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Showing posts with label Webster Tarpley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Webster Tarpley. Show all posts
Monday, December 10, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Monday, August 27, 2012
Kokesh Banned from Ron Paul Festival
Editor's Note: The following exchange between Adam Kokesh and Webster Tarpley seems to mark the beginning of Kokesh's reassessment of the Paul Campaign. Whether co-opted or initially conceived as a honeypot to draw and weaken opposition to the Romney machine, the Paul campaign has succeeded in leaving millions disenfranchised by this political process.
iroots
The following instructions regarding Adam Kokesh are contained in the packet of information for volunteers being trained to help at Ron Paul’s Sun Dome Rally–expected to draw over 10,000. The event will be broadcasted live on CSPAN Sunday afternoon.
iroots
The following instructions regarding Adam Kokesh are contained in the packet of information for volunteers being trained to help at Ron Paul’s Sun Dome Rally–expected to draw over 10,000. The event will be broadcasted live on CSPAN Sunday afternoon.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Arab monarchies of Persian Gulf: Relics of barbarism, handwriting on the wall
Press TV
Now, there are numerous signs that a revolutionary upsurge may soon be on the agenda in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, with Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman possibly not far behind. The successful overthrow of the oppressive monarchies of these nations would be an event of world historical significance, and would represent a victory for world peace and a grievous defeat for the imperialist world domination of Washington and London.
The reactionary monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula on the shores of the Persian Gulf are all members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which was formed to support Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Jordan and Morocco, the two Arab monarchies outside of the Persian Gulf, have been invited to join the GCC, which would make it a kind of self-defense league for endangered royals. The GCC has also talked of making a transition from regional bloc to confederation; Saudi Arabia advocates this idea, while the other monarchies fear being swallowed up.
The Arab monarchies that emerged under British auspices from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire have always represented an anachronism, in sharp contradiction to the whole direction of modern history and human progress elsewhere in the world.
The last hundred years have seen a nearly uninterrupted catalog of monarchies which have become extinct. The Chinese Empire ended in 1911. At the end of World War I, monarchies were falling like bowling pins. This included the Habsburg Emperors of Austria-Hungary, the Romanoff Czars of Russia, and the Hohenzollern Emperors of Germany and Kings of Prussia. The Sultan or Caliph of the Ottoman Empire was also deposed. These were soon followed by the Spanish monarchy. The Japanese tried to create a new empire in Manchuria, but they were unsuccessful. At the end of World War II, additional monarchies became extinct in Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. In July, 1952, King Farouk of Egypt was overthrown by Colonel Nasser and the Free Officers movement. The British had installed King Idris as Libyan ruler in 1951, but he was ousted by a military coup led by Colonel Qaddafi. The Hashemite rulers of Iraq were ousted in 1958 by the coup led by General Kasem. In the 1970s, Spain swam against the tide by restoring its royal house. But around the same time the Greek monarchy came to an end. The Islamic Revolution in Iran overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in February 1979.
Only in the Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire could monarchy make a comeback, due largely to the influence of the British Empire, and then increasingly to the support of the United States. The current monarchy of the House of Saud emerged during World War I under the sponsorship of the British, who through Lawrence of Arabia had incited the Arabs of Hijaz to rebel against the Turkish Sultan. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British tried to put Syria and Iraq under a monarchy of the House of Hashem, and the Hashemites hold the Jordanian Crown today.
Absolute monarchy also prevails under the Thani family in Qatar, the home of the Al Jazeera propaganda channel. After World War II, Qatar was one of the poorest countries in the region, with a pearl industry in decline. The Thanis, like the Sauds, are members of the militant Wahhabite sect, and for a time they were in danger of being absorbed into the Saudi kingdom. The Thani royals were saved by the discovery of oil, and by their Exclusive Agreement with Great Britain. There is a tradition of coup d’état by disgruntled factions inside the royal family, and there may have been an attempt of this type in the spring of 2012.
Another absolute monarchy is that of the Sultanate of Oman, which is subjected to the rule of Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, who overthrow his own father in a palace coup in July 1973 and sent him to live out his days in Claridges Hotel in London. The Saids have been in power since 1744.
Bahrain, since 1783 under the rule of the Khalifa family, claims to be a constitutional monarchy, but the events of the last 18 months have shown that the monarchical power is practically totalitarian. Bahrain was a British protectorate until 1971. The Khalifas are Sunni Muslims in a majority Shiite country, and nevertheless they monopolize the most important posts in the government. Oil was discovered in Bahrain in 1932, before any of the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and oil production has been in decline. As a result, the standard of living here is lower than in the neighboring countries. The monarchy was saved from possible overthrow by a mass upsurge on March 14, 2011 thanks to the Peninsula Shield Force of Saudi and Emirati personnel which crushed the protest demonstrations. Demonstrators have been subjected to draconian jail sentences, while censorship and electronic surveillance remain the order of the day.
The United Arab Emirates, the old Trucial States, are a confederation of seven absolute mini-monarchies, of which the most important are Abu Dhabi under the Nahyans and Dubai under the Maktoum family. These were under British rule until 1971. Along with Qatar, the UAE has been at the forefront of attempts to destabilize Syria. The UAE also took the lead during the attack on Libya, and now hopes to play a prominent role in the looting of Libya’s oil wealth under the new regime.
Kuwait is ruled by the Sabah family, who were restored by US in the first Persian Gulf War. During that conflict, it was revealed that the Sabahs, like their monarchical colleagues, still practice household slavery, which the US under George H. W. Bush, was thus supporting. During the Iraq war, Kuwait was turned into a US garrison state. Kuwait has a parliament, but the government is appointed by the Sabahs. The opposition is pressing for full parliamentary democracy, while the Sabahs are trying to hold on to power by changing the voting law.
All of these monarchies fear their own populations. They therefore rely on the support of the United States and the British. In addition, they also cooperate closely with the Israeli Mossad.
To qualify as a real revolution, a political upheaval needs to create an important and lasting institutional change. This can be the overthrow of the monarchy, the ouster of a foreign colonial power, a land reform capable of breaking the power of latifundists, the abolition of slavery, or other achievements of the same magnitude. By this measure, the French, American, Russian, Chinese, Egyptian, and Iranian revolutions fulfill the necessary criteria.
By contrast, the events of the Arab Spring have so far fallen short. In Egypt in particular, it was clear that the seizure of power by the Army in the wake of Mubarak’s departure meant that a second revolution would be needed - just as the Russian Revolution of February 1917 was followed by the October Revolution of the same year. Whether Egypt gets a second revolution remains to be seen.
But the overthrow of the House of Saud, likely followed by the toppling of its satellites in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, would send positive shockwaves around the world. In addition to lifting an oppressive yoke from the populations involved, it would accelerate the transition from the unipolar world domination exercised by the Anglo-Americans after 1992, and would speed the transition towards world normalization on a multi-polar basis. Because imperialism would be significantly weakened by the fall of these kings, the future of national states would become brighter all over the planet.
Webster Tarpley
 |
| Anti-regime protesters stage rally in Saudi Arabia’s coastal town of Qatif on July 8, 2012 |
Recent months have provided the world with a grotesque spectacle of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the other reactionary Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf pretending to take the lead in the struggle for democracy and human rights in a number of countries, most recently Syria.
Now, there are numerous signs that a revolutionary upsurge may soon be on the agenda in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, with Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman possibly not far behind. The successful overthrow of the oppressive monarchies of these nations would be an event of world historical significance, and would represent a victory for world peace and a grievous defeat for the imperialist world domination of Washington and London.
The reactionary monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula on the shores of the Persian Gulf are all members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which was formed to support Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Jordan and Morocco, the two Arab monarchies outside of the Persian Gulf, have been invited to join the GCC, which would make it a kind of self-defense league for endangered royals. The GCC has also talked of making a transition from regional bloc to confederation; Saudi Arabia advocates this idea, while the other monarchies fear being swallowed up.
The Arab monarchies that emerged under British auspices from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire have always represented an anachronism, in sharp contradiction to the whole direction of modern history and human progress elsewhere in the world.
The last hundred years have seen a nearly uninterrupted catalog of monarchies which have become extinct. The Chinese Empire ended in 1911. At the end of World War I, monarchies were falling like bowling pins. This included the Habsburg Emperors of Austria-Hungary, the Romanoff Czars of Russia, and the Hohenzollern Emperors of Germany and Kings of Prussia. The Sultan or Caliph of the Ottoman Empire was also deposed. These were soon followed by the Spanish monarchy. The Japanese tried to create a new empire in Manchuria, but they were unsuccessful. At the end of World War II, additional monarchies became extinct in Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. In July, 1952, King Farouk of Egypt was overthrown by Colonel Nasser and the Free Officers movement. The British had installed King Idris as Libyan ruler in 1951, but he was ousted by a military coup led by Colonel Qaddafi. The Hashemite rulers of Iraq were ousted in 1958 by the coup led by General Kasem. In the 1970s, Spain swam against the tide by restoring its royal house. But around the same time the Greek monarchy came to an end. The Islamic Revolution in Iran overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in February 1979.
Only in the Arab territories of the former Ottoman Empire could monarchy make a comeback, due largely to the influence of the British Empire, and then increasingly to the support of the United States. The current monarchy of the House of Saud emerged during World War I under the sponsorship of the British, who through Lawrence of Arabia had incited the Arabs of Hijaz to rebel against the Turkish Sultan. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British tried to put Syria and Iraq under a monarchy of the House of Hashem, and the Hashemites hold the Jordanian Crown today.
Saudi Arabia is still an absolute monarchy. Few people in the West have any comprehension of what this means. Under the House of Saud, there are no guaranteed rights, no separation of powers, no checks and balances, no guarantee of due process. There is no written constitution. The monarch is considered to be the owner of the entire country and of all the people in it, over whom he exercises a theoretical - and sometimes grimly practical - power of life and death. Representative bodies are sometimes chosen or nominated, but they are purely consultative: they can offer advice the crown, but they have no power to block or implement any policy.
Absolute monarchy also prevails under the Thani family in Qatar, the home of the Al Jazeera propaganda channel. After World War II, Qatar was one of the poorest countries in the region, with a pearl industry in decline. The Thanis, like the Sauds, are members of the militant Wahhabite sect, and for a time they were in danger of being absorbed into the Saudi kingdom. The Thani royals were saved by the discovery of oil, and by their Exclusive Agreement with Great Britain. There is a tradition of coup d’état by disgruntled factions inside the royal family, and there may have been an attempt of this type in the spring of 2012.
Another absolute monarchy is that of the Sultanate of Oman, which is subjected to the rule of Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, who overthrow his own father in a palace coup in July 1973 and sent him to live out his days in Claridges Hotel in London. The Saids have been in power since 1744.
Bahrain, since 1783 under the rule of the Khalifa family, claims to be a constitutional monarchy, but the events of the last 18 months have shown that the monarchical power is practically totalitarian. Bahrain was a British protectorate until 1971. The Khalifas are Sunni Muslims in a majority Shiite country, and nevertheless they monopolize the most important posts in the government. Oil was discovered in Bahrain in 1932, before any of the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and oil production has been in decline. As a result, the standard of living here is lower than in the neighboring countries. The monarchy was saved from possible overthrow by a mass upsurge on March 14, 2011 thanks to the Peninsula Shield Force of Saudi and Emirati personnel which crushed the protest demonstrations. Demonstrators have been subjected to draconian jail sentences, while censorship and electronic surveillance remain the order of the day.
The United Arab Emirates, the old Trucial States, are a confederation of seven absolute mini-monarchies, of which the most important are Abu Dhabi under the Nahyans and Dubai under the Maktoum family. These were under British rule until 1971. Along with Qatar, the UAE has been at the forefront of attempts to destabilize Syria. The UAE also took the lead during the attack on Libya, and now hopes to play a prominent role in the looting of Libya’s oil wealth under the new regime.
Kuwait is ruled by the Sabah family, who were restored by US in the first Persian Gulf War. During that conflict, it was revealed that the Sabahs, like their monarchical colleagues, still practice household slavery, which the US under George H. W. Bush, was thus supporting. During the Iraq war, Kuwait was turned into a US garrison state. Kuwait has a parliament, but the government is appointed by the Sabahs. The opposition is pressing for full parliamentary democracy, while the Sabahs are trying to hold on to power by changing the voting law.
All of these monarchies fear their own populations. They therefore rely on the support of the United States and the British. In addition, they also cooperate closely with the Israeli Mossad.
The hedonistic Persian Gulf monarchs need to contemplate the sad fate of Louis Philippe II, the Duke of Orleans, in the French Revolution. Descended from the younger branch of the French royal House of Bourbon, he thought he could ride the tiger of revolutionary agitation and gain more power for himself. He called himself Philippe Egalité, and organized the 1789 storming of the Bastille which set off the revolution. He voted for the death sentence for his relative, Louis XVI. But in the end, the forces Philippe Egalité had unleashed turned against him, and he died on the guillotine in November 1793 at the height of the reign of terror which he had helped to unleash. The Persian Gulf monarchs pretending to support revolutions should take note.
To qualify as a real revolution, a political upheaval needs to create an important and lasting institutional change. This can be the overthrow of the monarchy, the ouster of a foreign colonial power, a land reform capable of breaking the power of latifundists, the abolition of slavery, or other achievements of the same magnitude. By this measure, the French, American, Russian, Chinese, Egyptian, and Iranian revolutions fulfill the necessary criteria.
By contrast, the events of the Arab Spring have so far fallen short. In Egypt in particular, it was clear that the seizure of power by the Army in the wake of Mubarak’s departure meant that a second revolution would be needed - just as the Russian Revolution of February 1917 was followed by the October Revolution of the same year. Whether Egypt gets a second revolution remains to be seen.
But the overthrow of the House of Saud, likely followed by the toppling of its satellites in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, would send positive shockwaves around the world. In addition to lifting an oppressive yoke from the populations involved, it would accelerate the transition from the unipolar world domination exercised by the Anglo-Americans after 1992, and would speed the transition towards world normalization on a multi-polar basis. Because imperialism would be significantly weakened by the fall of these kings, the future of national states would become brighter all over the planet.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
US austerity: Genocide of 50 million people
PressTV
Webster Griffin Tarpley
No matter whether the next US president is named Obama or Romney, the Wall Street financier elite that dominates the United States is psychotically planning a series of tax increases for the middle class and working people, cuts in benefits and social services, and a transfer of wealth in favor of the top 1%, all of which will add up to a further cut of about 25% in the depleted US standard of living.
The mythical “fiscal cliff”
This outcome is being prepared right now by a demagogic propaganda campaign around the slogan that the United States faces a “fiscal cliff” at the end of the current calendar year. This alleged fiscal cliff is the result of two factors. First, the tax cuts enacted by George Bush the younger in the months before 9/11 are due to expire. If the Bush tax cuts are ended, the average family would pay a few hundred dollars more. But the tax rate for the richest earners would go from 35% to 39.6%, which, at high levels of income, can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in taxes.
At the same time, stock speculators and hedge fund hyenas like Mitt Romney would no longer pay 15%, but rather 20%, on their profits. In other words, the Bush tax cuts were mainly a gift to the super-rich. The Republicans want to keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and if possible make people in the middle - earning between $48,000 and $80,000 per year - pay significantly more.;
The other aspect of the fiscal cliff are the automatic cuts in military spending and social services spending which were built in to the budget agreement of August, 2011 (popularly known as the “Satan Sandwich”) which allowed the United States to avoid default on necessary payments. Under these automatic cuts, the Pentagon budget would be cut by about 8% or $500 billion over 10 years. At the same time, doctors and hospitals working for Medicare, the government’s health insurance program for people over 65, will suffer a 2% payment cut across the board. The goal of all this is to reduce federal spending by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Obama and the Congress both ignore that austerity cuts of this type have actually increased the budget deficit in Greece and other European countries where they have been tried.
The lame duck session and the grand bargain
The goal of reactionary Republicans and of Obama’s Wall Street Democrats is to negotiate a “Grand Bargain” of austerity and cuts sometime in the next few months. One possible time for this dirty deal to be made will come in December, after the US general election at the beginning of November. In December, significant numbers of defeated or retiring congressmen and senators will be leaving, and many will be looking for jobs on Wall Street. They will be eager to betray the economic interests of the American people to curry favor with the bankers they hope will hire them. Otherwise, pressure will build for a Grand Bargain during the early months of 2013.
Such a Grand Bargain of austerity will target in particular Social Security (government old-age pensions), Medicare (health care for seniors), and Medicaid (health care for the poor); only token sacrifices will be asked from the rich 1%. If this scenario actually occurs, the lives of up to 50 million Americans will be in grave danger.
This is first of all the case because of the long decline in the American standard of living, which has, according to some reckonings, been reduced by about two thirds since August 15, 1971, when Nixon and Kissinger abandoned the Bretton Woods international monetary system. There is no more margin for cuts without tragic consequences. During this same period, the social mobility in the United States - understood as the ability to go from being poor to being well-off - has declined markedly, and is now inferior to every country in Western Europe except for ossified Great Britain.
50 million Americans officially in dire poverty
Every 10 years, the United States government conducts a census of the population, and in the process collects important data about demographics and income. It is now expected that the official US poverty rate, which underestimates the real problem of poverty, will rise to almost 16% of the population. Poverty means an individual living on less than $11,170, or a family of three living on less than $19,090. This is truly dire poverty. By this estimate, about 50 million Americans will be poor, the highest rate since Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965.
According to official statistics, the US unemployment rate rose slightly to 8.3% in July 2012. Once again, this figure understates the problem. The US Department of Labor publishes a data series called the U6 unemployment rate, which tries to reflect underemployment -- as in cases where a worker who wants to work full-time is forced to work part-time - and workers who have given up their job searches in despair.
By this measure, the US unemployment rate has been as high as 17.1% at the end of 2009, and is currently at 15%. These are depression levels. Assuming that the US workforce is about 155 million, this means that over 23 million Americans are actually out of work. If we add in elderly dependents and children, we will once again get close to the 50 million whose lives are now in danger.
Under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s original Social Security Act of 1935, the federal government could have provided benefits to one important category - impoverished mothers with dependent children. This was called welfare, but it no longer exists, having been abolished by Bill Clinton in 1995-96 as part of his reelection campaign. Currently it is estimated that about 15 million children - about 21% of all children in the United States - live below the official poverty line. Since an adequate standard of living requires about twice the federal poverty level income, it follows that 44% of US children are in reality stuck in low income families. They can thank Bill Clinton for their current situation.
That same Social Security Act of 1935 established a system of unemployment insurance, which is now being sorely tested. When the depression began in 2008-9, the Obama stimulus bill extended jobless payments to unemployed workers for 99 weeks in many states. Now, with the depression grinding on, more than 5 million people have been unemployed for more than six months, and most of these have joined the ranks of the 99ers - those who have been jobless for almost 2 years. Some 23 states, especially those governed by Republicans, have now cut eligibility by as much as five months, impacting a half million unemployed. Only three states still offer 99 weeks of benefits, and that will end in September 2012.
Food stamps for 46.5 million under attack
The one federal program that still contributes to keeping the endangered 50 million alive is the Food Stamp program of the US Department of Agriculture, which currently feeds 46.5 million Americans. In some cities, the food stamp allowance is about $130 per month, which translates into about $1.55 per person per meal. This is already too little to permit good nutrition.
Right now the debate in the Congress is whether this program should be cut by $16 billion as the Republicans demand, or by “only” $5 billion, the Democratic Party proposal. Once again, any cuts in the food stamp budget under the current conditions will inevitably lead to vitamin deficiencies, cognitive impairment, and large increases in morbidity and mortality.
As for health insurance, most sources estimate that about 46 million Americans have no way of paying for the services of a doctor, hospital, or pharmacy. This figure largely overlaps with the 50 million who are in dire poverty, and the 50 million who are living on food stamps. Any reduction in Medicaid, which is intended for low income people, will take a toll of lives. Republicans are demanding massive cuts to Medicaid, while Democrats argue that moderate cuts will be sufficient. In reality, any cuts at all will represent thinly disguised murder.
Neither Obama nor Romney has anything to offer the endangered 50 million. Indeed, Romney has already announced that he is “not worried about the poor.” This issue highlights the inhuman cruelty of the political process in the United States today. How long before a social explosion forces the ruling elite to confront these issues?
Webster Griffin Tarpley
No matter whether the next US president is named Obama or Romney, the Wall Street financier elite that dominates the United States is psychotically planning a series of tax increases for the middle class and working people, cuts in benefits and social services, and a transfer of wealth in favor of the top 1%, all of which will add up to a further cut of about 25% in the depleted US standard of living.
The mythical “fiscal cliff”
This outcome is being prepared right now by a demagogic propaganda campaign around the slogan that the United States faces a “fiscal cliff” at the end of the current calendar year. This alleged fiscal cliff is the result of two factors. First, the tax cuts enacted by George Bush the younger in the months before 9/11 are due to expire. If the Bush tax cuts are ended, the average family would pay a few hundred dollars more. But the tax rate for the richest earners would go from 35% to 39.6%, which, at high levels of income, can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in taxes.
At the same time, stock speculators and hedge fund hyenas like Mitt Romney would no longer pay 15%, but rather 20%, on their profits. In other words, the Bush tax cuts were mainly a gift to the super-rich. The Republicans want to keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and if possible make people in the middle - earning between $48,000 and $80,000 per year - pay significantly more.;
The other aspect of the fiscal cliff are the automatic cuts in military spending and social services spending which were built in to the budget agreement of August, 2011 (popularly known as the “Satan Sandwich”) which allowed the United States to avoid default on necessary payments. Under these automatic cuts, the Pentagon budget would be cut by about 8% or $500 billion over 10 years. At the same time, doctors and hospitals working for Medicare, the government’s health insurance program for people over 65, will suffer a 2% payment cut across the board. The goal of all this is to reduce federal spending by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Obama and the Congress both ignore that austerity cuts of this type have actually increased the budget deficit in Greece and other European countries where they have been tried.
The lame duck session and the grand bargain
The goal of reactionary Republicans and of Obama’s Wall Street Democrats is to negotiate a “Grand Bargain” of austerity and cuts sometime in the next few months. One possible time for this dirty deal to be made will come in December, after the US general election at the beginning of November. In December, significant numbers of defeated or retiring congressmen and senators will be leaving, and many will be looking for jobs on Wall Street. They will be eager to betray the economic interests of the American people to curry favor with the bankers they hope will hire them. Otherwise, pressure will build for a Grand Bargain during the early months of 2013.
Such a Grand Bargain of austerity will target in particular Social Security (government old-age pensions), Medicare (health care for seniors), and Medicaid (health care for the poor); only token sacrifices will be asked from the rich 1%. If this scenario actually occurs, the lives of up to 50 million Americans will be in grave danger.
This is first of all the case because of the long decline in the American standard of living, which has, according to some reckonings, been reduced by about two thirds since August 15, 1971, when Nixon and Kissinger abandoned the Bretton Woods international monetary system. There is no more margin for cuts without tragic consequences. During this same period, the social mobility in the United States - understood as the ability to go from being poor to being well-off - has declined markedly, and is now inferior to every country in Western Europe except for ossified Great Britain.
50 million Americans officially in dire poverty
Every 10 years, the United States government conducts a census of the population, and in the process collects important data about demographics and income. It is now expected that the official US poverty rate, which underestimates the real problem of poverty, will rise to almost 16% of the population. Poverty means an individual living on less than $11,170, or a family of three living on less than $19,090. This is truly dire poverty. By this estimate, about 50 million Americans will be poor, the highest rate since Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965.
According to official statistics, the US unemployment rate rose slightly to 8.3% in July 2012. Once again, this figure understates the problem. The US Department of Labor publishes a data series called the U6 unemployment rate, which tries to reflect underemployment -- as in cases where a worker who wants to work full-time is forced to work part-time - and workers who have given up their job searches in despair.
By this measure, the US unemployment rate has been as high as 17.1% at the end of 2009, and is currently at 15%. These are depression levels. Assuming that the US workforce is about 155 million, this means that over 23 million Americans are actually out of work. If we add in elderly dependents and children, we will once again get close to the 50 million whose lives are now in danger.
Under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s original Social Security Act of 1935, the federal government could have provided benefits to one important category - impoverished mothers with dependent children. This was called welfare, but it no longer exists, having been abolished by Bill Clinton in 1995-96 as part of his reelection campaign. Currently it is estimated that about 15 million children - about 21% of all children in the United States - live below the official poverty line. Since an adequate standard of living requires about twice the federal poverty level income, it follows that 44% of US children are in reality stuck in low income families. They can thank Bill Clinton for their current situation.
That same Social Security Act of 1935 established a system of unemployment insurance, which is now being sorely tested. When the depression began in 2008-9, the Obama stimulus bill extended jobless payments to unemployed workers for 99 weeks in many states. Now, with the depression grinding on, more than 5 million people have been unemployed for more than six months, and most of these have joined the ranks of the 99ers - those who have been jobless for almost 2 years. Some 23 states, especially those governed by Republicans, have now cut eligibility by as much as five months, impacting a half million unemployed. Only three states still offer 99 weeks of benefits, and that will end in September 2012.
Food stamps for 46.5 million under attack
The one federal program that still contributes to keeping the endangered 50 million alive is the Food Stamp program of the US Department of Agriculture, which currently feeds 46.5 million Americans. In some cities, the food stamp allowance is about $130 per month, which translates into about $1.55 per person per meal. This is already too little to permit good nutrition.
Right now the debate in the Congress is whether this program should be cut by $16 billion as the Republicans demand, or by “only” $5 billion, the Democratic Party proposal. Once again, any cuts in the food stamp budget under the current conditions will inevitably lead to vitamin deficiencies, cognitive impairment, and large increases in morbidity and mortality.
As for health insurance, most sources estimate that about 46 million Americans have no way of paying for the services of a doctor, hospital, or pharmacy. This figure largely overlaps with the 50 million who are in dire poverty, and the 50 million who are living on food stamps. Any reduction in Medicaid, which is intended for low income people, will take a toll of lives. Republicans are demanding massive cuts to Medicaid, while Democrats argue that moderate cuts will be sufficient. In reality, any cuts at all will represent thinly disguised murder.
Neither Obama nor Romney has anything to offer the endangered 50 million. Indeed, Romney has already announced that he is “not worried about the poor.” This issue highlights the inhuman cruelty of the political process in the United States today. How long before a social explosion forces the ruling elite to confront these issues?
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Webster Tarpley Discusses Ron Paul, Austerity, and Solidarity
You may notice Alex Jones in this clip. Jones is clearly out of his league.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Webster Tarpley: West Is behind Syrian Violence
More bombing in Damascus; Is Syria headed to a civil war in spite of the UN ceasefire. Clashes have erupted between pro and anti Assad groups in northern Lebanon and news of a group of Lebanese pilgrims abducted by anti-government armed groups in Syria. Is Syrian violence spreading into the neighboring country and is the a deliberate attempt to do just that?
Friday, May 18, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Occupy Wall Street Should Oust Facilitators, Mobilize to Stop Obama’s Attack on Iran
The United States is faced with anti-war protesters who also condemn the assassinations of Iran’s high profile nuclear scientists.
An analyst believes that warmongering groups in Wall Street provoke wars in the Persian Gulf region in order to prevent the collapse of the US currency, the dollar.Webster Tarpley, author, journalist and lecturer joins Press TV to share his thoughts on the issue.
Following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: Let us look at the demonstrations that were held on Saturday. On Saturday there were demonstrations throughout the United States and some other countries including Canada and basically talking about stopping the war in Iran, no war on Iran.
First of all does it make a difference to have these types of demonstrations when we look at back to the prelude of the last war on Iraq, the US war on Iraq?
We know there were a lot of anti war demonstrations being held, in trying to demand Washington not to go in to Iraq, but it did not change anything. Does it make a difference?
Tarpley: It might make a difference this time, because Bush-Cheney were relatively impervious to that kind of demonstration, even though they were not very large.
Obama needs left cover; he needs it like he needs air to breath and if he is getting an attack on his left flag from an anti war movement coming back after a long period when it did collapsed; that is a significant political problem for Obama.
I would not want to overestimate the effect, but I think it is important. We have to remember that in 2006 – 2007, there was essentially a movement, an anti-war movement that was also an impeach Bush-Cheney movement. There was also a 9/11 Truth movement and what Obama was able to do was to wreck all of those.
He essentially neutralized everything. So that when we had the attack on Libya this past summer, spring- summer; the resistance was basically nothing. In other words the protest movement was practically non-existent.
So anything that would get the anti-war movement back in the streets would be important.
We have to remember how this control is exercised. A lot of the anti-war groups are foundation-funded and the foundations were willing to fund them when it was Bush-Cheney, but now that it is Obama they are not because Obama comes from this world of the foundations, in particular I would say the sort of Soros Group foundation. So if this movement could be brought back, that would be a good thing.
Press TV: Ok, what about that Webster Tarpley, what our guest has said that he doesn’t think that really they can make a difference – those people who are out in the street and that with all the wars that the US has been in, basically the American people have gotten nothing from it.
Of course, some would argue that, that one percent though have gone even more wealthy. So, can they make a difference being on the streets?
Tarpley: Well, as one of other speakers suggested let’s take an international approach because it is not just whatever protest can be mounted in the US.
I have a point of difference. We need to distinguish the authentic anti-war movement from color revolutions or CIA-people-power cause that are being attempted to destabilize a government, say like Russia. The so-called white revolution in Moscow in my view is a CIA – NATO project to try to overthrow Putin and what would that mean?
Let us look at what we just had yesterday; we had a resolution brought into the UN Security Council that would have been the first giant step towards a war involving Syria, which would target Iran and the other forces that are allied with Iran and Syria around the Middle East.
If we did not have Putin, if we were back to Medvedev, Medvedev would have let that go through as he did the Libyan resolution. So I think we have to be a little bit more sophisticated and cagy in the international analysis, but I think it is perfectly possible.
The other thing is, this occupy did not start in Wall Street. It started in a place called Madison, Wisconsin and it started almost a year ago now with the reactionary governor of the state trying to bust all the unions.
The way you get real results is if you bring the organized labor forces; working class workers together with the anti war people, so you better have some hard hitting demands, you better have a Wall Street sales tax, student loan amnesty, a stop to all foreclosures and your anti war demands and you better not let some facilitator tie you up in a consensus straitjacket so that you do not get any demand.
Press TV: Are you saying that they can make a difference?
Tarpley: Sure they can, sure, and I think defeatism is you know, you can have the pessimism of the intelligence, but you better have the optimism of the will. Things are pretty bad, everybody knows that, but it’s time to get active, right? The old saying get active or get radioactive probably applies.
Press TV: Webster your final thoughts? Will they attack Iran or not in your perspective?
Tarpley: I think there is a real danger. I think that has to be taken very seriously. The US ruling elite is in a kind of collective war psychosis at this point . If you saw Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice essentially hissing and apoplectic with anger after the Russians and the Chinese vetoed that Syrian resolution yesterday, I think you can get a sense of the mental instability of these people.
One of the things that is driving them is the potential collapse of the US dollar and I think this maybe looks a little bit different than what was just said. There is a group in Wall Street that says, “ Start a war in the [Persian] Gulf; Close [Strait of] Hormuz or get Iran or somebody else to do it; make the tanker traffic impossible; get the price of oil up to five hundred or a thousand dollars a barrel because that is a way to save the Dollar.”
If the dollar is collapsing, you can generate a huge artificial demand with a war.
First of all does it make a difference to have these types of demonstrations when we look at back to the prelude of the last war on Iraq, the US war on Iraq?
We know there were a lot of anti war demonstrations being held, in trying to demand Washington not to go in to Iraq, but it did not change anything. Does it make a difference?
Tarpley: It might make a difference this time, because Bush-Cheney were relatively impervious to that kind of demonstration, even though they were not very large.
Obama needs left cover; he needs it like he needs air to breath and if he is getting an attack on his left flag from an anti war movement coming back after a long period when it did collapsed; that is a significant political problem for Obama.
I would not want to overestimate the effect, but I think it is important. We have to remember that in 2006 – 2007, there was essentially a movement, an anti-war movement that was also an impeach Bush-Cheney movement. There was also a 9/11 Truth movement and what Obama was able to do was to wreck all of those.
He essentially neutralized everything. So that when we had the attack on Libya this past summer, spring- summer; the resistance was basically nothing. In other words the protest movement was practically non-existent.
So anything that would get the anti-war movement back in the streets would be important.
We have to remember how this control is exercised. A lot of the anti-war groups are foundation-funded and the foundations were willing to fund them when it was Bush-Cheney, but now that it is Obama they are not because Obama comes from this world of the foundations, in particular I would say the sort of Soros Group foundation. So if this movement could be brought back, that would be a good thing.
Press TV: Ok, what about that Webster Tarpley, what our guest has said that he doesn’t think that really they can make a difference – those people who are out in the street and that with all the wars that the US has been in, basically the American people have gotten nothing from it.
Of course, some would argue that, that one percent though have gone even more wealthy. So, can they make a difference being on the streets?
Tarpley: Well, as one of other speakers suggested let’s take an international approach because it is not just whatever protest can be mounted in the US.
I have a point of difference. We need to distinguish the authentic anti-war movement from color revolutions or CIA-people-power cause that are being attempted to destabilize a government, say like Russia. The so-called white revolution in Moscow in my view is a CIA – NATO project to try to overthrow Putin and what would that mean?
Let us look at what we just had yesterday; we had a resolution brought into the UN Security Council that would have been the first giant step towards a war involving Syria, which would target Iran and the other forces that are allied with Iran and Syria around the Middle East.
If we did not have Putin, if we were back to Medvedev, Medvedev would have let that go through as he did the Libyan resolution. So I think we have to be a little bit more sophisticated and cagy in the international analysis, but I think it is perfectly possible.
The other thing is, this occupy did not start in Wall Street. It started in a place called Madison, Wisconsin and it started almost a year ago now with the reactionary governor of the state trying to bust all the unions.
The way you get real results is if you bring the organized labor forces; working class workers together with the anti war people, so you better have some hard hitting demands, you better have a Wall Street sales tax, student loan amnesty, a stop to all foreclosures and your anti war demands and you better not let some facilitator tie you up in a consensus straitjacket so that you do not get any demand.
Press TV: Are you saying that they can make a difference?
Tarpley: Sure they can, sure, and I think defeatism is you know, you can have the pessimism of the intelligence, but you better have the optimism of the will. Things are pretty bad, everybody knows that, but it’s time to get active, right? The old saying get active or get radioactive probably applies.
Press TV: Webster your final thoughts? Will they attack Iran or not in your perspective?
Tarpley: I think there is a real danger. I think that has to be taken very seriously. The US ruling elite is in a kind of collective war psychosis at this point . If you saw Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice essentially hissing and apoplectic with anger after the Russians and the Chinese vetoed that Syrian resolution yesterday, I think you can get a sense of the mental instability of these people.
One of the things that is driving them is the potential collapse of the US dollar and I think this maybe looks a little bit different than what was just said. There is a group in Wall Street that says, “ Start a war in the [Persian] Gulf; Close [Strait of] Hormuz or get Iran or somebody else to do it; make the tanker traffic impossible; get the price of oil up to five hundred or a thousand dollars a barrel because that is a way to save the Dollar.”
If the dollar is collapsing, you can generate a huge artificial demand with a war.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
UK plunges into moral, economic decline
PressTV
Austerity measures are having such an adverse social impact on British youth that some of them have to find sex work in order to pay their tuition fees.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has delivered his Christmas 2011 sermon, focusing on the dismal British economy and where it is headed.
Press TV has interviewed Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and journalist from Washington to discuss the current economic situation in Britain.
What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview:
Press TV: Mr. Tarpley, before I go to the question of the banking system and what should be done by the government, first let's discuss what we saw in London and what we are seeing in the US where you are. What's been called the riots, the looting that happened and the archbishop was referring to that looting and riots and he was raising a lot of concern there.
One question is how the governments in both countries have been responding to these protests, cracking down on them or asking people to go back home. Is this a historic mistake that the governments are making and is this the right way forward in dealing with these protests?
Tarpley: I think in the case of the British regime that we have right now with [British Prime Minister David] Cameron and [British Chancellor George] Osborne, we have a government which has chosen to respond to a world banking panic with a deflationary policy of austerity meaning savage, brutal cuts in what remains of the social safety net causing a vast increase in the rate of poverty and despair.
We have this in the Republican Party here. We have one [US presidential] candidate Ron Paul who wants to cut one trillion dollars out of the US federal budget which would; I'm sure cause riots here.
The Cameron, Osborne budget of May last year is the direct precursor and in many ways the cause of these riots but I would like to say something first about the Archbishop of Canterbury- I don't regard him as a humanitarian leader, I don't regard him as a moral authority.
I regard him as a kind of signal light for the British ruling class, for the British oligarchy, for the financiers of the city of London and everything that goes with the British establishment, what he's basically saying to them is: our power could be in danger.
A signal light goes on. I'm thinking of for example the moment when the British oligarchy decided that King Edward the eighth had gone too far down the road with Hitler and become some kind of an embarrassment, he had to go.
In this case I think it's a signal light that when you have Cameron and Osborne with one quarter of Britain already living in poverty by the Roundtree Foundation definition.
If we are going to pitch a 100 thousand more children into poverty, fire 1.4 million civil servants or public workers, this is now getting very grim and the riots may be just a precursor of what's coming.
The other thing which the Archbishop doesn't talk about is I think a fear in the British ruling class that what Cameron has done, vis-a-vie Europe threatens the future of Britain. If you look at the city of London it is in many ways one of the greatest concentrations of speculative finance in the world.
It's kind of a parasite on the world economy when you have these institutions like the London [International Currency Exchange] ICE exchange that drives up the price of energy when you have the Liffe or Life futures exchange or the LCH.Clearnet which is the place where they declare crises for Greece or Italy or some other country.
These institutions cannot live without exploiting, some would say parasitizing for example the economic activity of France, Germany, Italy and so forth.
What Cameron has done- he's chosen to make this break, precisely on the issue of will the city of London be regulated or not and above all will the speculative turnover of the British financial sector be taxed and this is something that the Archbishop, to his credit, has talked about.
The idea of a city of London sales tax or he calls it a Robin Hood tax, if you had this Robin Hood tax- there are many versions- but if you had that tax, that if it were sufficient, if it were 1 percent let's say, that would be enough to maintain the pensions- the other aspects of the British social safety net.
Unfortunately I think what the archbishop talks about is something that would go more to the world wildlife fund of Prince Philip to take care of the Penguins and the Polar bears, whereas it's really British working people.
Press TV: In Washington, Mr. Tarpley, the critics in the UK are saying the government is not putting enough care or is not taking responsibility about the social impact that this austerity drive is having, specially on the youth.
I have this recent study by Leeds University saying that 25 percent of strippers and lap dancers are students in the UK and they have to find sex work because of the situation of the tuition fees.
So do you think that here now the government is actually refusing to take responsibility or simply as the activists are saying doesn't care about the impact that it's creating and what dangers it's going to pose to the government later on?
Tarpley: The Tory reactionaries, Cameron and Osborne and the rest of them, with Clegg from the Liberal Party if you can believe that, they have decided to shift the cost of the world economic depression as far as Britain is concerned off the backs of the city of London bankers and finance capitalists and oligarchs and on to the backs of working people but also the middle class.
The signature thing I think last year was when this new government said from now on you have got to pay if you want to go to a university which was a tremendous blow, basically wiping up the future for the people who now ought to be attending college.
This does not work economically, in other words the super austerity is a failure in its own terms, it doesn't balance the budget, it actually increases the deficit by having a recession which they're now finding.
But it also could lead to something like what we had with Wilson and Heath in the mid-seventies when people were wondering will the British Isles disappear below the waters of the North Sea in economic terms.
In the entire English speaking world now we've just gotten through with the Christmas holiday, anybody who turned on a television or even a radio has heard the Dickens Christmas carol, probably in about a dozen versions, and when you hear Scrooge ranting about prisons, workhouses, treadmills and the poor law this is the mentality of Cameron and Osborne.
And the other thing is they are going from the Thatcher playbook, the 30 year ago interlude that the other guest referred to. The Thatcher playbook is you can have crushing, brutal, savage austerity at home; you can bust the unions, you can attack public workers and do all these things, provided you have some kind of a foreign adventure going.
And that would be in the case of Cameron he had plenty of money to bomb Libya and now he's said the coming year is going to be the year of Somalia. So the former British colony of Libya or Italian Libya whatever was and - now it's going to be British Somali land.
This is his gambit to keep the Chauvinists and the coronel blimps happy and try to dominate the elections with this and I think what the Archbishop is trying to suggest is this is a failing package.
Press TV: If you can tell me in 30 seconds that major question of where Britain is according to the Archbishop or where Britain is heading to?
Tarpley: I would just like to say that the secessionism is the ruling class program, the busting up of the nation's sates into impotent entities is exactly what they want under the IMF [International Monetary Fund].
I think Britain right now is threatened by the fact that if we get a European banking panic in the next couple of months that would bring down the city of London in a panic and at that point Britain has almost nothing left.
I mean, here in the US we still have some farm production, we still have a few factories left but the deindustrialization of Britain is gone so far that if the city of London collapses, you have a really grim scene with terrible danger.
Austerity measures are having such an adverse social impact on British youth that some of them have to find sex work in order to pay their tuition fees.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has delivered his Christmas 2011 sermon, focusing on the dismal British economy and where it is headed.
Press TV has interviewed Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and journalist from Washington to discuss the current economic situation in Britain.
What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview:
Press TV: Mr. Tarpley, before I go to the question of the banking system and what should be done by the government, first let's discuss what we saw in London and what we are seeing in the US where you are. What's been called the riots, the looting that happened and the archbishop was referring to that looting and riots and he was raising a lot of concern there.
One question is how the governments in both countries have been responding to these protests, cracking down on them or asking people to go back home. Is this a historic mistake that the governments are making and is this the right way forward in dealing with these protests?
Tarpley: I think in the case of the British regime that we have right now with [British Prime Minister David] Cameron and [British Chancellor George] Osborne, we have a government which has chosen to respond to a world banking panic with a deflationary policy of austerity meaning savage, brutal cuts in what remains of the social safety net causing a vast increase in the rate of poverty and despair.
We have this in the Republican Party here. We have one [US presidential] candidate Ron Paul who wants to cut one trillion dollars out of the US federal budget which would; I'm sure cause riots here.
The Cameron, Osborne budget of May last year is the direct precursor and in many ways the cause of these riots but I would like to say something first about the Archbishop of Canterbury- I don't regard him as a humanitarian leader, I don't regard him as a moral authority.
I regard him as a kind of signal light for the British ruling class, for the British oligarchy, for the financiers of the city of London and everything that goes with the British establishment, what he's basically saying to them is: our power could be in danger.
A signal light goes on. I'm thinking of for example the moment when the British oligarchy decided that King Edward the eighth had gone too far down the road with Hitler and become some kind of an embarrassment, he had to go.
In this case I think it's a signal light that when you have Cameron and Osborne with one quarter of Britain already living in poverty by the Roundtree Foundation definition.
If we are going to pitch a 100 thousand more children into poverty, fire 1.4 million civil servants or public workers, this is now getting very grim and the riots may be just a precursor of what's coming.
The other thing which the Archbishop doesn't talk about is I think a fear in the British ruling class that what Cameron has done, vis-a-vie Europe threatens the future of Britain. If you look at the city of London it is in many ways one of the greatest concentrations of speculative finance in the world.
It's kind of a parasite on the world economy when you have these institutions like the London [International Currency Exchange] ICE exchange that drives up the price of energy when you have the Liffe or Life futures exchange or the LCH.Clearnet which is the place where they declare crises for Greece or Italy or some other country.
These institutions cannot live without exploiting, some would say parasitizing for example the economic activity of France, Germany, Italy and so forth.
What Cameron has done- he's chosen to make this break, precisely on the issue of will the city of London be regulated or not and above all will the speculative turnover of the British financial sector be taxed and this is something that the Archbishop, to his credit, has talked about.
The idea of a city of London sales tax or he calls it a Robin Hood tax, if you had this Robin Hood tax- there are many versions- but if you had that tax, that if it were sufficient, if it were 1 percent let's say, that would be enough to maintain the pensions- the other aspects of the British social safety net.
Unfortunately I think what the archbishop talks about is something that would go more to the world wildlife fund of Prince Philip to take care of the Penguins and the Polar bears, whereas it's really British working people.
Press TV: In Washington, Mr. Tarpley, the critics in the UK are saying the government is not putting enough care or is not taking responsibility about the social impact that this austerity drive is having, specially on the youth.
I have this recent study by Leeds University saying that 25 percent of strippers and lap dancers are students in the UK and they have to find sex work because of the situation of the tuition fees.
So do you think that here now the government is actually refusing to take responsibility or simply as the activists are saying doesn't care about the impact that it's creating and what dangers it's going to pose to the government later on?
Tarpley: The Tory reactionaries, Cameron and Osborne and the rest of them, with Clegg from the Liberal Party if you can believe that, they have decided to shift the cost of the world economic depression as far as Britain is concerned off the backs of the city of London bankers and finance capitalists and oligarchs and on to the backs of working people but also the middle class.
The signature thing I think last year was when this new government said from now on you have got to pay if you want to go to a university which was a tremendous blow, basically wiping up the future for the people who now ought to be attending college.
This does not work economically, in other words the super austerity is a failure in its own terms, it doesn't balance the budget, it actually increases the deficit by having a recession which they're now finding.
But it also could lead to something like what we had with Wilson and Heath in the mid-seventies when people were wondering will the British Isles disappear below the waters of the North Sea in economic terms.
In the entire English speaking world now we've just gotten through with the Christmas holiday, anybody who turned on a television or even a radio has heard the Dickens Christmas carol, probably in about a dozen versions, and when you hear Scrooge ranting about prisons, workhouses, treadmills and the poor law this is the mentality of Cameron and Osborne.
And the other thing is they are going from the Thatcher playbook, the 30 year ago interlude that the other guest referred to. The Thatcher playbook is you can have crushing, brutal, savage austerity at home; you can bust the unions, you can attack public workers and do all these things, provided you have some kind of a foreign adventure going.
And that would be in the case of Cameron he had plenty of money to bomb Libya and now he's said the coming year is going to be the year of Somalia. So the former British colony of Libya or Italian Libya whatever was and - now it's going to be British Somali land.
This is his gambit to keep the Chauvinists and the coronel blimps happy and try to dominate the elections with this and I think what the Archbishop is trying to suggest is this is a failing package.
Press TV: If you can tell me in 30 seconds that major question of where Britain is according to the Archbishop or where Britain is heading to?
Tarpley: I would just like to say that the secessionism is the ruling class program, the busting up of the nation's sates into impotent entities is exactly what they want under the IMF [International Monetary Fund].
I think Britain right now is threatened by the fact that if we get a European banking panic in the next couple of months that would bring down the city of London in a panic and at that point Britain has almost nothing left.
I mean, here in the US we still have some farm production, we still have a few factories left but the deindustrialization of Britain is gone so far that if the city of London collapses, you have a really grim scene with terrible danger.
Monday, September 12, 2011
How the world changed after 9/11 (Democracy Now! Scooped in their own back yard by The Guardian)
The Guardian
On the day of September 11, Charlie Skelton attends a symposium of critical thinkers in New York
The heavy syllables of the victims' names boomed out along the streets around Ground Zero. The public were patted down, then allowed up a cramped side road to peer at a distant video screen of the memorial. They filmed the video screen on their mobile phones, filmed each other filming, and film crews filmed them filming.
It was hardly fertile ground for grief, you'd think. And yet, the weird detachment of the moment was severed by the chanting of the names and the brief tributes of the readers. It was the daughter who said her father's friends tell her that she reminds them of him that did it for me. That, and the list of victims called Jones. Jones after Jones after Jones. Too many Joneses. I took my sniffles back up the street to Starbucks.
And from Starbucks, I went down the rabbit hole. I found myself at a conference on Walker Street called 'How The World Changed After 9/11'. It was packed, but I managed to slide in at the back, to hear a guy called Webster Tarpley chant his own list of names. The names of the 46 military exercises and hijack drills (called things like 'Vigilant Guardian') that were actually taking place on the morning of September 11. "The greatest density of drills in US military history," Tarpley said.
Fake radar blips, dummy hijacks, dummy attacks, fighter jets sent off to Turkey, the skies left unprotected, with the FBI's top anti-terror experts stuck on a training exercise in California. The drills, said Tarpley, were important, because not only did they weaken and confuse US air defence, but there was also a military drill for each major component of the 9/11 attacks. The drills were cover, and the dummy threats were made real.
September 11, he argues, was a coup carried out by a rogue network within the US military and government. A cabal of fascists, working with (and for) a banking oligarchy, "the old boys of Wall Street".
"You want to blame Saudi Arabia, or Israel, or Pakistan? You can't. There isn't the evidence." The evidence, Tarpley says, points towards 9/11 as a false flag attack, carried out by a high level clique, that forced a shocked and awestruck US public into a vast and still ongoing war. It was America's very own Reichstag fire. And the official version of the event? "A racist, militaristic, and fascist myth that we must reject."
What I heard, from speaker after speaker, was a heartfelt desire to turn away from the path of destruction, militarism and lies that America has been set upon after 9/11. Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, mourned for Iraq: "One million dead, 4m displaced, and that's a victory?" He sees the failure of Americans to comprehend the scale of the destruction wrought under their flag as nothing less than racist. "In America, we are very good at segregating our tears. Racism is our original sin."
McGovern quoted from Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail: "Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured." And 9/11, for McGovern, is a "big boil" that needs lancing.
He drew attention to an extraordinary story, barely touched by the mainstream press, that Richard Clarke, who was the White House counter-terrorism czar at the time of the attacks, has recently accused the CIA of deliberately suppressing information before 9/11, information that might have prevented the attacks. Clarke claimed: "There was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information." And who made this decision? "I would think it would have been made by the director".
So that would be George Tenet. Director of the CIA from 1997-2004, now a managing director of an investment bank. The former CIA man, McGovern, ends his speech by saying: "Of all the people who should be put in prison, he'd be top of my list."
Another speaker, Mike Rivero, addressed the outrage, which he often felt when the "false flag" analysis of 9/11 is presented. The idea that "we would never do such a thing" or "it's not the sort of thing governments do." He gave a whistlestop tour of state-sponsored attacks and hoodwinkings: the Lusitania, the Maine, the Dodgy Dossier, Saddam's nuclear weapons, the staged burning of the Reichstag, and the notorious Gleiwitz incident in which the Nazis faked an attack on a German radio station to justify the invasion of Poland. His point being that 9/11 was "not unique". There's a historical context.
History, documentation, facts. A respect for life, and a respect for truth. This is what I heard, over and over again, at this remarkable conference. Wayne Madsen – a former naval officer and NSA operative – spoke of the atmosphere of "hype and fear" that still grips America, 10 years after 9/11. A fear that's pumped into us, relentlessly, through our flatscreen HD Orwellian "telescreens"
Madsen called for the release of the commission findings that Ludkowski told me about last night: "Let's get those documents out of the National Archives!" But he noted that the man whose job it is to decide what gets released, the administrator of the White House office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is one Cass Sunstein. The same Cass Sunstein that in 2008 urged the government to "cognitively infiltrate" alternative groups like the 9/11 Truth Movement. So releasing those documents probably isn't top of his to-do list.
He's also the same Cass Sunstein that wrote the first op-ed about Julian Assange – the CIA asset and "child of MK Ultra", as Tarpley dubs him. But that's a whole other can of worms …
I found myself blinking back tears for the second time when McGovern read out a poem – in his polished CIA Russian – about a mother mourning the loss of her child. This thread of grieving ran throughout the conference. Wayne Madsen grieved for the loss of "shoeleather journalism", McGovern mourned the death of the fourth estate, while Tarpley spoke of the hollow memorial at Ground Zero – the two "abysses": the reflecting pools, or "voids", as they're often called. He sees these memorials as an appropriately empty vision of "nothingness. Nihil. No ideals, nothing." A nothingness at the heart of America. "But we have to do something."
We have to do something. Even if that something is simply to Google 'Cass Sunstein' and start from there. Begin your own cognitive infiltration. Google 'Vigilant Guardian' or 'Able Danger'. Crosscheck 'Abdel Hakim Belhadj' and 'Al-Qaida'. Begin digging. Begin thinking. And stop believing.
On the day of September 11, Charlie Skelton attends a symposium of critical thinkers in New York
The heavy syllables of the victims' names boomed out along the streets around Ground Zero. The public were patted down, then allowed up a cramped side road to peer at a distant video screen of the memorial. They filmed the video screen on their mobile phones, filmed each other filming, and film crews filmed them filming.
 |
It was hardly fertile ground for grief, you'd think. And yet, the weird detachment of the moment was severed by the chanting of the names and the brief tributes of the readers. It was the daughter who said her father's friends tell her that she reminds them of him that did it for me. That, and the list of victims called Jones. Jones after Jones after Jones. Too many Joneses. I took my sniffles back up the street to Starbucks.
And from Starbucks, I went down the rabbit hole. I found myself at a conference on Walker Street called 'How The World Changed After 9/11'. It was packed, but I managed to slide in at the back, to hear a guy called Webster Tarpley chant his own list of names. The names of the 46 military exercises and hijack drills (called things like 'Vigilant Guardian') that were actually taking place on the morning of September 11. "The greatest density of drills in US military history," Tarpley said.
Fake radar blips, dummy hijacks, dummy attacks, fighter jets sent off to Turkey, the skies left unprotected, with the FBI's top anti-terror experts stuck on a training exercise in California. The drills, said Tarpley, were important, because not only did they weaken and confuse US air defence, but there was also a military drill for each major component of the 9/11 attacks. The drills were cover, and the dummy threats were made real.
September 11, he argues, was a coup carried out by a rogue network within the US military and government. A cabal of fascists, working with (and for) a banking oligarchy, "the old boys of Wall Street".
 |
| Webster Tarpley |
"You want to blame Saudi Arabia, or Israel, or Pakistan? You can't. There isn't the evidence." The evidence, Tarpley says, points towards 9/11 as a false flag attack, carried out by a high level clique, that forced a shocked and awestruck US public into a vast and still ongoing war. It was America's very own Reichstag fire. And the official version of the event? "A racist, militaristic, and fascist myth that we must reject."
What I heard, from speaker after speaker, was a heartfelt desire to turn away from the path of destruction, militarism and lies that America has been set upon after 9/11. Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, mourned for Iraq: "One million dead, 4m displaced, and that's a victory?" He sees the failure of Americans to comprehend the scale of the destruction wrought under their flag as nothing less than racist. "In America, we are very good at segregating our tears. Racism is our original sin."
 |
| Ray McGovern |
McGovern quoted from Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail: "Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured." And 9/11, for McGovern, is a "big boil" that needs lancing.
He drew attention to an extraordinary story, barely touched by the mainstream press, that Richard Clarke, who was the White House counter-terrorism czar at the time of the attacks, has recently accused the CIA of deliberately suppressing information before 9/11, information that might have prevented the attacks. Clarke claimed: "There was a high-level decision in the CIA ordering people not to share information." And who made this decision? "I would think it would have been made by the director".
So that would be George Tenet. Director of the CIA from 1997-2004, now a managing director of an investment bank. The former CIA man, McGovern, ends his speech by saying: "Of all the people who should be put in prison, he'd be top of my list."
Another speaker, Mike Rivero, addressed the outrage, which he often felt when the "false flag" analysis of 9/11 is presented. The idea that "we would never do such a thing" or "it's not the sort of thing governments do." He gave a whistlestop tour of state-sponsored attacks and hoodwinkings: the Lusitania, the Maine, the Dodgy Dossier, Saddam's nuclear weapons, the staged burning of the Reichstag, and the notorious Gleiwitz incident in which the Nazis faked an attack on a German radio station to justify the invasion of Poland. His point being that 9/11 was "not unique". There's a historical context.
History, documentation, facts. A respect for life, and a respect for truth. This is what I heard, over and over again, at this remarkable conference. Wayne Madsen – a former naval officer and NSA operative – spoke of the atmosphere of "hype and fear" that still grips America, 10 years after 9/11. A fear that's pumped into us, relentlessly, through our flatscreen HD Orwellian "telescreens"
 |
| Wayne Madsen |
He's also the same Cass Sunstein that wrote the first op-ed about Julian Assange – the CIA asset and "child of MK Ultra", as Tarpley dubs him. But that's a whole other can of worms …
I found myself blinking back tears for the second time when McGovern read out a poem – in his polished CIA Russian – about a mother mourning the loss of her child. This thread of grieving ran throughout the conference. Wayne Madsen grieved for the loss of "shoeleather journalism", McGovern mourned the death of the fourth estate, while Tarpley spoke of the hollow memorial at Ground Zero – the two "abysses": the reflecting pools, or "voids", as they're often called. He sees these memorials as an appropriately empty vision of "nothingness. Nihil. No ideals, nothing." A nothingness at the heart of America. "But we have to do something."
We have to do something. Even if that something is simply to Google 'Cass Sunstein' and start from there. Begin your own cognitive infiltration. Google 'Vigilant Guardian' or 'Able Danger'. Crosscheck 'Abdel Hakim Belhadj' and 'Al-Qaida'. Begin digging. Begin thinking. And stop believing.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Libya: NATO Humiliation Increasing per Airstrike
Activist Post
Tony Cartalucci
Each NATO warplane that passes over Libya's coast and releases its ordnance upon the city of Tripoli is a glaring reminder that not only have the NATO-backed rebels failed to take the city, but the fighting there is beyond their ability to face without constant air support. As each bomb tears through Tripoli's already NATO-battered infrastructure - most recently destroying a fire station in the Abu Salim district - the world is given daily affirmations of just how duplicitous and premature NATO's desperate claims of "victory" were, made now nearly a week ago. To add injury to insult, UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague was imploring South Africa to release funding to NATO's proxies in Benghazi and suggested that failing to do so would be "risking a humanitarian disaster." Hague has not yet explained how the persistent aerial bombardment of a heavily populated city isn't already causing a verified humanitarian disaster.
There are now reports that NATO's Al Qaeda brigades have been stalled before entering the coastal cities of Sirte and Bin Jawad, both lying between Benghazi and Misrata. In fact, by reading between the rhetoric, we see that the rebels have not only failed to achieve anything beyond the most symbolic of victories amidst immense chaos sown throughout Tripoli, they are in fact in a more tenuous position than ever before, with their forces stretched in multiple locations facing an entrenched Libyan army on multiple fronts.
By claiming victory while conducting daily air strikes upon a "captured city," for those that are able to put the pieces together, NATO exposes a tenuous grip on a bungled drawn out campaign. Of course there is no possible way NATO believed Libya could be taken over within days, not weeks, and must be acutely aware that even if Tripoli fell tomorrow - which it most likely won't - there will still be entire cities under Libyan government control along with Libya's vast southern interior. Occupation was NATO's true endgame from the beginning, waiting only for the proper pretext to begin landing troops on the ground. Getting that pretext has proven to be difficult.
Occupation cannot begin until either Benghazi's terrorist leaders are able to squat in Tripoli long enough to call in NATO forces for assistance, or if NATO can create enough chaos, murder, and mayhem to get the "international community" to beg for a "stabilization force." However it appears that the rebel forces are incapable of producing either result without NATO's constant bombardments from overhead, betraying media reports that "Tripoli has fallen" or that NATO has achieved any sort of victory.
Tony Cartalucci
Each NATO warplane that passes over Libya's coast and releases its ordnance upon the city of Tripoli is a glaring reminder that not only have the NATO-backed rebels failed to take the city, but the fighting there is beyond their ability to face without constant air support. As each bomb tears through Tripoli's already NATO-battered infrastructure - most recently destroying a fire station in the Abu Salim district - the world is given daily affirmations of just how duplicitous and premature NATO's desperate claims of "victory" were, made now nearly a week ago. To add injury to insult, UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague was imploring South Africa to release funding to NATO's proxies in Benghazi and suggested that failing to do so would be "risking a humanitarian disaster." Hague has not yet explained how the persistent aerial bombardment of a heavily populated city isn't already causing a verified humanitarian disaster.
There are now reports that NATO's Al Qaeda brigades have been stalled before entering the coastal cities of Sirte and Bin Jawad, both lying between Benghazi and Misrata. In fact, by reading between the rhetoric, we see that the rebels have not only failed to achieve anything beyond the most symbolic of victories amidst immense chaos sown throughout Tripoli, they are in fact in a more tenuous position than ever before, with their forces stretched in multiple locations facing an entrenched Libyan army on multiple fronts.
By claiming victory while conducting daily air strikes upon a "captured city," for those that are able to put the pieces together, NATO exposes a tenuous grip on a bungled drawn out campaign. Of course there is no possible way NATO believed Libya could be taken over within days, not weeks, and must be acutely aware that even if Tripoli fell tomorrow - which it most likely won't - there will still be entire cities under Libyan government control along with Libya's vast southern interior. Occupation was NATO's true endgame from the beginning, waiting only for the proper pretext to begin landing troops on the ground. Getting that pretext has proven to be difficult.
Occupation cannot begin until either Benghazi's terrorist leaders are able to squat in Tripoli long enough to call in NATO forces for assistance, or if NATO can create enough chaos, murder, and mayhem to get the "international community" to beg for a "stabilization force." However it appears that the rebel forces are incapable of producing either result without NATO's constant bombardments from overhead, betraying media reports that "Tripoli has fallen" or that NATO has achieved any sort of victory.
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