Tag Archives: United States

Wagging The Dog

I’ve said before that I generally have little use for most of what comes out of Hollywood but there are rare exceptions and “Wag The Dog” is one of those exceptions & for the same reason that allows “Idiocracy”  to make the cut…it is some of the best fictional “truth” that’s out there. As I’ve been feeling the rumble of the War Pigs’ drums getting steadily louder and louder lately, this movie has come to mind more than once. Ordinarily it is easy to tell where the spark will ignite but right now, there is too much noise in the wind to look just in one direction.

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I ask myself over and over…is any of it even REAL? Does N. Korea really want to blast us into oblivion? If so…why…and I mean, really WHY, not the Faux or CoNN news scare versions of why, thanks. If they don’t really want to attack us, how would ‘We The Peons’ know that?  Or…maybe it’s Syria that wants to take us out..? Oh but wait…I saw mention about how going to war with China would be a bad thing…so maybe it’s them we should fear?? And of course, we cannot forget those scary folks down in Mali who…well, I don’t know what their beef is exactly, but by gawd…America will be there, standing strong!!!

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I know I did not list all of the places our government is currently chest-thumping with but it still makes the point…there is too much being thrown out too quickly – and without full background, details or key information so that the average citizen has no damned idea what is going on and what, if any, real threats there are. So much of what I’ve been seeing reads like propaganda and rhetoric…but is it? How can I be certain? Are we intentionally being spun about in all directions so that when something does finally trigger even more massive scale war, we will be so confused as to believe anything our ‘protectors’ tell us?

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Related Videos:

Wag the Dog: Media blamed for covering Libya unrest with fog of war

Will NATO Try a Wag-the-Dog Provocation Against Syria to Keep Sarkozy in Power After May 6?

Wag the Dog: Is China’s Philippines Aggression Merely a Diversion?

The Difference Between You & Me

“The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”

Marjane Satrapi, Author

Marjane Satrapi

Private Prisons; Policies & Profits

“…three of the largest private prison companies have spent approximately $45,000,000 combined on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past decade.

Would they be spending so much money if those companies did not believe that it was getting results?”

 Excerpts,  The Economic Collapse Blog, “How would you describe an industry that wants to put more Americans in prison and keep them there longer so that it can make more money?  In America today, approximately 130,000 people are locked up in private prisons that are being run by for-profit companies, and that number is growing very rapidly.  Overall, the U.S. has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has 5 percent of the total global population.  The United States has the highest incarceration rate on the entire globe by far, and no nation in the history of the world has ever locked up more of its own citizens than we have.  Are we really such a cesspool of filth and decay that we need to lock up so many of our own people?  Or are there some other factors at work?  Could part of the problem be that we have allowed companies to lock up men and women in cages for profit?  The two largest private prison companies combined to bring in close to $3,000,000,000 in revenue in 2010, and the largest private prison companies have spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past decade.  Putting Americans behind bars has become very big business, and those companies have been given a perverse incentive to push for even more Americans to be locked up.  It is a system that is absolutely teeming with corruption, and it is going to get a lot worse unless someone does something about it…”

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“…At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call “highly skilled positions…”

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“…But of course some of the biggest profits for private prisons come from detaining young people.  Today, private prison companies operate more than 50 percent of all “youth correctional facilities” in the United States.

And sometimes judges have even been bribed by these companies to sentence kids to very harsh sentences and to send them to their facilities…” Full Article Here

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With well over 2 million people in jail – the U.S. has the world’s biggest prison population. But some are seeing the inside of a cell because dodgy judges are getting payback from the private sector…

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“For more than 30 years, ALEC has been the ideal means of creating and delivering public policy ideas aimed at protecting and expanding our free society. Thanks to ALEC’s membership, the duly elected leaders of their state legislatures, Jeffersonian principles advise and inform legislative action across the country. Literally hundreds of dedicated ALEC members have worked together to create, develop, introduce and guide to enactment many of the cutting-edge, conservative policies that have now become the law in the states.  Since its founding, ALEC has amassed an unmatched record of achieving ground-breaking changes in public policy. ALEC’s far-reaching national network of state legislators that crosses geographic and political boundaries, and affects all levels of government, is without equal. [Emphasis mine] No other organization in America today can claim as many valuable assets – both people and ideas – that have influence on as many key decision-making centers.” Learn More About ALEC

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Special Ops Command Presses For Increased Activity in Latin America

Am I the only one that finds this just a tad…erm…unnerving…?

Do we seriously not have enough going on around the world right now?

1 war, 2 wars…3 wars….MORE..!

Oh wait that’s right, we’re not at war in Latin America… we’re just down there meddling in their sovereign affairs and pissing away money like there’s no tomorrow…

From Department of Defense:

(Emphasis mine) WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2013 – Despite dwindling resources and a national defense focus on the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, the commander of Special Operations Command South is committed to not only maintaining, but increasing engagements in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Army Brig. Gen. Sean P. Mulholland, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command South, right, chats with Colombians whom his special operators are mentoring at the Tolemaida national training base in Colombia, Nov. 4, 2012. U.S. Army photo by Maj. Edward Lauer

Regular, sustained engagement is key to SOC South’s core mission: building partner capacity so regional nations can address their own challenges, Army Brig. Gen. Sean P. Mulholland told American Forces Press Service while here for an annual Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium and Exhibition.

“On any given day, I have over 300 people deployed downrange to Central and South America, including members of every service’s special operations force and their civil affairs and military information support teams,” he said. “SOC South is engaged 365 [days a year], 24/7.”

A Green Beret who has served most of his career within Latin America, Mulholland said he’s convinced that persistent engagement establishes a level of credibility and trust simply not possible through traditional training and exercise programs. “Building partner capacity is planting seeds” that require nurturing over time, he said.

“It’s really not rocket science. It’s about personal relationships and what we do as we build partner capacity,” he said. “It is always letting your partners know that you are there, inside their country, helping them out — whether it is one guy or 50 guys and gals. It is all about contact.”

Since assuming command in October, Mulholland has made a concerted effort to promote these contacts, all governed by the host nation’s requests, in collaboration with the U.S. embassy country team and at the direction of U.S. Southern Command.

“We don’t do anything [the host nation] doesn’t ask for. And we don’t do anything the embassy hasn’t approved that we do,” he explained. “There is nothing spooky or under-the-table about what we do. It is all above-board, and it is all about building partner capacity.”

That capacity is vital to stemming the challenges in the region: drug traffickers and other transnational criminals and terrorist elements seeking footholds in ungoverned spaces, among them. These groups use these areas to flow drugs and other illicit shipments through Central America and Mexico and, ultimately, to the United States.

“The best way to go after a threat is to have that partner nation develop a security capacity and diminish that threat,” Mulholland said. “I can affect this bridge coming up north through Mexico to the United States. I can do that by helping build partner capacity with [host nation] units that are actually going to go out there and do something about it. And that is happening.”

Mulholland cited Colombia as the shining example of what capacity building can achieve.

Historically, the FARC — Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — ran rampant in Colombia, terrorizing citizens with a spate of murders, kidnapping and other activities associated with narcotics trafficking. But 25 years ago, the Colombian police force was corrupt and the military forces were in disarray.

Today, thanks to strong Colombian leadership and persistent U.S. support and engagement, Colombia has capable, highly respected security forces. In addition to securing their own country, they are now training other regional militaries.

“They have become exporters of [force integration training],” Mulholland said, taking what they have learned and sharing it with their neighbors. “This is Latins training Latins, and that is a beautiful story,” Mulholland said. “It’s poetry.”

Continue reading →

Low Risk of Raw Milk

I have never been able to stand the taste of milk and don’t care to drink it raw or otherwise. However, I fully support the basic human right of having a free choice over what to put in our bodies. That something so simple as MILK has become a major political issue really disturbs me. What RIGHT does ANY government have to interfere with what we consume? If the current trends continue, people will have to worry about owning even a single cow and daring to use the milk – even for personal/home use – for fear of officials coming onto their property (with guns), terrorizing them and then penalizing them financially or by loss of freedom…and that is NOT OKAY!

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“The unfortunate truth is that, no matter what we eat, all food has some inherent risk.  The question is of course, comparative risk.  At a conservative estimate, there are at least 10 million raw milk drinkers in the United States (no similar survey was done for Canada), based on a 2006 consumer survey (this estimate does not even take into consideration any increase over the last 7 years, and we all know that consumer demand has vastly increased).  But for these 10 million raw milk drinkers, we do not see thousands or millions of them dying each year. In fact, there have been two raw milk related deaths since 1997, and at least one of these two was actually linked to illegal raw queso fresco cheese.

In its report “Outbreak Alert!  2008. Closing the Gaps in our Federal Food Safety Net“, The Center for Science in the Public Interest (2008) published this chart (page 21), showing that when adjusted for consumption, dairy, including the consumption of fluid raw milk, had a lower risk than even produce.” Full Article Here

 

JP Morgan The Prison Warden?

A man was arrested for attempting to cash a check the teller claimed was fraudulent…in spite of the fact the check was issued by the same (JPMorgan/Chase) bank where he was trying to cash it. There was never any evidence to suggest the check was a forgery, no justification for police action whatsoever. No attempt was made to verify the check; no retribution or compensatory damages have been paid for the loss of his transportation and livelihood.

Isn’t it nice that police acted on only the word of a corporate pissant teller and by neglecting to do their duty and actually investigating anything,  they assisted in ruining an innocent man’s life – without being held liable for their actions. I hope the teller, the police department and Chase bank get sued to hell & back but am not naive enough to believe any kind of justice will actually be done.

Oh and people…

THIS is what a corporate police state looks like for those of you who still might not clearly see where this country is headed, here’s another glimpse at what the future holds for us.

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