Class War in America

© Unknown

Class War in America by Stephen Lendman

Class war raged for decades. Business and America's super-rich always win. In his 1925 short story titled Rich Boy, F. Scott Fitzgerald said:

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early...They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we.."

"Even when they enter deep into our world....they still think that that they are better than we are. They are different."

In his article, titled "The Truth About 'Class War' in America," economist Richard Wolff said:

"The last 50 years have indeed seen continuous class warfare in and over federal economic policies."

Corporate giants and America's super-rich waged war against working Americans and won. Notably since the 1970s, "(b)usiness and its allies shifted most of its federal tax burden onto individuals."

Since WW II, tax rates on super-rich Americans fell from 91% to 35% today. Obama's deficit cutters want it lowered to 24% along with eliminating some deductions with loopholes to compensate and save others. Moreover, they want the top corporate tax rate slashed from 35% to 26%.

Many corporate giants, in fact, pay minimal or no taxes. Some, like General Electric, get generous rebates in highly profitable years. They game the system, benefiting form tax laws they write. American workers lose out from greater than ever burdens on them.

Obama schemers also want deeper Medicare cuts, higher Medicaid co-pays, and Social Security's retirement age raised to 69 with lower cost-of-living increases. Privately they want Wall Street to control it to suck out maximum profits, then shut it down entirely.

In addition, they want home mortgage interest and tax-free employer provided health insurance capped or ended.

They represent business and super-rich elites. America's middle class is targeted for extinction. Since taking office, Obama capitulated to Republicans on preserving tax cuts for America's super-rich. He gave trillions of dollars to Wall Street crooks and other corporate favorites, including profiteers benefiting greatly from multiple imperial wars on humanity

At the same time, he stiff-armed budget-strapped states and distressed households. Promising millions of new jobs, he created none. Four years into a Main Street Depression, real unemployment approaches 23%. In ravaged cities like Detroit, it exceeds 50%.

Federal worker wages were frozen and austerity cuts imposed. Examples include Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Families needing help to heat homes in winter won't get it. Neither will students relying on Pell Grants.

Other imposed cuts affect:

• the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP);
  
• community healthcare centers;
  
• nonprofit health insurance cooperatives;
  
• HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other disease prevention programs;
  
• WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) grants to states for supplemental foods, healthcare, and nutrition education for low-income families;
  
• Head Start, providing comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income families with children;
  
• the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (targeted earlier with more coming), providing food stamps for poor households;
  
• community development block grants for housing, overall reducing HUD's budget by $1.1 billion;
  
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) first-responder funding;
  
• energy efficiency and renewable energy programs;
  
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clean/safe water and other projects;
  
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) medical research;
  
• the National Park Service;
  
• vital infrastructure and transportation needs; and other non-defense discretionary spending.

Planned new cuts will sustain Wall Street, militarism, favoritism, waste, fraud, and other rewards for Washington's usual special interests They benefit at the public trough.

Everyone else gets to eat cake. They're on their own sink or swim. Obama calls it "shared sacrifice." Workers sacrifice to let business and super-rich elites share.

Corporate America's power grab holds US households hostage. Neo-serfdom and debt peonage define their final solution. Wolff calls mainstream economics "faith-based." For Michael Hudson, it's "junk economics," destroying societies to benefit Wall Street and powerful favorites.

According to Wolff:

"In plain English, the last 50 years saw a massive shift of the burden of federal taxation from business to individuals and from rich individuals to everyone else. Class war policies, yes, but a war that victimized the vast majority of working Americans."

Especially since the 1970s, real wages haven't keep up with inflation. Benefits steadily eroded. High-paying manufacturing and service jobs went offshore to low-wage countries. Automated production claimed more.

More than ever, "free markets" work best for those who control them. Others lose out, growing numbers entirely.

Technology driven productivity increasingly pressures workers to toil longer for less pay and fewer benefits. Explaining predatory capitalism's contradictions, Marx indeed was right. He called it anarchic and ungovernable, and what existed in his day was a shadow of today's monster.

It alienates masses by preventing societies from developing humanely. It produces class struggles between "haves" and "have-nots," the bourgeoisie (capitalists) and proletariat (workers). It exploits the many for the elite few. Those most privileged populate Wall Street.

It flourishes in America and Western societies. Aided by political opportunists, powerful monopolies and oligopolies now control production, commerce and finance.

Households are angered and traumatized by falling incomes adjusted to inflation. As a result, more family members work more for less. Corporate bosses extract more surplus from pressured workers.

Class war in America isn't new. Today it rages, pitting private wealth against populist interests.

America's middle class is on the chopping block for destruction. The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. Complicit with Wall Street and other corporate crooks, they've wrecked the economy and working households for profit.

America's broken system is defined by sacrificing workers on the alter of capitalist excess. Growing numbers understand a venal, depraved, degenerate system. It's too broken to fix. It's corrupted, suffocating and malignant.

No wonder millions now rage against it in hundreds of cities nationwide. It was just a matter of time. They're mad as hell and won't take it anymore. They worry about no future prospects. They know, or should know, political Washington won't help.

They're victimized by institutionalized inequality. Good paying jobs and retirement security are increasingly out of reach.

America's a kleptocracy run by political criminals complicit with corporate crooks. They strip-mine working households for profit. Systemic corruption benefits at the public's expense.

America's no longer fit to live in. Change demands dismantling it and starting over. Vital issues include:

• social justice;
  
• returning money power to public hands as the Constitution's Article 1, Section 8 mandates;
  
• dismantling duopoly political power, replacing it with an entirely new multi-party democracy;
  
• getting money out of politics;
  
• shutting down insolvent banks;
  
• prohibiting too-big-to-fail ones;
  
• ending corporate personhood; corporations are businesses, not people
  
• re-instituting anti-trust laws with teeth, prohibiting monopoly and oligopoly power;
  
• breaking up big media;
  
• making broadcasting a public utility on airwaves belonging equally to everyone, not business giants to exploit with generous subsidies;
  
• prohibiting all corporate handouts, loopholes, and special benefits;
  
• making business pay equitably on all profits;
  
• ending America's student loan racket;
  
• mandating progressive taxation, including treating income and capital gains equally;
  
• reenergizing organized labor;
  
• ending inequality and persecution;
  
• creating jobs paying living wages;
  
• stressing environmental sanity; and
  
• ending America's imperial wars.

Hopefully OWS protesters understand dark forces want to co-opt and subvert them. Hopefully they'll focus on what matters most.

Key is getting money power in public hands and making banking a regulated public utility. Achieving that makes social justice and other vital goals possible.

Millions of Americans and others globally are committed for change. Hopefully they know they're in the mother of all struggles and will stay the course. It's how all great victories are won.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

A Businessman Occupies Wall Street

A Businessman Occupies Wall Street - Truthdig.com

NEW YORK—I met David Intrator during the fourth week of the Occupy Wall Street protests, the night before Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Brookfield Properties and the New York Police Department were due to clear the park and shut down the demonstration.

Dressed in a suit and tie and holding a sign that read “Harvard Men for Economic Justice,” he didn’t have the look of a typical protester, and when he opened his mouth to talk, he didn’t sound like one either. A few days later we sat down for a conversation in his Midtown office on the east side of Manhattan. This is what he had to say. —Alexander Reed Kelly



Truthdig reporter Alexander Kelly has been reporting on Occupy Wall Street from Liberty Plaza. For more, visit truthdig.com/dig/occupy_wall_street

Naomi Wolf Explains Our Constitutional RIGHT To Peacefully Assemble

Naomi Wolf Explains Our Constitutional RIGHT To Peacefully Assemble

Occupying America: Sowing the Seeds of a Second American Revolution

Patrick Henry's speech on the Virginia
Resolves (an 1851 painting by Peter F. Rothermel)

Occupying America: Sowing the Seeds of a Second American Revolution by Lori Spencer

The agitators who are taking it to the streets would be the modern day Patriots.

Editors’ NOTE:  Revolutions may be started or planted in a day or overnight… but it takes a while for them to grow, mature and bear fruit.

Usually an entire season.

How long is a “national development” season?

America is into its 200 somethingth year and, although seemingly well rooted, and even putting out tentacles or dendrons to the rest of the world like crab grass, it still does not seem to have matured, blossomed, or appear to be going to bear fruit.  And it is in fact, beginning to show evidence of root rot…beginning to wither and dry up in the soil in which it was planted.

Perhaps the time is ripe to replant and start over again.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else. Winston Churchill

Edited. by: Debbie Menon

---

What is happening in the streets today is being hailed by some as the Second American Revolution, and it may very well be that our tree of liberty is beginning to bloom anew.

by LORI SPENCER

Sign on a tent at the Oklahoma City Occupation (photo by Lori Spencer) by ThisCantBeHappening!

“There are combustibles in every state which a spark might set fire to.” 
– George Washington’s letter to General Henry Knox concerning the Shay’s Rebellion, 1786

One month ago, a group of some 1000 demonstrators gathered in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park to protest the pillaging of the nation’s economy by powerful corporations and international houses of high finance. While these young activists were entirely peaceful, they also made it clear that this would be no hippie-dippy flower-twirling love-in, sit-in, teach-in, or even a camp-in; this was an occupation. The demonstrators announced that they intended to Occupy Wall Street 24/7, staying until hell freezes over if need be.

The New York City police welcomed them warmly with pepper spray and more than a few violent smack-downs, even going so far as to arrest some 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge who were lured into a position where they could be charged with blocking traffic.

After video of these outrages went viral on the Internet, a wave of righteous indignation swept the land. Hastily-formed Occupy groups proclaiming themselves in solidarity with the NYC protesters began to spring up in big cities and small towns across America. At first it was just a handful: 20-30 groups in the first week, growing to a few hundred in the second week, then rapidly mushrooming to today’s current total of 1,947 cities around the globe.

The most common critique leveled against the Occupy demonstrators is that they don’t seem to have a plan. “Disorganized,” “unfocused,” and “aimless” are buzzwords the movement’s detractors –both liberal and right-wing —   like to toss around. Last week former President Bush’s key political adviser Karl Rove cynically opined in the Wall Street Journal   that Democrats should distance themselves from the Occupy Wall Street movement to avoid alienating potential voters in 2012.

And it’s true that even those Americans who are in fact part of the 99% and generally support OWS’s principles are themselves unclear as to what the protesters ultimately want and how exactly they are going to accomplish it. What are their demands? How long are they going to keep this up? Have they proposed any concrete solutions? But that’s an awful lot of pressure to put upon a spontaneous social movement that is only little over a month old.

Certainly these are valid questions. In defense of the revolutionaries, though, remember that the last time we  had a revolution in this country , it took 20 years to start it, eight years to fight it, and still another six years to fully secure and implement a new government.

If the Occupy movement is indeed the genesis of a Second American Revolution , we should not expect its progenitors to simply cough up a prefabricated quick fix. After all, if our elected representatives couldn’t seem to figure out how to correct the country’s multitude of problems over a few decades, is it reasonable to expect a loosely-organized band of citizen activists to offer the solutions within just a few months? We may be sowing the seeds of a revolution now, but let’s not forget that it usually takes many years to reap the harvest.

History shows that revolutions do not occur overnight. Reasonable humans always prefer to work out their differences through lawful avenues and communication whenever possible.

• It is only after many years of futile petitioning that the oppressed are left with no other choice but to revolt. Some 236 years ago, the American colonists signed a Declaration of Independence — prepared to back it up through force of arms if necessary — but that unforgiving line in the sand was only drawn after 22 years of peaceful attempts to negotiate with Britain had failed.

The seeds of the American Revolution were planted not in 1776, but in 1754 during the French and Indian War. Colonists became further disenchanted when taxes were levied upon them to pay the costs of that war. A number of other encroachments added fuel to the fire : restrictions on settlement of the West, increased duties on imported goods, the Stamp Act, the banning of colonial currency, outlawing town meetings, quartering British troops among the citizenry, and closing Boston Harbor, just to name a few. Discontent festered for nearly 20 years whilst the Loyalists and Patriots argued amongst themselves as to whether or not they dared to overthrow British rule.

When the first armed conflict of the Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, only one-third of colonists supported the cause. The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, but it took another year for all the delegates to actually sign their John Hancocks, quite literally putting their lives on the line for what they believed in. Although the final battle was fought in 1782, the state of war did not formally end until the Treaties of Paris and Versailles were ratified in 1784. The U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 but was not ratified until 1789. This delay was the result of ongoing debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over just how much power the new national government should have. Debates were so heated in fact that they frequently turned into armed skirmishes, standoffs, and deadly showdowns with authorities. One resonant example was Shay’s Rebellion, a populist uprising of debt-ridden New England farmers who had served their country in  the war, only to come home and have their lands foreclosed upon. (A scenario all too familiar for today’s veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the returned veterans of practically every war in the 20th century).

“You say you want a revolution…well, you know…we’d all love to see the plan.”
– The Beatles, “Revolution”

Revolutions are a process of trial and error, of discarding what doesn’t work and eventually figuring out what does. Of course you can always count on revolutionaries to make some massive screw-ups along the way (such as George Washington’s bright idea to exclude blacks from the Continental Army, thus driving more than 20,000 African Americans to pick up guns for the British and turn them against their countrymen, for example). In truth, the original 13 American colonies were rarely in agreement on anything . While everyone could agree that the country was out of joint, reaching consensus on what to do about it proved far more difficult.

Colonists wanted freedom and were willing
to do anything to get it. The British
were furious and refused to relinquish
control. So in 1775, The Revolutionary
War began… a fight for Freedom

Even when all 13 colonies finally signed on the dotted line in 1776, they still didn’t have a plan for a new system of government to replace the old. And while the Declaration may have been a poetic statement of collective principles and grievances, it offered nothing in terms of solutions.

The Continental Army was a ragtag, disorganized, unruly band of volunteers who seemingly didn’t stand a snowball’s chance against the crushing might of Britain’s superior forces. These men fought an eight-year war without so much as a blueprint for what the hell they were going to do with their hard-earned freedom should they emerge victorious. Once the war was won, it took another six years of bickering, compromise, and re-tooling the Constitution before we finally had a supreme law of the land. All the while, Congress ran the United States because there was no leader; the new nation didn’t elect its first president until 1789. All in all, the process of the American Revolution comprised 35 years–a generation.

What is happening in the streets today is being hailed by some as the Second American Revolution, and it may very well be that our tree of liberty is beginning to bloom anew. By that historical comparison, the agitators who are taking it to the streets would be the modern day Patriots. The majority who tell them to just sit down, shut up, get a job, and stop whining already are the Loyalists. All of these empty arguments being made today against the Patriots as a bunch of naive, ungrateful, disorganized fools are nothing new under the sun . W e Americans have heard that old saw somewhere before. Washington, Adams, Jefferson and even Tom Paine didn’t have all the answers in the beginning, either.

Not until 1774 did the First Continental Congress convene to draft an official list of grievances, a statement of principles, and plans for organized resistance to England within the colonies. This bold first step towards independence had been 20 years in the making.

Today’s revolutionaries actually seem to be moving forward much, much faster. Already, an Occupy Wall Street working group is calling for the election of a National General Assembly to meet on July 4, 2012 in Philadelphia. According to the 99% Declaration, ” 870 Delegates shall set forth, consider and vote upon a PETITION OF GRIEVANCES to be submitted to all members of Congress, The Supreme Court and President and each of the political candidates running in the nationwide Congressional and Presidential election in November 2012.” Now that sounds like a plan!

It took many decades of unsustainable excess and deep-rooted corruption for America to reach this critical stage of mass unrest. So no one should expect us to get out of this mess tomorrow.

We’re done with trusting politicians to sort it out for us. We have finally come to the inevitable conclusion that if we want the job done right, we’ll have to do it ourselves. We The People will fix this, even if we don’t know quite how to do it just yet. We will win some, lose some, fall on our faces sometimes, and learn from our mistakes as our forefathers did. If it took them at least 35 years to come up with a system that worked. Instant gratification is not something we can expect this time around, either. Give it time. Better yet, roll up your sleeves and help if you want change to happen faster. Many hands make light work, and we’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do.

To borrow from President Kennedy, who outlined the New Frontier’s goals for the 1960s in his inaugural address and called his fellow Americans to action: ”All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

www.thiscantbehappening.net

---

LORI SPENCER is a veteran journalist and musician based in Austin, Texas. She spent 25 years in the trenches of radio and print newsrooms by day while playing her music by night. Most recently she became one of the 99% when the mega media corporation she worked for laid off more than 7,000 writers and editors, informing them via a cold and impersonal email that their services would no longer be needed. Now just another unemployed journalist, she’s hitting the road to document the occupation as it spreads across the American heartland. You may find her visiting your city soon. If you see Lori at a rally and would like to help fund her quest for reporting the truth, please toss some spare change in her guitar case. Lori wrote this piece for ThisCantBeHappening and will be continuing to report on the movement from the nation’s heartland.

Global Revolution Tribute – a video by Ken O’Keefe

“Whereever you oppress people…wherever you deny them their basic human rights… people will eventually rise up.” – Ken O’ Keefe

Politics And Shadow Politics: Understanding The Elite's War on Humanity

Politics And Shadow Politics: Understanding The Elite's War on Humanity by Saman Mohammadi

© The Excavator

A mass grave site in La Macarena, Colombia, that was unearthed in 2010 outside a Colombian military base overseen by the U.S. military. Human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik said that, "The discovery of this mass grave by sheer accident raises the prospect that there are more yet to be found," in his April 2010 article called, "U.S. and Colombia Cover Up Atrocities Through Mass Graves."

"Politics is the management of people. It is important to understand the psychology as well as the symptoms of problems." - Henry Kissinger. The quote is from a Time Magazine article by Hugh Sidey called, "The Presidency: Majesty, Poetry and Power," that was published on October 20, 1980.

"People first feel things without noticing them, then notice them with inner distress and disturbance, and finally reflect on them with a clear mind." - Giambattista Vico; The New Science, pg. 94.

"No, the demons are not banished; that is a difficult task that still lies ahead. Now that the angel of history has abandoned the Germans, the demons will seek a new victim. And that won't be difficult. Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into self-righteousness, is their prey.... We should not forget that exactly the same fatal tendency to collectivization is present in the victorious nations as in the Germans, that they can just as suddenly become a victim of the demonic powers." - Carl Jung; The Postwar Psychic Problems of the Germans (1945).

"Politics," said Henry Kissinger, "is the management of people." Based on this definition, shadow politics is the management of the mass death of people. Specifically, it is the management of public perceptions about acts of mass destruction and mass death as carried out by government leaders.

The premeditated destruction of Iraq by the United States government provides a present-day example of how government leaders justify the mass murder of foreign populations to their own people. Neoconservative thinking was the ideological source of both the destruction of Iraq and the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

Neoconservatism and Environmentalism are the two schools of thought in this age that call for the mass destruction and mass death of human communities. Neocons want to conquer the Earth, and Environmentalists want to save it. Both groups are politically powerful, media savvy, financed by big money, and filled with psychotics who have fantasies of mass destruction and mass death.

Their death wish is our worst collective nightmare. When we wake up to a world gone crazy, they wake up to a world of beautiful orgies of destruction and death, of mass cleansing and social renewal, of new beginnings and old pleasures.

George Reisman, a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Pepperdine University and author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, wrote in February 2008 about the dangers of the environmental movement to freedom, human life and world civilization in an article called, "The Nature of Environmentalism." Reisman wrote:

Now imagine that a prominent environmentalist writes an article or gives a speech in which he expresses the wish for a virus to come along and wipe out a billion people. What will be the reaction of the environmental movement? Will that individual be denounced for misrepresenting the movement? Will the rest of the movement's leaders rush to assure the world that that individual was so far from representing environmentalism that he actually represented the diametric opposite of its principles?

Not at all. There will be no negative reaction of any kind from within the movement, not even a raising of eyebrows. I can say this with the utmost confidence, because such statements have already been made, and made repeatedly. And there has been no outrage, no negative response of any kind from within the environmental movement.

Here's David M. Graber, in his prominently featured Los Angeles Times book review of Bill McKibben's The End of Nature: "McKibben is a biocentrist, and so am I. We are not interested in the utility of a particular species or free-flowing river, or ecosystem, to mankind. They have intrinsic value, more value - to me - than another human body, or a billion of them.... It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil-energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."

And here's Prince Philip of England (who for sixteen years was president of the World Wildlife Fund): "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation." (A lengthy compilation of such statements, and worse, by prominent environmentalists can be found at Frightening Quotes from Environmentalists.)

There is no negative reaction from the environmental movement because what such statements express is nothing other than the actual philosophy of the movement. This is what the movement believes in. It's what it agrees with. It's what it desires. Environmentalists are no more prepared to attack the advocacy of mass destruction and death than Austrian economists are prepared to attack the advocacy of laissez-faire capitalism and economic progress. Mass destruction and death is the goal of environmentalists, just as laissez-faire capitalism and economic progress is the goal of Austrian economists.

And this is why I call environmentalism evil. It's evil to the core. In the environmental movement, contemplating the mass death of people in general is no more shocking than it was in the Communist and Nazi movements to contemplate the mass death of capitalists or Jews in particular. All three are philosophies of death. The only difference is that environmentalism aims at death on a much larger scale.

The useful idiots in the environmentalist movement believe the propaganda about climate change and develop a deep-seated animosity towards human beings. Reisman says that environmentalism, at its core, is a philosophy based on the hatred of humanity and the growth of urban civilization. Reisman said:

"It is not at all accidental that environmentalism is evil and that its leading spokesmen hold or sanction ideas that are indistinguishable from those of sociopaths. Its evil springs from a fundamental philosophical doctrine that lies at the very core and deepest foundations of the movement, a doctrine that directly implies the movement's destructiveness and hatred of the human race. This is the doctrine of the alleged intrinsic value of nature, i.e., that nature is valuable in and of itself, apart from all connection to human life and well being. This doctrine is accepted by the movement without any internal challenge, and, indeed, is the very basis of environmentalism's existence."

The Western financiers of the Nazi movement and the Communist movement are also behind the modern Environmentalist movement because it is another political-philosophical channel through which the organization of the mass murder of people can be accomplished and justified. James Delingpole, journalist and author of the book Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors, spoke about the true nature of the Environmentalist cult movement and the purpose of the Global Warming hoax on the Alex Jones show in September.

The Western power elite seek to set up a totalitarian world government and use it to fully implement their depopulation agenda across the world by popularizing the Environmentalist movement and spreading visions of mass death through popular film, television programs, video games, music videos, and other cultural artifacts.

Years of anti-human propaganda by the power elite will desensitize many people to the sights and sounds of mass destruction and mass death. The planned mass murder of human beings in the Middle East, Africa, and across the planet will be explained away in some form or another.

Absurd claims of "too many people" and "not enough resources" are what justify the destructive actions of the demonic elite. They have embraced the dark spirit of the age and they want the rest of humanity to embrace it, too, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

There is a philosophy of death that lies behind the releasing of a mass plague on the global population and staging false flag terrorist attacks to start an endless, global war? According to the Malthusian-Hobbesian-Darwinian historical paradigm, the art of government is the art of population control. The population reduction of the third world, along with certain classes in the West, is one of the shadow aims of the shadow intelligence agencies in the West.

The shadow policy makers at the shadow CIA have a global authoritarian vision for the planet, and the death of billions of human beings is a big part of this vision. Alex Jones has said that the global fascist state will be used as the global mechanism to wipe out the majority of humanity.

This truth is well understood in the shadow world of politics and government. Top level intelligence officers are responsive to the sociopathic elite who have taken control of most governments on Earth and are using their godlike power to conduct a covert war on humanity and freedom.

There is also a spiritual side to the sociopathic elite's global war on humanity. The destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 by the shadow terrorist states in America and Israel was about the angels of hell marking their territory on Earth and challenging the angels of heaven to a final battle between good and evil. The attacks spiritually signified the death of the masses and the creation of a new global culture and global civilization with English as the global language.

There is no threat of Islamic fundamentalism to America and the West. The clash of civilizations between the West and Islam is just public theatre for the global masses. The war on terror is a collective sideshow. It gives the dogs of war in both camps something to chew on and boost their weak male ego. Its main function is to entertain people, distract them, keep them afraid, and attract their energies, sympathies and emotions so that they don't concentrate on the bigger picture.

Another reason the war on terror is being fought is to destroy both Islamic Islamic civilization and Western civilization, and thereby consolidate economic, military and political power in a new global technocratic civilization, upon the ashes of both destroyed worlds.

So the main event is not a clash of civilizations, but the destruction of mass humanity and industrial civilization. By the time the curtains are pulled down on the war on terror show and the actors of history have left the stage, a couple of billion people will be dead due to engineered crises like a global plague, a global economic depression and a global starvation.

But there is a huge difference today that may prevent the elite from accomplishing their political and spiritual goals. In this apocalyptic age, the Internet gives those of us with the eyes to see and the minds to think the unique opportunity to not only witness the unfolding of the elite's plan for mass destruction and mass death, but put an end to it.

The shadow side of both politics and life is being revealed under the sun of a new age. These are revolutionary times and the forces of darkness can no longer hide their evil plans, atrocities, crimes, and lies from humanity.

Watch Webster Tarpley's educational video, "The Elite's Plan for Global Extermination," for a deeper analysis.

NGO's Say: GM Crops Promote Superweeds, Food Insecurity and Pesticides

NGO's Say: GM Crops Promote Superweeds, Food Insecurity and Pesticides by John Vidal

Report finds genetically modified crops fail to increase yields let alone solve hunger, soil erosion and chemical-use issues



Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.

The so-called miracle crops, which were first sold in the US about 20 years ago and which are now grown in 29 countries on about 1.5bn hectares (3.7bn acres) of land, have been billed as potential solutions to food crises, climate change and soil erosion, but the assessment finds that they have not lived up to their promises.

The report claims that hunger has reached "epic proportions" since the technology was developed. Besides this, only two GM "traits" have been developed on any significant scale, despite investments of tens of billions of dollars, and benefits such as drought resistance and salt tolerance have yet to materialise on any scale.

Most worrisome, say the authors of the Global Citizens' Report on the State of GMOs, is the greatly increased use of synthetic chemicals, used to control pests despite biotech companies' justification that GM-engineered crops would reduce insecticide use.

In China, where insect-resistant Bt cotton is widely planted, populations of pests that previously posed only minor problems have increased 12-fold since 1997. A 2008 study in the International Journal of Biotechnology found that any benefits of planting Bt cotton have been eroded by the increasing use of pesticides needed to combat them.

Additionally, soya growers in Argentina and Brazil have been found to use twice as much herbicide on their GM as they do on conventional crops, and a survey by Navdanya International, in India, showed that pesticide use increased 13-fold since Bt cotton was introduced.

The report, which draws on empirical research and companies' own statements, also says weeds are now developing resistance to the GM firms' herbicides and pesticides that are designed to be used with their crops, and that this has led to growing infestations of "superweeds", especially in the US.

Ten common weeds have now developed resistance in at least 22 US states, with about 6m hectares (15m acres) of soya, cotton and corn now affected.

Consequently, farmers are being forced to use more herbicides to combat the resistant weeds, says the report. GM companies are paying farmers to use other, stronger, chemicals, they say. "The genetic engineering miracle is quite clearly faltering in farmers' fields," add the authors.

The companies have succeeded in marketing their crops to more than 15 million farmers, largely by heavy lobbying of governments, buying up local seed companies, and withdrawing conventional seeds from the market, the report claims. Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta, the world's three largest GM companies, now control nearly 70% of global seed sales. This allows them to "own" and sell GM seeds through patents and intellectual property rights and to charge farmers extra, claims the report.

The study accuses Monsanto of gaining control of over 95% of the Indian cotton seed market and of massively pushing up prices. High levels of indebtedness among farmers is thought to be behind many of the 250,000 deaths by suicide of Indian farmers over the past 15 years.

The report, which is backed by Friends of the Earth International, the Center for Food Safety in the US, Confédération Paysanne, and the Gaia foundation among others, also questions the safety of GM crops, citing studies and reports which indicate that people and animals have experienced apparent allergic reactions.

But it suggests scientists are loath to question the safety aspects for fear of being attacked by establishment bodies, which often receive large grants from the companies who control the technology.

Monsanto disputes the report's findings:

"In our view the safety and benefits of GM are well established. Hundreds of millions of meals containing food from GM crops have been consumed and there has not been a single substantiated instance of illness or harm associated with GM crops."

It added: "Last year the National Research Council, of the US National Academy of Sciences, issued a report, The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, which concludes that US farmers growing biotech crops 'are realizing substantial economic and environmental benefits - such as lower production costs, fewer pest problems, reduced use of pesticides, and better yields - compared with conventional crops'."

David King, the former UK chief scientist who is now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, has blamed food shortages in Africa partly on anti-GM campaigns in rich countries.

But, the report's authors claim, GM crops are adding to food insecurity because most are now being grown for biofuels, which take away land from local food production.

Vandana Shiva, director of the Indian organisation Navdanya International, which co-ordinated the report, said:

"The GM model of farming undermines farmers trying to farm ecologically. Co-existence between GM and conventional crops is not possible because genetic pollution and contamination of conventional crops is impossible to control.

"Choice is being undermined as food systems are increasingly controlled by giant corporations and as chemical and genetic pollution spread. GM companies have put a noose round the neck of farmers. They are destroying alternatives in the pursuit of profit."

Shame on AMA's Archives of Internal Medicine - Part Two

© capilanocourier.com

Shame on AMA's Archives of Internal Medicine - Part Two - Alliance for Natural Health

New info about last week's horribly flawed vitamin study. This story keeps getting worse and worse.

Last Monday the Archives of Internal Medicine released a study claiming that vitamin use might lead to an earlier death. This set off a major media feeding frenzy, wave after wave of scary stories. Fox's headline was typical: "Are Your Supplements Killing You?"

In our article last Tuesday, we pointed out that the study was "junk science" at its worst. The data were "observational": women in Iowa were asked what supplements they were taking three times over eighteen years - that is every six years. Who remembers what they have taken over six years?

In addition, it was all anecdotal: you didn't have to say what you were taking specifically, just vague terms like "multivitamin." Were the vitamins synthetic or natural? How much did they take? Did they really take it, and for how long? Did they take it to stay healthy or because they had become very ill, perhaps with cancer? No one knows.

The next day, Dr. Robert Verkerk, our scientific director, weighed in. His analysis reveals, among many other interesting points, that all of the data was "adjusted" by the authors using methods of their own choice. If you look at the study itself, the first thing you see is an adjustment for "age and energy," whatever "energy" means in this case. After this adjustment, vitamins C, B complex, E, D, as well as calcium, magnesium, selenium, and zinc all appear to add to years lived.

This evidently wasn't an acceptable conclusion. So two more adjustments were made. First, if you had a healthy lifestyle and took vitamin C and lived longer, the longer life was attributed largely to the healthy lifestyle and not to the vitamin C. That put everything except B complex and calcium into neutral or negative territory.

Still the authors weren't satisfied. They adjusted again, this time for healthy eating, with the result that every supplement except calcium, B complex, and vitamin D became a contributor to an earlier death, according to this undocumented and completely loony math, and only calcium actually lengthened life. Not surprisingly, almost none of this - except possibly for the the use of copper supplements taken by 24 women at the end of the study - could be claimed to be statistically significant, even using the authors' own methods.

The only accurate conclusion that can be drawn from this data is that supplement users are generally healthier people. The why and how and whether it is meaningful is really unknown

The authors of the study admitted they started out with a hypothesis that supplements wouldn't add to life. It appears, although it is not revealed, that the supplement users actually lived longer than the non-supplement users. But the authors just manipulated the data until they got what they wanted and more: Supplements not only didn't help - they were killers! And the lazy, biased, or naïve major media took it from there.

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Life Extension Foundation also did its own scientific analysis of the Archives of Internal Medicine study. Among other things, it pointed out that copper and iron are pro-oxidants, so their overuse should be expected to lead to earlier mortality. It also noted that many people start taking supplements only after they become ill, which is not controlled for in any way, and that a sizeable minority of the supplements users were also taking drugs that have since been proved to be highly dangerous - patented hormones in particular - although no attempt whatever was made to control for drug use.

To pretend to control for so many factors but not to control for drug use - and to get through peer review this way - is a sad commentary on the state of medical research today. Could this be related to the overwhelming influence of drug companies on medical research in general?

Mike Adams' NaturalNews.com also offered a close analysis of the junk science. In addition to covering what it referred to as the study's "statistical voodoo," it also reminded us that the Archives of Internal Medicine "receives millions of dollars in advertising from drug companies," part of the $400 million that goes from drug companies to medical journals, and that the major media trumpeting the study in scary headlines also stay afloat from the $4.7 billion spent in Pharma-to-consumer ads (all of this data is from 2008, and is actually higher now).

As Dr. David Brownstein noted in a video interview with Adams:

"This study says absolutely nothing about vitamins. If this study was done in reverse, where vitamins were shown to be effective [easily accomplished with some further data manipulation], no journal would have printed [it] because it was so poorly done."

It might also be worth mentioning that the results of this so-called study contradict another Archives of Internal Medicine study from 2009, with four times as many participants, which showed that vitamins neither helped nor hurt mortality. We have to point out, however, that the earlier study from the same journal was also junk science. The main difference between the two is that in 2009 the apparently biased authors thought they would generate controversy be saying that popular supplements didn't help, while the clearly biased authors in 2011 took their screwy methodology right over the cliff.

After offering such shoddy work, the authors even had the temerity to advise people: "We recommend that [supplements only] be used with... symptomatic nutrient deficiency disease." The problem is that, having set out to prove this point, the authors have only demeaned themselves with their methods.

Two other researchers, invited to comment by the journal, say that the study findings "add to the growing evidence demonstrating that certain anti-oxidant supplements, such as vitamin E, vitamin A, and beta carotene, can be harmful." The trouble with this glib statement is that even the most "adjusted" data about these three supplements in the study is not statistically significant.

If you take a look at our web archive, you will see many articles about outrageous medical research studies and media distortions of even good studies. We can't afford to let these pass by. At this very moment, the FDA is trying to revise the regulations governing supplements (see our Action Alert!) in a way that could raise supplement prices sky high and greatly restrict your choice. Senator Durbin has a bill in the Senate (see our Action Alert!) that would do the same. This phony Archives of Internal Medicine study will be used by the FDA and Durbin. It will fan the flames. We need to get the truth out there in response.

To do so, we have two new Action Alerts.

The first one is for doctors and scientists and will go to the editor of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The second is for consumers, doctors, and scientists (note that we need doctors and scientists as well as consumers), and it will go to major media outlets - places like Bloomberg, AP, Reuters, NPR, Time, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, USA Today, the Daily Beast, and Fox, among others. It will also go to Congress because of the connection to new FDA regulations and the Durbin bill.

DOCTORS AND SCIENTISTS: TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE ARCHIVES OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter.

CONSUMERS, DOCTORS, AND SCIENTISTS: TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO CONGRESS AND MAJOR MEDIA

Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter.

We'd also love to hear your comments about this article - just add your thoughts here - but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Read  Part one

What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking & Sacred Space

© Unknown

October 16, 2011: What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking & Sacred Space by Scott Belsky

Interruption-free space is sacred. Yet, in the digital era we live in, we are losing hold of the few sacred spaces that remain untouched by email, the internet, people, and other forms of distraction. Our cars now have mobile phone integration and a thousand satellite radio stations. When walking from one place to another, we have our devices streaming data from dozens of sources. Even at our bedside, we now have our iPads with heaps of digital apps and the world's information at our fingertips.

There has been much discussion about the value of the "creative pause" - a state described as "the shift from being fully engaged in a creative activity to being passively engaged, or the shift to being disengaged altogether." This phenomenon is the seed of the break-through "a-ha!" moments that people so frequently report having in the shower. In these moments, you are completely isolated, and your mind is able to wander and churn big questions without interruption.



However, despite the incredible power and potential of sacred spaces, they are quickly becoming extinct. We are depriving ourselves of every opportunity for disconnection. And our imaginations suffer the consequences.



Why do we crave distraction over downtime?



Why do we give up our sacred space so easily? Because space is scary. During these temporary voids of distraction, our minds return to the uncertainty and fears that plague all of us. To escape this chasm of self-doubt and unanswered questions, you tune into all of the activity and data for reassurance.



But this desperate need for constant connection and stimulation is not a modern problem. I would argue that we have always sought a state of constant connection from the dawn of time, it's just never been possible until now.



We are depriving ourselves of every opportunity for disconnection.

The need to be connected is, in fact, very basic in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the psychological theory that explains the largest and most fundamental human desires. Our need for a sense of belonging comes right after physical safety. We thrive on friendship, family, and the constant affirmation of our existence and relevance. Our self-esteem is largely a product of our interactions with others.

It is now possible to always feel loved and cared for, thanks to the efficiency of our "comment walls" on Facebook and seamless connection with everyone we've ever known. Your confidence and self-esteem can quickly be reassured by checking your number of "followers" on Twitter or the number of "likes" garnered by your photographs and blog posts. The traction you are getting in your projects, or with your business, can now be measured and reported in real time.



Our insatiable need to tune into information - at the expense of savoring our downtime - is a form of "work" (something I call "insecurity work") that we do to reassure ourselves.



So what's the solution? How do we reclaim our sacred spaces?



Soon enough, planes, trains, subways, and, yes, showers will offer the option of staying connected. Knowing that we cannot rely on spaces that force us to unplug to survive much longer, we must be proactive in creating these spaces for ourselves. And when we have a precious opportunity to NOT be connected, we should develop the capacity to use it and protect it.



Here are five potential mindsets and solutions for consideration:

1. Rituals for unplugging.


Perhaps those in biblical times knew what was in store for us when they created the Sabbath? The notion of a day every week reserved for reflection has become more important than ever before. It's about more than just refraining from work. It's about unplugging. The recent Sabbath Manifesto movement has received mainstream, secular accolades for the concept of ritualizing the period of disconnection. Perhaps you will reserve one day on the weekend where you force yourself to disconnect? At first, such efforts will feel very uncomfortable. You will deal with a bout of "connection withdrawal," but stay with it.



2. Daily doses of deep thinking.

Perhaps "sacred space" is a new life tenet that we must adopt in the 21st century? Since we know that unplugging will only become more difficult over time, we will need to develop a discipline for ourselves. Back in the day when the TV became a staple of every American home, parents started mandating time for their children to read. "TV time" became a controlled endeavor because, otherwise, it would consume every waking moment. Now, every waking moment is "connected time," and we need to start controlling it.



We need some rules. When it comes to scheduling, we will need to allocate blocks of time for deep thinking. Maybe you will carve out a 1-2 hour block on your calendar every day for taking a walk or grabbing a cup of coffee and just pondering some of those bigger things. I can even imagine a day when homes and apartments have a special switch that shuts down wi-fi and data access during dinner or at night - just to provide a temporary pause from the constant flow of status updates and other communications.



3. Meditation and naps to clear the mind.


There is no better mental escape from our tech-charged world than the act of meditation. If only for 15 minutes, the ability to steer your mind away from constant stimulation is downright liberating. There are various kinds of meditation. Some forms require you to think about nothing and completely clear your mind. (This is quite hard, at least for me.) Other forms of meditation are about focusing on one specific thing - often your breath, or a mantra that you repeat in your head (or out loud) for 10-15 minutes. At first, any sort of meditation will feel like a chore. But with practice, it will become an energizing exercise.



If you can't adopt meditation, you might also try clearing your mind the old fashioned way - by sleeping. The legendary energy expert and bestselling author Tony Schwartz takes a 20-minute nap every day. Even if it's a few hours before he presents to a packed audience, he'll take a short nap. I asked him how he overcomes the midday anxiety enough to nap. His trick? "Practice," he said. Like all skills that don't come naturally, practice makes perfect.



4. Self-awareness and psychological investment.


Our most basic fears and desires, both conscious and subconscious, are soothed by connectivity and a constant flow of information. It is supremely important that we recognize the power of our insecurities and, at the very least, acknowledge where our anxiety comes from. Awareness is always the first step in solving any problem.



During research for my book, Making Ideas Happen, I was surprised by how many legendary creative leaders credited some form of therapy as a part of their professional success. If you're willing to invest in it, then take the plunge. Whatever you learn will help you understand your fears and the actions you take as a result.

5. Protect the state of no-intent.


When you're rushing to a solution, your mind will jump to the easiest and most familiar path. But when you allow yourself to just look out the window for 10 minutes - and ponder - your brain will start working in a more creative way. It will grasp ideas from unexpected places. It's this very sort of unconscious creativity that leads to great thinking. When you're driving or showering, you're letting your mind wander because you don't have to focus on anything in particular. If you do carve out some time for unobstructed thinking, be sure to free yourself from any specific intent.

***
The potential of our own creativity is rapidly being compromised by the era we live in. I believe that genius in the 21st century will be attributed to people who are able to unplug from the constant state of reactionary workflow, reduce their amount of insecurity work, and allow their minds to solve the great challenges of our era. Brilliance is so rare because it is always obstructed, often by the very stuff that keeps us so busy.

--
Scott Belsky is the CEO of Behance and author of the national bestselling book Making Ideas Happen. You can follow him @scottbelsky.

Project Censored 2012: The Sourcebook for the Media Revolution

Project Censored 2012: The Sourcebook for the Media Revolution - Media Freedom Foundation

For Immediate Release:

October 12, 2011

Contact:  Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, 707.874.2695

Dr. Peter Phillips, President; Prof. Mickey Huff, Director

peter@projectcensored.org; mickey@projectcensored.org

Interviews:  Contact Mickey Huff at email above.

Order the new book online at http://projectcensored.org or send check for $22.95 to

Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 571 Cotati, CA 94931

“Most journalists in the United States believe the press here is free. That grand illusion only helps obscure the fact that, by and large, the US corporate press does not report what’s really going on, while tuning out, or laughing off, all those who try to do just that. Americans—now more than ever—need those outlets that do labor to report some truth. Project Censored is not just among the bravest, smartest, and most rigorous of those outlets, but the only one that's wholly focused on those stories that the corporate press ignores, downplays and/or distorts. This latest book is therefore a must-read for anyone who cares about this country, its tottering economy, and—most important—what’s now left of its democracy.” —Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media ecology, NYU

 Our new book has arrived!

Censored 2012:  The Sourcebook for the Media Revolution, The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010-2011 by Mickey Huff and Project Censored.  In this volume, there are 500 pages of real news you can use, plus ample analysis that eradicates civil paralysis, and antidotes to our current Truth Emergency that will strengthen societal media literacy.  Help celebrate the 35^th year of the oldest media research organization in the US by donating $35 for a signed copy of Censored 2012, or simply pick up a copy for yourself, friends, or a local library or school for only $19.95 each ($22.95 w/shipping).

Former Project director Dr. Peter Phillips kicks off this year’s work with a dynamic introduction to understanding the NATO/US/military industrial media complex matrix of managed news and propaganda. Censored 2012 also once again proudly showcases the poignant and timely cartoons of Khalil Bendib.  The Top 25 Censored Stories of the past year are not only announced, but this year, they are housed in Censored News Clusters that analyze the architecture of censorship in America by looking at the topical connections of the most commonly underreported stories.  We go down memory lane with PC interns in Censored Déjà vu looking at past censored stories; endure the ubiquity of Junk Food News and News Abuse with professor Adam Bessie and Abby Martin of Media Roots; and highlight solutions for our many interconnected global problems with professor Kenn Burrows and the students of San Francisco State University in hopes to provide people with positive and proactive stories of change that are at the core of the media revolution.  Media Democracy in Action is something Project Censored strives to achieve and we endorse and support many organizations with the same goals.  This year, we proudly feature some of the best and brightest in that vein, both veterans and new comers to the scene.

This year’s TRUTH EMERGENCY section looks at Understanding Propaganda in Theory and Practice.  Censorship, framing, and spin are all tactics that act to shape the public mind in democratic cultures.

Understanding these requires context.  A Brief History of Propaganda is offered by Dr. Randal Marlin and provides a solid foundation for the following chapters; professor Jacob Van Vleet writes on Mass Psychological Manipulation and the theories of Jacque Ellul; Dr. Robert Abele pulls the veil off the US Propaganda Machine; The Impending Demise of Net Neutrality is explored by Dr. Elliot D. Cohen; and Dr. Anthony Dimaggio deconstructs the Tea Party and Manufactured Dissent.

The final section of this year’s book, PROJECT CENSORED INTERNATIONAL, focuses on Human Rights and the Right to Know and introduces the collaboration between Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored and the Fair Share of the Common Heritage, explained by Mary Lia.  This section includes the Media Distortion of Nonviolent Struggles by Dr. Cynthia Boaz; journalist Ann Garrison on the US in Africa; Establishing Ghetto Palestine with journalist Jon Elmer; professor Robin Andersen looks at  HBO’s Treme, and the Fractured Press Coverage of Post-Katrina New Orleans;  Margaret Flowers, M.D., illustrates the Corporate Control of the Message in US Health Care Reform; and renowned midwife and author Ina May Gaskin shows Censorship of the True State of Maternity Care in the US.

Here is a list of the top censored stories from chapter one this year:

Censored 2012: Stories of 2010-2011

1. More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat


2. US Military Manipulates the Social Media


3. Obama Authorizes International Assassination Campaign


4. Global Food Crisis Expands


5. Private Prison Companies Fund Anti–Immigrant Legislation


6. Google Spying?


7. U.S. Army and Psychology’s Largest Experiment–Ever


8. The Fairytale of Clean and Safe Nuclear Power


9. Government Sponsored Technologies for Weather Modification


10. Censored # 10: Real Unemployment: One Out of Five in US


11.  Trafficking of Iraqi Women Rampant


12.  Pacific Garbage Dump—Did You Really Think Your Plastic Was Being Recycled?


13.  Will a State of Emergency Be Used to Supersede Our Constitution?


14.  Family Pressure on Young Girls for Genitalia Mutilation Continues in Kenya


15.  Big Polluters Freed from Environmental Oversight


16.  Sweatshops in China Are Making Your iPods While Workers Suffer


17.  Superbug Bacteria Spreading Worldwide


18.  Monsanto Tries to Benefit from Haiti’s Earthquake


19.  Oxfam Exposes How Aid Is Used for Political Purposes


20.  US Agencies Trying to Outlaw GMO Food Labelling


21.  Lyme Disease: An Emerging Epidemic


22.  Participatory Budgeting – A Method to Empower Local Citizens & Communities


23.  Worldwide Movement To Ban or Charge Fees For Plastic Bags


24.  South Dakota Takes Extreme Measures to Be the Top Anti–Abortion State  


25.  Extension of DU to Libya

To preview the top censored stories online see http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/category/top-stories/

Additionally, here are some recent videos about our work taken by Media Freedom Foundation board member Abby Martin of MediaRoots.org.

Project Censored celebrates its 35 years at Moe's Books in Berkeley, CA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge4kJaNfR0&feature=relmfu

Exclusive interview with Ralph Nader about Project Censored and current events:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMobQqiYKI4&feature=channel_video_title

Censored 2012 is one of our greatest collaborative efforts consisting of 105 professors, hundreds of students, community members, and people from all around the world.  We aim to expose media censorship and provide ways to be catalysts of the media revolution we need to restore the commons of human knowledge and education, establish and protect the right of the public to know what is going on in society, and work to maintain our democratic institutions– our culture of liberty.  We hope you join us in these vital endeavors in critical times.  Thank you for your support.

Mickey Huff
Director, Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation
Associate Professor of History, Diablo Valley College

Nomi Prins on 'Black Tuesday' and Occupy Wall Street

Nomi Prins on 'Black Tuesday' and Occupy Wall Street

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Nomi Prins' new novel is about the 99 percent of us who get screwed by the big boys, and about the kind of courage it will take to reclaim our country.

When Nomi Prins bursts into the room, you feel enormous energy and the fresh air of freedom. When her feisty spirit runs up against injustice, you immediately feel the power of her outrage. And these days, like the rest of us, her outrage is directed against Wall Street, a place she knows all too well, having worked for over a decade in global investment banking, including as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, before quitting to make a more honest living.

In her 2009 book, It Takes a Pillage, Nomi Prins skewered the Wall Street practices that took down our economy. Unlike so many unfocused accounts, she helped us understand that Wall Street, and no one else, caused the crash and continues to cripple our economy.

But in her new work of fiction, Black Tuesday, Prins chooses a different mode of expression to deepen her critique. She dives into the eternal verities – love, power and money -- to build the core of the story. She chooses the 1929 stock market crash as a backdrop to an improbable romance between a Wall Street banker and a Russian-Jewish immigrant young woman, who, like Prins, is bursting with talent and courage. As Prins moves us from the Lower East Side to Park Avenue and back again, we feel the tensions of class and the ways our humanity can break through them. But these are not cardboard characters. Nor is this novel a rerun of agit-prop novels from the 1930s. Rather, the characters are alive with contradictions, weaknesses and valor. I’m not going to give away the plot, but rest assured, there are plenty of thrilling twists that will prevent you from putting the book down.

Just as she pointed out that the CDO and credit derivatives markets were time bombs in her first book, Other People’s Money, and argued for Glass-Steagall to prevent the combination of bank speculation with commercial activities, she appears equally prescient now. When Prins starting writing Black Tuesday, nothing much was happening in terms of taming Wall Street. It was business as usual for the elites who were again raking in billions. Meanwhile the nation was arguing about what we should sacrifice in order to pay for the gigantic debts created by the Wall Street crash.

Politically, the country seemed to be suffering form financial Alzheimer’s as we forgot about how the Wall Street casino caused both our mass unemployment and our debt problems. Yet, as Black Tuesday is published, all hell breaks out in the streets as Occupy Wall Street takes off. It’s a perfect match. More importantly, the book lends crucial spiritual support to the occupying young folks who know something is rotten in finance and refuse to buy mealymouthed political excuses for doing nothing about it.

At its core, Black Tuesday is about the 99 percent of us who get screwed by the big boys, and about the kind of courage it will take to reclaim our country and our own humanity. Prins doesn’t give us any elaborate blueprints or phony cheerleading. Rather she conveys the essence of what she has to give – the spirit of defiance. The people who are currently lighting the fires of resistance will love reading about another time and place where a similar outrage took place and about how leadership set a new course.

AlterNet caught up with Prins to hear what she has to say about her novel and what’s happening in the streets:

Les Leopold: It seems amazing that Black Tuesday is coming out just as Occupy Wall Street is emerging. Is there any connection between your novel and what's happening on the streets right now?  

Nomi Prins: After It Takes a Pillage came out, I became increasingly convinced that we were on the brink of a Second Great Depression. Perhaps some of the comparative statistics were different, the kind that economists cite, but the downward spiral caused by the shady, fraudulent, self-serving financial chicanery driving the most powerful Wall Street banks and their leaders, is the same. I questioned why, with such obvious devastation, and such a mammoth opportunity to rein in the banks, that chance devolved into the whisper of the absolutely useless Dodd-Frank Bill. I realize this is rhetorical -- after all, we have a dangerous, symbiotic relationship between Washington and Wall Street -- but nonetheless, the question nags at me.

After 10 years of talking about the need to isolate banks into commercial vs. speculative activities ala Glass Steagall, I was mentally hoarse and emotionally spent. So I researched the historical conditions leading up to the 1929 crash which led to that 1933 act, specifically the dislocation between how financiers were being viewed and lauded vs. the actual effects of the “boom” on ordinary U.S. citizens, who weren’t living anywhere near the bankers’ high life.

Serendipitously, I walked into this magnificent public invention called the local library in West Hollywood during Great Gatsby month – which entailed among other things, readings of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic at various locales in Los Angeles. I went to one at a senior citizens home and discovered the most wonderful people bursting with stories of the Great Depression. One woman’s story, in particular, became the inspiration for the character arc of Leila’s Uncle Joseph, precocious little sister, Rachel, and worker-activist boyfriend, Nelson.

When I see the Occupy Movement, I see people from every background compelled to be involved, not only for personal reasons, but for a shared purpose – to alter the tide of economic injustice and corporate favoritism. I don’t think all of them are born activists, yet collectively they are creating an active, necessary national and global counter movement to the federal nepotism toward financial criminality.

LL: When you were writing the book, did you imagine that perhaps the country might actually rise up a bit more to tackle the Wall Street casino?  Did you hope the courage of your main characters would perhaps inspire us a bit? 

NP: I did envision a closer look at the past as being an inspiration for rising up in the present, without banging that notion over the reader’s head. My favorite line in the book is when Leila’s frail Aunt Rosa says to her, “Sometimes your cause finds you. There is a fight buried in us all.” Because, it’s true, not everyone is compelled to fight against injustice in the same way. People get there from different starting points, and the path isn't always clear and easy. And that's okay.

Leila’s boyfriend, Nelson embodies more visibly, the spirit of injustice and protest at a time when union battles with increasingly wealthy bosses were relegated to the back pages of the major newspapers that I examined, while stories of Wall Street boom took the headlines. Joseph embodies the man who strived to be financially prudent, but gets caught up in the bank hysteria. Rachel is a little girl growing up fast and aware of the basics that her family cannot afford, like the latest Winnie the Pooh book.

As the main protagonist, Leila herself is a reluctant heroine, she is an imperfect person trying to figure out her place in that turbulent world. Having survived tremendous violence at the hands of the Cossacks in her home country, she doesn’t at first believe that demonstrations and fist-pumping marches will change anything. But her heart draws her into a truth that she cannot ignore, despite trying, which propels her forward. Her inner conflict is as much a battle cry within her heart and head, as is the certainty of her boyfriend’s rabblerousing.

LL: When you chose to write a novel, rather than another dynamic expose of finance, were you trying to escape from what seemed like the futility of making change, or were you finding another way to embrace it? 

NP: A bit of both. On the one hand, my imagination took me to an alternate view of the past and the characters began to write themselves, as flawed, emotional individuals, living through and dealing with, situations that may fuel action for our present. That is the impetus for the court scene toward the end of Black Tuesday. It’s so exasperating that we just haven't learned much from history and still allow these powerful banks and bankers to control our destinies.

For example, as I depict in the novel, there was a meeting of the most powerful bankers at the Morgan Bank that took place on Black Thursday, five days before the big crash on Black Tuesday. One of the men in that room, who was later influential in creating the Bank for International Settlements in Europe was Albert Wiggins, the CEO of Chase Bank. While he was conspiring with those bankers to pump money into stocks (depositors’ money) he was shorting his own bank's stock, even as he was trying to get the market to buy it. And that is very reminiscent of today where companies like Goldman Sachs were shorting against their clients and making fraudulent representations with relative impunity. It is tragic that this crime continues unabated and our government enables it.

Black Tuesday offers a unique story that centers around real people caught up in the real financial dealings of that day, without the dispersion of the kinds of general statistics and numbers that I put into my non-fiction work. At the end of the day, the book depicts humanity in all its glory and despair, and lives are mortally impacted. Black Tuesday, as a novel, provides a way of looking at similar financial times and the devastation of mismanagement and greed on everyone in society. It is also a story. And I hope in that way, it is enjoyed as an eye opening tale, as well as a call to embrace the notion that each of us can make a difference, even when we least expect we can.

Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and Public Health Institute in New York, and author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green, 2009).