's Drone War

To borrow from the president's style-book, "We the People" have been complicit in ignoring this wretched slaughter. "We the People," who cringe in horror at the slaying of 20 innocent first graders in Newtown, Connecticut, don't spare a thought or a tear for the thousands of innocent children killed in our name by our "heroic" forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, by our Presidentially-targeted drone aircraft in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and by our weapons in the hands of allies and rebel fighters in places like Syria, Gaza, the West Bank of Palestine, Somalia, and elsewhere.

Quote from: Hey, Hey Barack! What Do You Say? How Many Kids Have You Killed Today? by Dave Lindorff, OPEDNews, Jan. 27, 2013

And the reality of Drone attacks wantonly and purposely murdering civilians to terrorize the people and their country to be more compliant to USA.
Unfortunately Americans & others in the West are unable to identify and empathize with the children killed by US and British Drone Attacks.

This 8-year-old was one of Obama's first child drone victims by ThisCantBeHappening

According to Republicans as we see in the confirmation hearings of Chuck Hagel the most important issue for American foreign policy is America's continuing unconditional support of Israel .

Secondly like Obama and the Democrats the Republicans have also made it clear that they too see Iran as the most dangerous nation in the world and are out to overthrow the government of Iran by force and by invasion if necessary even though Iran is not a threat to Israel or the USA . But if pushed into a corner and fearing for its very survival the Iranian government and its people will if necessary fight back as the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have as did the peoples of Vietnam when America invaded and occupied that sovereign nation.

As an aside it is too bad that Americans such as John Kerry the one time leader of the Anti-war movement who took part in the Vietnam debacle and who watched as the most powerful military in the world was forced to leave Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos etc. having been defeated fear or as a failure of imagination refuse or cannot see the parallels comparing that sort of insane imperialism or neo-colonialism in Vietnam with what the USA is now doing in the Middle East and Africa . And so surprisingly Chuck Hagel compared the Iraq war as a debacle equivalent to Vietnam.

As we discovered in the late 1960s the US government and military were lying about the war and its progress which was negligible . The majority of the people of South Vietnam as the occupation continued began as did the Iraqis in recent years to become part of a growing insurgency . So it was not just the North Vietnamese or Vietcong who were fighting the Americans. The people of Vietnam like the people of Iraq wanted their sovereignty returned to them so they could rid themselves of the Americans and the corrupt Vietnamese who had become puppets for the Americans.

In the lead up to both wars the government , the military and the quisling media bombarded the public with propaganda convincing the citizens that this war would be a crucial point in American history in protecting itself once and for all and defending democracy and Western Civilization from the horror and nightmare in Vietnam's case Communism and Atheism, in the case of Iraq or Afghanistan, or Libya, or Syria or Iran terrorism, and Islamic World Khalif and other things that go bump in the night.


Hagel Takes On McCain: Calls Iraq War ‘Most Fundamentally Bad, Dangerous Decision Since Vietnam’ By Hayes Brown, Thinkprogress.org, Jan 31, 2013

The confirmation hearing of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to take on the role of Secretary of Defense — already sure to be testy — heated up with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pointedly asking Hagel to justify his stance on the Iraq War.

McCain, an ardent supporter of the Iraq War from the start, began his questioning of Hagel by asking about the latter’s past statements regarding the so-called “surge” of forces into Iraq in 2007. Hagel, by then a vocal critic of the war, came out strongly against adding additional troops to the conflict soon after the policy’s announcement — just like President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had — calling it “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.”

Hagel didn’t back away from previous statements, saying “Senator, I stand by them, because I made them.” When McCain continued to push Hagel, refusing to allow him to offer a nuanced response to the question of the surge, the Nebraska Republican shot back, noting that the surge tactic took place in the wider context of the most “dangerous decision since Vietnam”:

MCCAIN: Are you going to answer the question? Were you right or wrong? That’s a straightforward question. Answer whether you are right or wrong and then you are free to elaborate.

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no answer.

MCCAIN: Let the record show he refuses to answer the question. Please go ahead.

[...]

HAGEL: I’m not going to give you a yes or no. It’s far more complicated than that. I will defer that judgment to history. As to the comment I made about the most dangerous foreign policy decision since Vietnam, that was about not just the surge, but the overall war of choice going into Iraq. That particular decision made on the surge, but more to the point, our war in Iraq, I think was the most fundamentally bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam.

President Obama in his inaugural address as usual acts as if he were on the side of peace and democracy and human rights and the Rule of Law when in fact he has by his actions has shown himself to be as bad as previous presidents . He supports multiple wars in the name of peace. He bombs countries wantonly murdering innocent civilians and then through a bit of what might be called "creative accounting" counts the dead as all or mostly terrorists or Taliban or insurgents afterall they are not Americans and that's what matters. A hundred civilians are killed by a brutal Drone attack it barely makes the news 3 Americans killed its headline news.

Thousands are murdered in the name of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny or as part of God's plan for America and the American people cheer , US troops hunt down civilians for fun in Iraq or Afghanistan that's covered up along with the rapes and the torture committed by US troops and we are supposed to believe those soldiers were just a few bad apples rather than as it was policy in Vietnam it has been in Iraq and Afghanistan free fire zones or as one general called it a turkey shoot all in the name of spreading democracy and freedom and extending the boarders of America and Christendom in this newest Crusade.

And still the body count soars and even progressives and self-proclaimed liberals refuse to see what has and is still taking place. Meanwhile the ware is expanded to include Syria, Libya, Mali, Yemen and next stop Iran. While Israel tramples on the rights of Palestinians and Arab Israelis in its overtly racist Apartheid state claiming it is their God Given Right to cleanse all of Greater Israel of non-Jews. Gaza is still the world's largest open air prison even after Obama is now in a second term. Obama appears to be in competition with former presidents to prove how Hawkish he is and how little he cares for human rights or civil rights inside and outside America.

Hey, Hey Barack! What Do You Say? How Many Kids Have You Killed Today? by Dave Lindorff, OPEDNews, Jan. 27, 2013

I personally found the president's inaugural speech not just insipid, but disgusting. It reached its gut-churning nadir near the end where he said:

" We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war... We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully -- not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear...And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice -- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice."

As he spoke, US factories were turning out, under the terms of Pentagon contracts, fleets of drone aircraft that daily are raining explosives down on innocent men, women and children in countries that the US is not even at war with. Most of those drone attacks are personally approved by our Nobel Peace Laureate president, who has claimed the right -- unchallenged by either Congress or the Judiciary -- to order the liquidation or anyone he deems to be a terrorist, as well as anyone, even children, who happens to be in the vicinity of such a person.

The result of this policy of state terrorism has been a wretched, criminal slaughter of children -- a slaughter that has been hidden from view, and denied wholesale by the Pentagon and the president.

To borrow from the president's style-book, "We the People" have been complicit in ignoring this wretched slaughter. "We the People," who cringe in horror at the slaying of 20 innocent first graders in Newtown, Connecticut, don't spare a thought or a tear for the thousands of innocent children killed in our name by our "heroic" forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, by our Presidentially-targeted drone aircraft in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and by our weapons in the hands of allies and rebel fighters in places like Syria, Gaza, the West Bank of Palestine, Somalia, and elsewhere.

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The United Nations this week surprised many by harshly criticizing Israeli government for the expanding of the so called settlements in Arab lands which has created an unbearable situation for the Arab and Palestinian people who's civil and human rights are trampled upon by the Jewish settlers and the IDF on a daily basis. The UN concluded that what is taking place is a form of ethnic cleansing that is killing off or forcing all Palestinians to leave their lands which are now being occupied by Jewish settlers who have no rights to that land. But all of this sincere attempt to document Israel's crimes is all for naught because the UN otherwise is a puppet of the USA as America proved in presenting its Cooked -up evidence which was pure BS in order to invade Iraq which pose no threat to anyone and now the Americans are revving up for war against Iran and Syria and Lebanon and possibly Russia in what's become Obama's scorched earth policy.

According to ultra orthodox Jews the land belongs to the Jewish people because God gave it to their ancestors the ancient Hebrews or Israelites some 3,000 years ago .

If that's the legal case they have then Persians aka Iranians should have their lands returned to them which they controlled a couple of thousand years ago . And shouldn't the American and Canadian, and Mexican and other Central and South American governments be forced to give back the land their European ancestors stole from Native Americans that is the aboriginal peoples who were given the land from the Arctic Circle to Tierra Del Fuego to care for by their God or Gods or the great Spirit etc. . If Israel's founders can make such claims so can others. Such a claim acted into International Law becomes a precedent a way to jusdge other similar cases.


"Israel Must Remove All Jewish Settlers from Occupied West Bank - UN Inquiry" By RT via Information Clearing House ,Feb.01, 2013

A UN human rights inquiry has called on Israel to remove all Jewish settlers from the West Bank and cease expansion. The report said the settlements violate international law, and are an attempt to drive out Palestinians through intimidation.

­"Israel must, in compliance with article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlement activities without preconditions,” the report read, adding that Israel must immediately begin to withdraw all settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).

The inquiry prompted a strong reaction from Israel who slammed the report as biased.

"The Human Rights Council has sadly distinguished itself by its systematically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel. This latest report is yet another unfortunate reminder of that," said spokesman Yigal Palmor in a statement.

The 1949 Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer of a civilian population into an occupied area – such an act could constitute war crimes if brought before the International Criminal Court. Following the UN’s de facto recognition of Palestine last December, Israel announced plans to build thousands of homes in the OPT.

In response, Palestine wrote to the UN warning that Israel's planned expansion into the occupied territories would lead to more war crimes being committed.

The UN investigators interviewed over 50 people who were driven from their homes. They described how their livelihoods were destroyed and their land was confiscated, and how they were subjected to continuous violence from Jewish settlers.

"The mission believes that the motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians as well as their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand," said the report.

The report has the potential to significantly worsen the UN’s already-strained relationship with Israel, particularly after Israeli representatives failed to appear at a UN human rights review two days ago.

The Israeli government has repeatedly ignored international condemnations of its settlements in the occupied territories, and continues to bar the entry of a Human Rights Council probe to assess the impact of the settlements. Israel has insisted that the organization is biased in favor of the Palestinians, and claimed that historic and biblical ties justify its claim to the territories.

And now another Israeli scandal comes to light as Israel's own racist /Eugenics policy has been revealed by a media investigation documentary . It appears Israel ordered that Ethiopian Jewish refugees were either secretly or under duress were given birth control medication to control the population growth of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. The investigation began because the Ethiopian women were giving birth 50% lower than normal.

So the question arises was this policy due to racism or other concerns. If racist then this highlights the racist attitudes of those in power in Israel. And it can be surmised that the racist attitudes of Israeli extremist in positions of authority in the Israeli government extends beyond that of their hatred of all Arabs whom they refer to as 'barbaric" as "dogs" as "vermin" etc. but also to Ethiopians and black people in general.

This would appear to fall under the category of racial control or eugenics or even possibly ethnic cleansing or genocide. Genocide is defines as a deliberate method of reducing the population of a targeted group and does not have to be an attempt to wipe out all members of the targeted group defined as an ethnic, racial or religious or cultural community.

Genocide is of course usually used referring to the Nazi plan of the Holocaust or Shoah which in fact became a more singular event because of the various means used . The NAZI plan was an obvious case of "genocide" though it is not the only case of genocide in the dark history of human kind. But genocide has a much broader definition which goes beyond the specific case of the Shoah which stands out as a singular event .

In the case of the NAZIs their goal was to wipe out all Jews everywhere. Whereas Others who have committed Genocide have been content with reducing the population by other means rather than just outright slaughter while also attacking the culture, traditions , language and religion of the targeted group. This broader definition of Genocide according to International Law since the Nuremberg Trials includes what historically has been done to various targeted groups such as the aboriginal or first nations peoples around the globe in Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and the rest of the Americas or in the case of African Americans who were enslaved and slaughtered robbed of their languages, their religious beliefs, their traditions their family and tribal connections which also continued after slavery and even after the civil rights movement in America.

Over the centuries in Europe the main targeted groups were the Jewish people and the Roma aka Gypsies and today the Roma in Europe are still being targeted and persecuted treated as outsiders as "the Other" even now in 2013 and are still treated as an easy scapegoat for those in authority to blame whenever there are severe problems in a European nation.

Journalists such as Max Blumenthal have documented some of the racist views held by some Israeli Jews for instance Israeli citizens using the 'N' word when referring to President Obama .

Israel admits Ethiopian women were given birth control shots" Democratic Underground , Jan. 26, 2013

Israel admits Ethiopian women were given birth control shots

Health Minister director general instructs all gynecologists in Israel's four health maintenance organizations not to inject women with long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera if they do not understand ramifications of treatment.

By Talila Nesher | Jan.27, 2013 | 2:29 AM |

A government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera.

Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu has instructed the four health maintenance organizations to stop the practice as a matter of course. The ministry and other state agencies had previously denied knowledge or responsibility for the practice, which was first reported five years ago. Gamzu’s letter instructed “all gynecologists in the HMOs not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.” Gamzu also instructed physicians to avail themselves of translators if need be.

Gamzu’s letter came in response to a letter from Sharona Eliahu-Chai of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, representing several women’s rights and Ethiopian immigrants’ groups. The letter demanded the injections cease immediately and that an investigation be launched into the practice.

About six weeks ago, on an Educational Television program journalist Gal Gabbay revealed the results of interviews with 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection. “They told us they are inoculations,” said one of the women interviewed. “They told us people who frequently give birth suffer. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.”

and so it goes,
GORD.