fifth bowl news & disturbing reports
or : the pax americana, satanic alternative to the real prince of peace
note: this website has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "tea parties", tax evaders, republicans, democrats, ron paul, militias, the n.r.a., or corporate-controlled, pentagon-manipulated mainstream media.
"Afghanistan is an interesting case. I mean, Afghanistan was sold here as a war to retaliate—a just—it’s always called a “just” war—to prevent terror, you know, retaliate against a terrorist attack. I mean, it’s such a standard view that to take it apart, you know, requires more time than I’d be allowed. But the fact of the matter is that that was not the goal of the war. I mean, if the goal of the war was to isolate al-Qaeda, eliminate terror, there were straightforward ways to proceed. I mean, if you go back to that time, the jihadi movement itself was highly critical of the 9/11 attack. There were fatwas coming out from the most radical clerics, and, you know, Al Azhar University, the main theological center, denouncing al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the terrorist attacks—it’s not Islamic, we wouldn’t do that, and so on. Well, if you wanted to end terror, the obvious thing to do at that point is to isolate al-Qaeda, to try to gain support, even from the jihadi movement, and of course from the population they’re trying to mobilize. You know, terrorists regard themselves as a vanguard. They’re trying to mobilize others to their cause. I mean, every specialist on terrorism knows that. So you could have done it then, and you could have proceeded to identify the perpetrators, which, incidentally, they couldn’t do because they didn’t know who they were, and that was conceded later. But they could have tried to identify them, bring them to justice, you know, to trials—with fair trials and not torture, but fair trials, which would have probably sharply reduced, if maybe not—maybe even have ended Islamic terrorism. Well, they did the opposite. What they tried to do is to mobilize the population and mobilize the jihadi movement to support al-Qaeda. That’s exactly the effect of first invading Afghanistan and later invading Iraq. And it’s also the effect of Guantánamo and Bagram and the other torture centers. I mean, everyone who’s involved in them, you know, seriously, knows, yeah, they created terrorists."
- Noam Chomsky (author & professor of linguistics & philosophy at MIT )
"By geopolitics, or geopolitical competition, I mean the contention among great powers and aspiring great powers for control over territory, resources and important geographical positions... If you look back, you will find that this kind of contestation has been the driving force in world politics and especially world conflict in much of the past few centuries... If you study the history of the Cold War, the overt conflicts that took place were consciously framed by a geopolitical orientation from the American point of view. The United States had to control the Middle East and its oil. That was the basis of the Truman Doctrine and the Eisenhower Doctrine and the Carter Doctrine. The United States had to control parts of Africa because of its mineral wealth in copper, cobalt and platinum. That's why the U.S. backed the apartheid regime in South Africa. And the reason for both the Korean War and Vietnam War was understood at the highest levels in terms of the U.S. interest in controlling the Pacific Rim... The best way to see what's happening today in Iraq and elsewhere is through a geopolitical prism. American leaders have embarked on the classical geopolitical project of assuring U.S. dominance of the most important resource areas, understood as the sources of power and wealth. There is an ideological consistency to what they're doing, and it is this geopolitical mode of thinking."
- Michael Klare (author & professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, Amherst)
" 'Preventive war' which Washington reserves to itself as a 'right' to invoke directly eliminates international law. The Charter of the United Nations prohibits recourse to war except in cases of legitimate self defense and subjects possible military intervention by the U.N. to strict conditions... In line with Washington's project of military control over the planet and the waging of 'pre-emptive wars' under the pretext of the 'war against terror', NATO has portrayed itself as the representative of the international community and has thereby marginalized the United Nations - the only institution entitled to speak in this name."
- Samir Amin (author and director of the Third World Forum)
"president of cant" (frogs)
www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=551
africom (it's back up)
" In recent years the United States has enormously expanded its military bases and operations around the world with bases now in around 70 countries and U.S. troops present in various capacities, including joint exercises, in perhaps twice that number... It is building a lasting physical presence around the world that allows for control/subversion/rapid deployment... U.S. military spending for purposes of empire is rapidly expanding - to the point that it rivals that of the entire rest of the world put together. When it is recognized that most of the other top ten military-spending nations are U.S. allies or junior partners, it makes the U.S. military ascendancy even more imposing. As Atlantic Monthly correspondent Robert Kaplan proudly (sic) proclaimed in 2005: 'By the turn of the twenty first century the United States military had already appropriated the entire earth, and was ready to flood the most obscure areas of it with troops at a moment's notice.'"
-Excerpt from the article "The Military/Industrial/Media Triangle" (2008) by J.B. Foster (author & professor of sociology at the University of Oregon), H. Holleman and R. McChesney (author & Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Dept. of Communication at the University of Illinois).
" In addition to the U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, the Pentagon has several hundred military bases in Asia, including 124 installations in Japan and 87 in South Korea. U.S. security pacts with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea continue to circumscribe North Korean and Chinese behavior. America's massive geostrategic dominance is to be further reinforced through the Indo-U.S. strategic alliance and the beginnings of an "Asian NATO" - the principle pillars of which are the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, with supplementary roles offered to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam."
- Achin Vanaik (author & professor of international relations and global politics at Delhi University & a member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace).
"So he brought him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth and the Devil said to him: I will give you ALL this authority and the glory of them, because it has been delivered to me, and to WHOMEVER I WISH I GIVE IT." - Luke 4:5 & 6
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH
Major General Smedly D. Butler (1935) : " I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service...Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests...I was rewarded with honors, medals and promotions. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in 3 city districts. I operated on 3 continents." (Common Sense - November 1935)
President John F. Kennedy (from a campaign speech in 1960) : " We used the influence of our government to advance the interests and increase the profits of the private American companies which dominated Cuba's economy. Administration spokesmen publicly hailed Batista, hailing him as a staunch ally and a good friend at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people. Thus it was our own policies, not those of Castro, that first began to turn our former neighbor against us." (New York Times - October 7, 1960)
General David M. Shoup, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps : " I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. That they design and want. That they fight and work for. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the haves refused to share with the have-nots, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans." (Congressional Record - Feb. 20, 1967)
Philip Agee (12 year veteran C.I.A. covert operations officer - resigned in 1969) : " A considerable proportion of the developed world's prosperity rests on paying the lowest possible prices for the poor countries' primary products and on exporting high cost capital and finished goods to those countries. Continuation of this kind of prosperity requires the continuation of the relative gap between developed and underdeveloped countries - it means keeping poor people poor. Within the underdeveloped countries the distorted, irrational growth dependent on the demands and vagaries of foreign markets precludes national integration, with increasing marginalization of the masses. Increasingly, the impoverished masses are understanding that the prosperity of the developed countries and of the privileged minorities in their own countries is founded on their poverty... American capitalism, based as it is on exploitation of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in personal greed, simply cannot survive without force. ("C.I.A. Diary" - 1975)
William Blum (author, journalist and formerly in the State Department) : "Some U.S. terrorist acts directed toward Middle East nations prior to 9/11:
- shooting down of two Libyan planes in 1981
- the bombing of Libya in 1986
- the bombing and sinking of an Iranian ship in 1987
- the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988
- the shooting down of two more Libyan planes in 1989
- the massive bombing of the Iraqi people in 1991 (and mowing down of retreating Iraqi soldiers in the desert which some U.S. soldiers described as a "turkey shoot")
- the continued bombings and sanctions against Iraq for the next 12 years
- the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan (a defenseless medical facility) in 1998
- the habitual support of Israel despite the routine devastation and torture it inflicts upon Palestinian people
- the abduction of "suspected terrorists" from Arab countries who are then taken to Egypt or Saudi Arabia where they are tortured
- the large high tech military presence in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region
- the overthrow of Middle East leaders like Mossadegh and the support of undemocratic, authoritarian Middle East governments from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi monarchy (in violation of the U.N. Charter)
(Angering the international community, George W. Bush renewed bombings of Iraq immediately after taking office (Jan. 2001) after the country had already been through 10 years of crushing sanctions.)
(Following the bombing of Iraq in 1991, the U.S. wound up with military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.)
(Now imagine if the tables were turned and half the incidents above happened to the U.S. - or let's just say a Middle East nation were allowed to have several military bases in the U.S. - even an ally like Saudi Arabia - or even in Mexico or Canada. Many U.S. citizens would cause an uproar. But many Americans can't or don't bother to understand why people of other nations are angry at the U.S. military presence in their countries.)
Former President Jimmy Carter (interview in the New York Times, March 26, 1989 page 16) : "We sent marines into Lebanon and you only have to go to Lebanon, to Syria and to Jordan to witness first hand the intense hatred among many people for the United States because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers - women and children and farmers and housewives - in those villages around Beirut. As a result of that we became kind of a Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful. That is what precipitated the taking of our hostages and that is what has precipitated some of the terrorist attacks."
Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State : " The U.S.S. New Jersey started hurling 16 inch shells into the mountains above Beirut, in World War II style, as if we were softening up the beaches on some Pacific atoll prior to an invasion. What we tend to overlook in such situations is that other people would react much as we would."
U.S. Department of Defense Summer Study Task Force, Final Report Vol. 1, Oct. 1997 : " Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States."
Richard A. Clarke, National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism (1998-2003) and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence, who was in the White House when the Pentagon was struck on 9/11 : " I expected to go back to a round of meetings examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term. Instead I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq. Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq.... In the end, what was unique about George Bush's reaction to terrorism was his selection, not of a country that had been engaging in anti-U.S. terrorism, but one that had not been, Iraq. It is hard to imagine another president making that choice. Others might have tried to understand the phenomenon of terrorism, what led 15 Saudis and 4 others to commit suicide to kill Americans. Others might have tried to build a world consensus to address the root causes while using the moment to force what had been lethargic or doubting governments to arrest known terrorists and close front organizations. One can imagine Clinton trying one more time to force an Israeli - Palestinian settlement, going to Saudi Arabia and addressing the Muslim people in a moving appeal for religious tolerance pushing hard for a security arrangement between India and Pakistan to create a nuclear free zone, and stabilizing Pakistan. Such efforts may or may not have succeeded, but one thing we know they would not have done is inflame Islamic opinion and further radicalize Muslim youth into heightened hatred of America in the way that invading Iraq has done." (from his book "Against All Enemies" pages 30, 244 & 245)
Q: You said that the main practitioners of terrorism are countries like the U.S. that use violence for political motives. When and where?
Chomsky : I find the question baffling. As I've said elsewhere, the U.S. is, after all, the only country condemned by the World Court for international terrorism - for "the unlawful use of force" for political ends, as the Court put it - ordering the U.S. to terminate these crimes and pay substantial reparations. The U.S., of course, dismissed the Court's judgment with contempt, reacting by escalating the terrorist war against Nicaragua and vetoing a Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law. The terrorist war expanded in accordance with the official policy of attacking "soft targets" - undefended civilian targets, like agricultural collectives and health clinics....
During the same years the U.S. was carrying out large scale terrorism elsewhere, including the Middle East: to cite one example, the car bombing in Beirut in 1985 outside a mosque, timed to kill the maximum number of civilians, with 80 dead and 254 casualties, aimed at a Muslim sheikh, who escaped. And it supported much worse terror: for example, Israel's invasion of Lebanon that killed some 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, not in self defense, as was conceded at once. And the vicious "iron fist" atrocities of the years that followed. And the subsequent invasions of 1993 and 1996, both strongly supported by the U.S. until the international reaction to the Qana massacre in 1996, which caused Clinton to draw back. The post 1982 toll in Lebanon alone is probably 20,000 civilians.
In the 1990s, the U.S. provided 80 percent of the arms for Turkey's counterinsurgency campaign against Kurds in its southeast region, killing tens of thousands, driving 2-3 million out of their homes, leaving 3,500 villages destroyed and with every imaginable atrocity. The arms flow had increased sharply in 1984 as Turkey launched its terrorist attack and began to decline to previous levels only in 1999, when the atrocities had achieved their goal. In 1999, Turkey fell from its position as the leading recipient of U.S. arms (Israel - Egypt aside), replaced by Colombia, the worst human rights violator in the hemisphere in the 1990s and by far the leading recipient of arms and training, following a consistent pattern.
In East Timor, the U.S. and Britain continued their support of the Indonesian aggressors, who had already wiped out about 1/3 of the population with their crucial help. That continued right through the atrocities of 1999 that drove 85 percent of the population from their homes and destroyed 70 percent of the country...Well after the worst of the atrocities had been reported, Clinton was coming under enormous pressure to do something to mitigate the atrocities, mainly from Australia but also from home. A few days later the Clinton administration indicated to the Indonesian generals that the game was over. They instantly reversed course. They had been strongly insisting that they would never withdraw from East Timor, and they were in fact setting up defenses in Indonesian West Timor using British jets, which Britain continued to send to repel a possible intervention force. When Clinton gave the word, they reversed course and announced that they would withdraw, allowing an Australian led U.N. peacekeeping force to enter unopposed by the army. The course of events reveals very graphically the latent power that was always available to Washington, and that could have been used to prevent 25 years of virtual genocide culminating in the new wave of atrocities from early 1999. Instead, successive U.S. administrations, joined by Britain in 1978 when atrocities were peaking, preferred to lend crucial support, military and diplomatic, to the killers - to "our kind of guy" as the Clinton administration described the murderous President Suharto.
I have already mentioned the devastation of Iraqi civilian society (due to bombing and economic sanctions) with about 1 million deaths , over half of them young children, according to reports that cannot simply be ignored...
Or take the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan...About the consequences we have only estimates. Sudan sought a U.N. inquiry into the justifications for the bombing, but even that was blocked by Washington...A year after the attack, without the life-saving medicine the destroyed facilities produced, Sudan's death toll from the bombing continued, quietly, to rise. Thus tens of thousands of people - many of them children - have suffered and died from malaria, tuberculosis, and other treatable diseases...Al-Shifa produced 90 percent of Sudan's major pharmaceutical products...Germany's ambassador to Sudan wrote that "it is difficult to assess how many people in this poor African country died as a consequence of the destruction of the Al-Shifa factory, but several tens of thousands seems a reasonable guess"...
Insofar as such consequences ensued, we may compare the crime in Sudan to the assassination of Lumumba, which helped plunge the Congo into decades of slaughter, or the overthrow of the democratic government of Guatemala in 1954, which led to 40 years of hideous atrocities, and all too many others like it...
George H. W. Bush (speaking as Vice President in the context of the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by an American ship, taking 290 lives) : " I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are. " ( Newsweek, August 15 1988 )
Albert Einstein : " Everywhere in economic as well as political life, the guiding principle is one of ruthless striving for success at the expense of one's fellow men. This competitive spirit prevails even in school and, destroying all feelings of human fraternity and cooperation, conceives achievement not as derived from the love for productive and thoughtful work, but as springing from personal ambition and fear of rejection... They say, and truly, that the greatest obstacle to international order is that monstrously exaggerated spirit of nationalism which also goes by the fair-sounding but misused name of patriotism. During the last century and a half this idol has acquired an uncanny and exceedingly pernicious power everywhere. "
Bertrand Russell : " There is an essential unity in the economic and foreign policies of the United States. This is created by the constant search for raw materials and markets, the imposition of poverty upon a large proportion of the world's population and the use of U.S. military power in dozens of countries to protect the interests of American capitalism and destroy those who dare to resist. Aggression is more than a facet of imperialism: the determination to conquer, dominate and exploit is the very essence of imperialism. In the face of the massive governmental propaganda to which we are all subjected, there is a need for a critical and independent analysis. "
Dave Dellinger : " Perhaps the early Americans believed that "all men (except blacks and Indians) are created equal" but if so they were determined that they should not remain equal. The same year that the colonists produced the Declaration of Independence, the mother country produced Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations', the theoretical and moral justification for capitalism. Smith argued that if every man pursued his own selfish economic interest, the invisible hand of God would see to it that the result would be a prosperous and just society. Although the colonists rejected the British monarchy and British rule, they embraced the mother country's emergent capitalism. Capitalism exalts not equality, liberty, and fraternal solidarity, but private ownership of the natural resources and accumulated productive capital, usury, and private profit from the labor of others. This was the Achilles' heel of the great American experiment. It sanctioned selfishness, excused vast inequalities in wealth and power, and denied the legitimacy of economic equality even as a goal. "
Ha-Joon Chang (Cambridge economist - from his book 'Bad Samaritans - The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations & the Threat to Global Prosperity") : "What would a German, a Frenchman and an American do if they were each asked to write a book on the elephant ? The German, with his characteristic thoroughness, would write a thick two-volume, fully annotated study entitled 'Everything There Is To Know About The Elephant'. The Frenchman, with his penchant for philosophical musings and existential anguish, would write a book entitled 'The Life And Philosophy Of The Elephant'. The American would naturally write a book entitled 'How To Make Money With An Elephant'."
Boutros Boutros-Ghali ( United Nations Secretary General from 1991-1996 ) : " The day before my lunch with Warren Christopher (U.S. Secretary of State at the time), the U.S. mission telephoned to say that I must also invite Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. at the time). I did so at once. After the first course, I asked Christopher and Albright if I might speak honestly, but off the record, to them. " Mr. Secretary, Madame Ambassador, " I said, " I am deeply aware that the United States is the major actor on the world scene. I know that I must have U.S. support if I am to succeed. I will always seek and try to deserve that support. But, " I said, " please allow me from time to time to differ publicly from U.S. policy. This would help the United Nations reinforce its own personality and maintain its integrity. It would help dispel the image among many member states that the U.N. is just the tool of the U.S. To do so, " I said, " would also be in the interest of the U.S. It would give the U.S. more options in its foreign policy if on some occasions it were able to use the U.N. credibly. "
I was sure that Christopher and Albright would understand my point of view. I was completely wrong. My words appeared to shock them. Christopher and Albright looked at each other as though the fish I had served was rotten. They didn't speak. I was horrified and quickly changed the subject. A bit later I tried again. " Perhaps I was unclear, " I said. " I was merely trying to propose an approach that would offer greater flexibility in both U.S. and U.N. diplomacy. " Again there was a silence.
It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy; power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy. This is why the weak are so deeply concerned with the democratic principle of the sovereign equality of states, as a means of providing some small measure of equality for that which is not equal in fact. Coming from a developing country I was trained extensively in international law and diplomacy and mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States. Diplomacy is perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness.
Once the awkward moment I created passed, lunch resumed in a pleasant way. After Christopher and Albright had departed, I sat in my study looking out over the barges and tugs in the East River and thought about what happened. I concluded that Christopher and Albright had not really been shocked by what I said. I had been the one who was shocked. They had simply thought that I must be a fool even to raise such an idea. "
( from his autobiography "Unvanquished - A U.S. - U.N. Saga" pages 197-198 )
Here's a biblical description of the last world power before Armageddon (wild beasts are often referred to as human governments, individually and collectively) :
Revelation 13: 11-18 : " And I saw another wild beast ascending out of the earth and it had two horns like a lamb, but it began speaking as a dragon. And it exercises all the authority of the first wild beast in its sight... and it performs great signs... and it misleads those who dwell on the earth because of the signs that were granted it to perform in the sight of the wild beast... " - (yes, a false prophet)
Matthew 24: 24 : " False prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the chosen ones. "
1 John 5: 19-21 : " The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one... guard yourselves from idols. "
false messiah woodrow wilson (UPDATED)
Benjamin Barber (Whitman Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University) : "The complaint against McWorld represents impatience not just with its consumption-driven markets and its technocratic imperatives, but with its hollowness as a foundation for a meaningful moral existence. These absences translate into profound civic alienation that disconnects individuals from their communities and isolates them from nonmaterial sources of their being."
Q : Aren't you guys worried about losing or alienating half your audience with this news site ?
A : Silence is complicity...Silence is bloodguilt.
Jackson Browne : "When the situation is dire enough, you'll do anything to affect a change and brave any consequences. And I've thought at one point: well, I can take a chance at alienating some of the people who listen to my music. I can take that chance because I would do anything rather than go on being a success and make a lot of money and live a privileged life here in the United States while we decimate the people of another country."
Matthew 5: 10-12 : "Happy are those who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake...Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you...Rejoice and leap for joy...for in that way they persecuted the prophets prior to you."
Luke 6: 26 : "Woe, whenever all men speak well of you, for things like these are what their forefathers did to the false prophets."
Many religious people think that God is backing the United States. We hear it from politicians all the time. I could not imagine a greater blasphemy! A nation that came to power through the genocide of native Americans, brutal slavery, conquest of Mexican lands, robber barons, exploitation of cheap immigrant labor, war profiteering, CIA overthrow of various governments, support for murderous dictators, use of atomic weapons, exploitation of other countries' resources at the expense of their poor populations, exploitation of cheap foreign labor, etc. cannot possibly be backed by a loving Creator. The god these politicians are serving is obviously a bloodthirsty tyrant.
THE BLOOD OF MILLIONS IS CRYING OUT ! THE SOUND IS DEAFENING !
Tom Hayden : "When the period we know as "the sixties" finally ended - from exhaustion, infighting, FBI counterintelligence programs and most of all from success in ending the Vietnam War - I turned my energies increasingly toward electoral politics, eventually serving eighteen years in the California legislature...There was something impenetrable about the system of power as a whole. The state had permanent, neo-Machiavellian interests of its own, deflecting or absorbing any democratic pressures that became too threatening. The state served and brokered a wider constellation of private corporate and professional interests that expected profitable investment opportunities. These undemocratic interests could reward or punish politicians through their monopoly of campaign contributions, media campaigns, and ultimately, capital flight... After 18 years in legislative politics I had concluded that the corporate market mentality was fast eclipsing the democratic process, human rights, and environmental concerns in a flood of campaign dollars and claims about the "inevitability" of globalization. For example, NAFTA and the WTO threatened to negate over 90 California laws which, in NAFTA-speak, interfered with investor rights... The U.S. has historically been the destabilizing force in Mexico, most recently with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has flooded the country with corn and other products and replaced indigenous manufacturing with the maquiladora economy, thus displacing at least hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, many of whom seek survival in "el norte". Perpetuating the cycle is absolutely crucial to neoliberal economics."
An increase in taxes on the rich and corporations (and eliminating many corporate tax breaks) and outlawing offshore tax shelters would significantly reduce and eventually eliminate the deficit WITHOUT CUTTING BACK ON SOCIAL PROGRAMS.
deficit mania ignores growth of income gap
u.s. wages and workers no longer key to profits ! (july 30, 2010)
troop withdrawal ?
George Bush was absolutely right in 2003 when he declared "mission accomplished". The governments that nationalized Iraq and Afghanistan's resources were overthrown (Saddam and the Taliban) and replaced by puppets who privatized, thus letting foreign corporations come in and take over the countries' resources. That was the primary purpose of the wars. The wars have continued because the U.S. is trying to reinforce these puppet governments to prevent any takeover. The talk about U.S. withdrawal is deceptive. The major U.S. military bases will remain and privatized paramilitaries will be used. This scenario has been repeated so many times that this is beyond debate. The U.S. continues to follow the predictable logic of capitalist imperialism; keeping the world "safe" for capitalist globalization. One of the U.S.'s beneficiaries has been China which was granted generous oil concessions in Iraq.
end of iraq combat operations ?
God bless conscientious objectors and those who are courageous enough to expose war crimes like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.
(After forcefully imposing their capitalist order on Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. is using Wilson's Espionage Act of 1917 to go after conscientious objectors who want the truth known. The satanic legacy of Woodrow Wilson lives on.)
Richard Gregory, African-American civil rights leader & author (during a lecture at Kent State University, where a year earlier U.S. National Guardsmen shot into a crowd of students protesting Nixon's bombing of Cambodia killing 4 & wounding 11) :
Heckler in the audience: "Can't you say one good thing about America ?!"
Gregory: "There were too many good Germans that were talking about the nice features of Nazi Germany... So probably some of your loved ones as well as mine got wiped out because good Germans were too busy sitting around talking about the good features of Hitler."
the most radical and revolutionary statement ever made :
Matthew 22: 39 : "You must love your neighbor AS YOURSELF."
Think of the implications of that statement ! For example, if you're an employer, landlord, lender, etc. would you like to get rich off of your son, daughter, mother, father, friend, etc. ? EVERYONE IS YOUR SON, DAUGHTER, FATHER, MOTHER, FRIEND !
The world has been operating on an ideology based on selfishness, greed, and competition.
Revelation 3: 17-19 : "Because you say: 'I am rich and have acquired riches and do not need anything at all,' but you do not know you are miserable and pitiable and poor and blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me...eyesalve to rub in your eyes that you may see...All those for whom I have affection I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent."
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