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A New Year of Tough Times Ahead
By Jack A. Smith
The new year has dawned upon a deeply troubled America. Times are not good in the best of all possible nation states, which has suddenly discovered that the seven-league boots with which it is accustomed to stride the globe have become ill-fitting and down at the heels.
In recent years, particularly since the onset of the Great Recession, it has become clear to many Americans that their country is composed of two different societies with clashing interests — a very small minority in possession of great wealth and power, and everyone else, with some getting by and many falling by the wayside.
As a consequence, large numbers of people now perceive to one degree or another that big money not only manipulates most elections but influences a great many of the politicians and bureaucrats who craft legislation and execute the policies of the U.S. government. Awareness is spreading that crony capitalism —the corporations, banks and Wall Street — controls the economic system which shapes the political system where decisions are made.
Selling War
by Stephen Lendman
Throughout its history, America glorified wars in the name of peace. From inception, they're perpetuated against one or more domestic or foreign adversaries.
They include mass killing, assaults and abuse. Pacifism's called sissy or unpatriotic. Propaganda insists America's peace-loving. In fact, more than ever today, it's addicted to permanent war and violence.
Nonetheless, initiating them requires public support. Famed US journalist Walter Lippmann coined the phrase "manufacture of consent." It's a euphemism for mind control.
In 1917, George Creel first used it successfully to turn pacifist Americans into raging German-haters. It works the same way now. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was reelected on a pledge of: "He Kept Us Out of War." Straightaway, he began planning US involvement.
Unconventional Wisdom: The President Talks About Inequality
John Cavanagh and Joy Zarembka
What a difference a week makes. GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney finally disclosed on Tuesday that he paid a measly 13.9 percent of his vast income in taxes in 2010 and will probably pay just 15.4 percent on his 2011 earnings. Those rates are far lower than what the IRS demands of you, or the two of us, or Warren Buffett's secretary.
Thanks to the persistence of the Occupy movement and Romney's tin ear, the anger over inequality, recent college grads who can't pay their student debts, and elderly people being thrown out of their homes is boiling over into outrage.
"Jewish state" is euphemism for Jewish fascism
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
Benyamin Netanyahu, the notorious liar-prime minister of the apartheid Zionist regime, has been regurgitating his characteristic racist venom of late. He has been quoted as saying that the root-cause of the Palestinian question is "the persistent Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state."
Speaking at a synagogue in the Netherlands during a recent visit during which he reportedly discussed "mounting international hostility to Israel," Netanyahu argued that Israel was a "beleaguered democracy, confronting great threats and challenges.
"There are those who cast Israel as a pariah state every time we exercise the inherent right of self defense."
Well, for those people who are closely aware of the basic realities of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, Netanyahu's words are tantamount to fornicating with words and truth.
Whistling Past the Graveyard
by Stephen Lendman
"In fact, today's excess is unprecedented because policymakers allow,
encourage, and support it with massive money creation and freedom from
regulatory restraints."
Europe's sinking. Japan's in recession. China risks landing hard. America's sure to follow. Yet equity markets rallied impressively so far in January.
Be careful. Economist David Rosenberg warns about renting, not owning, rallies based on hope. They're sure to disappoint, especially ones fueled by speculative excess.
In his book titled, "Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises
"The moral hazard problem is that policy measures undertaken to provide stability to the system may encourage speculation by those who seek exceptionally high returns and who have become somewhat convinced that there is a strong likelihood that government measures will be adopted to prevent the economy from imploding - and so their losses on the downside will be limited."
Handbook on Israeli Apartheid
by Stephen Lendman
In July 2005, a coalition of 171 Palestinian Civil Society organizations created the global BDS movement - for "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights" for Occupied Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinian diaspora refugees.
Since 1948, dozens of UN resolutions condemned Israel's colonial occupation, decades of discriminatory policies, illegal land seizures, settlements, international law violations, and harsh oppression. They called for remedial action.
Nothing so far worked. Palestine remains occupied. Its people keep suffering. Their human rights are denied. Gaza's suffocating under siege. Abuses this extreme can't be tolerated.
Israel crushing middle-class Palestinians
Khaled Amayreh in Hebron
The slow economic collapse being witnessed across the occupied territories, while worsening now, is inevitable so long as Palestinians languish under occupation.
With high consumer prices, static or dwindling salaries, rising unemployment and over-taxation, many ordinary Palestinians are no longer able to make ends meet.
The situation has been described as both explosive as well as potentially destabilising as the Palestinian Authority (PA) stands virtually powerless to overcome or even mitigate the harshest economic crisis hitting the occupied territories since the PA's founding in 1994.
Anti-Syrian Pack Journalism
by Stephen Lendman
When America wages war or plans it, major media scoundrels cheerlead in lockstep. Incendiary managed news follows. Truth and full disclosure lose out.
As a result, readers and viewers are uninformed. Imperial Washington gets free reign to keep ravaging the world one country at a time, threatening humanity in the process.
Arguably, three major broadsheets are America's most influential - The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Each has large followings, especially among opinion makers.
Israel Claims Syria/Hamas-Connected Terror Cells Uncovered
by Stephen Lendman
Here we go again. We've seen it before strategically timed. Weigh all Israeli claims skeptically. On its face, this one lacks credibility.
Cui bono? Not Syria embroiled for months battling an externally generated insurgency and threats of foreign intervention.
Why provide greater cause while trying to defuse crisis conditions, cooperate with Arab League observers, enlist outside support, and offer opposition elements places in a broad-based government along the lines of a national unity one.
Beating Up on Chavez
by Stephen Lendman
Since inaugurated in February 1999, he's faced open US hostility, including by go-along major media scoundrels.
New York Times writer Simon Romero's among them. On January 6, he and William Neuman played both Chavez and Iranian cards headlining, "Increasingly Isolated, Iranian Leader Set to Visit Allies," saying:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visiting "some of the United States' most ardent critics: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador."
Chavez "is Mr. Ahmadinejad's most vociferous ally in the region." Central University of Venezuela Professor Elsa Cardozo said his visit gave Chavez a chance to "project his own style and radical message. His core supporters are very radical and he doesn't want to lose them."
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