Google Inc. is back in the news this week, with a fresh round of headlines about the search giant and government censorship. Ironically–though perhaps not surprisingly for the corporate media–the stories are not about Google’s admitted but classified relationship with government agencies like the NSA, though. Instead, they portray the internet company as a protagonist sticking up for users’ privacy rights against governments that are increasingly interested in blocking, scrubbing or banning links, search results, and online videos that those governments want to suppress.
The report outlines, for instance, that the US government made 6,192 separate requests for Google to remove information from its services in the latter half of 2011, up from 757 requests in the first half of that year.
According to articles in the links below (and elsewhere) Iceland
* crowdsourced its new constitution with mass participation and elected delegates to a Constituent Assembly
* made investors and bankers – not taxpayers – pay for the economic crash (it didn't bail out the banks)
* took legal action against individuals responsible for the crash
* expanded its social safety net in the midst of the downturn
* built an economy with a very high percentage of renewable energy
* is establishing some of the strongest freedom of information, journalistic, and whistle-blower protections in the world
* AND has an economic recovery that the International Monetary Fund calls “impressive”
What a shame they have had so little mainstream media coverage in the U.S….
High ranking generals and admirals earn their stars. They earn their stripes. Then, they earn their cash. New research by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found 70% of the 108 three-and-four star generals and admirals who retired between 2009 and 2011 took jobs with defense contractor or consultants. In at least a few cases, the retirees have continued to advise the Department of Defense while on the payroll of defense contractors, suggesting the Pentagon may not always be receiving unbiased counsel.
A Boston Globe investigation revealed the number of retired three-and-four star generals and admirals moving into lucrative defense industry jobs rose from less than 50% between 1994 and 1998 to a stratospheric 80% between 2004 and 2008.
“Eyes blinded by the fog of things
cannot see truth.
Ears deafened by the din of things
cannot hear truth.
Brains bewildered by the whirl of things
cannot think truth.
Hearts deadened by the weight of things
cannot feel truth.
Throats choked by the dust of things
cannot speak truth.”
― Harald Bell Wright – The Uncrowned King
I consider myself a seeker of truth. It isn’t easy finding it in todays’ world. In an alternate version of the famous scene from A Few Good Men, I picture myself telling Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner that I want the truth and his angry truthful response:
“Son, we live in a world that has Wall Street banks, and those banks have to be guarded by puppet politicians in Washington D.C. with lobbyist written laws and Madison Avenue PR maggots with media propaganda. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Representative Paul? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for the average middle class American family, and you curse the ruling oligarchs. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the death of the American middle class, while tragic, probably saved the bonuses of thousands of Wall Street bankers. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, increases the wealth of these same bankers who destroyed the worldwide economic system in 2008. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about in the food bank line, you want me on Wall Street, you need me on Wall Street. We use words like derivative, fiscal stimulus, quantitative easing. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent siphoning off the wealth of the nation. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very debt that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up 1000 shares of Apple, and hope our high frequency trading supercomputers can ramp the market for a while longer. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.”
I find myself more amazed than ever at the ability of those in power to lie, misinform and obfuscate the truth, while millions of Americans willfully choose to be ignorant of the truth and yearn to be misled. It’s a match made in heaven. Acknowledging the truth of our society’s descent from a country of hard working, self-reliant, charitable, civic minded citizens into the abyss of entitled, dependent, greedy, materialistic consumers is unacceptable to the slave owners and the slaves. We can’t handle the truth because that would require critical thought, hard choices, sacrifice, and dealing with the reality of an unsustainable economic and societal model. It’s much easier to believe the big lies that allow us to sleep at night. The concept of lying to the masses and using propaganda techniques to manipulate and form public opinion really took hold in the 1920s and have been perfected by the powerful ruling elite that control the reins of finance, government and mass media.
Food consumers seldom hear about the drugs oestradiol-17, zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol acetate and the names are certainly not on meat labels. But those synthetic growth hormones are central to U.S. meat production, especially beef, and the reason Europe has banned a lot of U.S. meat since 1989.
Zeranol, widely used as a growth promoter in the U.S. beef industry, is a “powerful estrogenic chemical, as demonstrated by its ability to stimulate growth and proliferation of human breast tumor cells” similar to the “known carcinogen diethylstilbestrol (DES),”
Phi Beta Iota: The ten high-level threats to humanity, eight of which are being ignored by most governments, include “Other Atrocities.” Normally defined as a mix of trafficking in women and children as well as body parts (with kidnapping and murder), we now include in “Other Atrocities” the willful corruption of governments that leads to the poisoning of entire populations; to the proliferation of genetic mutations in crops, animals, and humans; and to the wholesale increase of prevalent persistent disease such as asthma in poor kids living near highways.
New America Foundation blogged to CNN, November 21, 2012 |
A woman at the helm of the CIA wouldn't simply make another crack in the intelligence glass ceiling, it could effectively shatter it.
One of the most high-profile appointments President Obama will make in his second term is the director of the CIA. Here's a tip for the president: The time is ripe for the first woman to head the agency.
Choosing a woman isn't just about narrowing the intelligence community gender gap. It's also about drawing from the whole pool of talent to ensure the best national security apparatus and responding to Americans' apparent desire for more women in government. Here are the Top 10 reasons President Obama should name a woman as the next CIA director.
Two things seem clear to me: the Pentagon budget is going down, and pretty much no one in Washington wants to impose the three fundamental reforms needed to enable DOD to prosper in an era of lower budgets. I explain my point of view in a new article in Foreign Policy and below.
EXTRACT:
They are laying the groundwork for the same Pentagon as the one we have now, just at somewhat lower spending levels with several fewer programs — and more of the remaining ones funded at unrealistically lower levels than usual.
Amidst the many uncertainties and machinations in the negotiations in Washington on the “fiscal cliff,” a few things are beginning to emerge as certain. Among them: the defense budget will be going down. Another is that none of the parties to the negotiations is seeking the kind of change that the Pentagon must undergo to survive effectively, even prosper, under significantly reduced budgets.
The new, post-election reality of a declining Department of Defense (DOD) budget was signaled by a conglomeration of mainstream think tank pundits, Capitol Hill staffers from both political parties, industry and executive branch defense specialists, and retired military officers put together by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments: They opined on not whether the defense budget was about to decline significantly but on how to do it. (Some of them had some pretty horrible ideas; more on that later.) The new reality of less money for DOD was also made clear in a provocative summary of five different think tanks reports at Foreign Policy by Gordon Adams.
