The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
I find it very telling that corporate media gives so little coverage to the ecological disasters that seem to be coming one a week. Did you even know this one had happened? We are destroying the environment and our own health and, it is virtually a secret.
Yet Another Coal Industry Spill Is Destroying West Virginia’s Water
LINDSAY ABRAMS – Salon
Will the Saudis unleash a conventional and terror war together?
Saudi Arabia: Preparing for Aggression?
…by
[ Editors Note: We are featuring a new NEO writer tonight with his first article for them and for us, something which we usually don't do here. But Mr. Orlov has picked an excellent and timely topic with the Saudi military offensive and done a great job with it. It's my job to find them to share with you.
The Saudis have been huge spenders on military equipment for decades now but have never really used much of it in a real shooting war. But they were every defense contractor's favorite sugar daddy.
Why so much weapons spending has many answers. They were a forward base for American military and the expenditures were all part of having American protection for the Royal family dynasty.
Then there was the big fear over Iran, even though it has not invaded anyone in modern history and has no offensive military power in terms of taking or holding territory. Nor have they exhibited any interest in doing so.
Continue reading “Jim Dean: Saudis Preparing for a Two-Front War?”
Go here to turn the video into an MP3: http://us.
Keep fighting,
Lee
Revolving Door Syndrome in the Military-Industrial-
The Best Government Money Can Buy
by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, COUNTERPUNCH, FEBRUARY 11, 2014
Those of you who think it is incorrect to attach “Congressional” onto the the end of Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) would be well advised to read “Lawmaker holds stock in defense contractor he champions” (by Donovan Slack, USA Today, 8 Feb 2014) to see one reason why I always include the reference to Congress.
Slack describes the ethically-challenged influence peddling capers of Congressman Tom Petri (R-Wisconsin), a Harvard educated lawyer and one of longest serving and wealthiest members of Congress. Petri used his position in Congress to enhance his political career (and power) as well as his personal wealth by promoting a controversial $3 billion dollar armored truck procurement contract to Oshkosh corporation that pushed dollars, jobs, and profits into his home district as well as wealth into his own stock portfolio. Slack describes how Petri intervened to (1) fend off Oshkosh’s competitors, especially Texas based BAE corp, who had protested the contract award, accusing Oshkosh of low-balling its cost estimates and (2) how he worked to neutralize the rescue efforts by BAE’s friendly congressmen. The story is complex, and I urge you to read Slack’s report at the link above.
Petri’s hijinks are old as our democracy (see this hilarious example of how the Navy’s Ship of the Line program was funded in the years after the War of 1812), but the intricacies of his maneuvers illustrate the subtle and deep-seated general nature of corruption and influence peddling now pervading our nation’s defense policy making machinery. The threads of this influence peddling network are now woven deeply, almost invisibly, throughout the entire fabric of the contemporary American political economy.
Some political scientists use the metaphor Iron Triangle as a short hand for describing the structural aspects of this web of influence relationships. The attached diagram depicts the triangle’s basic features for the MICC. Note its principle idea: the two mutually-reinforcing circulations: (1) a counter-clockwise circulation of influence peddling fueling (2) a concomitant clockwise circulation of money.
Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Corruption in Congress – The Iron Triangle”
The defense trade press and even some major media have recently produced reports about ethical problems in the US military officer corps. Bill Hartung writes at Huffington Post that “Military Ethics Reform Should Start at the Top,” advocating a reduction in our astoundingly–even historically–high officer bloat. Lt. Col. Danny Davis writes in Armed Forces Journal that our officers are “Seduced by Success” by winning, but only at the minor tactical level, against literally incompetent, almost unarmed enemies.
These are important articles, and I urge you to read them, but retired Army Major Don Vandergriff (who has written about officer education, how our over-officered military means an ineffective military, and more) brought to my attention an article that puts the disconnected media reports about individual examples of officer ethics problems into a broader and far more important perspective. This article, “A Crisis in Command and the Roots of the Problem” explains-at least to me-the fundamental origin of the problem and its solution. Written Jorg Muth (who has also written about the differences between German and American officer training before World War Two-a difference that hardly puts us in a good light), the “Crisis in Command” article explains how today's ethical problems started on the first day that West Point cadets showed up on that campus and how those problems will not go away until American military officers start listening to those they think they outrank–intellectually and morally as well as physically.
Indeed, if you are interested in ending the military sexual harassment now so widely reported in the press and debated in Congress, if you want to eliminate “toxic” and financially corrupt military officers, and if you want to get rid of those who tolerate or just fail to report them all, understand that those behaviors are more likely reinforced, than eliminated, by most of the changes being advocated in the press and Congress. The Jorg Muth article explains why I say this and what can be done to change the course our officer corps is on. Be warned, however, as important as reducing the bloated size of our officer corps is, the solution to our problems is not just to have a smaller number of ethics-crippled officers; it is not to give them a new set of judicially independent ethics enforcers, and it is not to tell them to go to an ethics training course. Muth explains; it is short but informative reading, I believe.
More Drone Protesters, Instead of Pilots, Convicted of a Crime
The following report comes in from Toby Blomé
Feb. 3, 2014: “Wheatland 4” Trial: Anti-Drone Protesters Convicted of Trespassing
Sentenced to 10 hours of Community Service and a $10 fee.Judge Claire warns of harsher consequences next time due to “ban & bar” orders served to them at the time of arrest.
Phi Beta Iota: Over 7,000 Occupy protesters jailed — no bankers even arrested. A revolution vastly greater than anything the USA has seen since 1776, is emergent. The two-party tyranny and Wall Street are a precise parallel to King George and the East India Company. ENOUGH!
See Also:
There just never seems to be an end to the bad news about our food supply. I don't know how it could be any clearer that Big Pharma has only one interest and that is profit. Truly a disgusting story, for both humans and animals.
6 Nasty Drugs Your Meat Is On
MARTHA ROSENBERG – AlterNet
