militarized police, and a race war...

8/9/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. The United States of America is all about race.  Policing and 'law enforcement' is all about race.  Those two statements summarize the past, present and the future in this country.  It has always been about race, it is about race today, and it will be about race as far into the future as anyone can imagine.  Starting with the earliest European experience on the American continents and examining every aspect of history, the separation of races and domination of one race over the other races has driven every social event, every piece of legislation and virtually every thought in this country. The 'civil rights movement' made some small progress toward removing some institutional barriers to the tremendous disadvantages Blacks face in this country (Native and Hispanic People may have received a small boost also).  But, the cry that minorities then had an advantage could only be imagined by the truly deluded racist who wanted to relegate minorities back to 'their place'.  These people rebelled against whatever social progress was made. Gone is the provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that prevented states from passing voting laws without approval from the U.S. Department of Justice. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that we were past and the need for such approval... as if to say, race no longer matters.  However, some recognize the truth and this year, a North Carolina federal court overturned the state's voter ID law, ruling that it targets African-Americans "with almost surgical precision." And now, from the governor's office we have a call for a race war.  In truth, the civil war has never really ended in this country. On the positive side, there is a generation of young people in this country who never really saw minorities as chattel and/or less than human.  But the rest of this society wants to return to the 'good old days' that they rally around... the rally is gaining energy and momentum. The militarization of the police and the equipping and training of the police force as an occupying force are good indications of exactly which direction we are heading in this country.  War and more war. It looks as if our country will be engaged in war abroad and war at home... and that's the truth !!! Maine's Governor Is Openly Calling for a Race War Against People of Color ​ Governor Paul LePage referred to "people of color or people of Hispanic origin" as "the enemy." By Sarah Lazare /  AlterNet Calls are mounting for Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) to resign after he doubled down Friday on openly racist statements by calling for a race war against people of color. LePage made the remarks during a press conference at which he sought to defend himself against accusations of racism. During those comments, he indicated that people of color are the enemy and should be shot. “A bad guy is a bad guy,” he said. “I don’t care what color he is. When you go to war, if you know the enemy, the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, you shoot at red… You shoot at the enemy. You try to identify the enemy. And the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in are people of color or people of Hispanic origin.” Those remarks followed statements last Wednesday at a town hall meeting in North Berwick, where the governor errantly stated: Let me tell you this, let me tell you, explain to you: I made the comment that black people are trafficking in our state. Now, ever since I said that comment, I’ve been collecting every single drug dealer who has been arrested in our state … I don’t ask them to come to Maine and sell their poison, but they come. And I will tell you that 90-plus percent of those pictures in my book, and it’s a three-ring binder, are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut, the Bronx and Brooklyn. I didn’t make the rules, I’m just telling you what’s happening. Of course, the governor's claims are incorrect. Mark Potok is a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups in the United States. He told AlterNet, “On top of everything else, LePage is making a claim that is simply false. The fact is that most drug dealers and consumers in the United States are white.” On Thursday, the Maine ACLU filed a public records request demanding access to the alleged three-ring binder the LePage referenced. Yet, in response to public outcry, as well as objections from some Maine lawmakers, LePage lashed out. Following a news report that State Rep. Drew Gattine (D) had criticized the governor’ racist remarks, LePage left a violent rant on the lawmaker’s voicemail, stating: Mr. Gattine, this is Gov. Paul Richard LePage. I would like to talk to you about your comments about my being a racist, you cocksucker. I want to talk to you. I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son of a bitch, socialist cocksucker. You … I need you to … Just friggin’. I want you to record this and make it public because I am after you. Thank you. He appeared to threaten the life of Gattine in remarks made later to the Portland Press Herald, in which he declared: "When a snot-nosed little guy from Westbrook calls me a racist, now I’d like him to come up here because, tell you right now, I wish it were 1825. And we would have a duel. That’s how angry I am. And I would not put my gun in the air, I guarantee you; I would not be [Alexander] Hamilton. I would point it right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt and he has not done a damn thing since he’s been in this legislature to help move the state forward." This is not the first time LePage has made openly racist or violent statements. In January, he blamed the state’s opioid epidemic on "guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty" who are from New York and Connecticut and "half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave." And in 2011, LePage toldthe Maine NAACP to “kiss my butt.” According to Potok, LePage’s latest comments are “par for the course. He has made plain his antipathy to black people. To me, his latest remarks are utterly unsurprising. Are they racist statements? Yes.” Teddy Burrage is a community activist and participant in Black Lives Matter protests who has organized with the Portland, Maine Racial Justice Congress. He told AlterNet that LePage is “putting people in danger. It’s not just a political gaffe or something that came about because he is unstable. The governor has potentially empowered dangerous people to hurt people of color.” On Saturday night, Democratic leaders in the legislature wrote a letter to their Republican counterparts calling on them to rebuke the governor’s statements and press him to either get help or resign. In addition, the letter states that LePage “appears to be unfit to hold office at this time.” Burrage cautioned, “It would be easy to say Paul LePage is crazy or unstable, but the reality is that he is a manifestation of the people who put him in office. This is an issue in the governor’s office, but it’s a larger issue as far as racism being acceptable.” While Donald Trump-style racism may embolden figures like LePage, Burrage emphasized that the Maine governor's racism predates the 2016 presidential election cycle. "It's doesn't feel new to me," said Burrage, "and I am not shocked." Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare.

The proper use of propaganda...

8/29/2016

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by E.L. Christianson Jr.

Amazingly and without any trace of irony, we love to accuse others of that which we ourselves excel at doing.

Here, in this article from the New York Times, the subject of spreading false stories is pinned squarely on the Russians.  By implication, the United States never stoops to such dastardly actions... the telling of lies.  The reader must read through the article to view the horror of continuous "distorted and outright false information" coming from Russian sources.

Where does a reader start?  History didn't start yesterday.  For practical purposes, one could begin an investigation for the truth at the point of unifying Germany... the end of the divisions in Europe and the conclusion of the 'cold war'.  What things transpired?  What agreements were reached.  Who broke agreements?

To uncover the truth, one needs to read and gather information from a variety of sources.  Clearly The New York Times presents a one-sided perspective.  But, one need not go to Russia to get other perspectives (probably the exact opposite perspective).  One can look to other countries, for example, Germany’s Spiegel, or Mirror, magazine, which is a mainstream German news site, and which is from a country that is theoretically on 'our side'.

In 2009 the magazine published an article entitled "Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow?", written by Uwe Klußmann, Matthias Schepp and Klaus Wiegrefe.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.
For years former US Secretary of State James Baker... has denied that there was any agreement between the two sides. But Jack Matlock, the US ambassador in Moscow at the time, has said in the past that Moscow was given a "clear commitment."

After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified British and German documents in detail, SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia.
One of our strongest allies recognizes that the United States has broken the promise made during the reunification of Germany.

This is powerful evidence that demonstrates truthfulness and lies and who can be trusted and who can not.

​Here is another article, another opinion that examines our current circumstances with Russia.  Falsely Blame It On The Russians, published this year (July 30, 2016) by thenonconformer.

The article states, "Now the Obama Administration has been constructing a false narrative to justify NATO preparations for war with Russia.. Putin  has been linked to everything from Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, Greece and Spain. People treat him like an omnipotent mastermind who secretly and effortlessly controls world events and we should stop giving him so much credit."

The Washington Post reports "Hillary Clinton’s Putin-Hitler comments draw rebukes as she wades into Ukraine conflict" by Philip Rucker.
​
Hillary Rodham Clinton has sparked a political uproar this week by wading into the middle of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, likening the moves of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the actions of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler leading up to World War II.

The former secretary of state’s provocative comparison drew swift rebukes Wednesday from U.S.-Russia policy experts — including some who served under her husband, former president Bill Clinton — while attracting rare notes of support from hawkish Republicans in Congress.

The reader is encouraged to read as widely as one can find material to read.  One needs to then draw ones own conclusions from the information contained in the materials.

The reader is also encouraged to read the New York Times article if for nothing else for the irony, humor and the blatantly fake attempt to describe the Russians as spreading 'false stories', as if the United States only tells the truth.

The New York Times article is accompanied by a series of photographs that seem to be presented as 'proof' of the assertions that are made in the article.  

Under the title of 'Related Coverage', The New York Times article is concluded with a link to another 'damning' article that apparently is intended to be 'the icing on the cake'... More of Kremlin’s Opponents Are Ending Up Dead.

​We offer our own version of 'Related Coverage' with a link to our own article "United States Propaganda Against Syria".  We are holding back on related articles about Clinton enemies who are dead.

A reader could easily be confused about the information and sources presented by the New York Times... is this actual journalism or is this the propaganda arm of the US state department?  It is difficult to tell the difference, and that's the truth !!!

A Powerful Russian Weapon:
The Spread of False Stories

from the New York Times By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

STOCKHOLM — With a vigorous national debate underway on whether Sweden should enter a military partnership with NATO, officials in Stockholm suddenly encountered an unsettling problem: a flood of distorted and outright false information on social media, confusing public perceptions of the issue.

The claims were alarming: If Sweden, a non-NATO member, signed the deal, the alliance would stockpile secret nuclear weapons on Swedish soil; NATO could attack Russia from Sweden without government approval; NATO soldiers, immune from prosecution, could rape Swedish women without fear of criminal charges.

They were all false, but the disinformation had begun spilling into the traditional news media, and as the defense minister, Peter Hultqvist, traveled the country to promote the pact in speeches and town hall meetings, he was repeatedly grilled about the bogus stories.

“People were not used to it, and they got scared, asking what can be believed, what should be believed?” said Marinette Nyh Radebo, Mr. Hultqvist’s spokeswoman.

As often happens in such cases, Swedish officials were never able to pin down the source of the false reports. But they, numerous analysts and experts in American and European intelligence point to Russia as the prime suspect, noting that preventing NATO expansion is a centerpiece of the foreign policy of President Vladimir V. Putin, who invaded Georgia in 2008 largely to forestall that possibility.

In Crimea, eastern Ukraine and now Syria, Mr. Putin has flaunted a modernized and more muscular military. But he lacks the economic strength and overall might to openly confront NATO, the European Union or the United States. Instead, he has invested heavily in a program of “weaponized” information, using a variety of means to sow doubt and division. The goal is to weaken cohesion among member states, stir discord in their domestic politics and blunt opposition to Russia.

“Moscow views world affairs as a system of special operations, and very sincerely believes that it itself is an object of Western special operations,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, who helped establish the Kremlin’s information machine before 2008. “I am sure that there are a lot of centers, some linked to the state, that are involved in inventing these kinds of fake stories.”

Dark Arts: Russia’s Stealth Conflict This article is the second in a series on how Russia covertly projects power.

The planting of false stories is nothing new; the Soviet Union devoted considerable resources to that during the ideological battles of the Cold War. Now, though, disinformation is regarded as an important aspect of Russian military doctrine, and it is being directed at political debates in target countries with far greater sophistication and volume than in the past.

The flow of misleading and inaccurate stories is so strong that both NATO and the European Union have established special offices to identify and refute disinformation, particularly claims emanating from Russia.
The Kremlin’s clandestine methods have surfaced in the United States, too, American officials say, identifying Russian intelligence as the likely source of leaked Democratic National Committee emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Kremlin uses both conventional media — Sputnik, a news agency, and RT, a television outlet — and covert channels, as in Sweden, that are almost always untraceable.

Russia exploits both approaches in a comprehensive assault, Wilhelm Unge, a spokesman for the Swedish Security Service, said this year when presenting the agency’s annual report. “We mean everything from internet trolls to propaganda and misinformation spread by media companies like RT and Sputnik,” he said.

The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events — even the very idea that there is a true version of events — and foster a kind of policy paralysis.

Disinformation most famously succeeded in early 2014 with the initial obfuscation about deploying Russian forces to seize Crimea. That summer, Russia pumped out a dizzying array of theories about the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, blaming the C.I.A. and, most outlandishly, Ukrainian fighter pilots who had mistaken the airliner for the Russian presidential aircraft.

The cloud of stories helped veil the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the plane with a missile supplied by Russia.

Moscow adamantly denies using disinformation to influence Western public opinion and tends to label accusations of either overt or covert threats as “Russophobia.”

“There is an impression that, like in a good orchestra, many Western countries every day accuse Russia of threatening someone,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a recent ministry briefing.

Tracing individual strands of disinformation is difficult, but in Sweden and elsewhere, experts have detected a characteristic pattern that they tie to Kremlin-generated disinformation campaigns.

Continue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGE

• More of Kremlin’s Opponents Are Ending Up Dead AUG. 20, 2016

“The dynamic is always the same: It originates somewhere in Russia, on Russia state media sites, or different websites or somewhere in that kind of context,” said Anders Lindberg, a Swedish journalist and lawyer.

“Then the fake document becomes the source of a news story distributed on far-left or far-right-wing websites,” he said. “Those who rely on those sites for news link to the story, and it spreads. Nobody can say where they come from, but they end up as key issues in a security policy decision.”

Although the topics may vary, the goal is the same, Mr. Lindberg and others suggested. “What the Russians are doing is building narratives; they are not building facts,” he said. “The underlying narrative is, ‘Don’t trust anyone.’”

The weaponization of information is not some project devised by a Kremlin policy expert but is an integral part of Russian military doctrine — what some senior military figures call a “decisive” battlefront.
“The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness,” Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces, wrote in 2013.

A prime Kremlin target is Europe, where the rise of the populist right and declining support for the European Union create an ever more receptive audience for Russia’s conservative, nationalistic and authoritarian approach under Mr. Putin. Last year, the European Parliament accused Russia of “financing radical and extremist parties” in its member states, and in 2014 the Kremlin extended an $11.7 million loan to the National Front, the extreme-right party in France.

“The Russians are very good at courting everyone who has a grudge with liberal democracy, and that goes from extreme right to extreme left,” said Patrik Oksanen, an editorial writer for the Swedish newspaper group MittMedia. The central idea, he said, is that “liberal democracy is corrupt, inefficient, chaotic and, ultimately, not democratic.”

Another message, largely unstated, is that European governments lack the competence to deal with the crises they face, particularly immigration and terrorism, and that their officials are all American puppets.

In Germany, concerns over immigrant violence grew after a 13-year-old Russian-German girl said she had been raped by migrants. A report on Russian state television furthered the story. Even after the police debunked the claim, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, continued to chastise Germany.

In Britain, analysts said, the Kremlin’s English-language news outlets heavily favored the campaign for the country to leave the European Union, despite their claims of objectivity.

In the Czech Republic, alarming, sensational stories portraying the United States, the European Union and immigrants as villains appear daily across a cluster of about 40 pro-Russia websites.

During NATO military exercises in early June, articles on the websites suggested that Washington controlled Europe through the alliance, with Germany as its local sheriff. Echoing the disinformation that appeared in Sweden, the reports said NATO planned to store nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe and would attack Russia from there without seeking approval from local capitals.

A poll this summer by European Values, a think tank in Prague, found that 51 percent of Czechs viewed the United States’ role in Europe negatively, that only 32 percent viewed the European Union positively and that at least a quarter believed some elements of the disinformation.

“The data show how public opinion is changing thanks to the disinformation on those outlets,” said Jakub Janda, the think tank’s deputy director for public and political affairs. “They try to look like a regular media outlet even if they have a hidden agenda.”

Not all Russian disinformation efforts succeed. Sputnik news websites in various Scandinavian languages failed to attract enough readers and were closed after less than a year.

Both RT and Sputnik portray themselves as independent, alternative voices. Sputnik claims that it “tells the untold,” even if its daily report relies heavily on articles abridged from other sources. RT trumpets the slogan “Question More.”

Both depict the West as grim, divided, brutal, decadent, overrun with violent immigrants and unstable. “They want to give a picture of Europe as some sort of continent that is collapsing,” Mr. Hultqvist, the Swedish defense minister, said in an interview.

RT often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish. Its coverage of the Democratic National Convention, for example, skipped the speeches and focused instead on scattered demonstrations. It defends the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, as an underdog maligned by the established news media.

Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor in chief, said the channel was being singled out as a threat because it offered a different narrative from “the Anglo-American media-political establishment.” RT, she said, wants to provide “a perspective otherwise missing from the mainstream media echo chamber.”

Moscow’s targeting of the West with disinformation dates to a Cold War program the Soviets called “active measures.” The effort involved leaking or even writing stories for sympathetic newspapers in India and hoping that they would be picked up in the West, said Professor Mark N. Kramer, a Cold War expert at Harvard.

The story that AIDS was a C.I.A. project run amok spread that way, and it poisons the discussion of the disease decades later. At the time, before the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, the Kremlin was selling communism as an ideological alternative. Now, experts said, the ideological component has evaporated, but the goal of weakening adversaries remains.

In Sweden recently, that has meant a series of bizarre forged letters and news articles about NATO and linked to Russia.

One forgery, on Defense Ministry letterhead over Mr. Hultqvist’s signature, encouraged a major Swedish firm to sell artillery to Ukraine, a move that would be illegal in Sweden. Ms. Nyh Radebo, his spokeswoman, put an end to that story in Sweden, but at international conferences, Mr. Hultqvist still faced questions about the nonexistent sales.

Russia also made at least one overt attempt to influence the debate. During a seminar in the spring, Vladimir Kozin, a senior adviser to the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank linked to the Kremlin and Russian foreign intelligence, argued against any change in Sweden’s neutral status.

“Do they really need to lose their neutral status?” he said of the Swedes. “To permit fielding new U.S. military bases on their territory and to send their national troops to take part in dubious regional conflicts?”

Whatever the method or message, Russia clearly wants to win any information war, as Dmitry Kiselyev, Russia’s most famous television anchor and the director of the organization that runs Sputnik, made clear recently.

Speaking this summer on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Information Bureau, Mr. Kiselyev said the age of neutral journalism was over. “If we do propaganda, then you do propaganda, too,” he said, directing his message to Western journalists.

“Today, it is much more costly to kill one enemy soldier than during World War II, World War I or in the Middle Ages,” he said in an interview on the state-run Rossiya 24 network. While the business of “persuasion” is more expensive now, too, he said, “if you can persuade a person, you don’t need to kill him.”

Follow Neil MacFarquhar on Twitter @NeilMacFarquhar.
Eva Sohlman contributed reporting from Stockholm, and Lincoln Pigman from Moscow.

Here is an interesting article to read on the subject, "How and Why the U.S. Media Carry Out Propaganda Against Russia" from Global Research by Eric Zuesse

The owners of U.S. newsmedia know that in order to serve their fellow U.S. aristocrats who want to kick out Russia’s current leader, Vladimir Putin, so as to enable them to buy Russia’s natural resources (and highly educated work-forces) cheap via “privatizations,” their PR campaign for their fellow aristocrats (their major advertisers) must be led by ‘respectable’ news media.

At Plausible Truths, we can highly recommend reading this article... that taking over Russia's natural resources and workforce, cheaply, is a motivating factor for our propaganda is very believable.

privatize is another word for 'scam'

8/28/2016

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by E.L. Christianson Jr.

Language is a very interesting phenomena.  Language is defined as the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of "the use of words" in a structured and conventional way.  And, the purpose of "human communication" is to share or exchange thoughts, information, news, ideas, attitudes, feelings and other similar mental occurrences.

To be effective, the various participants must understand the words being used in the same manner... must define the words in the same way... must have the same relationship to the concepts conveyed by the words.  This appears basic with the human use of language.

Politicians in the United States use language differently.  They seize upon words that they believe convey an emotional message to get support for certain ideas while at the same time knowing that the meaning of the word is broadly misunderstood, or that there are enough distinctly different definitions of the word to confuse the voter.  We then have Ronald Reagan naming the MX mobile nuclear weapons missile the “Peacekeeper.” without any apparent irony.

In the same manner, we have today's politicians running around the country making speeches in support of 'privatization'.  They push this on the unsuspecting public by making claims about privatization that are completely wrong.  They have completely destroyed public education systems by insisting that 'competition' in the educational process is more productive.  The result, as can be studied easily with a internet search, has been disaster on many levels, especially on the educational level for the less than wealthy, and on the financial level for the public in general.  

The word privatize represents a concept of taking public funds and transferring those funds into private hands, private bank accounts.  The demonstrated 'efficiency' simply is less money spent on public employees.  The 'outcomes', a word requiring much explanation, are deceptions of accounting and record keeping which are slanted toward 'privatization' by the 'privateers' in order to make themselves look good and to keep the scam working for a longer period of time.

Corporations are in business to make a profit.  No matter what the business, profit is the primary motivation for a corporation where everything is measured at the 'bottom line'.  Government activities are aimed at the benefit of the country without regard to profit.  Education is about educating the populace.  Health-care is about healthy living for the masses.

We are aware of the distinctions and yet we allow ourselves to be deceived and led toward 'privatization' under the illusion that we will be better served is someone is making a profit while providing a 'service'.  In reality, the 'service' provided is 'self-serving' for the scam artist and the public is left holding the bag... and that's the truth !!!

by Paul Craig Roberts
​
​How many Americans know that America has privatized prisons, the shares of which are listed on stock exchanges? Free market ideologues provided cover for corrupt Republican politicians to divert taxpayers' hard-earned money to favored political insiders with the false claim that prisons run by private owners are more cost effective.

A Mother Jones reporter took a job as a private prison guard and found that private prisons are places of unimaginable violence. In response to the report published in Mother Jones, high ranking US Department of Justice officials have said that the federal government will cease contracting with privatized prisons.

Republicans learned to use libertarian "free market" ideologues in order to feather their own nests. Privatization, favored by libertarians, is the Republican way of turning public functions into million dollar businesses for themselves and their friends. In the case of the armed forces, the privatized parts of the US military are multi-billion dollar businesses.

Most Americans are too brainwashed to understand that Obamacare is not "socialized medicine." Obamacare is privatized medicine. Obama permitted the private insurance companies to write Obamacare. What Obamacare does is to divert federal subsidies into the pockets of private insurance companies. The deductibles and co-pays are so high that those who qualify for the subsidized premiums cannot afford to use the policies.

Republicans intend to privatize Medicare and Social Security. The road to Medicare privatization is the small percentage of medical billings that Medicare pays. Medical care providers are beginning to find that it is unprofitable to provide care to Medicare patients. When doctors cease to provide care under Medicare, the massive payroll tax revenues will be diverted into the hands of "more efficient" private providers.

The road to Social Security privatization is the "reform" of the consumer price index, which under-measures inflation in order to deny Social Security recipients cost-of-living-adjustments. The continuing decline in the real value of Social Security benefits will result in large-scale economic distress. This distress will be used to discredit the Social Security system and to privatize it.

Whenever you hear "privatization," you are hearing the formation of a scam that will create riches for insiders while taking the public to the cleaners.
​

Jailing Americans for Profit: The Rise of the Prison Industrial Complex from the Huffington Post by John W. Whitehead “Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today — perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system — in prison, on probation, or on parole — than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America — more than six million — than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.” — Adam Gopnik, “The Caging of America“ ​ In an age when freedom is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule, imprisoning Americans in private prisons run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business. At one time, the American penal system operated under the idea that dangerous criminals needed to be put under lock and key in order to protect society. Today, as states attempt to save money by outsourcing prisons to private corporations, the flawed yet retributive American “system of justice” is being replaced by an even more flawed and insidious form of mass punishment based upon profit and expediency.

The Privatization Scam: ​5 Horror Stories of Gov't Outsourcing to Greedy Private Companies Taxpayers are getting fleeced. By Dave Johnson / AlterNet Diane Ravitch's blog A site to discuss better education for all Privatization Scams You Should Know About The Medicare Privatization Scam Will an upcoming vote in Congress signal the end of Medicare? from The Nation By Trudy Lieberman from People's World​ by Moe Radd It's your world The military privatization scam

Russian aggression 8/20/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. Where is this Russian aggression.  What evidence is there that demonstrates this Russian aggression that we hear and read so much about? Corporate media is fanning the flames of World War III by reporting Washington’s propagandistic lies without examining the statements.  These lies endanger human life on planet Earth. Past American presidents worked to reduce tensions between the two major nuclear super-powers.  Kennedy worked with Khrushchev to undo the danger of putting US missiles in Turkey and the placement of Russian missiles in Cuba as a response. Nixon  signed SALT I, the strategic arms limitation treaty, and the ABM Treaty.   Carter signed SALT II.  Reagan worked  with Gorbachev to end the Cold War. And then we come to our current situation wherein the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama presidency have undone the progress and increased the tensions. Clinton reneged  on the Reagan - Gorbachev agreement by taking NATO to Russia’s borders revealing the dishonesty of the government of the United States. George W. Bush regime pulled the US out of the ABM Treaty which transformed nuclear weapons from  retaliatory weapons to first strike status. Obama intends to place nuclear missiles on Russia’s borders in Poland and Romania.  He also plotted a coup in Ukraine. Hillary Clinton’s was Secretary of State and she sat on the senate Committee on Armed Services.  As the candidate of the military/industrial complex, she is responsible for the destruction of Libya and has left her fingerprints all over Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria.  Her actions led to a beginning of ISIS.  Her policies led to the present refugee crisis. She is campaigning for greater use of U.S. military power to solve international problems that she herself created. She has promised that as president, she will escalate the wars in Iraq and Syria.   She says she wants to reassert United States military power around the world.   Her military plans will provoke China, Iran and Russia. Clinton likens Putin to Hitler and speaks endlessly of 'Russian aggression'.  In her many years in the public eye, she has never seen a war she didn't like. In truth, it it the United States that is the aggressor and the evidence is all around the globe. Don't poke the Russian bear from OpEdNews by Jean-Luc Basle ​ Vladimir Putin delivered a speech and answered questions on October 24, 2014. He made clear his concern over the disappearance of the balance of power between the United States and Russia. The United States is surrounding Russia with missiles, officially aimed at Iran, but really at Russia. The range of these missiles can be increased at an instant notice to target Russian launchers without Russia knowing anything about it. Once the American deployment program is completed in 2020, the balance of power will be gone and Russia will be vulnerable. Hence, Putin's concern. What will the United States do then? Will it blackmail Russia into subservience? What will happen if they do? Nobody knows. But, one thing is clear tension is rising between the two countries. Having looked into the abyss during the 1962 Cuban crisis, Americans and Russians endeavored to lower tension between them through treaties, exchange of information, regular high level contacts, etc. George W. Bush shook up this growing trust by withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty unilaterally. NATO's enlargement, in violation of an American commitment, further knocked it down, greatly worrying the Russians. The building of missile bases in Eastern Europe is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. The trust is gone. Knowing the United States' strategy may lead to nuclear confrontation, Russians are at a loss to understand what the Americans are up to. Russia is no threat to the United States. The American strategy is irresponsible, tantamount to Russia installing missile bases in Mexico. Tension is on the rise and with it the risk of an unexpected nuclear war. In his book, "My journey at the Nuclear Brink", William Perry, former U.S. defense secretary, warns his compatriots (and the world) of the danger. In his opinion, only by chance did the world avoid a nuclear confrontation during the Cold War -- at the time both the United States and Russia were taking steps to reduce tension. In a tense environment, the risk is magnified. Even if one disregards the risk, the likelihood of a nuclear confrontation remains. The United States' policy aims at isolating Russia, economically, militarily and politically. To counter this policy, Russia has three traditional allies: Germany, India and China. Germany is an American vassal state. It cannot be counted on. India conducts naval exercises with the United States since 2012. It signed a Ten Year Defense Framework Agreement with the United States in 2015 and The US-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region this year. It will not come to Russia's defense. China's economic future is irrevocably linked to the West. Coming to Russia's rescue would endanger this relationship. Russia is quarantined. As time goes on, the pain on the Russian population will grow. At one point, it will become intolerable. Vladimir Putin will be confronted with a choice: submit or respond. If he gives in, Russia becomes a vassal state. If he does not, he will react with the only mean at his disposal: nuclear missiles. In his October conference, he gave reporters an inkling of his likely response: "the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction". Sensing he was not heard, he repeated the message in Saint Petersburg on June 17th, telling them: "You people" do not have a sense of the impending danger." Weary, he added: "I don't know how to get through to you anymore". ​ Putin will not submit. Why not listen to him?

United States Propaganda Against Syria 8/24/2016 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. When there is government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then one expects to have confidence in what the government is telling the citizens because it is the people speaking among themselves, telling themselves those things needing to be told.  When it is government by corporations and the wealthy elite, for corporations and the wealthy elite, and of corporations and the wealthy elite, the only thing one can be certain of is that the things government is saying are things that are beneficial to the corporations and the wealthy elite. As things currently stand in the United States, we can believe that what the government says is only intended to sway the public toward those goals that are good for corporations and the wealthy elite.  The truth and what is good for the country and the citizens of the country have no place in today's government discourse. Propaganda for Syrian ‘Regime Change’ ​by Rick Sterling  ​​Neocons and Clintonites have launched a major campaign with the goal of direct U.S. military intervention and aggression against Syria, potentially leading to war with Iran and Russia. An early indication emerged as soon as it was clear the Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic Party nominee. Following the California primary, The New York Times reportedon State Department diplomats issuing an internal memo “urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al Assad.” ​ In early August, Dennis Ross and Andrew Tabler opined in The New York Times about “The Case for (Finally) Bombing Assad”. Dennis Ross is a favorite Clintonite. In her book Hard Choices, Clinton described how she asked Dennis Ross to come to the State Department to “work on Iran and regional issues.” New York Times regular Nicholas Kristof made his own pitch for war against Syria. According to the self-styled humanitarian, we need “safe zones” as proposed by Clintonite Madeline Albright and retired General James Cartwright. That is risky, Kristof said, but “the risks of doing nothing in Syria are even greater.” PBS broadcast a story titled “Repeatedly targeted by airstrikes, Syrian doctors feel abandoned.” The story features video from the “White Helmets” along with photos from the reported April bombing of Al Quds Hospital. Currently there is a huge media campaign around the situation in Aleppo. Syrian American doctor Zaher Sahloul, of the Syrian American Medical Society, has been interviewed extensively on mainstream media as well as DemocracyNow with widespread promotion in Truthout and other sites. There has been lots of publicity around a letter to President Obama, supposedly written by 15 doctors in East Aleppo. The letter ends “We need your action.” The flow and wording of the letter suggests it may have been composed by a marketing company and there has been no verification of the doctors who supposedly signed it. The letter was likely written by a paid Syria War propagandist or Washington lobby firm. Read the letter here and judge for yourself. For contrast watch this interview with a real Syrian doctor not mouthing propaganda from K Street in Washington D.C. An online Change petition asks German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama to “save the people of Aleppo.” The publicly funded Holocaust Memorial Museum has promoted the video #SaveSyria. One of the producers of the video is The Syria Campaign which is the marketing organization which branded the pervasive “White Helmets,” as documented in “Seven Steps of Highly Effective Manipulators”. In parallel with this media campaign, the House Foreign Affairs Committee has introduced HR5732 the “Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act of 2016.” The resolution calls for escalating economic/financial pressure on Syria and “Assessment of potential effectiveness of and requirements for the establishment of safe zones or a no fly zone in Syria”. Dr. Sahloul, the Syrian American Medical Society doctor / spokesperson, says that Obama’s legacy will be defined by whether or not he attacks Syria to impose a “no fly zone.”  It seems unlikely that Obama would do that at the end of his term. Instead, the goal is to prepare the public for the new war to begin after Hillary Clinton becomes President. Falsehoods and Lies of Omission   In his article ““The media are misleading the public on Syria” author Stephen Kinzer recently wrote, “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.” Here a few facts about Aleppo which contradict the mainstream media narrative: –At least 85 percent of Aleppo’s population is in government-controlled areas. –The estimate of 300,000 civilians in rebel/terrorist-controlled east Aleppo is likely a gross exaggeration. In spring 2015, Martin Chulov of the Guardian visited the area and estimatedthere were 40,000. –While there are very few doctors serving in the opposition-controlled Aleppo, there are thousands of doctors working in the government-controlled area. from the Boston Globe - by Stephen Kinzer   "Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why. For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it. This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular electricity may soon be restored. The militants’ hold on the city could be ending. Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian and Syrian Army forces. “Turkish-Saudi backed ‘moderate rebels’ showered the residential neighborhoods of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars,” one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. The Beirut-based analyst Marwa Osma asked, “The Syrian Arab Army, which is led by President Bashar Assad, is the only force on the ground, along with their allies, who are fighting ISIS — so you want to weaken the only system that is fighting ISIS?” This does not fit with Washington’s narrative. As a result, much of the American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a “liberated zone” for three years but is now being pulled back into misery. Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, and the “moderate opposition” will win. This is convoluted nonsense, but Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this lies with our media. also from the Boston Globe - On Syria: Thank you, Russia! ​ The US would be more secure if it had followed Russia’s foreign policy lead in the past. from Truth and Action - "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has recently accused President Obama of lying to the American public about Syria, cherry-picking information to support a desire to invade Syria." ​from Morning Star - "Syria, from lies, to heartbreak, to cultural destruction, has become a microcosm of the demented, ridiculous “war on terror.” The lies and subterfuge to justify the horror have become more desperate but only the most wilfully ignorant obtuse can avoid noticing that terrorists R US." ​from Global Research - Death Of Brother Of “Wounded Boy In Orange Seat” Appears To Be An Add-On Fake. "Related to the “Wounded Boy In Orange Seat” stunt here is a little item that only increases my distrust of the truthfulness of the whole tale." Syria has been at war all of Omran’s life also from Global Research - Aleppo Boy’s Photographer: Ally of US-Supported Terrorists. Elaborately staged Hoax?  by Stephen Lendman "New information on the Aleppo Boy story at the very least gives it the appearance of being an elaborately staged hoax. AP News broke the story. Off-guardian.org reported “of the three journalists credited, one was in Beirut, one in Geneva, and one in Moscow” – none in Aleppo or anywhere in Syria. The obvious question is how is a breaking story possible without being anywhere near where it happened? What sources were used? What due diligence checking was done – red flags without answers! AP likely published the script and photo it was handed, functioning as an imperial press agent, mocking legitimate journalism." –The dominant rebel-terrorist group in Aleppo is the Syrian version of Al Qaeda. –The armed groups who invaded Aleppo have been unpopular from the beginning. In the fall of 2012, journalist James Foley wrote: “Aleppo, a city of about 3 million people, was once the financial heart of Syria. As it continues to deteriorate, many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition — one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups.” (Foley was later captured by Syrian rebels and executed by the Islamic State on Aug. 19, 2014.) –The rebel-terrorists launch dozens and sometimes hundreds of mortars daily into the government-controlled areas causing huge casualties. Western media ignores this destruction and loss of life. –The much publicized April bombing of the supposed Medecins sans Frontieres-supported “Al Quds Hospital” in Aleppo was full of contradictions and discrepancies. These were highlighted in an Open Letter to MSF. To this date, MSF has not provided corroborating information. –Much of the video purporting to show bombing effects in Aleppo are stamped with the “White Helmets” logo. White Helmets is a creation of the U.S. and U.K. and primarily a propaganda tool. The claims they are Syrian, independent and non-partisan are all false. –Much of the information about Syria comes from “activists” trained and paid by the U.S. In her book  Hard Choices, Secretary Clinton says the U.S. provided “training for more than a thousand (Syrian) activists, students, and independent journalists” (p464, hardback version). Obviously they are not independent and their reports should be carefully checked. –In contrast with the ambiguous situation at “Al Quds Hospital”, consider what happened to Aleppo’s “Al Kindi Hospital.” Take three minutes to view the suicide bombing of Al Kindi Hospital. Take two minutes to view what the “rebels” did to Syrian soldiers who had been guarding the hospital. –Like NBC correspondent Richard Engels’s fake kidnapping and the contrived CNN reports by “Syrian Danny,” the Aug. 21, 2013 chemical attack in Ghouta has been essentially shown to have been a staged event intended to force a U.S. attack on the Syrian government by making it appear that President Bashar al-Assad had crossed President Obama’s “red line.” –The latest propaganda tool being used to promote U.S. aggression against Syria is the photograph of little Omran in the orange ambulance seat. The video comes from the Aleppo Media Center, or AMC. Like the White Helmets, AMC is a U.S. creation. The photo of Omran has been widely accepted without scrutiny. The insightful Moon of Alabama has raised serious questions about the media sensation. Brad Hoff has documented that the main photographer, Mahmoud Raslan, is an ally of the Nour al Din al Zenki rebel terrorists who beheaded a young Palestinian Syrian a few weeks ago, confirmed step by step in this short video. Another good short video exposing the propaganda around #Syrianboy is here. Why the Burst of Propaganda? The Syrian crisis is at a critical point with the prospect that the rebel/terrorists will collapse.  If they are crushed or expelled, it would allow hundreds of thousands of displaced Aleppans to return home as soon as services are restored. This would also allow the Syrian army and allies to focus on attacking the Islamic State in the east and rebel/terrorist groups remaining in Idlib, Hama, the outskirts of Damascus and the south. Until the last year, fanatics and mercenaries were traveling from all parts of the globe into Syria via Turkey. Tens of thousands went to Syria from Southeast Asia, China, Russia, North Africa, Europe and North America. They were given carte blanche to depart their home countries, arrive in Turkey and be guided into Syria. For example, young Canadians such as Damien Clairmont went and died in Syria. His mother has courageously exposed the fact that Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS) knew about his plans yet did nothing to stop him. Progressive Muslim leaders demanded the government identify and start dealing with the radical recruiters. It was evidently the policy of the cynically named “Friends of Syria” to “look the other way” as their citizens were being brainwashed and then recruited to become terrorists attacking Syria. Now, with terrorist blowback in Western Europe, the United States and Turkey, these same “Friends” are feeling consequences from their policies. Terror attacks in Britain, France, Belgium and the U.S. have ended – or at least disrupted – the policy of collusion with Wahhabi terrorists. In the last year, security services have started arresting recruiters and new recruits. In Britain, a long-time promoter of ISIS has been convicted. In Belgium, the court has approved the extradition of a suspected French terrorist. Previously, Belgium was the Western country with the highest per capita number of citizens joining the terrorist fight in Syria. And now Turkey has started arresting people en route to join ISIS in Syria. Since the rebel/terrorists invaded Aleppo in 2012, they have had a constant pipeline bringing weapons, fighters and supplies into the city. For the past few months the Syrian army has been on the verge of encircling and closing the access routes into rebel terrorist sections of east Aleppo. Western media and governments, which support the rebel/terrorists, are doing all they can to delay or prevent this closure. They are trying to stall or prevent a Syrian government victory until someone more hawkish than Barack Obama is in the White House. Driving the Conflict Regional forces supporting the war on Syria include Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Israel has always been deeply involved, contrary to the faulty analysis of some observers. Israel has provided medical and military support to Nusra/Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups operating near the Golan Heights. Former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was explicit: “Israel has wanted Assad ousted since Syria war began.” Oren has said Israel favors that outcome even if it means a victory by Al Qaeda or other Sunni extremists. The U.S. and Western powers are also deeply involved. Working with Saudi Arabia and through Turkey, the U.S. has supplied huge quantities of weapons to the rebel/terrorists. Sophisticated weaponry totaling 994 TONS was provided last winter as documented here. On the other side, Iran and Hezbollah are committed to defending the existing Syrian government. They know that if the Syrian government falls, they will be the next ones under attack. Russia also sees this as a crucial conflict. The U.S. has expanded NATO up to the Russian western border, promoted the 2014 Ukraine coup, and insisted on economic sanctions against Russia. Syria is Russia’s only Arab ally and hosts Russia’s only foreign naval base. Russia probably sees this conflict as a crucial for its own future. In another sign of resistance to U.S. global hegemony, China has indicated it wishes to expand military cooperation with Syria. Following the U.S. lead, Canada, Australia and West European countries have supported the “regime change” effort despite it being in clear violation of the U.N. Charter and international law. Despite five years of tragedy and destruction, the U.S. continues trying to overthrow or destroy the Syrian government. This is not a new U.S. objective. In 2005, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviewed Syrian President Assad and said to him “Mr. President, you know the rhetoric of regime change is headed towards you from the United States….They’re talking about isolating you diplomatically and, perhaps, a coup d’etat or your regime crumbling. What are you thinking about that?” Amanpour is not only a CNN host, she is the wife of neocon Clintonite James Rubin. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Syria to stop its support of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, “loosen” its alliance with Iran and sign a treaty with Israel. Significantly, these are Israel’s demands and of much higher importance to the Zionist state than the U.S. The war in Syria is bringing numerous conflicts to a head: sectarian Wahhabism vs. humanitarian Islam; the “New American Century” with one superpower vs. a multilateral world; Zionist dominance and occupation vs. Lebanese and Palestinian resistance. Hillary Clinton is on record criticizing the decision to not bomb Syria in late summer 2013 after the sarin gas attack outside Damascus. She has continued to promote the idea of a “no fly zone.” She is an avowed Zionist who has said she wants to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship to the “next level.” Zionist Israel is deeply worried by the prospect of a strengthened Syria and Lebanese resistance. In addition, there are many Palestinian refugees and their descendants in Syria and Lebanon. They retain their wish to return home in keeping with international law. Just as Zionist Israeli interests were a major factor in the invasion of Iraq, so they are in continuing the conflict in Syria. In addition, neocons have not given up their goal of a “New American Century.” The Western Left?  The Left has been weak in responding and opposing the aggression against Syria. Major factors have included: –Saudi and U.S. State Department-funded Muslim groups which support the aggression against Syria. This includes the recently famous Dr. Zaher Sahloul and the Syrian American Medical Society. SAMS and Zahloul are aligned with Saudi Arabia and receive substantial State Department funding. –Deluded leftist groups which support what they have been told is a people’s “revolution” in Syria, just as happened in Libya. –The flooding of social media and the Internet by “activists” and Syrian “civil society” groups who are actually paid and trained agents of the West. This is confirmed by Clinton herself in her book Hard Choices. –Uncritical acceptance of the claims by major non-governmental organizations (or NGOs), which are predominately funded by billionaires. These organizations need to be viewed with some skepticism because of their financial dependence on a few wealthy individuals with personal agendas. For example, in 1990, Amnesty International mistakenly corroborated the accuracy of the false claim that Iraqi soldiers were stealing incubators from Kuwait, leaving babies to die on the cold floor. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Human Rights Watch, which is heavily funded by currency speculator George Soros, did not oppose the Iraq invasion and implicitly accepted it by only criticizing the lack of preparation. (HRW also promoted what turned out to a bogus story claiming that by “vectoring” the flight paths of two rockets it had proved that the Syrian military fired the sarin gas on Aug. 21, 2013, a claim that later collapsed when aeronautical experts determined that the only rocket found to carry sarin had a much shorter range.) Physicians for Human Rights, another Soros project, has issued grossly misleading reports on Syria. –Alternative media, which is progressive on many issues but echoes NPR and mainstream media on critical foreign policy issues including the Syrian conflict Some groups including Arab Americans for Syria, Syrian American Forum, Black Agenda Report, Syria Solidarity Movement, Answer and Workers World Party have actively challenged the disinformation but their budgets and influence are relatively small in comparison to the heavily funded organizations pushing for Syrian “regime change.” Veterans for Peace, one of the most influential and respected peace organizations, has recently sharpened its understanding and position on Syria. Following a recent visit to Syria, the Vice President of Veterans for Peace, Jerry Condon, said, “Everything we read about Syria in the U.S. media is wrong. The reality is that the U.S. government is supporting armed extremist groups who are terrorizing the Syrian people and trying to destroy Syria’s secular state. “In order to hide that ugly reality and push violent regime change, the U.S. is conducting a psychological warfare campaign to demonize Syria’s president, Bashar al Assad. This is a classic tactic that veterans have seen over and over. It is shocking, however, to realize how willingly the media repeat this propaganda, and how many people believe it to be true.”  What the Future Holds Neoconservatives, including Clintonites, are pushing hard for a direct U.S. attack on Syria to prevent the collapse of their “regime change” project. Claiming that the U.S. and NATO can bring a “safe zone” and “protect civilians” is a grotesque falsehood. (In Libya in 2011, similar “humanitarian” claims were simply a cover for another “regime change” project that has unleashed more chaos and death across northern Africa.) If the U.S. tries to impose a “no fly zone” in Syria, it will result in vastly more deaths and risk escalation into direct conflict involving Syria, Russia, Iran and Israel. Former Acting CIA director Mike Morell, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President, recently suggested the killing of Russians and Iranians in Syria to make them “pay a price.” There is a clear solution to the Syrian tragedy: the countries who have been supplying tons of weapons and paying tens of thousands of mercenary terrorists should stop. The conflict would soon end. The foreigners would depart with much less fanaticism than what they came with. Many Syrian rebel/terrorists would accept reconciliation. To create the circumstances for a peaceful settlement, there needs to be a global campaign for peace, but there is much responsibility in the U.S. since our government has become the greatest threat to peace with its insistence on global dominance. Following are some specific ideas that could help: –Sen. Bernie Sanders raised expectations when he talked about the need stop the “regime change” foreign policy. Now is when he needs to be clear and unequivocal that U.S. military aggression against Syria will make things worse not better and must not happen. Sanders also proved that a progressive policy is popular. If Sanders abandons this core foreign policy position and does not speak out strongly against the drive for aggression, it will be a huge disappointment and failure. –DemocracyNow and other leading alternative media need to start including different analyses. To a sad extent, their coverage of Syria has echoed NPR and CNN. If DemocracyNow is truly an “Exception to the Rulers,” it needs to start including more critical examinations. DN producers should be studying publications such as Consortiumnews, Global Research, AntiWar, MoonOfAlabama, Al Masdar News, Al Mayadeen, Counterpunch, DissidentVoice, American Herald Tribune, 21stCenturyWire, Black Agenda Report, the Canary, RT, PressTV and TruePublica (not corporate ProPublica). They should be bringing the observations and analysis of journalists such as Sharmine Narwani, Edward Dark, Eva Bartlett, Brad Hoff, Vanessa Beeley, Stephen Sahiounie to name just a few. Syrian academics such as Issa Chaer (U.K.) and Nour al Kadri (Canada) could be interviewed. Followers of DN have heard Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and other U.S. officials speaking about Syria countless times. Why have Amy and Juan not interviewed the Syrian Ambassador to the UN? –This is an opportunity and challenge for Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka of the Green Party. They are clear on this issue. If they can get a mass audience to hear their message, it could be crucial to their winning support and prompting a necessary national debate. At the moment there is almost no debate on the issue of perpetual war in the Middle East. Instead, the media is filled with propaganda using a boy’s photo to promote more war. The Green Party could play a hugely important role exposing the danger and duplicity of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They could play a key role in blocking the Clintonite march to a new war. ​ –Veterans for Peace could play a leading role in changing the perception and ending the marginalization of the U.S. peace movement. © 2016 Consortium News Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist and member of Syria Solidarity Movement.