News & Opinion
www.globalresearch.ca/orders-to-kill-martin-luther-king-the-government-that-honors-mlk-with-a-nat...
Rep. Jerry Nadler: Trump a 'Dictator' Whose Behavior 'Has No Analog' in US History
The New York Democrat's accusation came a day after he said Trump's behavior "puts even President Nixon to shame."www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-rosy-economic-outlook-is-a-big-lie/
Trump’s Rosy Economic Outlook Is a Big Lie
The president thinks he can weather impeachment by exaggerating U.S. successes. But his superlatives don’t reflect reality.
It is January 2019. This signals the start of the 2020 election circus. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the first big-name Democrat on stage. But we will soon be deluged with candidates, bizarre antics and endless commentary by fatuous TV and radio pundits. The hyperventilating, the constant polling, the updates on who has the largest campaign war chest, the hypothetical matches between this hopeful and that hopeful, the mocking tweets by Donald Trump, will, as we saw in the 2016 election campaign, have as much relevance to our lives and political future as the speculation on cable sports channels about next year’s football season. This farce takes the place of genuine political life.
It costs a lot of money to mount this spectacle. Our corporate masters, like the oligarchic rulers of ancient Rome who poured money into the arena as they stripped the empire and its citizens of their assets, are happy to oblige. The campaign sustains the fiction of a democracy and gives legitimacy to the corporate state. Maybe Hillary Clinton, who raised $1 billion in her 2016 run for president, will return for another season, although the Bill and Hillary tour is now a debacle with empty seats and slashed ticket prices. Maybe Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will make comebacks. And what about the new faces in the scramble for the presidency—Beto O’Rourke, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg?
It is a political version of the reality television show “Survivor.” Who will be the first knocked out? Who will make it into the semifinals and the finals? Who is the most devious and cunning? Who will come out on top? We get to vote for the contestants that appeal to us most, or at least vote against those we hate the most. The cable news shows, in a prelude to the nonstop idiocy to come, have spent the last few days speculating about whom Mitt Romney will endorse in the 2020 race. Now there’s a burning question of national importance.
bit.ly/2uiEH5A
The War in Afghanistan Is a Fraud (and Now We Have Proof)
Let’s take a moment to consider the motivations and goals of this 19-year-old military operation.Full-Scale War Is Avoided And Trump Goes Right Back To Warmongering
by Caitlin Johnstone
The United States and Iran entered into a direct military exchange for the first time ever with the drone assassination of General Qassem Soleimani last week and a retaliatory strike from Iran via surface-to-surface missiles upon two US military bases on Wednesday.
As usual it was the less powerful nation who exercised restraint, with Iran skillfully targeting the bases' military capabilities but taking measures to successfully avoid any casualties. The two nations de-escalated back down to their previous high level of dangerous hostilities with an understanding between them that neither side wants a full-scale war. Both sides played "chicken" and both sides swerved, and they know that about each other now.
So that was a relief. We were all forced to hold our breath and hope against hope that cooler heads would prevail after the senseless assassination of a sovereign nation's top military official, and they did. A full-scale war that would have dwarfed Iraq and Vietnam in terms of death, destruction and destabilization was averted.
And then Trump immediately went right back to warmongering.
caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/09/full-scale-war-is-avoided-and-trump-goes-right-back-to-warmongering/
Full-Scale War Is Avoided And Trump Goes Right Back To Warmongering
The United States and Iran entered into a direct military exchange for the first time ever with the drone assassination of General Qassem Soleimani last week and a retaliatory strike from Iran via …
Iran Strikes Back at U.S. With Missile Attack on Bases in Iraq
Iranian state TV said the attack was launched in revenge for the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Rockets Fired After Day of Mourning for Slain Iranian Leader
Rocket falls near U.S. Embassy in Iraq hours after funeral for Qassem Soleimani at which crowd chants "Death to America, death to Israel."
Trump's Trade War Is Crushing Small Business
A new investigation reveals how the president's tariffs have massively enriched lobbyists while taking a steep toll on the middle class.
“We Do Not Seek War,” Says President Who Just Started A War
President Trump has been steadfastly assuring the world that the United States government does not wish to start the war it has already started by assassinating Iran’s top general. “We are a …Chris Hedges (author of this article) and many others figure the US empire is getting close to its ultimate destruction and their reasoning comes by comparison to empires of the past... like Rome. They might be right and for many good reasons... but who knows, right? Trump & Company wants a war with Iran and they are coming very close to getting one. In my humble opinion, that is extremely stupid... not because we might lose but that it can easily lead to much larger things. If you're wondering about reasons for such a war, check the current stock values, profit levels, and/or production levels of all the big manufacturers of weapons and other military gear... plus, we have been after control of that country for many years.
"The assassination by the United States of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, near Baghdad’s airport will ignite widespread retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets from Shiites, who form the majority in Iraq. It will activate Iranian-backed militias and insurgents in Lebanon and Syria and throughout the Middle East. The existing mayhem, violence, failed states and war, the result of nearly two decades of U.S. blunders and miscalculations in the region, will become an even wider and more dangerous conflagration. The consequences are ominous. Not only will the U.S. swiftly find itself under siege in Iraq and perhaps driven out of the country—there is only a paltry force of 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, all U.S. citizens in Iraq have been told to leave the country “immediately” and the embassy and consular services have been closed—but the situation could also draw us into a war directly with Iran. The American Empire, it seems, will die not with a whimper but a bang."
bit.ly/2rWhjdt
Iran has got to know that picking a fight with us is bound to be suicide so you have to figure they do not want such a war. This move looks to me like the US is setting the stage for another false flag event like 9/11 so they can try and justify the war they are starting to the American people.
Robert Reich: Corporate Social Responsibility Is a Scam
If companies like General Motors and AT&T really cared about the public, they'd empower their workers and back laws that raised their taxes.
The Devastation of the Australian Wildfires Almost Defies Belief
Ecologists at the University of Sydney estimate as many as half a billion animals have perished in the blaze, including entire species.
Proof Oil Companies Own America's Political System
A new probe finds Louisiana has failed to pursue millions in remediation for spills—money environmental groups say they desperately need.Better not speak out against the US government in public.... that would make you a terrorist. Sure, you have the right to free speech, as long as your fascist oligarchy government approves.
bit.ly/2QpTiDK
In New Documentary, Animal Rights Activists Prosecuted as Terrorists
A new documentary “The Animal People” tells the story of the SHAC 7, who were sentenced to prison on terrorism charges over their protest activity.
Merry Christmas, America! Let’s Remember the Children Who Live in Fear of Our Killer Drones.
This Christmas, let’s tell the truth about America’s killer drones and the new form of terror they bring to children around the world.www.thenation.com/article/korea-war-nuclear-arms/
A Low-Intensity War Is Underway in Northeast Asia
Beneath the radar in Korea, a military buildup—by both sides—has raised tensions to an alarming degree.www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition?recruiter=30481187...
The Short Road: Democracy to Fascism - Global Research
Fascism is a political ideology fundamentally authoritarian, with a strong nationalism and a militaristic outlook. Fascism carries primarily a corporate perspective directed to satisfying the needs, values and objectives of finance and corporations,
The Amazon at a Tipping Point - CounterPunch.org
The Amazon rainforest is a crucial life-support ecosystem. Without its wondrous strength and power to generate hydrologic systems across the sky (as far north as Iowa), absorb and store carbon (CO2), and its miraculous life-giving endless supply of oxygen, civilization would cease to exist beyond sc...
The Impeachment's Moral Hypocrisy
It wasn't about restoring the rule of law: The House ignored the more serious violations by Trump that had been normalized by Obama and Bush.www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/24/would-refugee-baby-jesus-have-been-torn-marys-arms-trump
Would Refugee Baby Jesus Have Been Torn From Mary’s Arms by Trump?
These American, Christian politicians would not have admitted the holy family when they fled Herod the Great... In this political season in which refugees have become a political football, it is worthwhile remembering that baby Jesus is depicted by the Bible as being a political refugee not once but...The consequences of Trump’s and the Republicans’ excessive corporate giveaways and their failure to improve the lives of ordinary working Americans are becoming clearer by the day.
www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/24/how-trump-has-betrayed-working-class
How Trump Has Betrayed the Working Class
The consequences of Trump’s and the Republicans’ excessive corporate giveaways and their failure to improve the lives of ordinary working Americans are becoming clearer by the day... For a century the GOP has been bankrolled by big business and Wall Street. Trump wants to keep the money rolling ..."Quiet folks, the idiot speaks again."
www.commondreams.org/further/2019/12/22/i-know-windmills-very-much
Another example of how our government thinks nothing of murdering US citizens.
bit.ly/2t0nU6y
Trump's EPA Goes to Bat for Bayer as Company Fights $25 Million Verdict in Roundup Cancer Case
The chemical company is asking a federal appeals court to reverse its ruling in favor of a California man suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"They want to destroy every part of Social Security, including retirement benefits, and turn it over to their criminal friends on Wall Street. We must stop Trump's plan."
—Alex Lawson, Social Security Works
Of course, our government thinks nothing of murdering US citizens if it means more money for the rich. 9/11 is our best example. —Me
www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/23/cutting-social-security-murder-flood-public-outrage-greets-t...
www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/21/everything-burning-australian-inferno-continues-choking-acce...
caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/22/why-everything-is-fucked/
When I was in the 2nd grade, about 1964/5, they wanted me to stand with the rest of the class every morning and and speak the Pledge of Allegiance. I refused. The beginnings of the Vietnam War were on the national news along with many other things that might tell you there were things wrong with this country... plus, even at the age of about 7 I would not pledge myself to something I had yet to understand. Makes sense, right? How was I supposed to know what exactly it was that they wanted me to pledge my allegiance to.... They tried to convince me but were unsuccessful.
Years later, after I did away with the alcohol and drug lifestyle, I wanted to learn the truth about what goes on in this country and the world. So, beginning in 2013, I discovered sources that would give that to me. I was interested in learning to build websites so I decided to share these sources. I created this page to do it. sungraffix.net/village-spirit.html I have since discovered that what they wanted me to pledge to in the 1960's was and is an extremely corrupt institution and that my young intuition was right not to stand and speak. Of course, we, as the citizens of this country, could change all that, but we have to become informed and we have to act.
I wanted to know who I was and where I came from. My father had told me little bits and pieces when I was a child and I wanted to know more. Fortunately for me there turns out to be much of it to be found thanks to some notable people in my ancestry and I created this page: sungraffix.net/heston-ancestry.html
I was not buzzed on alcohol or high on drugs during most of my free time so I needed a philosophy to live by. I think everyone should develop their own and not just take someone else's for granted so I looked to the philosophers to learn. I do not follow any of them but I try to learn from them all. I decided to share some of those philosophers here: sungraffix.net/philosophy.html
I have found that our government is really a fascist oligarchy, we have recently slaughtered millions of innocent people, most of us are essentially just modern slaves, our environment is screwed thanks to all sorts of pollution and the list goes on, but the most significant thing of all that I have found I wrote about in this article: sungraffix.net/hypercriticalmode/hello-world/ ...people around the world are beginning to become aware, but it may be too little, too late.
There turns out to be some very significant things I have learned about that compelled me to write about them myself. I'm not that great of a writer but I did okay. You can find them here: sungraffix.net/hypercriticalmode/
If you would like something to help you understand why things are the way they are then watch these documentaries... the Zeitgeist films at the top of this page: sungraffix.net/hypercriticalmode/av-lounge/
www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/13/arms-expert-warns-reckless-and-unnecessary-escalation-after-...
www.truthdig.com/articles/politicians-stand-in-the-way-of-a-global-green-energy-revolution/
Politicians Stand in the Way of a Green Energy Revolution
Implementing cheap renewable energies worldwide should be a no-brainer, but there is a reason our leaders are hesitating.www.truthdig.com/articles/plutocrats-are-trying-to-buy-the-democratic-nomination/
Plutocrats Are Trying to Buy the Democratic Nomination
Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg: All are bent on preventing a progressive victory in 2020.www.truthdig.com/articles/the-scariest-climate-stories-emerging-from-the-arctic/
The Scariest Climate Stories Emerging From the Arctic
The NOAA's annual report on the Arctic contains some terrifying findings. Here are just 5 of the most worrying ones.www.truthdig.com/articles/afghanistan-the-generals-long-con/
The Generals’ Long Con on Afghanistan
I doubt I’ll ever again trust the assertions and promises of the military's top brass. And I’m not in bad company.
www.truthdig.com/articles/afghanistan-papers-confirm-that-the-longest-war-is-a-lie/
The Afghanistan Papers Confirm America's Longest War Is a Lie
It was clear to those who had been paying attention that U.S. officials were lying about the war for nearly two decades.caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/06/fake-news-by-omission%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8athe-mass-medias-cowardly-...
Fake News By Omission : The Mass Media’s Cowardly Distortion Tool
Western mass media have continued their conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal, making no significant mention yet this month of the leaks which have been emerging from the Organisation for the P…A Surefire Cure For Despair
by Caitlin Johnstone
"I can't go on. I'll go on."
~ Samuel Beckett
Sometimes it just gets to be too goddamn much. You just finished a soul-draining argument with a family member who insists that Putin controls all major world events because that's what the TV said so it must be true, then you check the poll numbers for the upcoming elections in the US and UK and you see your favorite candidates just don't have the kind of numbers they're going to need, the latest revelation that the US and its allies deceived the world about what's happening in Syria has been completely swept under the rug by the establishment news churn, Bolivia has been taken over by US-backed Christian fascists, and now you're watching Mike Pompeo's stupid asshole face spouting some made-up bullshit about Iran that you know the news media will never hold him accountable for.
And it's just too goddamn much.
To become oppositional to the status quo is to enter into a long-term relationship with despair. It's not a monogamous relationship; you'll have the occasional affair with anger, a fling with fear, a rendezvous with rage, and every once in a while even a brief tryst with triumph. But you always end up drunkenly stumbling home to bed with the old ball-and-chain despair.
Every time you think you might have the bastards on the ropes, every time you see a shining crack in the cage, a glowing glitch in the matrix, it's quickly covered up by some gibberish about Russia or empty shrieking about Donald Trump, and then everyone's herded along into the next authorised imperial narrative.
This is because the deck is stacked so very high against you. The rulers of the empire have all the money, all the resources, all the infrastructure and almost all the media, and they use these advantages ceaselessly to shift things around in order to prevent the unwashed masses from rising up and toppling their palaces.
It's possible to avoid confronting this reality by busying oneself with activism and information, but at some point despair always kicks in.
So what do you do? I get asked this all the time.
"How do you stay so optimistic, Caitlin?" people often ask me. "How, in the face of so much deception, exploitation and oppression, do you avoid giving in to despair?"
Well I'll tell you my secret: I don't.
I don't avoid despair at all. I give into it fully, over and over and over again.
Whenever things seem hopeless and I feel like I'm bashing my head against a solid brick wall, I just say, "Fine then. I quit."
And then I do.
I quit fully. I let go of the entire battle. I let go of all the responsibility I feel to help create a better world. I let go of my desire to stick it to the bastards, and I relinquish every inch of skin I've got in this game. I lay down (sometimes literally), and I stop struggling against the relentless tide of establishment evil.
And I feel a tremendous relief. Ah, what a great feeling! To no longer be holding the world together with my efforts!
Having been granted the thing that it wanted, the crushing weight of despair is lifted from my chest. It snatches its terrible prize and slithers off to gnaw on it in a dark corner somewhere.
And then something interesting happens. The world keeps turning. And it doesn't fall apart.
It's the darndest thing. I stopped holding off armageddon through sheer force of will, yet the world remains. The sun comes up, the birds chirp, the internet forum debates continue, and my lungs keep taking in oxygen.
A lot of magic can happen in that space. When you quit. When you relinquish the illusion that your sustained, straining willpower has anything to do with the continued battle against corruption and bloodshed.
Because in that moment you see clearly that it's got nothing to do with you. Anti-imperialists pick up their weapons and begin the battle anew each morning, regardless of anything you're doing or saying. Your body keeps taking in air, pumping blood and digesting food regardless of anything you're doing or saying. And, without the assistance of any Atlas-like effort on your part whatsoever, you'll notice that your body also re-engages in the battle.
Because what the hell else is it going to do? Not fight? Of course not. What has been seen will never be unseen. Your operating system isn't going to stop fighting the bad guys just because you stopped willing it to, any more than your body will refrain from putting its arms up when someone throws a baseball at your head.
You can trust that your whole body-brain-organism-thingy will keep fighting with or without the sustained straining of your personal willpower. And that works out nicely, because it's the sustained straining of your personal willpower that creates the sense of despair. If you aren't constantly straining to win elections, expose wrongdoing, topple the oligarchs and end wars by sheer force of will, and are rather just picking up your weapons of truth and compassion and doing what comes naturally to you from moment to moment, then despair really has nothing to work with, because you're not fixated on some remote end-goal that keeps getting obstacles thrown in front of it.
Journalist Chris Hedges once said, “I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.” It's the fighting itself that matters, and you can trust that that fighting will continue even without your sustained personal will.
Don't take my word for it. Next time you find yourself feeling like you can't go on fighting this fight anymore, just give up. Quit. Then watch what happens. Before long you'll see your fingers typing dissident ideas onto screens, you'll hear your voice speaking unauthorized truths, you'll watch your mind forming forbidden ideas. And it will all be happening without "you", without the sustained personal effort of the thing you take yourself to be.
This fight will fight itself, if you let it. And it can actually fight a lot more efficiently without the sustained sense of personal effort constantly bogging the whole process down with frustration and despair. Just let your body's operating system fight this one on its own. It doesn't need your help.
And in the end, maybe the war will be won. Maybe it won't. It's really none of your business. Your job is to let your organism fight for its life, as it's been conditioned to do by millions of years of evolution. That evolutionary drive to survive was here long before you showed up, and it will remain after you're gone. It's got nothing to do with you. So stand back and let it fight.
I know that many of you have been happy to just live an illusion... you know, the one they offer you in the mass media with all the total bullshit they spout in the various network news programs and even with the nature of content in most of your shows and movies. It's easy to just let the system program you, after all, they have been doing it since you were a small child. However, some of us go to the trouble to learn what is really happening in the world and we have sources to learn from that anyone can use. To know all these things can be despairing sometimes.... There's a lot of horrible shit happening overseas and especially in and to this country that most people simply know nothing about. If you think you can handle the truth and you are willing to read, watch, and listen then go here: sungraffix.net/village-spirit.html ...and use the links provided to discover it all for yourself.
truthout.org/articles/a-new-generation-is-rising-up-to-resist-neoliberalism-across-the-globe/
A New Generation Is Rising Up to Resist Neoliberalism Across the Globe
In Chile, Ecuador, Lebanon, Haiti, Iraq and beyond, international working-class solidarity is growing.e360.yale.edu/features/amazon-watch-what-happens-when-the-forest-disappears
Amazon Watch: What Happens When the Forest Disappears?
At a remote site where the world’s largest rainforest abuts land cleared for big agriculture, Brazilian and American scientists are keeping watch for a critical tipping point – the time when the Amazon ceases to be a carbon sink and turns into a source of carbon emissions.Xiye Bastida Patrick, a New York high school student, has become a key leader in the growing youth climate movement. In an e360 interview, she talks about why students are taking to the streets to demand action and how this is changing the climate conversation globally.
e360.yale.edu/features/from-a-young-climate-movement-leader-a-determined-call-for-action
From a Young Climate Movement Leader, a Determined Call for Action
Xiye Bastida Patrick, a New York high school student, has become a key leader in the growing youth climate movement. In an e360 interview, she talks about why students are taking to the streets to demand action and how this is changing the climate conversation globally.e360.yale.edu/features/climate-whiplash-wild-swings-in-extreme-weather-are-on-the-rise
Climate Whiplash: Wild Swings in Extreme Weather Are on the Rise
As the world warms, scientists say that abrupt shifts in weather patterns — droughts followed by severe floods, or sudden and unseasonable fluctuations in temperature — are intensifying, adding yet another climate-related threat that is already affecting humans and natural world.e360.yale.edu/features/the-new-climate-math-the-numbers-keep-getting-more-frightening
The New Climate Math: The Numbers Keep Getting More Frightening
Scientists keep raising ever-louder alarms about the urgency of tackling climate change, but the world’s governments aren’t listening. Yet the latest numbers don’t lie: Nations now plan to keep producing more coal, oil, and gas than the planet can endure.LONDON, 28 November, 2019 – On the eve of a global climate summit in Madrid, seven distinguished climate scientists have issued an urgent warning of approaching planetary tipping points: within a few years, they say, humankind could enter a state of potentially catastrophic climate change on a new “hothouse” Earth.
They warn that dramatic changes to planetary stability may already be happening in nine vulnerable ecosystems. As these changes happen, they could reinforce each other and at the same time amplify planetary temperature rise, commit the oceans to inexorable sea level rise of around 10 metres, and threaten the existence of human civilisations.
climatenewsnetwork.net/earth-nears-irreversible-tipping-points/
Earth nears irreversible tipping points | Climate News Network
28 November, 2019 – Changes afoot now in at least nine areas could drastically alter the Earth’s climate. There's no time left to act on these tipping points.arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/11/accelerating-greenhouse-gas-levels.html
Accelerating greenhouse gas levels
Blog edited by Sam Carana, with news on climate change and warming in the Arctic due to snow and ice loss and methane releases from the seafloor.People worldwide poured into the streets Friday for a youth-led climate strike that aimed to pressure global governments to step up their efforts to tackle the planetary emergency at a key United Nations summit scheduled to start Monday.
"Striking is not a choice we relish; we do it because we see no other options," youth climate leaders Greta Thunberg of Sweden, Luisa Neubauer of Germany, and Angela Valenzuela of Chile wrote Friday in an op-ed for Project Syndicate.
"We have watched a string of United Nations climate conferences unfold," they added. "Countless negotiations have produced much-hyped but ultimately empty commitments from the world's governments—the same governments that allow fossil fuel companies to drill for ever-more oil and gas, and burn away our futures for their profit."
bit.ly/2L2Z3W0
'We See No Other Options': Youth Activists Lead Global #ClimateStrike Ahead of COP 25
"Countless negotiations have produced much-hyped but ultimately empty commitments from the world's governments."
Climate Tipping Points Could Hit Harder -- and Sooner -- Than We Think
A new paper warns that we are at risk of exceeding dangerous climate tipping points within a decade or two.
US Is Again Complicit in an Illegal Coup, This Time in Bolivia
This coup follows a sordid tradition of U.S. meddling in the political and economic affairs of Latin America.
Thanksgiving Is Dedicated to Erasing the Ruthlessness of English Settlers
Settler colonialism is based not on giving thanks but on the taking of Native life and land.
Americans Must Choose Between Life and Death in 2020
We could continue to fund military boondoggles and fruitless wars, or invest our money in a policy that the whole country will benefit from.Bob Dylan wrote a song many moons ago, and one of the lines went something like this: “Something is happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you?” And I won’t say the rest, but that song was called Ballad of a Thin Man. And we used to sing that song to the establishment back in the 60s when the world was being rocked by liberation movements and worldwide demonstrations. Now, from Colombia, to Hong Kong, to Haiti, Bolivia, Egypt, and Iran, and a dozen more countries, are exploding with demonstrations.
bit.ly/2q8Fy7m
Capitalism's Failures Have Ignited Protests Worldwide
From Chile to Lebanon to Hong Kong, people are rising up against an oppressive neoliberal order, explains journalist Ben Ehrenreich.
Google has been harvesting the health data of tens of millions of U.S. patients since 2018, unbeknownst to those patients or their doctors, as revealed by a Nov. 11 investigation by the Wall Street Journal. According to the story, Ascension, a private network of some 2,600 hospitals and other health care facilities, had been systematically feeding the medical information to Google’s cloud infrastructure in what amounts to the largest data transfer in the health care field. Google, in turn, plans to “suggest” changes to patients’ care, possibly via machine learning.
bit.ly/2OXPHff
Google Secretly Harvests the Health Data of Millions
Google has been harvesting the health data of tens of millions of U.S. patients since 2018, unbeknownst to those patients or their doctors, as revealed byIt should be obvious by now what the plan is for Julian Assange—psychological torture resulting in either a total breakdown or an untimely death, the latter supported by the psychopaths who claim they are our leaders. This psychological torture was noted, with standard corporate media disinterest, by Nils Melzer, an internationally recognized expert on torture treatment.
“Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr. Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life,” Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, said in a statement last week.
Melzer demanded “that London immediately take measures to protect Assange’s health and dignity… However, what we have seen from the UK Government is outright contempt for Mr. Assange’s rights and integrity… Despite the medical urgency of my appeal, and the seriousness of the alleged violations, the UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and redress required under international law.”
In America, the UK, and much of Europe, the financial elite and its political class consider truth-telling a cardinal sin, a crime punishable by death—not by lethal injection, but slowly and sadistically under a torture system tweaked by the CIA and put into action in rendition dungeons scattered around the world.
bit.ly/2OpLtOM
The Twilight of Liberty: The State Destroys Alternative Media - Global Research
It should be obvious by now what the plan is for Julian Assange—psychological torture resulting in either a total breakdown or an untimely death, the latter supported by the psychopaths who claim they are our leaders. This psychological torture was noted, with standard corporate media disinterest,...The quality of American education, as we will see, is far lower than the world has been led to believe, and the quality in China is in many cases much superior to that in the US. Americans might care to ask why it is that Chinese elementary or high school students moving to the US are often promoted by one or two grades. The reason is that they know so much more than their American counterparts they would suffer terminal boredom if forced to remain at their prior grade level. If we refer to the PISA tests, Shanghai’s math scores were 119 above the OECD average, or the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling, with reading and science exceeding the OECD average by about 1.5 years of schooling. And in some cases, the American students were behind the OECD average by approximately the same number of years as the Chinese were ahead.
The myth persists that the US has always led the world in quality of education, but this is nothing more than branding propaganda and part of the indoctrination process of American moral superiority that is wholly unsupported by facts. Consider this quote from an American education expert:
“The US has never been first in the world, nor even near the top, on any international tests. Consistently over the past half century, American students have typically scored near the median at best, but most often being in the bottom quartile. The historical record indicates that American elementary students are only average at best, their performance degrading year by year until high school seniors perform last in almost all international tests. The International Science Studies that began in high schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s found that 14-year-olds were below average and seniors scored last of all countries. In the International Mathematics tests that began in the 1960s, American high school seniors scored last of all nations. In the 1982 International Mathematics Study, high school seniors placed at the bottom on almost every test. In terms of the PISA tests, American students – placing last – are simply following the pattern that has been consistent for the past 50 years or more.”
Recent tests in the New York area show that less than half of all students are proficient in English and Math, and in some areas the number is as low as 13%. This is true in most of the country, literacy being marginal in most American secondary schools. In an article published in the San Jose Mercury in 2001, it was documented that 75% of California high school seniors could not read well enough to pass their exit exams.
bit.ly/2KY4xBo
Substandard Education in America - Global Research
We know all the criticisms. China’s children are taught only to memorise and not to think or question. They are rote-learning robots without capacity for original thought. They know only how to produce high scores but not to apply any knowledge. They have no creativity, no imagination, no concept ...Our allies in the Ukraine are, to a large degree, Nazis.
www.globalresearch.ca/eleventh-straight-year-united-states-votes-no-un-anti-nazi-resolution/5694703
Why Aren’t Americans Rising Up Like the People of Chile and Lebanon? - Global Research
The waves of protests breaking out in country after country around the world beg the question: Why aren’t Americans rising up in peaceful protest like our neighbors? We live at the very heart of this neoliberal system that is force-feeding the systemic injustice and inequality of 19th century lais..."FASCISM" -- Social Media Censorship Reaches New Heights as Twitter Permanently Bans Dissent shar.es/a3rFbI via @grtvnews
Social Media Censorship Reaches New Heights as Twitter Permanently Bans Dissent - Global Research
It’s an open secret. The deep state is working hand in hand with Silicon Valley social media giants like Twitter, Facebook and Google to control the flow of information. That includes suppressing, censoring and sometimes outright purging dissenting voices – all under the guise of fighting fake n...Lost in the media’s obsession with the impeachment circus last week was Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony on the state of the economy before the Joint Economic Committee. In his testimony, Chairman Powell warned that when the next recession inevitably occurs, the US Government’s over $23 trillion debt would prevent Congress from increasing spending to revive the economy.
Powell also said that the Fed’s current low interest rate policies would prevent the Fed from using its traditional methods of increasing the money supply and further lowering interest rates to jump-start economic growth in a recession. Hopefully, Powell is correct that when the next recession hits the Federal Reserve and Congress will be unable to “stimulate” the economy with cheap money and new spending.
Interest rates are the price of money and, as with all prices, government manipulation of interest rates distorts the signals regarding market conditions. Artificially low interest rates lead to malinvestment and the creation of bubbles. Recessions are a painful but necessary correction that allows the economy to cleanse itself of these distortions. When the Federal Reserve and Congress try to stimulate the economy, they introduce new distortions, making it impossible for the economy to heal itself. Fiscal and monetary stimulus may temporally create the illusions of prosperity, but in reality they merely create another bubble that will eventually burst starting the boom-and-bust cycle all over again. So, the best thing Congress and the Federal Reserve can do to help the economy recover from a recession is nothing.
Powell is the latest Federal Reserve Chair to warn of the dangers of government debt, which is ironic since the Federal Reserve is the great enabler of deficit spending. Government manipulation of the value of money allows politicians to hide the true costs of their warfare and welfare. This is why throughout history governments have sought the power to dictate what is and is not money and determine the value of the monetary unit. Today’s central bankers are the heirs of the medieval kings who shaved off the edges of gold coins, then ordered the people to pretend that shaved coins were just as valuable as unshaved coins.
Instead of shaving gold coins, today’s central bankers facilitate the growth of government by purchasing government securities in order to keep interest rates—and thus the government’s borrowing costs— low. The Federal Reserve’s interventions enable the expansion of government well beyond what would be politically palatable if politicians had to finance the entire welfare-warfare state through direct taxation or borrowing at market interest rates, which would increase interest rates for private sector borrowers, lower growth, and increase unemployment.
Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, the US dollar has lost over 96 percent of its value. The Federal Reserve-caused decline in purchasing power is a stealth tax. This inflation tax does not affect the financial elites—who receive new money created by the Federal Reserve before the Fed’s actions have diminished the dollar’s purchasing power—but has hurt middle-and-working class Americans whose purchasing power is continuously reduced by the Federal Reserve. The inflation tax is not just the most hidden, but the most regressive of taxes.
The Federal Reserve is responsible for the growth of government, the loss of liberty, the rise in income inequality, and the boom-and-bust economic cycle. All those who support liberty, peace, and prosperity should join the effort to audit and end the Fed.
www.globalresearch.ca/federal-reserve-enemy-of-liberty-and-prosperity/5695414
www.globalresearch.ca/federal-reserve-enemy-of-liberty-and-prosperity/5695414
Federal Reserve: Enemy of Liberty and Prosperity - Global Research
Lost in the media’s obsession with the impeachment circus last week was Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony on the state of the economy before the Joint Economic Committee. In his testimony, Chairman Powell warned that when the next recession inevitably occurs, the US Government.....www.globalresearch.ca/rethinking-national-security-cia-fbi-corrupt-what-about-congress/5695574
Rethinking National Security: CIA and FBI Are Corrupt, but What About Congress? - Global Research
The developing story about how the US intelligence and national security agencies may have conspired to influence and possibly even reverse the results of the 2016 presidential election is compelling, even if one is disinclined to believe that such a plot would be possible to execute. Not surprising...It was then, at the end of the 1970s, that the US experienced the biggest political upheaval in its recent history, what James Petras appropriately called “The Great Transformation”. It was during this time under President Ronald Reagan that the invisible elite took the US government and the nation on an alarming ideological turn to the extreme right, and everything changed. In addition to the mass deindustrialisation of the country and the destruction of labor unions and workers’ rights, Reagan opened the doors to deregulation and privatisation, and effectively turned the keys of the country over to the elites and their large corporations and banks. It was this that paved the way for the parade of human, economic, political and military atrocities that continue to this day.
www.globalresearch.ca/rise-police-state/5695648
Economic Upheaval and the Rise of the US Police State - Global Research
By the end of the Vietnam War, US corporations were no longer competitive in the world economy and were losing the bulk of their domestic market to imports, leading to de-industrialisation and the large-scale relocation of manufacturing to Asia, primarily China. Since then, the US has experienced la...
The Prosecution of Julian Assange Calls for the Public’s Defense of Free Speech
On Saturday, The New York Times published a front-page article on the leaked files that exposed the Chinese government’s coordinated crackdown on ethnic minor
www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/21/greta-thunberg-time-traveler-here-save-us-climate-emergency-...
www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/22/coal-knew-too-explosive-report-shows-industry-was-aware-clim...
Coal Knew Too: Explosive Report Shows Industry Was Aware of Climate Threat as Far Back as 1966
"It wasn't just big oil that knew about climate change decades ago."www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/22/unprecedented-architecture-surveillance-created-facebook-and...
The US Military Is Poisoning Okinawa
Okinawan authorities are failing to hold the U.S. military accountable for covering up PFAS contamination.
Billionaires Are Panicking Over the Growing Popularity of a Wealth Tax
Billionaires are scaremongering about market crashes because they don’t like what they see in the presidential primary.truthout.org/articles/philadelphia-domestic-workers-win-a-new-bill-of-rights/
Philadelphia Domestic Workers Win a New Bill of Rights
This historic piece of legislation extends rights and protections to 16,000 domestic workers in Philadelphia.
McDonald's Workers in Detroit Are on Strike for Workplace Democracy
The action was ignited by the hideously common experience of workplace sexual harassment.Neither is adherence to facts, or recognition of history. Trump illustrated this point on the 2016 campaign trail, when he repeated a demonstrably false story about how then-Capt. John J. Pershing (future commanding general for all U.S. forces in World War I)—“a rough, rough guy”—had, during the brutal American counterinsurgency in the Philippines (1899-1913), once captured 50 Muslim “terrorists,” dipped 50 bullets in pig’s blood, shot 49, and set the sole survivor loose to spread the tale to his rebel comrades. The outcome, or moral of the story, according to Trump, was that “for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem, OK?” Well, no, actually, the Philippine insurgency dragged on for another decade, and a Muslim-separatist rebellion continues in the islands to this day.
www.truthdig.com/articles/america-will-never-live-down-trumps-war-crime-pardons/
America Will Never Live Down Trump's War Crime Pardons
They encourage military indiscipline, stain the country’s reputation, motivate extremists and thereby make the nation less safe.25 Minute Video: Sometimes the most trenchant commentary comes from the voices we'd least expect. Such was the case Thursday night when "Borat" actor and comedian Sasha Baron Cohen used his acceptance speech for an International Leadership Award from the Anti-Defamation League to address the dangers social media giants like Facebook pose to democracies the world over.
While acknowledging that his own body of work has been accused of perpetuating harmful stereotypes—a line of criticism he disputes—he blames the decline of global democracy on the proliferation of hate speech and conspiracy theories. The result, Baron Cohen argues, has been the collapse of a shared reality that serves as the foundation for any pluralistic society. "This is not about limiting anyone’s free speech," he says. "This is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on earth, the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet."
Watch his address in its entirety below.
www.truthdig.com/videos/sasha-baron-cohen-delivers-blistering-takedown-of-facebook/
Sasha Baron Cohen Delivers Blistering Takedown of Facebook
Sometimes the most trenchant commentary comes from the voices we'd least expect. Such was the case Thursday night when "Borat" actor and comedian Sasha Bar
Israel Is Killing Children Asleep In Their Homes. Humans. Not Numbers. Again.
The reign of terror, which we help fund, goes on. In two days of airstrikes, Israel has killed 34 Palestinians packed into the open-air prison that is Gaza, and injured over 111; many victims were children. Among the dead was a family of eight - three adults, five kids - slaughtered as they slept; t...
Pope Francis Proposes Adding "Ecological Sin" to Church Teachings
The Catholic Church appears poised to add crimes against nature and the environment to its catechism.
Humans Aren’t Inherently Destroying the Planet — Capitalism Is
A new book dubs our current geological era the “Capitalocene.”
Pressure Mounts Against Trump as 8 New Witnesses Prepare to Testify
Any mistakes Trump now makes, on Twitter or elsewhere, will likely erode his support within the GOP even more.If you read only one book this year, it should be Roger Hallam’s “Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse.”
Hallam’s lucid and concise book, which echoes Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” says what many of us now know to be true but do not say: If we do not replace the ruling elites soon we are finished as a species. It is a cogent, well-argued case for global rebellion—the only form of resistance that can save us from ecosystem collapse and human-induced genocide. It correctly analyzes the failure of environmentalist activists in groups such as 350.org to understand and confront global corporate power and thus make a meaningful impact as we barrel toward ecocide. “Common Sense for the 21st Century” is a survival manual for the human species.
“The corrupt system is going to kill us all unless we rise up,” Hallam, a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, bluntly warns.
bit.ly/2KwEi4Y
How to Save the Planet and Ourselves
Roger Hallam, a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, understands corporate power and knows how to fight it. It is up to us to act.Trump wants to make sure those Mexicans can get all your American jobs. That must be why he is chasing them all back to Mexico! All those "American" corporations need plenty of workers down there.
www.thenation.com/article/nafta-usmca-trade-agreement/
The New NAFTA Won’t Protect Workers’ Rights
Trump’s new United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement repeats the disasters of the original agreement.www.currentaffairs.org/2019/11/ownership-control
Ownership & Control ❧ Current Affairs
It is not easy to define a term when different people use it to mean different things. What does democracy look like? What is justice? But we might possibly at least be able to have clearer conversations about these words, and a slightly better sense of the kinds of things people are referring to wh...1 Hour Video | For the past forty years Noam Chomsky's writings on politics and language have established him as a preeminent public intellectual and as one of the most original and wide-ranging political and social critics of our time. Among the seminal figures in linguistic theory over the past century, since the 1960s Chomsky has also secured a place as perhaps the leading dissident voice in the United States.
In this talk from Google Cambridge in May of 2017 Professor Chomsky discusses wide ranging topics from the development of his personal political views to the control of information and media with Googler Hasan Khalil.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-zWrhFqpM
youtube.com/watch?v=WNIHZZ6qlgI
11 Minutes Video | This is the reason all those people protested that pipeline. Those pipes always leak and eventually they break open, spill shitloads of oil, and ruin the environment.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcFISCHe10Q
Donald Trump’s statement earlier this week that he could win the US war in Afghanistan but he doesn’t want to kill ten million Afghans was both revealing and appalling. Like so many other of Trump’s statements, his remark revealed the genocidal nature of US foreign policy. It is a policy that considers human lives as part of some greater equation that results in the supreme dominance of the US economic and military system. When Henry Kissinger was working for Richard Nixon, it was called realpoli