As I've said before Joseph Campbell mentioned that when the christian church was being slapped together there was a strong lobby for it to be woven into the roots of the Greek mystery religions rather than the marking mad god of some little known cult.
What a lost opportunity!
At some point, somebody will surely point out the the Egyptians, who carved it in stone every-time Pharaoh pharted ,have no record of hebrews.
The entire history of the region is (or used to be, oddly there's been a massive amount of destruction since the 1960's) astonishingly well documented.
The biblical version, slapped together in the the second and third centuries AD is bullshit.
That there are people walking around in America who believe, or get away with pretending to believe, is astonishing.
Joseph Campbell has an interesting lecture recorded where he discusses how, when the Bible was being slapped together there was serious consideration of stitching Christianity onto the Greek mystery religions rather than onto the myths of the jews and their barking mad psychopathic god.
" I challenge you in 2014, whatever the subject and whatever your expertise, simply to keep up."
As a Capital Markets guy, I find it's far easier to keep up now than 20 years ago.
There are many arcane little areas that never really got coverage at all in any media available to me, that's no longer the case.
A couple of hours now can cover a topic more thoroughly than a couple of days could 20 years ago.What's dismaying of course, is the realization of just how shallow our past practices and understanding were.
Others (and I include myself here) recognize a certain loss of privacy and the potential for abuse, but trust the government is using the metadata collection for the stated purpose.
Why?
Do you work for the government?
What has been your experience that leads you to believe that the state is anything other than the looter of the people?
Meanwhile, back in France, the same old dance goes on.
Hollande has just announced that, out of fear of reprisals by extremists retaliating against the French murder of Muslim's program in Mali and Somalia, "Security" will be ratcheted up at home.
A perfect triple, you get to murder some Muslims, reassert colonial interest and legitimacy and strengthen the domestic Police State.
How could a socialist interventionist possibly resist?
"British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the creation of a “tech envoy to Israel" as part of a move to encourage further co-ordination between the two countries."
Maybe those paid by the CIA would sponsorhttp://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2295-dead-enough-the-reality-of-the-qlesser-evilq.html a day for this kid.
Well, Well, Well,
A very telling statement:
"Clearly, Obama does not have progressive instincts, and prefers to rule from the center. This impulse is wrong-headed, since the center didn’t man his campaign offices or make phone calls for him."
Wiki's definition seems pretty good.
"the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"
The twenty year long policy of slaughter of the Iraqis killing somewhere over 2 million would seem to qualify.
Ah yes, the traditional biblical marriage so important to the religious right wing nutjobs.
A man, his seven hundred wives, his three hundred concubines and the free use of all his female slaves.
I think Iran launched a war of aggression last in 1826 against Russia, to try to take back some territory the Russians had annexed two years previously IIRC, but I was very young then and the details are a bit hazy.
I'm sure that the knuckle draggers have some racial animus but let's not forget that the question of McCain's eligibility was raised by reason of his birth in that outpost of Empire, Panama.
Of course, for those who can read there hasn't been a Constitutionally eligible President since Zachary Taylor.
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; "
It should never be forgotten that when you hear "40 years of dictatorship" It neatly coincides with 40 years since the US last had a military base there.
You may be correct that the US doesn't need vast conscript armies to fight its wars but the numbers required for an occupation shouldn't be minimized.
"The USO said about 200,000 U.S. personnel are being evacuated from Japan to U.S. West Coast cities including San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle/JBLM. "
The BBC reported on the protests in Tunisia and the attacks on the protesters by pro-government thugs (not the phrase they used). The segment finished with noting that Mohamed Ghannouchi had resigned but then asked the question as to whether the Prime Ministers resignation would be enough to end the violence: implying that it had been caused by the protesters, not the government thugs.
One of the ways you can tell that Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya underwent a real people's uprising is that there's none of that CIA color coded crap : No "Green","Orange", "Rose" revolutions here. Cf the "Jasmin Revolution" being pimped in China.
Dr Cole,
I find this and Tunisia interesting in that the Army seems to be disassociating itself from the regime to a certain extent: Violent support for the politicians seemed to be limited to the police (would that this will be the case here)- the general rule seems to be, the police defend the regime, the military the physical country- unless of course the military are the regime. In these circumstances i.e. without the opposition of the military; have there been many cases where revolutionary movements have failed?
I realize that the split between military and police is not a clean one (and becoming less so in these Untied States).
"Other cables detail the way the Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans engaged in a Tunisian version of insider trading, using their knowledge of the president’s upcoming economic decisions to scarf up real estate and companies they knew would suddenly spike in value. "
This sort of insider trading is legal in the US for the Congress and is widely practiced.
Minor quibble, I think any rational observer would have to concede that it was the USSR who defeated Germany.
When Churchill was thrown out of office after the War, the generally accepted analysis was that it was a repudiation of the ruling elite class of which he was a member and which was widely blamed for the war and the economic chaos that preceded it, rather than a "Labour promised us more goodies" sort of vote.
If this is the way the Iranian's wish to organize their society, who is this Cole guy to criticize it? The elections seem to be considerably more fair than those in the U.S. and the Iranian Government is obviously a much more benign presence on the globe that of the U.S.
Last act of international aggression from Iran ? about 1826/7.
From the U.S. ? Today.
These charts and analyzes assume knowledge of the unknowable: How people would behave if they were taxed at higher rates.
My own response would be to save more and move the savings offshore.
Paen. The wars will continue until someone finds a paradigm where peace is as efficient a mechanism for looting the taxpayers as the wars themselves are.
"It is a measure of the inter-connected character of our globalized world"
NO. It is a measure of the ambition of the Empire. Do you honestly believe that the Swiss. surely more an inter-connected nation than most others in terms of commerce have any fear of this crap?
You missed the great Irony.
The Palestine Post, established 1932 is now pumping out Zionist propaganda as the Jerusalem Post.
From what I've seen, they'd qualify as satire, which is a protected use.
What we need, of course, is a dump of all the data that the CIA. NSA etc have on this piece of crap.
As I've said before Joseph Campbell mentioned that when the christian church was being slapped together there was a strong lobby for it to be woven into the roots of the Greek mystery religions rather than the marking mad god of some little known cult.
What a lost opportunity!
At some point, somebody will surely point out the the Egyptians, who carved it in stone every-time Pharaoh pharted ,have no record of hebrews.
The entire history of the region is (or used to be, oddly there's been a massive amount of destruction since the 1960's) astonishingly well documented.
The biblical version, slapped together in the the second and third centuries AD is bullshit.
That there are people walking around in America who believe, or get away with pretending to believe, is astonishing.
"Not only Big Brother but Big Corporation is Tracking you Online Too"
But big corporations don't kill people and throw them in cages.
The parallels between the Ukraine and Venezuela.
http://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2014/02/21/try-and-try-again-obamas-silent-coups/
Joseph Campbell has an interesting lecture recorded where he discusses how, when the Bible was being slapped together there was serious consideration of stitching Christianity onto the Greek mystery religions rather than onto the myths of the jews and their barking mad psychopathic god.
What a missed opportunity.
The reason for the "democracy" farce is that it's the system under which the peasants will sit still for the most looting.
If it didn't they wouldn't even pretend.
It would be faster to list those of the Washington Filth who do not belong behind bars.
" I challenge you in 2014, whatever the subject and whatever your expertise, simply to keep up."
As a Capital Markets guy, I find it's far easier to keep up now than 20 years ago.
There are many arcane little areas that never really got coverage at all in any media available to me, that's no longer the case.
A couple of hours now can cover a topic more thoroughly than a couple of days could 20 years ago.What's dismaying of course, is the realization of just how shallow our past practices and understanding were.
Chris Floyd looks at the re-visiting of the Fallujah war crime
http://www.chris-floyd.com/
And Syria spills over to Russia, too:
http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/08/27/saudi-prince-bandars-second-attempt-at-bribing-russia-to-drop-support-of-syria/
Then there's this
"Holiday tragedy: Iranian grandfather and former Mayor of Tabriz dies after intense questioning at Dulles"
http://features.kodoom.com/en/iranian-diaspora/holiday-tragedy-iranian-grandfather-and-former-mayor-of-tabriz-dies-after/v/4841/
It's a start.
btw, these guys are my new Olive Oil suppliers
http://www.canaanfairtrade.com/
Unlike much of the crap in supermarkets, you can actually taste the olives.
Others (and I include myself here) recognize a certain loss of privacy and the potential for abuse, but trust the government is using the metadata collection for the stated purpose.
Why?
Do you work for the government?
What has been your experience that leads you to believe that the state is anything other than the looter of the people?
I'd seriously like to know.
Leon is less of a hero to those who have read this
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/17/judge-leons-dirty-climb-to-the-bench/
No but cashflow does.
That anything on this (very abbreviated) list is news to anybody is a tribute to the power of the corporate media.
"American Nationalists"?
All I saw was a bunch of treasonous Israel Firsters
markf.
Why would they want to?
Meanwhile, back in France, the same old dance goes on.
Hollande has just announced that, out of fear of reprisals by extremists retaliating against the French murder of Muslim's program in Mali and Somalia, "Security" will be ratcheted up at home.
A perfect triple, you get to murder some Muslims, reassert colonial interest and legitimacy and strengthen the domestic Police State.
How could a socialist interventionist possibly resist?
Stop tearing the Tags off your mattresses.
“Israel’s Apartheid Deepens, Along With Its Global Isolation”
Sure.
http://factsnotfairies.blogspot.com/2012/12/british-pm-announces-first-tech-envoy.html
"British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the creation of a “tech envoy to Israel" as part of a move to encourage further co-ordination between the two countries."
"Well, calling for killing US troops and their relatives was over the top."
Well the Chosen One has no qualms about killing innocent relatives, does he?
Ask Awlaki's son.
Maybe those paid by the CIA would sponsorhttp://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2295-dead-enough-the-reality-of-the-qlesser-evilq.html a day for this kid.
Well, Well, Well,
A very telling statement:
"Clearly, Obama does not have progressive instincts, and prefers to rule from the center. This impulse is wrong-headed, since the center didn’t man his campaign offices or make phone calls for him."
So the rule is to follow your paymasters?
"Four Middle East crises will face the next President Immediately"
And unanswered, of course, is the unasked question:
"Why are these "crises" anything to do with the US?"
"How did the CIA morph from an intelligence gathering organization to being a secret army of assassins and torturers?"
The National Security Act of 1947
has a nasty little line
"And such other activities as the President may direct"
Sets up his own private army.
And just how is the killing of people by the US military in a country with which the US is not at war distinguishable from murder?
And this
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11792-the-israel-lobby-and-how-it-operates?
shows how the corruption of the US political system operates.
And meanwhile our Multi-tasking Masters are turning the Eye of Sauron elsewhere:
Join the dots
We hear
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/frances-hollande-calls-for-mali-intervention-clinton-says-nation-cant-fight-islamists-alone/2012/09/26/28147fca-0824-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_print.html
This
And curiously, we find
http://www.indexmundi.com/mali/natural_resources.html
This
Wiki's definition seems pretty good.
"the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"
The twenty year long policy of slaughter of the Iraqis killing somewhere over 2 million would seem to qualify.
" I presume he may have been abroad at some point somewhere."
Juan, Juan, Juan. you don't suppose he got to be a VP nominee without the mandatory visit to Israel do you?
Ah yes, the traditional biblical marriage so important to the religious right wing nutjobs.
A man, his seven hundred wives, his three hundred concubines and the free use of all his female slaves.
Has anybody ever seen a rational reason why the people of Palestine had to be destroyed because of what the Germans did to other Europeans?
Meanwhile:
"US Taxpayers Spend More on Israeli Defense Than Israeli Taxpayers, Says Former IDF Official"
http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/09/12/us-taxpayers-spend-more-on-israeli-defense-than-israeli-taxpayers-says-former-idf-official/
I think Iran launched a war of aggression last in 1826 against Russia, to try to take back some territory the Russians had annexed two years previously IIRC, but I was very young then and the details are a bit hazy.
"Until the U.S. and U.N. can provide some guidance on this issue, political turmoil will prevail. "
Thanks for that. It made me smile. The idea that the U.S. can provide "guidance" in Iraq is risible.
Brings to mind Diderot
"And his hands would plait the priest's entrails,
For want of a rope, to strangle kings."
Excellent news. The question that cannot be asked is, of course, what will happen in the US when the food riots start here.
I'm sure that the knuckle draggers have some racial animus but let's not forget that the question of McCain's eligibility was raised by reason of his birth in that outpost of Empire, Panama.
Of course, for those who can read there hasn't been a Constitutionally eligible President since Zachary Taylor.
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; "
He was the last one who qualified.
Comma's matter!
Anyone who doesn't believe that the colonial powers are having the same discussions over Libya's oil is deluded.
And can we expect the same treatment for the Bush family?
For a reality based view of what's happening in Libya, John Pilger is hard to beat
http://www.johnpilger.com/articles/david-cameron-s-gift-of-war-and-racism-to-them-and-us
It should never be forgotten that when you hear "40 years of dictatorship" It neatly coincides with 40 years since the US last had a military base there.
You may be correct that the US doesn't need vast conscript armies to fight its wars but the numbers required for an occupation shouldn't be minimized.
"The USO said about 200,000 U.S. personnel are being evacuated from Japan to U.S. West Coast cities including San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle/JBLM. "
http://www.kirotv.com/news/27248974/detail.html
Any idea as to how many civilians NATO has killed yet?
I'm always suspicious of statements like "Members of the Democracy movement"
When this one seems more realistic.
"Fingers crossed Libyan rebels aren't insane"
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/fingers-crossed-libyan-rebels-aren%27t-insane-201103183639/
The Media bias continues:
The BBC reported on the protests in Tunisia and the attacks on the protesters by pro-government thugs (not the phrase they used). The segment finished with noting that Mohamed Ghannouchi had resigned but then asked the question as to whether the Prime Ministers resignation would be enough to end the violence: implying that it had been caused by the protesters, not the government thugs.
This crap never ends.
One of the ways you can tell that Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya underwent a real people's uprising is that there's none of that CIA color coded crap : No "Green","Orange", "Rose" revolutions here. Cf the "Jasmin Revolution" being pimped in China.
For another look at this see
Jack D. Douglas, professor emeritus of sociology, UCSD.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/77220.html#more-77220
Dr Cole,
I find this and Tunisia interesting in that the Army seems to be disassociating itself from the regime to a certain extent: Violent support for the politicians seemed to be limited to the police (would that this will be the case here)- the general rule seems to be, the police defend the regime, the military the physical country- unless of course the military are the regime. In these circumstances i.e. without the opposition of the military; have there been many cases where revolutionary movements have failed?
I realize that the split between military and police is not a clean one (and becoming less so in these Untied States).
"Other cables detail the way the Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans engaged in a Tunisian version of insider trading, using their knowledge of the president’s upcoming economic decisions to scarf up real estate and companies they knew would suddenly spike in value. "
This sort of insider trading is legal in the US for the Congress and is widely practiced.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-14/it-isn-t-insider-trading-when-congressmen-do-it-commentary-by-ann-woolner.html
I have always been amazed at what people will "confide" to a medium which is A: ineradicable and B: ubiquitous.
Anything of any moment does not belong on the web unless encrypted.
I will have nothing to do with any of the social networking sites, why enable the all-seeing State any further?
Minor quibble, I think any rational observer would have to concede that it was the USSR who defeated Germany.
When Churchill was thrown out of office after the War, the generally accepted analysis was that it was a repudiation of the ruling elite class of which he was a member and which was widely blamed for the war and the economic chaos that preceded it, rather than a "Labour promised us more goodies" sort of vote.
It's increasingly hard not to laugh.
"damage U.S. Reputation"
Reputation for what?
Being the most violent psychopathic bunch of murderers on the planet?
This will surely only confirm and enhance it.
If this is the way the Iranian's wish to organize their society, who is this Cole guy to criticize it? The elections seem to be considerably more fair than those in the U.S. and the Iranian Government is obviously a much more benign presence on the globe that of the U.S.
Last act of international aggression from Iran ? about 1826/7.
From the U.S. ? Today.
He therefore only needs 24 more members of parliament to join his coalition, giving him a majority of 163 in a parliament of 225 seats.
Why the need for a super-majority?
Paladino's strongest appeal to many is that he refuses to conduct his campaign within the confines of politeness as defined by the existing elite.
This defense of his 10 year old daughter will do him nothing but good.
And very different from the "Old Testament" commands from the Sky God to slaughter men, women and children and leave no thing alive.
These charts and analyzes assume knowledge of the unknowable: How people would behave if they were taxed at higher rates.
My own response would be to save more and move the savings offshore.
And yet it seems impossible to mention to the two million plus Iraqi's slaughtered during the now 20 year long genocide.
For those interested in desecration of "Sacred Ground" one would be hard put to beat the locating of a U.S. Military Base close to Hiroshima
As Lew Rockwell pointed out:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/63690.html
And it will come as no surprise that the "tree trimming" incident was intended as a pretext for war.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3933979,00.html
Here's a picture of
"An Israeli soldier being dangled like bait on the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border today."
http://warincontext.org/2010/08/03/israeli-provocation-on-lebanese-border-could-trigger-new-war/
Yet one more proof, if it were needed, that that the central purpose of government is the looting of the governed.
I've seen reports that the Saudi's would grant overflight rights.
I think he has a point about insurance rates for ships in the Straits.
It wouldn't take much to make it prohibitively expensive.
How much would a shipping company have to be paid to take even a 1% risk that a $100,000,000 investment would be destroyed?
Who would sail it?
What's the impact on the cost of oil?
Time to buy into the Alberta oil sands companies.
I find it astonishing that the murder of innocent Iranian's wasn't a consequent of note.
The whole point of the Iraq crime, as with the upcoming Iran crime is to control the oil.
It would of course be preferable to own it but mere control is sufficient to maintain the hegemony.
"We still can be a country of laws, not men, can’t we? It isn’t too late? "
It's been too late for a couple of centuries.
"the question of whether highly religious societies are capable of economic development"
This made me smile, considering the crazed bunch of Christianist whack-jobs holed up in the rapidly collapsing U.S.
Paen. The wars will continue until someone finds a paradigm where peace is as efficient a mechanism for looting the taxpayers as the wars themselves are.
"It is a measure of the inter-connected character of our globalized world"
NO. It is a measure of the ambition of the Empire. Do you honestly believe that the Swiss. surely more an inter-connected nation than most others in terms of commerce have any fear of this crap?