a good guy with a gun... 3/31/2016 0 Comments   Hansel and Gretel prepare to blow away whatever. by E.L. Christianson Jr. National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre offers his opinion, "So many of those elites, they think they're better than us.  They think they're more intellectually evolved somehow than we are...Well, I've got news for the elites who look down their noses at all of us and our rights: We gun owners are a heck of a lot smarter than you'll ever be...Never have there been smarter, freer American citizens than America's one hundred million gun owners."  Of course, that's his opinion.  The evidence indicates something altogether different.  Those brilliant gun owners outsmart the rest of us by continuing to shoot themselves or being shot by their children, often their toddler children. ​An online petition to allow guns into the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July has received more than 24,000 signatures in favor of overturning the “irresponsible and hypocritical act of selecting a ‘gun-free zone’” for the party’s quadrennial gathering. ​The petition, posted anonymously to Change.org last week, declares the Cleveland arena’s weapons ban “a direct affront to the second amendment and puts all attendees at risk... how a venue so unfriendly to second amendment rights was chosen for the Republican convention”. Let's go for it.  As with gun owners shooting themselves and their loved ones all over the country, perhaps the republican party would eliminate itself in a frenzied shoot-out at the convention. Today, guns and gun owners are appearing everywhere.  Now, there are guns in the woods on the way to grandma's house. Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun) by Amelia Hamilton... One New Year’s day, Red awoke to learn that her grandmother wasn’t feeling well. She and her mother put together a basket of food to bring through the woods to her cottage, which lay on the other side. Red loved the woods, and was happy to walk through them. Usually, there would only be the sunlight and the squirrels, but there was a dark side to the wood. There were shadows, there were beasts, and there could be danger. One birthday not long ago, Red was given her very own rifle and lessons on how to use it—just in case—to be sure that she would always be safe. So, with a kiss from her mother, rifle over her shoulder and a basket for her Grandmother in her hands, Red took a deep breath and entered the woods.  Red with her rifle  With a shiver, she burrowed into her cloak, her breath making clouds in the frozen air.  Deep into the woods Red went, playing a game with herself to see how many animal footprints she could recognize in the snow. “Deer,” she quietly said to herself, “squirrel.” She turned as another set of footprints caught her eye, and gasped. Those footprints cast in snow were undeniably the tracks of a wolf. They were fresh, so Red knew the wolf couldn't have gotten far. Red felt the reassuring weight of the rifle on her shoulder and continued down the path, scanning the trees, knowing that their shadows could provide a hiding place. A man shot to death, likely in a tragic accident at the hands of his toddler son, loved his family and died doing one of the things he treasured most – spending time with his kids, family members said. The parents of 31-year-old Divine Vaniah Chambliss believe he was taking a nap with his 2-year-old son when the boy found the semi-automatic handgun and pulled the trigger. Chambliss was found dead in the bed from a single gunshot wound to the head. "We've talked with the detective, we've talked with the coroner and everything is pointing to the baby,'' said the victim's father, Larry Chambliss. "I just can't comprehend it." Larry Chambliss and his wife, Marilyn, said they are praying their grandson won't remember what happened, but said he already knows something is amiss. "I hurt my Dad,'' the boy told his mother. The real numbers just make one's head spin.  Please follow this link and read Key Gun Violence Statistics. Or, read some of the 730 individual stories of 'gun fail' wherein the gun didn't fail but the human component did like human components often do... killed or wounded accidentally. Here's another side of the 'human component'... arming opposite and opposing armies in battle as the United States government is doing in Syria.  By providing guns for both sides, it would appear we have a hedge against losing the war... 'our' side is guaranteed to win.   On the other hand, we know that we are certainly backing a loser. The Knights of Righteousness (yeah, that really is what they call themselves) have been armed and funded by -- wait for it -- the Central Intelligence Agency. Their opponents, the Syrian Democratic Forces, have been armed and funded by the Pentagon. Ergo, based upon the most recent battle in Marea, the Defense Department went to war with the CIA half a world away. Now, we fight proxy wars between various departments of our own federal government, using your tax dollars to buy the bullets and the bombs. Thunder has more sense. Newborn kittens are more clever. Stones at least have the wisdom to sit still. ​They did this for money, and most of the bodies biting the dirt over there fall at the hands of American weapons we abandoned or sold outright because a small group of people you'll never meet were handsomely paid for the privilege. All along, we must keep focused on the real truth of these situations... "a good guy with a gun..." 0 Comments Leave a Reply.

DONAHUED... 3/30/2016 0 Comments   ANYBODY LEFT IN MEDIA WITH THE MORAL COURAGE TO RISK BEING DONAHUED? ​ While I'm sure there are many potential candidates for people who were targeted and labeled toxic for having reported something that even remotely approximated truth, I find the summary public career execution of television personality Phil Donahue to be a compelling first contender for this dubious distinction.In 1996, television talkshow host Phil Donahue celebrated what until now remains "the longest continuous run of any syndicated talk show in U.S. television history." And this success was clearly based on the trust his honesty inspired in his fiercely loyal audience. And yet by February 25, 2003, when Donahue who "was ranked #42 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time," had his career brought to an abrupt end when he was fired by MSNBC for his opposition to the selling of the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq to the American people. Clearly his opposition to the fear and bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction had to be silenced, given his popularity with the American people and any potential that might have had for causing the American people to question this done deal. Long before the current film Spotlight deigned to make a film about tolerated child molestation and cover up in the Catholic church, Donahue produced the first national television program in the 1980s showing widespread child molestation by Catholic priests. This level of difficult honesty was still something that was tolerated and had a place in American media, but with the selling of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the profit motivated endless war footing this country has remained on, clearly that is no longer the case. I don't recall who once said to me that freedom in the 19th century was expressed as the freedom from oppression, while freedom in the 20th century was to be seen as the freedom of expression. But in the 21st century, it seems painfully clear that any supposedly constitutional guaranteed right of expression or any civil liberty that in any way challenges the corporate oligarchy's exclusively profit motivated agenda has been made illegal. It is seen as intolerable heresy requiring someone who dares to engage in it like an Edward Snowden someone who must have the moral courage to literally put their life on the line or be willing to seek sancturary in Russia or elsewhere. Dare to point out that what the U.S. government and its state and local government components openly advocate and implement as being completely and utterly in violation of basic constitutional rights and you better starting looking for a deep hole in which to hide.  The problem with this awareness is that barring some other insight or proposed course of action, people have tended to become demoralized by their expression of an alternative truth to government party line. What people don't realize is their feelings of powerlessness are merely the well executed end product of a corporate media whose goal is to make the majority of people in this country think they are in the minority, because if corporate media no longer reports the tree falling in the forest then it must not have fallen. However, this well nutured corporate media fantasy that the majority is merely a disgruntled and maladjusted minority- be they Left, Right, or somewhere in between- is starting to break down due to an Internet individually connected world where the success of a "not serious candidate" like Bernie Sanders openly contradicts this corporate media "dominant narrative." In reality, all Americans can still believe and democratically implement that we the people should decide what is good for we the people...if we have the persistence to see through the corporate media exquisitely executed charade of seamless virtual reality. ​If you or someone you know has been targeted and are in the process of being dismissed and need legal defense, get in touch: Lenny@perdaily.com

perhaps any of us might try suicide as the best option 3/27/2016 0 Comments   the slogan at the gate into Guantanamo, "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" as if 'Honor' or 'Freedom' were involved in any way... it is a sad joke... and, it very definitely elicits some kind of response from human-beings... does one laugh or should one simply cry ??? by E.L. Christianson Jr. Or, those of us who believe in a 'higher power' might try prayer. The United States of America has many problems both internationally and domestically.   Involvement in wars all over the world in attempts to control resources and to change regimes in foreign countries occupies us on the worlds stage. At home, massive incarceration of poor populations of racial minorities, inadequate attention to infrastructure needs, deteriorating education and health-care systems, and the shifting of wealth from the lower levels of society to the elite along with a failed system of governance should occupy us but don't get the attention necessary to bring about improvements. Our moral bankruptcy, evident in both the foreign and domestic areas, is highlighted by our actions at Guantanamo Bay.  One just stands in awe at the low level of our sense of justice and compassion for our fellow human-beings.  One wants to deny that we, the United States of America could stoop to this level of senseless cruelty.  Our government systematically denies the truth of it and makes extreme efforts to keep the truth from getting out.  And, yet, here it is and the whole world is aware. Zuhair, a Saudi former sheep trader who was never charged with any crime during a seven-year stretch at Guantanamo which ended in 2009, said his nose would bleed during each force-feeding. He claims he would be forced roughly into the chair and left there much longer than the official two-hour maximum. ‘The pain from each force-feeding is so excruciating that I am unable to sleep at night because of the pain in my throat,’ he said in a sworn statement. ​ US military officials have acknowledged a ‘forced cell extraction team’ was repeatedly used to move Zuhair when he refused to walk on his own to where hunger striking detainees were fed. A military spokesman said the feeding tubes are lubricated and prisoners are offered anaesthetic to prevent long-lasting damage. ‘We think there are adequate safeguards in place to make it as pain-free and comfortable as possible. It’s not done to inflict pain and it’s not done as punishment. It’s done to preserve life.’ Force-fed: The restraint chair used to force-feed detainees on hunger strike at the detainee hospital in Camp Delta which is part of the U.S. military prison for 'enemy combatants' in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba... photo, Getty Images  The first book published by a longtime Guantanamo Bay inmate that describes torture, humiliation and despair during 13 years in captivity was selling briskly in the United States on Wednesday and drawing hard-won attention to his case. Mohamedou Ould Slahi's account from the U.S. naval base in Cuba, "Guantanamo Diary" was published on Tuesday after a seven-year legal battle. It recounts ice baths, degradation and myriad humiliations in a first-person telling of his interrogation during the American war on terrorism from a prisoner who has never been charged by the United States with a crime and was ordered released by a U.S. federal court in 2010. That order was later vacated and Slahi, 44, has continued to be held. Mohamedou Slahi was wearing black-out goggles. A guard dragged him onto a boat and someone forced him to drink seawater. "It was so nasty I threw up...They stuffed the air between my clothes and me with ice cubes from my neck to my ankles...every once in a while one of the guards smashed me, most of the time in the face." In a new book Guantánamo Diary, Slahi paints a horrifying picture of life at the hands of interrogators in the notorious U.S. military prison in Cuba. The book depicts long days in isolation, sometimes chained to the floor in agonizing positions, held in extreme temperatures, often deprived of food and sleep. On multiple occasions he describes being beaten and humiliated by his questioners. He says he was left "shaking like a Parkinson's patient" and felt one of his interrogators "was literally executing me but in a slow way." The 44-year-old electrical engineer, originally from Mauritania, has been held in Guantánamo Bay since 2002. He was accused of being a member of al Qaeda and of recruiting three of the hijackers in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as being involved in other terror plots in Canada and the United States. He's never been charged and his lawyers say there is very little evidence against him. Slahi admits to traveling to Afghanistan to fight in the early 1990s, when the U.S. was supporting the mujahedeen in their fight against the Soviet Union. He pledged allegiance to al Qaeda in 1991 but claims he broke ties with the group shortly after. Guantánamo Diary is the first published account from a serving detainee which is being made available to the public. Slahi hand-wrote the manuscript in his cell in 2005 and it took nearly seven years for Slahi's lawyers to get it approved for release. He describes his first few years of detention in what he calls his "endless world tour" of interrogation from Mauritania, to Jordan, to Afghanistan and finally Cuba. In his early years at Guantánamo, Slahi was exposed to a number of special interrogation techniques that were personally signed off by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, according to reports by the Armed Services Committee and the Department of Justice. That included sensory and sleep deprivation, designed to grind him down, which wreaked havoc on his physical and mental health. "I couldn't tell a thing about days going by or time passing; my time consisted of a crazy darkness all the time," Slahi writes. "I was starved for long periods and then given food but not given time to eat... "You have three minutes. Eat!" a guard would yell at me, and then after about half a minute he would grab the plate. "You're done!"". "I thought they were going to execute me," Slahi writes. "Thanks to the beating I wasn't able to stand, so [redacted] and the other guard dragged me out with my toes tracing the way and threw me in the truck, which immediately took off. The beating party would go on for the next three or four hours." This period culminated in him being taken on a boat ride during which he was blindfolded and he says beaten for several hours. ​ It was during this time that Slahi says he began to make false confessions in order to stop the torture. At one point he says to his interrogator "Just tell me the right answer. Is it good to say yes or to say no?" ​When a United States detention center is hundreds of miles off the coast, it can be difficult for Americans to imagine the plight of the people who have been held there for the past 15 years. The harrowing accounts that we have all heard about torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, blur together, creating an unshakeable malaise, partly because we hear more often about the methods of torture than about the suffering of the human beings who experience the terror tactics. The articles of Pardiss Kebriaei, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, can unexpectedly move us to tears. In a 2015 Harper’s Magazine article, Kebriaei told the story of Muhammed and Abdul Nasser Khantumani, a young Syrian man and his father, who were both detained at Gitmo for years without a reasonable explanation and who were separated when authorities realized that they provided comfort to one another. The two men, who have now been relocated, are still separated. Muhammed has gone to Portugal, and Abdul Nasser to Cape Verde, approximately 3,000 miles away. Abdul Nasser can see his family only through Skype and photographs, but his hardship is still a far cry from the isolation and torture of eight years at Guantanamo. Below is an excerpt from Kebriaei’s simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming piece about the father and son: Muhammed thinks that he started to crack sometime in 2005. That was the year he and his father were moved into separate camps. Interrogators learned early on that proximity to Abdul Nasser was a “comfort item” they could manipulate to try to make Muhammed talk. After Muhammed became uncooperative, they relocated him as a form of punishment. It would be years before they would hear each other’s voices again. Muhammed started smearing excrement on his cell walls. He kicked a guard, and bit another. In late 2006, his “noncompliant” behavior got him sent to the base’s newly constructed supermax prison—Camp 6—where he would later cut his wrists. In Camp 6, Muhammed was held in a windowless concrete-and-steel cell for at least twenty-two hours a day. He stayed in solitary confinement almost continuously for the next three years. ​ After Muhammed cut his wrists, I spoke with him on the phone. “Please do something,” he screamed. “I can’t be patient anymore.” I filed an emergency request asking for him to be moved from solitary confinement to his father’s camp. It was denied. Prison officials said that Muhammed had narcissistic traits and had cut himself to get attention. A few years earlier, an official at the State Department had called three alleged suicides at Guantánamo “a good PR move.” ​I met with men who are weak and have lost between 30 and 40 pounds. They told me of other men who are skeletal and barely moving, who have coughed up blood, passed out, and one who tried to hang himself. One of the men I met with, Sabry Mohammed, a Yemeni who remains detained years after he was approved for release by the Obama administration, said, “We are dying a slow death here.” Yet the authorities say they will not let men die—they will force-feed them when their body weight drops dangerously low, strapping them into chairs and forcing a tube up their noses that pumps formula into their stomachs. The military reports that so far, 11 men are being “saved” this way. Yet as one of the men put it, the irony is that “the government will keep us alive by force-feeding us but they will let us die by detaining us forever.” For over 2,100 days, he has been alone in a space he can touch both sides of simultaneously. He has not touched another human being since 2007. While he has been at ADX for nearly three years, he has no sense of his surroundings, because all he can see of the natural world is a patch of sky through steel mesh from an outdoor “recreation” cage two to three times a week, if that. He has not set foot on anything other than concrete in over six years. The image of Fahad’s torture is not that of a person being led around an interrogation room on a dog leash, or held in a stress position with heavy-metal music blasting. It is a person sitting still in a small cell, slowly deteriorating in a modern prison on the outskirts of a small Colorado town. Those who oppose closing the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay often suggest that the prisoners held there are too dangerous to be released, either because of who they were before they were placed there or who they became during their detention. Well, a review board that includes military and intelligence officials has been looking at a list of 50 prisoners who were previously deemed “too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution,” and finding many of them fit for release.

relations with Cuba

3/26/2016

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by E.L. Christianson Jr.

No change!  That would be the first take when examining Obama's visit to Cuba.  He made lots of noise talking about change (we heard that same noise during his first presidential campaign) but as with his presidency, our relations with Cuba are not about change.

​“We should not ignore the very real differences we have,” he says. “Cuba has a one-party system. The United States is a multi-party democracy. Cuba has a socialist economic model. The United States is an open market. Cuba has emphasised the role and rights of the state, the United States is founded upon the rights of the individual.”

In truth, we have a one party system... the only difference is that our one party system has two branches to give the illusion of two parties.  The multi-party concept in the United States is a sad joke in that parties outside of the republicans and the democrats have no capacity at all.  They are just window-dressing to deceive an observer.

That Cuba has a 'socialist economic model' allows even the poor to share in the meager economy of Cuba which is disadvantaged as a result of the economic war against Cuba from the United States.   This is compared to the economy of the United States where all gains go to the top tiers of society.  To declare the United States as an 'open market' is a lie.

About the status of Guantanamo. The United States took the Guantanamo site, and the Isle of Pines (now called Isle of Youth) by force. 

The argument of the U.S. government for its claim to Guantanamo really does not amount to anything. It amounts to the existence of an illegitimate treaty with an illegitimate government that no longer exists. The current government has refused to cash the rent checks the U.S. sends it. Sometimes the U.S. case is prettied up by claims that the "lease" is due to expire some day. It isn't. Not in anything written. The crime of stealing Guantanamo, like the Isle of Pines or Vieques or the Panama Canal or the closed bases in Ecuador or the Philippines is what is due to expire some day.

​Seeking to change Cuba is openly the policy of the U.S. government, and from the Cuban point of view it amounts to an effort to overthrow the Cuban government. The United States spends $20 million a year through USAID and other agencies to fund activism and "education" or "communications" in Cuba aimed at reshaping Cuba in the image the United States desires. Much of this is done subversively, such as the recently exposed effort to create a Twitter-like tool that would propagandize Cubans without revealing its source.

The U.S. justification for this behavior is that Cuba falls short in the area of human rights. Of course, Cuba says the same of the U.S. based on a broader understanding of human rights. But were Cuba to fund activist groups in the United States those groups would be violating U.S. law due to Cuba's ridiculous presence on the U.S. government's terrorist list. And if the U.S. government were to try to honestly justify punishment of Cuba as a human rights violator alongside the absence of punishment of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and so many other human rights violators, the argument would have to be spoken by Alice's Queen of Hearts.

To claim that the capitalist United States is founded upon the rights of the individual is also a lie.  

​The list of products that can be exported from Cuba for sale in the United States (from the point of view of the U.S. government) will include only products from private enterprise, nothing created by state-owned enterprises in Cuba.

In other words, this "opening" is a new tool intended to advance Cuban privatization whether Cubans want it or not -- a tool that may have some beneficial side effects, but not a tool designed to advance any relationship of friendship or respect. If U.S. Cuban relations are improved by this move (assuming the Cuban government agrees to it) it will be by accident.

Inside the cafe in downtown Havana, Hector, a civil lawyer who declined to give his last name, watched Obama wave from the airport tarmac with a distinct skepticism.

"I truly hope this is real, that the United States' intentions are good," he said, staring at the TV.

"But the US has punished us for 50 years and they might do it for 50 more. I guess we just have to wait until they realize that [lifting the embargo] is the right thing to do," he said, leaning back, arms folded in partial resignation.

"Until they do, we'll be here."

Apparently the whole trip was aimed at spreading more propaganda.  As many countries in South Americacan attest, the United States uses its embassies to destabilize the host country.  Obama's trip was really just a first step in that direction.

Regardless of our false claims about freedom and democracy in this country, American elections ranked worst among Western democracies.

This chart compares and contrasts the overall 100-point PEI index for all elections held since 2012 in the Western democracies covered in the survey. In the U.S., this covers both the 2012 presidential elections and the 2014 Congressional contests.

socialism is not a 'bad' word 3/25/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. Socialism is a system of economic and social controls whereby ownership and production is determine by the common good.  Communism is essentially based upon the same concept... the common good. In the United States, we have been taught to view socialism and communism as negatives.  As proof, we offer a few examples of countries where some form of these ideologies have been attempted and have not succeeded, ususally because of the characteristics of human beings as opposed to the characterictics of the ideology itself.  Russia is our favorite example and the word 'dictator' becomes the focus of any discussion of communism.  There are lots of other 'isms' that have been tried over the millennium of humans experimenting with political and economic systems. Fascism has been a favorite.  This is an authoritarian and nationalistic system of government and social organization.   Herein, who is in charge is really in charge and citizens are taught to 'rally around the flag". Capitalism is an economic and political system where industry/production is controlled by private owners for profit, rather than controlled by the state for the common good.  The 'free market' is a focus of capitalism.   Perhaps, because of usage of the word 'free', capitalism is often confused with democracy. ​Democracy is, we like to say,  "government of the people, by the people, and for the people".  In theory it would be majority rule.​ Here in the United States of America, we make lots of false claims about who we are.  Our education system promotes propaganda and mis-direction which keeps the citizens off balance regarding our true identity.  Most Americans would easily state that we live in a democracy and would point to our having elected leaders as proof.  Few look past the surface. Most Americans proudly believe we have a system of capitalism which works for and in a 'free market'.  Again, few look past the surface and rarely examine our economic history.   For most Americans, socialism has become a 'bad' word.  But, for those believing such, they have been educated to ignore obvious signals about where we really stand in this country. Yes, one can go to the ballot box and vote for leadership.  But, the choices have been selected by those who are in charge.  It is not really a democracy when one can choose among the 'party hacks' who have been preselected and placed on the ballot.  Or, here's a joke: ' you can write in the name of your personal favorite'... ha! ha! ha! And, while we have an economic system wherein the goals are the enrichment of the private owners rather than benefiting the population, it is not a 'free market' because the rules ensure that the private owners cannot fail.  The productivity of the entire population is directed toward protecting those few private owners... "too big to fail". An economic system must be able to provide for each member of the population.  Surpluses must be directed toward those unable to work on any given day.  The "American system" does not even pretend to provide for retirement, illness, accident and natural disasters.  In reality, each American citizen is more or less on their own.  Our system will save the banking class, but the rest must save themselves. The history of capitalism is one failure after the other.   Fascism is a word we don't like because we associate it through history with people we didn't like.  But in this country, this is what we practice more than democracy.  Every action of our congress is about control.  The authorities are in control and everyone knows it.  There is no area of live in this country that is not heavily regulated and controlled by those in charge.  Our police force has become an arm of our military.  One arm operates overseas and one arm operates at home.  More and more the equipment is the same.  The tactics are the same.  The uniforms are the same.  The philosophy of operation is the same.  No country has ever placed as many people in prisons as we have.  Don't step out of line or... Socialism on the other hand is all about the common good.  Production is determined not by who will make the greatest profit, but by what will provide the greatest good for the population in general terms. Those few countries of the world that attempt some form of socialism usually rank highest in terms of satisfaction and accomplishment among their populations. It is easy to understand... capitalism is good for an individual... socialism is good for a population... It is refreshing to see that the word is coming back into our language.  Now, we need to learn to practice socialism.  We will all benefit, and that's the truth !!!

selling irrational fear 3/23/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. In the United States of America, one of the best selling products is fear.  Probably, the best sales mechanism and the most profitable of the fear merchants is the institutional 'news' media.  "Fear sells" is now and has been the guiding principle which determines what gets printed or broadcast. Irrational fear seems to sell the best.  It is difficult to undermine irrational fear because reason, common sense, and rational thinking are discounted at the very beginning of the process. Humans have this thing about the 'bogey man'.  We all know that he doesn't exist, and yet, back there in the shadows where we aren't sure about things, there is this deep seated anxiety, likely left over from our early primate days.  We fear what we don't understand.  We concoct stories to support these fears.  And, we concoct religion as an antidote against these fears. We bring these things together in a manner that favors the dominate culture in our country.  The less dominate sections of our culture typically suffer from our fictional creations of fear. To date, black and brown people have suffered from general ignorance and irrational fears perpetuated by the European dominated society in which we live.   The Native American was portrayed as less than human... as a savage.  The African American was portrayed as less than human... as a savage.  Asian Americans were portrayed as less than human... as savage.  The brain-washing, the propaganda, the 'education' have been standardized and it has worked very well.  These populations have been successfully marginalized, discounted, taken advantage  of, and disadvantaged.  There is no measure of our society today that does not demonstrate this truth as related to black and brown people in the United States. Settling the west was a war against Native Americans.  The "war on drugs" was and is a war on African Americans.  "Immigration reform" was and is a war on Latin Americans.  Trump's wall on the Mexican border is a war against Latin American.  Essentially, the complete list of these abuses is the complete history of the United States. And now, we have the "war on terror".   This is in every way a religious war.  This is a war against the Muslim religion being waged by so-called 'Christians'.  "So-called" Christians because in every aspect, this war is everything Jesus spoke against.  Nobody who believes in the teachings of Jesus could possibly be involved in this hatred against Muslims. The propaganda machines of the mass media are at full throttle pumping out misinformation and lies aimed at creating hatred for Muslims.   And this process sells. And then came the bombing in Brussels.  And in response, the self-identified reincarnation of Christendom, presidential candidate Ted Cruz sells his solution of more hate.   Ted Cruz on Tuesday called for a freeze on the U.S. accepting refugees from regions where the Islamic State (ISIS) and al Qaeda have a strong presence and said local law enforcement should be allowed to "patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods." The Republican presidential candidate made the comments within hours of the bombings in Belgium that killed at least 30 and wounded hundreds more. ISIS has since claimed responsibility for the attack. Tensions were further exacerbated when Cruz's campaign spokesperson Alice Stewart told Politico, "We know what is happening with these isolated Muslim neighborhoods in Europe. If we want to prevent it from happening here, it is going to require an empowered, visible law enforcement presence that will both identify problem spots and partner with non-radical Americans who want to protect their homes." Cruz's "visible law enforcement presence" would be the other end of Trump's "kill the family".  "Non-radical" Americans would mean, white people.  The results are entirely predictable. The fact that most people are opposed to terrorists attacks is irrelevant in this particular conversation among people who are afraid of the dark and feel hatred for the unknown.  That Muslims are no more likely to launch a terrorist attack than Christians is irrelevant in discussions where fear and hatred are the major points to be considered. That United States foreign policy breeds terrorism cannot be allowed in the discussion because telling the truth upsets the balance between fact and fiction, and when one is selling fear, fiction is the most important asset.  Irrational fear requires ignorance, and that's the truth !!!

democracy doesn't exist in this country 3/21/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. First, at this website, we are supporting Jill Stein for president in the 2016 elections.  Many of the reasons for this support are explained very well by Paul Craig Roberts who we admire and regularly read.  Given Dr. Roberts background and insight, it is hard to understand why he himself is not in the Jill Stein camp.  Never-the-less, his reasoning is sound regarding what is wrong with the political system in the United States.  He points out with clarity the issues and the deceptions that have misled the American people in recent times.  Here in its entirety is his article "American Democracy Struggles To Recover From Betrayal" ​Despite the shortcomings of the candidates for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations, I see some hope in the strong support that voters are showing for the two non-establishment candidates. Consider Bernie Sanders' inroads on the corrupt Clintons' control of the Democratic Party. Look at how easily Donald Trump defeated the Republican establishment's candidates.Some Americans are catching on, shedding their unawareness. I am not confident that Sanders or Trump could bring change. In The Deep State (2016), Mike Lofgren concludes that powerful private interest groups, such as the military/security complex and the financial sector, have hijacked democracy. Still, voters' interest in Sanders and Trump, despite the beating they receive in the media, is a positive sign. I have the impression that voters are supporting them not so much for their positions on issues as for the fact that neither are part of the Washington establishment. Many voters now understand that the political establishment represents the One Percent, not them. ​ There are hopeful developments in foreign affairs also. A New Russia has appeared on the scene and demonstrated to the entire world its power to checkmate the hegemonic ambition of the crazed neoconservatives, who have controlled the US government since Bill Clinton. The world now understands that the leadership for peace comes from Russia, not from warmonger Washington. Washington's vassals in Europe are in disarray, with the Northern European EU members plundering the Southern EU members, and with all of Europe overrun with refugees fleeing Washington's hoax "war against terrorism." Europeans are beginning to realize that the establishment political parties that they have blindly supported since World War 2 are nothing but agents of Washington, who serve Washington and not Europeans. Merkel, Cameron, and Hollande are puppets of Washington, not leaders of the German, British, and French people. The Chinese government is finally beginning to realize that the neoliberal American economic policies that it has so slavishly been copying have led it into economic difficulties. Perhaps China will now cease to follow America into oblivion. The Russians have learned that being part of the Western system subjects them to economic sanctions and makes it easy for Washington to interfere in Russian internal affairs. The Russians are beginning to show that their desire for their independence is greater than their desire to be accepted by a corrupt, immoral, decadent, and failing West. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders speak to Americans' loss of economic opportunity and financial independence. Today the 99 Percent are slaves to their debt burdens and lack of productive employment, while those who deceived them into these burdens and lowly-paid employment in domestic services are reveling in multi-million dollar annual paychecks. The US Treasury, Federal Reserve, and financial regulators are corrupted by the private financial interests that control them. The US government serves only the One Percent. Despite this obvious fact, many Democratic Party voters -- traditionally the less well off, union members, and American blacks -- are turning out for Hillary Clinton, a tried and proven representative of the One Percent. The Clintons have been enriched to the amount of $153 million by the ruling One Percent who own the Clintons lock, stock, and barrel. Yet the dispossessed vote for Hillary. Clearly, many American voters, as Thomas Frank made clear in his book, What's the Matter with Kansas?, still have no clue as to their own interests and vote to elect their worst enemies. Many Americans are still trapped in The Matrix and kept there by the propaganda that masquerades in the US as "news." Consider the possible implications if Americans were to enable Hillary Clinton to become President. Trump has said that he would work things out with Vladimir Putin, but Hillary has declared the President of Russia to be "the new Hitler." How can Hillary work anything out with "the new Hitler"? She cannot. It is a great irony that the American lower class, traditionally served by the Democratic Party, could put in the White House not only a person who only represents the super-rich but also a person who cannot escape confict with Russia, a country with possibly the most capable military force on the planet. The psychopathic Washington neoconservatives who have controlled US foreign policy since the Clinton regime, misinterpret Vladimir Putin's peaceful diplomacy as a sign of Russian weakness. The neocons say: "See Putin is weak. He is pulling out of Syria." But what Putin says is different. Putin says: "We have created the conditions for peace in Syria." If Washington abuses these conditions, "Russia can, in several hours, build up its forces in Syria to a size capable of dealing with an escalating situation and use the entire range of means at its disposal." Putin adds: "We hope the parties involved would show common sense." From a position of strength, Putin has rolled the dice. Is there common sense in the West? I fail to see any. I see arrogance, hubris, idiocy, immorality, inhumanity, complete and total stupidity. These are the characteristics of Western governments. They amount to a deranged criminal enterprise organized against humanity. In the awards of medals to those Russians who served against ISIS, Putin stated: "Our uncompromising attitude to terrorism remains unchanged." If we take this statement broadly, it means not merely Muslim jihadists but the terrorism of the West -- the destruction of seven or more countries by the US and its vassals in the 21st century, the long-term sanctions against Iran, Russia, and a number of other countries whose governments do not comply with Washington's dictates. Putin has told Washington and Washington's European puppets, Cameron, Merkel, Hollande, that he has had enough of them. They must reform themselves, become honorable governments committed to the welfare of humanity, and abandon self-serving policies of plunder. Considering the total failure of the United States to subdue after 15 years a few thousand lightly armed Taliban, the American people need to understand that the US military, corrupted by privatizations to enhance former vice president Dick Cheney's stock options in Halliburton and by over-cost weapons systems that serve the profits of the armaments industries and not the military competence of the fighting force, has lost its edge in weapons superiority. The latest over-cost American fighter jet, for example, according to the Air Force's own conclusions cannot match the old fighter it is intended to replace, whereas the latest Russian fighter is said to have the capability to electronically shut down American control systems, track simultaneously 24 enemy fighters and lock on 10 simultaneously for unavoidable destruction. Members of the US military command have expressed concern over the high quality of Russian weapon systems. Everyone needs to understand that the establishments of the two American political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, are less interested in winning the election than in continuing to control the party. Trump and Sanders are hated by the party establishments, because Trump and Sanders are not members of the establishment. Control over the party by the party establishment is so important that we have many members of the Republican establishment declaring that if Trump wins the Republican nomination, they will vote for the Democrat. This has happened before. It was Republicans who denied the presidency to Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. The United States is a failing society. Citizens' hopes are being snuffed out. There are few good jobs or enough jobs of any kind, as the collapse of the labor force participation rate confirms. People are drowning in debts that they have no prospect of ever paying off. Young adults cannot form independent households. The oligarchy that rules and controls the country has committed America to massively expensive wars and privacy invasions for the purpose of establishing a hegemony that enriches elite private interests. The corrupt and unrepentant financial sector, having survived its mortgage-backed security fiasco without prosecution or correction has repeated its previous folly with a new weapon of potential financial mass destruction. Speculators have bought up distressed properties and rented them. The rental streams are bundled into financial instruments, as were the mortgage payments previously, and sold to investors. Is a renter more committed and better able to pay than a person with a mortgage? Jobs offshoring and financialization have drained the US economy of the ability to grow. The ladders of upward mobility have been dismantled, and the service of debt curtails consumer demand for goods and services. The wage saving from offshoring jobs raises corporate profits and brings executive bonuses and capital gains to the One Percent. Financialization diverts consumer purchasing power into the service of debt. The result is stagnation and decline. Foreign policy based on threats and coercion means constant conflict. The US has been in constant conflict since the Clinton regime overthrew the government in Serbia. Constant conflict is expensive, and Americans have had these expensive costs imposed on them simultaneously with the costs of jobs offshoring and financialization. It was 20 months ago that Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was destroyed over Ukraine. Despite the inability of the investigation to come to a conclusion, from the first moment Western propaganda has blamed the loss of 298 lives on Russia. Three days after the airliner's destruction, US Secretary of State John Kerry set in stone the blame on Russia with his claim that "we saw the take-off [of the Buk missile]. We saw the trajectory. We saw the hit. We saw this airplane disappear from the radar screens. So there is really no mystery about where it came from and where these weapons have come from." If the US has all the evidence, why hasn't the US government released it? Obviously, there is no such evidence. Why would Washington fail to release evidence that proved Russian responsibility? Kerry's evidence no more exists than the alleged evidence the US government claims to have from numerous security cameras that a passenger airliner hit the Pentagon on 9/11. If the government had such evidence why has the government refused to release it for almost 15 years? If the government produced this evidence, it would be a death blow to the 9/11 Truth movement. The evidence no more exists than the alleged evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, that Assad used chemical weapons, that Russia invaded Ukraine. The terms of the last three US presidents have been used to squander trillions of dollars on pointless wars and construction of a domestic police state on the basis of a non-existent "terrorist threat." This alleged threat has been reinforced with false flag events and a fake history spun from lies repeated endlessly by government and its presstitutes. In 1994 Christopher Lasch wrote in The Revolt of the Elites: "In our time, the chief threat seems to come from those at the top of the social hierarchy." As Lasch said, the greed of the elites for money and power have undermined the constitutional basis of the United States. The elites have used their power to betray democracy. Will the American people succeed in clawing back their democracy?