"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”" ~~~~Samuel P. Huntington

Saturday, October 30, 2010

'Problem' 'Reaction', 'Solution' - A Musical Propaganda Primer That Explains Why Americans Blindly Support The 'War On Terror'[tm]

Auntie Imperial's Creed:
"Of course we aren't trying to overthrow EVERYTHING.... but certain specific things. Business POLITICS Poverty And Oppression" ~~Herbert Marcuse


No matter who you vote for, no matter the "party", they'll NEVER mention that they and their "Friend$" ARE the problem.

There was an average of FOUR MILLION DOLLARS spent for every Senate and House seat up for grabs in this election...

Why SHOULD they care what YOU need?
Boeing (for instance) has facilities in all 50 states.


Produced by: NufffRespect @ YouTube

David Icke's explanation how wars are created.

It explains the concept of Problem reaction solution also known as Thesis, synthesis, antithesis developed by philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (albeit he never used the phrase). This concept has been used in many wars including WWII.

Hitler also used this phenomenon to control the minds of the Germans.

Also see this article, "The Rhetoric of Terrorism" by Paul Wolf:
Simplifying the debate, and using dogmatic exhortation, meant that the administration exaggerated the magnitude of the terrorist threat and the "action" necessary to counter that threat. Contrary to the claims of the Reagan administration, international terrorism was neither new nor unprecedented. [150] It was also, in and of itself, not a severe physical threat to American or international security. [151] Yet, because the administration characterized terrorism as so large a problem, the solution required was of similarly large proportions. Specifically, the zero sum game assumed that America needed to totally win -- "or else."

Such exaggeration distracted public attention from other, more pressing foreign policy problems. In a 1987 Roper poll a majority of Americans indicated that terrorism was the number one foreign policy problem faced by the United States. Yet Laqueur, writing about the same time, was persuasive as he emphatically disagreed.
Compared with the truly important problems of our time (the potential dangers of modern technologies, global debt, hunger in the Third World, overpopulation, certain new and incurable diseases -- terrorism [is], after all, a sideshow. [152]
Exaggerating the physical threat of terrorism itself also obscured the major threat of terrorism, for example, to the democratic functioning of the system. According to scholars like Paul Wilkinson and Walter Laqueur, the greater threat of terrorism is that a conflict begun by terrorism might escalate, both internally and externally. An internal escalation would threaten civil liberties, while an external escalation could lead to war between established states. [153] In both instances, the threat is from the response to terrorism, not from terrorism itself... [In Full]


Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Dispossessed WILL Inherit... "How (not to) to Organize a Community" - Dimitry Orlov

Also See: "But What IS "Community?" (“How (not) to organize a WHAT?”), at ClubOrlov... A guest post in response to this.
"...You see, upon close examination the English word “community” turns out to be all but meaningless..." [In Full]

"...suppose that our two communities are in an English-speaking country, which is likely to be afflicted with the irrational belief that the free market can solve all problems on its own, even problems with the availability of critical supplies such as oil. Just as one would expect, the invisible hand of the market fails to make itself visible,"
How (not to) to Organize a Community

Dimitry Orlov
Saturday, October 23, 2010

Resource Clock Courtesy of Poodwaddle
[Pop out a larger version]
Dire predictions made by authoritative figures can provide the impetus to attempt great things: establish community gardens and farmer's markets, lobby for improved public transportation, bike lanes and sidewalks, promote ride-sharing initiatives, weatherize existing homes and impose more stringent construction standards for new ones, construct of windmill farms and install solar panels on public buildings, promote the use of composting toilets and high-efficiency lighting and so on.

In the midst of all this organizational activity neighbors get a chance to meet, perhaps for the first time, and discover a commonality of interests that leads them to form acquaintances and perhaps even friendships.

As neighbors get to know each other, they start looking out for each other, improving safety and reducing crime.

As the community becomes more tight-knit, it changes in atmosphere and appearance, becoming more fashionable and desirable, attracting better-educated and more prosperous residents while pricing out the undesirable element. News of these vast improvements spreads far and wide, and the community becomes a tourist mecca, complete with food festivals, swank boutiques and pricy bric-à-brac shops and restaurants.

The undesirable element is forced to decamp to a less desirable neighborhood nearby. There, it has no choice but to suffer with high levels of crime, but is typically afraid to ask the police for help, having learned from experience that the police are more likely to harass them then to help them, to arrest them for minor offenses and to round them up and deport them if they happen to be illegal immigrants. They also learn to be careful around members of local gangs and drug dealers.

Since official jobs in the neighborhood are scarce, they seek informal, cash-based employment, contributing to an underground economy. Seeking safety in numbers, they self-organize along racial and ethnic lines, and, to promote their common interests, form ethnic mafias that strive to dominate one or more forms of illegal or semi-legal activity.

Growing up in a dangerous, violent environment, their children become tough at a young age, and, those that survive, develop excellent situational awareness that allows them to steer clear of dangerous situations and to know when to resort to violence.

When the fossil fuel-based national economy shuts down due to the increasingly well understood local ramifications of the global phenomenon of Peak Oil, both of these communities are harmed, but to different extents and in different ways.

Other countries may continue to function for another decade or even longer: these are the countries that have enough oil of their own, as well as those that were far-sighted enough to enter into long-term barter agreements with the few remaining oil producers that still have a surplus of oil for export.

But suppose that our two communities are in an English-speaking country, which is likely to be afflicted with the irrational belief that the free market can solve all problems on its own, even problems with the availability of critical supplies such as oil. Just as one would expect, the invisible hand of the market fails to make itself visible, but it is plain to see that fuel is no longer delivered to either of these communities, although in the second one some fuel is likely to still be available on the black market, at prices that very few people can afford.

Sooner or later, due to lack of supplies and maintenance at every level, electricity shuts off, water pumping stations cease to function, sewage backs up making bathrooms unusable, garbage trucks no longer collect the garbage, which piles up, breading rats, flies and cockroaches.

As sanitary conditions deteriorate, diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid reappear and spread. The medical system requires fuel for the ambulances and running water, electricity and oil-based pharmaceuticals and disposable supplies for the hospitals and clinics to operate.

When these are no longer available, the surviving residents are left to care for each other as best they can and, when they fail, to bury their own dead. Along with the other municipal and government services, police departments cease to function. Particularly important installations are guarded by soldiers or by private security, while the population is left to fend for itself.

The effect on the two communities is markedly different... In Full @ ClubOrlov

They Don't Just Lie About Wars You Know... Gulf Slick Spreads In Mississippi River As Coast Guard Declares 'Little Visible'

They don't just lie about wars you know...
"MATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE A boat travels through oil that was spotted in West Bay just west of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River Friday October 22, 2010." In Full

Had Enough?

Friday, October 22, 2010

Every Known Death In The Iraq War Google Mapped From WikiLeaks Data

Add STILL ANOTHER not-so-Noble Lie (Google search this philosophic principle) to the genocidal saga of the War on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We don't do body counts" ~~General Tommy Franks src
Yes they did.
Wikileaks Iraq war logs: every death mapped

"The Wikileaks Iraq war logs provide us with a unique picture of every death in Iraq.
These are those events mapped using Google Fusion tables."

When the Hand Cursor points at a red dot, click once for the specifics of that particular death.

Go To The Guardian (UK) For More
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) responded to the WikiLeaks release on Friday with a statement saying, "We need a true accounting of the war in Iraq. The American people have a right to know how many innocent civilians were killed in a war based on lies."

"We must remember that the Iraqi people are still grieving over the loss of husbands, wives, sons and daughters who were innocent noncombatants," Kucinich stated. "We have a moral responsibility to acknowledge the massive loss to the people of Iraq and the world. ... The suffering of the Iraqi people is unfathomable." source


Welcome to Another (S)edition... We Are The Insurgents! - The Stimulator @ SubMedia-TV

We Are The Insurgents!
'Cop' Car - G20 Toronto 2010
"It's The End Of The World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)"
Anarchist News For October 4, 2010

Another (S)edition brought to you by The Stimulator & SubMedia-TV


[Run Time: 15 Minutes, Pop Out Player]


Go To SubMedia-TV for links to articles and other sources used in the program segments. Video and audio downloads of this program are also available.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Houseless: An Audio Collage... Media & Music - Skidmark Bob, Pop dEFECT Radio

Skidmark Bob from PoP dEFECT RADIO, Free Radio Santa Cruz, with an audio collage of media & music on the current economic crisis, mortgage and job loss The housing bubble as explained by comedian Lewis Black also various media & news stories of people made houseless by foreclosures. Unreported World program on Boston and California Homeless and Al Jazeera English Witness program on Las Vegas homeless living in the sewers.


Note: This mix is ONE HOUR LONG!
Pop Out Player? Click Here


Produced mixed and edited by Skidmark Bob live on Free Radio Santa Cruz 101fm http://www.freakradio.org/ Tuesdays 2pm Music by Ben Harper, Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello, Otis Taylor, John Mellencamp, Unkle, Eric Clapton, Bruce Hornsby.

Visit Santa Cruz IndyMedia.

Lookit ALL Those "Injuns"! - The Comanche and the Taliban... What The Indian Wars Tell Us About The Taliban, Stephen M. Walt

"...it is a sobering fact to realize that despite its clear interest in victory and its clear advantages in numbers, wealth, and technology, it took the United States nearly four decades to finally defeat the Comanche. If you are seeking a similarly decisive victory in Central Asia, therefore, you'd better be prepared to stay there in strength for a long, long time."
(Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University and co-wrote The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007) with John J. Mearsheimer)

(The Comanche courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Comanche and the Taliban

By Stephen M. Walt
Wednesday, October 13, 2010


One of the most enjoyable books I've read in the past year was S. C. Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches. It's a terrific, gripping story, and I learned a great deal about aspects of U.S. history of which I was only partly aware.

In brief, the book tells the story of the U.S. effort to subdue the Comanche, the most powerful Native American tribe on the Great Plains. It was a bloody and fascinating struggle, in part because the Comanche proved so hard for the far more numerous and technologically superior Anglos to defeat. If you grew up with a John Ford/John Wayne/Randolph Scott view of the Old West, this book will be something of a revelation. And the saga of Quanah Parker himself, a Comanche war chief whose mother was a white woman kidnapped in 1836 at the age of nine, and "rescued" many years later (when her son Quanah was twelve years old), is itself a heart-rending tale of cultural conflict and personal tragedy.

As much as I enjoyed the book, I couldn't help but read it with the current war in Afghanistan in mind. In both cases, a numerically superior, wealthier, and more technologically advanced United States confronts a tribal adversary fighting on its home ground. And in both cases, the U.S. government faces an adversary that is cunning, ruthless, and by our standards even backward or barbaric.

But as my late colleague Ernest May used to warn, when you make a historical analogy, it is a good idea to make a list of the ways the two situations differ, instead of just invoking the similarities.

So lest you think that the ultimate victory of the U.S. government over the Comanche heralds a similar victory over the Taliban, consider the following differences between the two situations...

Taliban Toyota (You Asked For It, You Got It)

Read On @ Foreign Policy Magazine


Friday, October 15, 2010

No More Happy Motoring - There Is No "Plan B", North America "remains highly vulnerable to a liquid fuel emergency disruption"

F'rinstance...
To meet climbing global requirements, OPEC will have to increase its output from 30 MBD to at least 50 MBD. Significantly, no OPEC nation, except perhaps Saudi Arabia, is investing sufficient sums in new technologies and recovery methods to achieve such growth. Some, like Venezuela and Russia, are actually exhausting their fields to cash in on the bonanza created by rapidly rising oil prices. (p. 26)

A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. (p. 28)
Well, the amounts needed from OPEC are quite, shall we say, 'ambitious,' as they amount to an additional two Saudia Arabias coming on line in order to make up the shortfall. A massive crunch is not otherwise avoidable.

Let's be honest; there are no more Saudia Arabias to be found...
Future Chaos: There Is No "Plan B"
by Chris Martenson

Fri, 15 Oct 2010
Note: This article builds on my recent report, Prediction: Things Will Unravel Faster Than You Think. It explores the coming energy crunch in more detail by looking at existing government planning and awareness, and the implications of what international recognition of Peak Oil as early as 2012 might mean.
The hard news is that there is no "Plan B." The future is likely to be more chaotic than you probably think. This was the primary conclusion that I came to after attending the most recent Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) in Washington, DC in October, 2010.

The impact of Peak Oil on markets, lifestyles, and even national solvency deserves our very highest attention - but, it turns out, some important players seem to be paying no attention at all.

ASPO conferences tend to start early, end late, and be packed with more data and information than should be consumed in one sitting.

Despite all this, I was riveted to my seat. This year's usual constellation of excellent region-by-region analyses confirmed what past participants already knew: Peak Conventional Oil arrived a few years ago, and new fields, enhanced recovery techniques, and unconventional oil plays are barely going to keep up with demand over the next few years.

But there were two reports that really stood out for me.

The first was given by Rear Admiral Lawrence Rice, who presented the findings of the 2010 Joint Operating Environment (a forward-looking document examining the trends, contexts, and implications for future joint force commanders in the US military), which spends 76 pages summarizing the key trends and threats of the world.

"Energy" occupies six of those pages, and Peak Oil dominates the discussion.

Among the conclusions (on page 29), we find this hidden gem, which uses numbers and timing that are eerily similar to those that I put forth in my April 2009 report, Oil - The Coming Supply Crunch:
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD. (Source)
In Full, At EnergyBulletin.com

Monday, October 11, 2010

Todd Snider - 'Fixing' An Old Woody Guthrie Song... For Columbus Day


[Pop Out Player]

Doesn't it make you just want to sing along?
Freeway through a reservation,
Make way for a brand new nation,
Big ideas, we got brand new plans,
Heaven knows we need this land,
We're gonna build big, high and wide city streets
Through countrysides, chemicals, and pesticides.

This land is our land.

Hey, redman don't waste our time,
We're young and strong, we got hills to climb,
There's a lot of room but we need it all
For slave trade and shopping malls,
Gonna build big factories with paper plates and plastic trees
Styrofoam and antifreeze.

This land is our land... In Full


Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Worthless War Chronicles - Afghanistan, Year Ten


Rethink Afghanistan


Auntie thinks we should all ruminate on what we've achieved in those ten long years.

Corrupt colonial governments?

Yes.

Peace?

No.

Security?

NOT!

Dead soldiers?

Absofuckinglutely!


Lance Cpl Joshua Bernard - AP
Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard is tended to by fellow U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.
Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP


But the Pentagon and the other monetarily interested parties in America's wars to feed the gaping maw of the Military-Financial-Educational-Industrial Complex want you to just simply play along with their murderous imperial wars like "Good Americans-cum-Germans" and certainly don't want you to think about... REALLY think about, those Absofuckinglutely dead soldiers.
(Here's what Stars and Stripes thinks too!)

They want you to think of...

"Little America In Afghanistan" (click)

Pre-1942-Pledge
[Pre-1942 American Classroom Salutes Flag]

America At The Mall

[This is the popout soundtrack player for the rest of this post]
Source, PoP dEFECT Radio, Courtesy of Skidmark Bob Freek Radio Santa Cruz


The Way It Was, one day after, October 08, 2010:

Seven more fuel tankers have been burned in Pakistan as the country's security service, the ISI, is being accused of supporting the Talib in those attacks... and in Afghanistan the Talib have killed a politician ostensibly associated with the Northern Alliance (CIA affiliated Opium grower's army) and the Peace Commission/truce meeting is still in it's infancy with much secrecy and no word yet.

Juan Cole with more on our FUBAR involvement in the region:
Sen. Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee announced a report on Thursday on the way the private security contractors hired by the US military (even to guard bases!) are subject to little oversight, are corrupt, and sometimes pass on money or resources to what are essentially Taliban.

That is, the US may be indirectly hiring the Taliban to hit US bases.

At the same time, the some 3000 Afghans serving in the private CIA army in Afghanistan have been accused of carrying out among the worst attacks in that country. Erica Gaston of the Open Society Institute talks about her own experiences on the ground in this regard.

The Open Society Foundation reports the finding of Open Society Institute social scientists that ordinary Afghans blame US and NATO military actions as much or more than they blame the Taliban for civilian losses.

The tendency to blame the US is visible in Todd Pitman’s excellent piece revisiting Marjah.

Remember Marjah?

This cluster of farm houses in the Taliban poppy-growing region of Helmand Province was supposed to be a demonstration project for Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counter-insurgency campaign (take, clear, hold and build). All these months later, the US forces have not dislodged the Taliban, and it seems clear that there are places that GIs cannot go without incurring a firefight.

That is, the ‘clear’ phase has hit a Himalayan-sized snage. Much less hold and build. It was on the “success” of the Marjah campaign that the long-delayed attack on the major southern city of Qandahar was to have been modeled. I wouldn’t advise the US to try to attack and occupy Qandahar if they cannot even deal with Marjah.

While it won’t yield results soon, the negotiations of the Karzai government with insurgents are likely to point the way toward the end of the foreign military presence and the establishment of a new, more inclusive government in the medium to long term. [In Full @ Informed Comment]
[Quote Source]

One Last Thing... from Razer, with Auntie Imperial seconding:

An un-indicted co-conspirator in "Torture under the color of law" dies an early death.

He and his traitorous ilk WILL NOT be mourned.
Rendition Frequency MapScott Caplan, a Portland lawyer who was caught up in a scandal over flying terror suspects to secret prisons, died this week after suffering a heart attack. He was 49.

As reported in The Lake Oswego Review, Caplan was playing tennis Monday at the Lake Oswego Tennis Center when he collapsed from a heart attack. He died on Tuesday morning.

In 2007, WW reported on Caplan’s ties to the CIA’s so-called “extraordinary rendition” program flying terror suspects to countries that practice torture.

Caplan’s law practice in large part consisted of acting as a registered agent for companies. In 2003 he set up Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, a company whose listed owner—Leonard T. Bayard—had no official history and didn’t appear to exist.

In 2004, days after reporters blew open the story of the CIA’s secret flights, Bayard bought one of the program’s busiest planes from a company in Dedham, Mass., that reporters determined was a CIA front. The tail number of the Gulfstream V executive jet was changed, but it continued to make flights to countries like Egypt and Iraq... [More]


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