Tuesday, May 31, 2005

The 'I' Word

By Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese

"The president and vice president have artfully dodged the central question: ''Did the administration mislead us into war by manipulating and misstating intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to Al Qaeda, suppressing contrary intelligence, and deliberately exaggerating the danger a contained, weakened Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors?"

If this is answered affirmatively Bush and Cheney have committed "high crimes and misdemeanors." It is time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes US safety by recruiting and training more terrorists. A Resolution of Impeachment would be a first step. Based on the mountains of fabrications, deceptions, and lies, it is time to debate the 'I' word."

more...

The Presidency: Job Prerequisites

The incredibly serious job of the US presidency requires certain distinct qualities and skills, intelligence and integrity being two of them

When you consider the gravity of the job of presidency, it seems totally ludicrous that the one person now filling that position is someone whose history clearly and irrefutably demonstrates a consistent lack of precisely these qualities.

All his positions of power and influence have been bestowed upon him. They have never been earned. This, by itself, should be an alarm call to anyone wishing to know more about the man Time Magazine named An American Revolutionary for their 2004 Person of the Year award.

Conspiracies and the internet

We are not just simply conspiracy theorists. A more appropriate term would be conspiracy researchers.

Conspiracies have existed since the birth of communication. The biggest difference, in terms of information flow, between the present and a few decades back in history is that we now have the internet as a medium of getting information to the masses, and we really mean masses here as it refers to a whole planet.

So there is a much greater chance now than at any time in our known history that incriminating information about the elites of the political and business classes can be made available to the public.

The information that is available is that the men running the show in Washington DC do not have the american public's best interests at heart. Their priorities are first and foremost with themselves and their riches, then, with maintaining US military and economic dominance in as many regions of the world as their overstretched economy and military will allow them, and finally, with controlling the masses that will become increasingly rebellious during the times of hardship that the oil wars will inevitably bring about.

This change in the degree of access that we have to this information brings about a necessity for change amongst most of those who have been exposed to this information. The change that is required is to understand, and even more importantly, to accept the degree of corruption and lack of moral responsibility that exists at the highest echelons of world politics.

For only by first accepting something as it is can you decide to take the right action about it.

Sunday, May 29, 2005

All war is based on deception

“One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously moulded by the press and other forms of propaganda.” General Douglas MacArthur

“By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”
Motto of the Mossad

“All warfare is based on deception.”
The Art Of War -- Sun Tzu

“Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”
-- Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.

“News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising”.
-- Former NBC news president Rubin Frank

Who is Karl Rove?

We all know that Karl Rove is President George W. Bush's chief political advisor. But what does the public actually know about Karl Rove himself? If there is one individual who wields enormous influence on the thinking and decisions of our current President of the USA it is Karl Rove. Isn't it about time that America started asking itself exactly what kind of influence this one particular individual is exerting on our Commander in Chief? Isn't it about time that we started looking critically at the tactics and strategies that he employs in order to reach his political objectives? After all, someone who holds a position of such great influence on the way the Administration is conducting its affairs and pushing forward its agenda should also measure up to the highest standards of moral integrity, ethics and honesty.

We would assume that such a person is uniquely and sufficiently qualified to assume such a position of great political power, especially when one realises that this individual never passed through any kind of electoral process in order to arrive at his position of considerable political power.

To this end, in order to shed some kind of light on Rove's political modus operandi, it would be useful to delve into his past and attempt to critically examine the moral fibre, integrity and honesty that have characterized the defining moments of his political career. Remember, this man is nothing less than our current Commander in Chief's mento.

Read more here and here.

Should have listened to my father.

Maybe THIS is the father that Dubya should have listened to. Not the one that supposedly told him it was OK to launch a war.

In his memoirs, A World Transformed written in 1998, George Bush, Senior, wrote the following to explain why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War.

"Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles.

Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish.

Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

Saturday, May 28, 2005

When Democracy Failed

By Thom Hartmann

"In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. You were either with us, or you were with the terrorists.

It was a simplistic perspective, but that was what would work, he was told by his Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels: "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Another technique was to "manufacture news," through the use of paid shills posing as reporters, seducing real reporters with promises of access to the leader in exchange for favorable coverage, and thinly veiled threats to those who exposed his lies. As his Propaganda Minister said, "It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."
Read more...

I used to be a Neocon

By Drew O'Neill

"But the tiny wheels still want to call the media liberal. The tiny wheels still want to say the media isn’t reporting the good things happening in Iraq. Most of all the tiny wheels do not know about the big wheel that’s pulling them. But now I do. That’s why I am an ex-neocon and I am in recovery. It’s more clear to me now than ever that the most American thing one can do is speak out against the actions of their country because it means you love your country.

And in the end it doesn’t matter if we are liberals or conservatives because all that matters is that we are on the side of the U.S. Constitution and of international law. Both of which have been thrown into the toilet by this administration. At least the Qur’an has company."
more...

The trouble with the 9-11 conspiracy

When you think about it, it's actually to be expected that people do not want to see the truth staring them in the face about the scam of 9-11. The implications of coming to the realization that a secret cabal within the US government is responsible not only for the deaths of more than 3 thousand of its own civilians but also of starting an illegal war in the middle east is very often too much for normal citizens to accept. That is understandable.

For many people it is simply too traumatic a discovery. In effect it forces you to accept that we are living in a sort of fascist dictatorship, in and of itself an extremely depressing thought. It confronts us with the fact that all the images we have been fed all these years of a strong and stable benevolent democracy whos primary goal is to serve and protect the welfare of its own citizens have been nothing more than a vast and elaborate illusion.

It also reminds us that our own government actually doesn't give a shit about us.

This is why so many people refuse to discuss the possibility that elements of their own government are responsible for the attacks of 9-11.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Carlyle Group gets its finger in the Google pie.

This is really worrying.

It turns out that Google have taken on as their new Vice President for Global Communications and Strategy a rather dark character by the name of Dan Senor. Who is Dan Senor I hear you ask...

I didn't know who he was until I saw a picture of him.



Then it became clear. You might recognise him as the suit who worked as Director of the Coalition Disinformation Center at CENTCOM during the first stages of the attack on Iraq in 2003.

Then I also read that he was a senior associate of arguably the world's biggest war machine The Carlyle Group. Whoah!

This is really scary. Hadn't expected that from Google. At least not so soon after their inception. On the other hand, when you realise that the Carlyle Group also has its fingers in one of Holland's biggest cable operators, Casema, you get to understand that age-old adage: Information is Power.

Basically this means that the Carlyle Group will soon have access to all your search requests on google. All they need is your IP address and they gonna getcha!

OK, so we don't need to worry too much about our searches for "Paris Hilton sex video". But are they monitoring our searches for "WTC7" or "Osama Bin Laden and the CIA" or "Bush complicit 9-11"?

Makes you think...

A Political Joke to kick off this blog

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're 30 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, then you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met but, somehow, now it's my fault."