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Anti-Chavez Media War Rages
by Stephen Lendman
It shouldn't surprise. It raged throughout his tenure. It continues while he's ill. It vilifies progressive Bolivarianism. It wants neoliberal harshness replacing it.
It ignores responsible social reform. It's dismissive of Chavez's overwhelming popularity. He rescued Venezuela from its ugly past. Millions won't tolerate returning to what they deplore.
On January 7, the Cuban News Agency (ACN) headlined "Experts Denounce Media War against Venezuela and Hugo Chavez," saying:
On Venezuelan television, sociologist Mariclem Stelling said right-wing ideologues aren't able to discredit Bolivarianism. They surface prominently around election time.
They "break up into pseudo-organizations and fade away." Their views don't reflect popular sentiment. They're targeting Chavez's health. They hope "to get him out of the political scene."
Big Oil, Big Ketchup and The Assassination of Hugo Chavez
By Greg Palast
President Hugo Chavez shows reporter Greg Palast the sword of Simon
Bolivar seen in portrait in background. Miraflores Palace, Caracas, 2006.
Photo by richard rowley.
Venezuelan President Chavez once asked me why the US elite wanted to kill him. My dear Hugo: It’s the oil. And it’s the Koch Brothers – and it’s the ketchup.
Reverend Pat Robertson said,
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“Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
It was 2005 and Robertson was channeling the frustration of George Bush’s State Department. Despite Bush’s providing intelligence, funds and even a note of congratulations to the crew who kidnapped Chavez (we’ll get there), Hugo remained in office, reelected and wildly popular.
The Next Big Thing
Timothy Gatto
The political theatre in Washington is nothing but a media show to keep the masses under control in order to keep them ignorant of what the real situation is. This charade that the Democrats and Republicans are delivering to the people makes the masses believe that there is real division and that is the result of electing their representatives to the House and Senate and they come to believe that they have a choice.
They have no choice. They are led to the voting booths by the same people that engineered who will run for office. The candidates are well vetted by background checks and by interviews to make sure that they are going to be “handled” easily. The people running for office are funded by large corporations and lobbies. The candidates are dependent on the groups that got them elected.
New York Times Wages War on Medicare and Social Security
by Stephen Lendman
The record of America's newspaper of record is deplorable. It supports wealth, power, privilege and dominance. It backs corporate interests. It spurns popular ones. It endorses imperial wars.
It's comfortable about toppling independently elected governments. It's silent about propping up friendly despots. It's quiet about disappearing democratic freedoms. It ignores US duopoly power.
It endorses sham elections. It's waging war on America's social contract. ObamaCare rationed healthcare to enrich insurers, drug companies, and large hospital chains.
In March 2010, a Times editorial headlined "Health Care Reform, at last." It praised what it should have condemned.
Ralph Nader called it "a pay-or-die system that's the disgrace of the Western world."
Obama's financial reform was a Wall Street giveaway. It was old wine in new bottles. It was more scam than reform. A Times July editorial headlined "Congress Passes Financial Reform."
Debt Ceiling Disaster - Crazy or Criminal?
By Michael Collins
(Washington, DC 1/9/13) Let's say that on a Monday, you sit down and take a hard look at your finances. Your bills exceed your income, assets are just a feint memory, and there is no relief in sight. Reluctantly, you decide that your only choice is to declare bankruptcy. On Tuesday you say, I think I'll do some shopping before it's all over. You proceed to charge $2,000 on your VISA card for some jewelry and other non essentials. On Wednesday, you get a lawyer and file for bankruptcy.
Guess what? You still owe the $2,000 since the court will conclude that you made the purchases fraudulently. You knew you were filing for bankruptcy and made the charges any way. Even worse, the court may refuse to grant the bankruptcy filing all together as a result of the obvious fraud.
That is exactly what the Republicans in the House of Representatives are doing with their open announcement that they will vote against raising the debt ceiling without their solution to government spending. Since that announcement, has one single deficit hawk stood up and said, We must stop all spending as of this moment since we are proposing to default on those expenditures?
Foreign Terrorists Wage War on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Syrian authorities said so in 2011. Other reports acknowledged it then and now.
Syria is Washington's war. It was planned years ago. America wants pro-Western puppet leadership replacing Assad.
All independent governments are targeted for regime change. Imperial rogue states operate that way.
Strategy used is longstanding. On January 4, Michel Chossudovsky discussed it. Current US proxy wars employ earlier tactics. Western-recruited death squads are used.
Western Media War on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
On January 6, Assad called for "comprehensive national dialogue in the near future." He rules out negotiating "with a puppet made by the West."
He advocates responsibly engaging opposition elements and other political parties.
"Syria wants peace and reconciliation," he stressed.
"(A)rmed groups must halt terrorist acts."
Since early 2011, Washington waged war on Syria. Proxy deaths squads are used. They're recruited abroad. They're heavily armed, funded, trained and directed. They infiltrate across borders.
America's Lackluster December Jobs Report
by Stephen Lendman
Headlines belied its weakness. Economist John Williams reengineers economic data based on reliable decades earlier modeling.
U-3 unemployment rose 0.1% to 7.8%. U-6 is broader. It's 14.4%. It includes:
(1) Marginally attached workers wanting jobs but not actively looking in the past 30 days. They looked unsuccessfully in the last year. They include "discouraged workers." They gave up in frustration within, but not exceeding, the past 12 months.
(2) People looking for full-time work but forced to take part-time or temp jobs to be employed.
Based on how unemployment was calculated in the 1980s, Williams reported 23%. It's a "new (post WW II) high," he said.
11 years later, Gitmo injustice continues
Mary Shaw
January 11, 2013, will mark the 11th anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
In 2009, just two days after taking office, President Obama issued an executive order calling for the Guantanamo prison to be closed within a year, and for detainees to be given fair trials in U.S. federal courts. But, since then, he has repeatedly signed Congress's defense bills that keep Gitmo going, even while blaming Congress for his failure to keep his promise.
Technology Servitude
Joel S. Hirschhorn
Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high tech devices, while driving, while walking, while shopping, while in groups of friends, while in restaurants, while waiting in doctor offices and hospitals, while sitting in toilets – everywhere. While connected electronically, they are inattentive to and disconnected in physical reality.
People have been steadily manipulated to become technology addicted. Technology is the opiate of the masses.
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