tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71825504119092151492024-02-08T05:45:33.213-08:00Evil Empire ReportJacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-64113787011733724312014-03-14T09:18:00.001-07:002014-03-14T09:19:00.560-07:00THE FAILURE OF GERMAN LEADERSHIP Merkel Whores For WashingtonFrom Paul Craig Roberts:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/03/13/failure-german-leadership-merkel-whores-washington/">Washington, enabled by its compliant but stupid NATO puppets, is pushing the Ukrainian situation closer to war.</a><br />
German Chancellor Merkel has failed her country, Europe, and world
peace. Germany is the strength of the EU and NATO. Had Merkel said
“No” to sanctions on Russia, that would have been the end of the crisis
that Washington is brewing, a crisis unlikely to be ended short of war.<br />
But Merkel has signed away the sovereignty of the German nation and
assigned the fate of Germany to a province in the American Empire. Thus
has Merkel and the weak<br />
German leadership consigned the world to war. Already blamed for World
War 1 and World War 2, now Germany will be blamed for World War 3.<br />
Washington’s mismanaged Ukrainian coup has cost Washington Crimea,
which Washington wanted most of all in order to deprive Russia of its
warm water naval base on the Black Sea. In addition, the mismanaged
overthrow of an elected government in Ukraine is threatening to also
lose the Russian cities of eastern Ukraine. Like Crimea, eastern
Ukraine is more Russian than Ukrainian.<br />
In what is clearly a fruitless and pointless effort to get Crimea
back, Washington is demanding that Russia interfere in Crimea and
prevent Crimea from seceding from Ukraine. If the Russian government
refuses to follow Washington’s orders, Washington has announced that it
will inflict “damaging sanctions” on Russia. Initially, EU countries
expressed an unwillingness to go along with Washington, but with bribes
and threats, Washington has conquered Merkel and has its European
puppets lined up following orders. <br />
Washington understands that economic sanctions are a far less threat
to Russia than the loss of its Black Sea naval base. Washington also
understands that Putin cannot possibly abandon the millions of Russians
in eastern and southern Ukraine to the mercy of the anti-Russian and
unelected government imposed by Washington in Kiev. As Washington knows
that its threat of sanctions is empty, why did Washington make it?<br />
The answer is in order to drive the crisis to war. Washington’s
neoconservative nazis have been agitating for war with Russia for a long
time. They want to remove one of the three remaining restraints
(Russia, China, Iran) on Washington’s world hegemony. Washington wants
to break up the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)
before these countries form a separate currency bloc and avoid the use
of the US dollar.<br />
Russia will respond in kind to Washington’s sanctions. European
peoples and Western banks and corporations will suffer losses. It would
be at least two or three years before Washington has in place means of
delivering US natural gas achieved by fracking and contamination of US
water supplies to Europe to take the place of Russia’s cutoff of energy
to Europe. <br />
The Western presstitute media will dramatize the Russian response to
sanctions and demonize Russia, while ignoring who started the fight,
thereby helping Washington prepare Americans for war. As neither side
can afford to lose the war, nuclear weapons will be used. There will be
no winners.<br />
All of this is perfectly clear, just as was the obvious conclusion of
the march of events leading up to World War 1. Now, like then, the
people who see the outcome are powerless to stop it. Delusion rules.
Arrogance and hubris overflow. Statements and actions become ever more
reckless, and then there is hell to pay.<br />
Americans and Europeans, if they had any awareness at all, would be
in the streets violently protesting the coming war toward which the
insane criminals in Washington are driving the world.<br />
Instead, the German chancellor, the French president, the British
prime minister and the Western presstitute media continue to lie: It
was legitimate for the West to steal Kosovo from Serbia and to steal the
Ukrainian government, but it is not legitimate for the Russian
population of Crimea to exercise self-determination and return to
Russia. Washington and its EU puppets even have the audacity to declare
falsely, after overthrowing an elected government in Ukraine and
installing an unelected one, that Crimean self-determination violates
the Ukrainian constitution, which no longer exists because Washington
destroyed it.<br />
The criminally insane government in Washington has pushed the Russian bear into a corner. The bear is not going to surrender.Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-48519348918729925022014-03-06T13:53:00.001-08:002014-03-06T13:53:08.721-08:00We’re Just Not That Special<div style="text-align: center;">
by ANDREW J. BACEVICH
</div>
Unless Barack Obama is even a weaker president than he appears to be,
the effusion of editorial emoting unleashed by the Ukraine crisis is
unlikely to have any effect on U.S. policy. Pray, let that be the case.<br />
Should Obama’s advisers look for guidance to the opinion pages of the <em>Washington Post </em>or the <em>Wall Street Journal, </em>much less the <em>Weekly Standard </em>or Fox News<em>, </em>we’re in deep trouble<em>. </em>One might as well leaf through the latest <em>Victoria’s Secret </em>catalog for guidance on empowering women.<br />
Still,
the recent flurry of angst-filled opining provides a concise tutorial
on what we might call the theology of American Exceptionalism, the
irreligious religion that flourishes in certain quarters of the American
elite and periodically finds favor with the larger body politic.<br />
<div class="p3Global" id="widgetMagazineGlobalSponsoredContent">
</div>
Central to that theology are several tenets, vividly displayed by overwrought commentators over the last several days.<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br />Read more: <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/american-exceptionalism-russia-ukraine-104318.html#ixzz2vDpG6JqC" style="color: #003399;">http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/american-exceptionalism-russia-ukraine-104318.html#ixzz2vDpG6JqC</a></div>
Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-21132296021014860682014-01-31T14:19:00.001-08:002014-01-31T14:19:16.445-08:00Capitalism vs. Democracy<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="276" data-total-count="276" itemprop="articleBody">
Thomas Piketty’s <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674430006">new book</a>, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” <a href="http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/economie/020913/piketty-ausculte-le-capitalisme-ses-contradictions-et-ses-violentes-inegalites">described</a>
by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,”
defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is
an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="184" data-total-count="460" itemprop="articleBody">
<a href="http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/">Piketty</a>, a professor at the <a href="http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/en/">Paris School of Economics</a>,
does not stop there. He contends that capitalism’s inherent dynamic
propels powerful forces that threaten democratic societies.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="184" data-total-count="460" itemprop="articleBody">
<br /></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="184" data-total-count="460" itemprop="articleBody">
Rest of article <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs-democracy.html?_r=0">here</a>, from the New York Times. </div>
Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-80516625660691163462013-12-17T10:07:00.003-08:002013-12-17T10:08:10.093-08:00 Demystifying Nuclear Power What the Japanese Government Isn’t Saying About Fukushimahttp://vimeo.com/82044516Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-30614273878995172862013-12-16T08:56:00.002-08:002013-12-16T08:56:37.406-08:00MAY THE ODDS EVER BE IN YOUR FAVOR – HOPE & DEFIANCE<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.theburningplatform.com/2013/12/09/may-the-odds-ever-be-in-your-favor-hope-defiance/"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">President
Snow and his chief propagandist, Seneca Crane, have a discussion that
could be taking place between president Obama and chairman Bernanke
today. Hope is a funny thing. If the ruling class removes all hope, then
the masses begin to feel they have nothing to lose and revolution
becomes a foregone conclusion. </span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the elites of Panem, hope is used as a method of control. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">President
Snow understood the danger of allowing the downtrodden multitudes too
much hope. The Hunger Games allows one child to survive out of 24. The
districts are forced to remember the iron grip of the Capitol every
year, while rooting for an unlikely hollow victory of one child
surviving. </span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.theburningplatform.com/2013/12/09/may-the-odds-ever-be-in-your-favor-hope-defiance/">
</a><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><a href="http://www.theburningplatform.com/2013/12/09/may-the-odds-ever-be-in-your-favor-hope-defiance/">The parents of children in the districts hope their children aren’t chosen. They hope they’ll scrounge up enough food to survive another day. They hope they don’t get killed in a mine explosion. They hope the peacekeepers don’t break down their doors and imprison them for illegal hunting. They hope they can endure another week. Snow knows that as long as they have only a faint hope to maintain their subsistence level lifestyle, they are unlikely to rebel. Seeing a sixteen year old girl openly defying the Capitol and awakening a spirit of humanity and courage in the subjugated masses is a huge threat to the ruling class</a>.</span></span>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-32512124442773139642013-12-12T15:05:00.002-08:002013-12-12T15:05:15.448-08:00Reflections on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 50 Years LaterExcerpt below. <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/11/donald-w-miller-jr-md/jfk-thought-control-and-thought-crimes/">Full article here: </a><br />
<br />
Unfortunately, we now live in a country where to say that Oswald is innocent is tantamount to committing a “<i>thoughtcrime”</i>. Americans increasingly practice what Orwell terms <i>“crimestop</i>,” the faculty of stopping short at the threshold of any dangerous thought. But given the facts of the matter, believing<i> </i>the Oswald-did-it-alone official truth is like saying 2 + 2 = 5.<br />
We who are alive today may not live to see the truth on the Kennedy
assassination finally win out. But it will, sooner or later. For truth
is the daughter of time, not of authority. It has taken more than 500
years for the truth to be realized that Richard III did not kill his
nephews. One hopes that it doesn’t take that long with the JFK
assassination.Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-20351354899758590132013-12-10T11:08:00.003-08:002013-12-10T11:08:58.128-08:00One man has come up with a solution: the Finlander Pentii Linkola. Excerpt here.<h1>
Humanflood</h1>
By Pentti Linkola<br />
Translated by Harri Heinonen and Michael Moynihan<br />
Introduction by Michael Moynihan.<br />
Is Pentti Linkola posing the most dangerous thoughts mankind has ever
considered? Or is he this planet's only remaining voice of sanity?
Living an ascetic existence as a fisherman in a remote rural region of
his frigid homeland, the Finnish philosopher has pondered mankind's
position vis-?-vis the earth it inhabits and dares to utter the
unspeakable. In order for the planet to continue living, man - or homo
destructivus, as Linkola names him - must be violently thinned to a mere
fraction of his current global population. Linkola's metaphor for the
predicament is as follows:<br />
What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and only one lifeboat,
with room for only ten people, has been launched? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life
will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the
ship's axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides of the boat.<br />
As time creaks onward, Linkola's predictions and indictments grow
more dire. He has come to realise that extreme situations demand extreme
solutions:<br />
"We still have a chance to be cruel. But if we are not cruel today,
all is lost." The sworn enemy of Christians and Humanists both, Linkola
knows that the fate of the earth will never be rescued by those who
exalt "tenderness, love and dandelion garlands." Neither the developed
nor under-developed populations of the planet deserve to survive at the
expense of the biosphere as a whole. Linkola has urged that millions
will starve to death or be promptly slaughtered in genocidal civil wars.
Mandatory abortions should be carried out for any female who has more
than two offspring. The only countries capable of initiating such
draconian measures are those of the West, yet ironically they are the
ones most hamstrung by debilitating notions of liberal humanism. As
Linkola explains, "The United States symbolises the worst ideologies in
the world: growth and freedom." The realistic solution will be found in
the implementation of an eco-fascist regime where brutal battalions of
"green police," having freed their consciences from the "syrup ethics,"
are capable of doing whatever is necessary.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.penttilinkola.com/pentti_linkola/ecofascism_writings/humanflood/">Full article here. </a>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-68823723318953120702013-12-09T09:07:00.002-08:002013-12-09T09:07:50.472-08:00The Twilight of Capitalism<a href="http://www.economic-undertow.com/2013/12/04/the-twilight-of-capitalism/">‘Worst’ is the product of twilight capitalism. Managers expect nothing of us but our worst behavior … they rely upon it; our position within the marketplace is ‘fools’. We are never asked what we can do for our country or anyone or anything other than ourselves. It is, ‘What’s in it for me right now?’. The Invisible Hand runs amok: we are children. To satisfy ‘now’ we have become purposefully ignorant, greedy, corrupt and ruthless: these most ‘efficiently’ exhibiting these characters are rewarded, everything outside is excluded. We are encouraged to be as complacent as possible, to ignore risk, to accept falsehoods at face value, become judgmental, impatient, irrational and filled with fear and self-loathing as if all these are virtues; to believe violence and waste represent ‘freedom’.</a>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-73364354308525183962013-12-04T09:24:00.001-08:002013-12-04T09:24:34.520-08:00Arctic Death Spiral and the Methane Time Bomb (+playlist)<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/m6pFDu7lLV4" width="480"></iframe>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-14432174282707897452013-12-04T07:17:00.001-08:002013-12-04T07:17:18.325-08:00R. Buckminster Fuller, William S. Burroughs & Allen Ginsberg: The Americ...<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/s2xJE_O_DoE" width="459"></iframe>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-10003726817127826192013-12-03T11:24:00.001-08:002013-12-03T11:24:41.017-08:00Why the American Empire Was Destined to Collapse | Alternet<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/154453/why_the_american_empire_was_destined_to_collapse#.Up4vlR5Pn8c.blogger">Why the American Empire Was Destined to Collapse | Alternet</a><br />
<br />
Morris Berman is an amazing social historian. He is interviewed about his last book in the article above.<br />
<br />
I read the book... it's a must read, but be forewarned: you may start to contemplate emigration from the USA upon finishing it. Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-38305653473647268592013-11-26T11:34:00.001-08:002013-11-26T11:34:27.383-08:00UBC Reads Sustainability - Morris Berman<br />
This man is a perceptive, sensitive intellectual who has analyzed the state of the USA.<br />
I highly recommend his book, <i>Why America Failed</i>, and everything else he has written.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/v7MoBHlP37E" width="480"></iframe>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-23884022751595777832013-11-26T09:03:00.001-08:002013-11-26T09:03:39.916-08:00The JFK War: Welcome coverage from CBS and the Santa Barbara Independent<a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/11/25/the-jfk-war-welcome-coverage-from-cbs-and-the-santa-barbara-independent/">The JFK War: Welcome coverage from CBS and the Santa Barbara Independent</a><br />
<br />
Thanks, Professor Jim Fetzer of UMD, for laying out a lucid, compelling case regarding who was really responsible for the JFK assassination.<br />
<br />
Such an event is basically never the result of a lone gunman. It was far too well-planned, and JFK was hit by too many shots to make a pre-WWII piece-of-junk Italian rifle even remotely plausible as the weapon.<br />
Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-75031835538582185622013-11-22T15:06:00.001-08:002013-11-22T15:06:04.639-08:00THE SEA GYPSY PHILOSOPHER: BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS ... ALTHOUGH THEY SHALL BE GUNNED DOWN<a href="http://theseagypsyphilosopher.blogspot.com/2013/11/blessed-are-peacemakers-although-they_20.html">THE SEA GYPSY PHILOSOPHER: BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS ... ALTHOUGH THEY SHALL BE GUNNED DOWN</a>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-73168761786711565802013-11-22T09:31:00.001-08:002013-11-22T09:31:28.088-08:00Former FBI Agent Reveals Who Really Killed JFK<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VSXQYvm57YM" width="480"></iframe>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-25435811630444455272013-11-05T07:19:00.000-08:002013-11-05T07:19:11.037-08:00No, Folks, It's Not Going To Work - Denninger on health careExcerpts below. <a href="http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225723">See original article.</a><br />
<br />
President Obama has now changed his tune, trying to defend the <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">lie</span></strong> he sold young adults (most of whom voted for him twice), now saying that his line about <em>"if you like your health insurance (or doctor!) you can keep it" </em>by claiming that what you were buying was a <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">substandard</span></strong> ("defective") policy and that <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">he knows better than you</span></strong>.<br />
Really? Does that apply to who your doctor is as well? <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/04/top-hospitals-opt-out-obamacare/" target="_blank">Or to which hospital you can use without getting a $500,000 bill</a> (which you don't have, of course.)<br />
<blockquote>
Chances
are the individual plan you purchased outside Obamacare would allow you
to go to these facilities. For example, fourth-ranked Cleveland Clinic
accepts dozens of insurance plans if you buy one on your own. But go
through Obamacare and you have just one choice: Medical Mutual of Ohio.</blockquote>
Isn't that special?<br />
It's even better -- in many counties, including mine, there is exactly <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">one</span></strong> company offering <em>Brosurance</em>, otherwise known as Obamacare, <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">and</span></strong> Obamacare prohibits shopping <em><strong>across county lines</strong></em>. In other words it's now a "<em>take it or leave it and get taxed</em>" situation.<br />
...<br />
<br />
No, folks, this is not just, it is not right, and it won't work. The political calculus is that if the government can get <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">you</span></strong> to believe you're the "winner" of such discrimination you'll vote for and support it. But you're <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">never</span></strong> in fact the winner -- you're the <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">loser</span></strong>, and their cronies in industry are the only winners.<br />
<strong>You are literally being robbled blind and not only are consenting to it in your own delusional state <span style="text-decoration: underline;">you're demanding it continue and accelerate</span>!</strong><br />
Consider the medical situation again. Your "win" is pyrrhic, because while you pay "just 20%" of the bill <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">the bill itself was inflated by 500%</span></strong> and thus you paid <strong><em>the entire bill anyway</em></strong> and then on top of it you spent thousands on what is on any dispassionate analysis <strong><em>worthless "insurance."</em></strong><br />
Why worthless? Because but for the <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">scam</span></strong> that you voted for and supported <strong>the price would be 1/5th or even 1/10th of what it is today, your cost out-of-pocket would be the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">same or less</span> than it is today, <em>and you'd still have all the money you paid for the so-called "insurance" to spend on something else!</em></strong><br />
Wake up folks and burn this crap to the ground in <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">all</span></strong> areas of our economy. Do it peacefully and politically, but do it and do it today, because if you don't <strong>you, and your children, will be the ones who are destroyed.</strong>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-69354648176383586072013-10-31T21:33:00.004-07:002013-10-31T21:33:54.989-07:00Computers suck - a prescient computer scientist named Joseph Weizenbaum critiques their so-called "intelligence" in 1985 An amazing computer scientist named Joseph Weizenbaum turned against computers as a general force for good in the 1970's. He led an amazing life - he was a refugee from Nazi Germany as a child, and ended up at MIT. He did in 2008, unfortunately.<a href="http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html"> An excerpt of an amazingly prescient interview from 1985</a>:<br />
<br />
<b>Q:</b> Do you think that the computer is creating a technical elite,
reinforcing old power structures, or remaking American society? <br />
<b>A:</b> I think the computer has from the beginning been a fundamentally
conservative force. It has made possible the saving of institutions pretty
much as they were, which otherwise might have had to be changed. For
example, banking. Superficially, it looks as if banking has been
revolutionized by the computer. But only very superficially. Consider
that, say 20, 25 years ago, the banks were faced with the fact that the
population was growing at a very rapid rate, many more checks would be
written than before, and so on. Their response was to bring in the
computer. By the way, I helped design the first computer banking system in
the United States, for the Bank of America 25 years ago. <br />
Now if it had not been for the computer, if the computer had not been
invented, what would the banks have had to do? They might have had to
decentralize, or they might have had to regionalize in some way. In other
words, it might have been necessary to introduce a social invention, as
opposed to the technical invention. <br />
What the coming of the computer did, "just in time," was to make it
unnecessary to create social inventions, to change the system in any way.
So in that sense, the computer has acted as fundamentally a conservative
force, a force which kept power or even solidified power where is already
existed. Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-57689088626634269752013-10-29T20:19:00.001-07:002013-10-29T20:19:07.395-07:00The Website is Fixable, Obamacare Isn’tThis great article by
Peter Schiff explains why "Obamacare" is a real failure, and will adversely affect both US healthcare, and government finances. In fact, it may be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and sends the US economy into recession.<br />
<br />
This boondoggle is another reason I am neither a Democrat, nor a Republican. Both parties are in league with horrid special interests, with nothing but their profit maximization as a goal.<br />
<br />
The problem with late-stage, pre-collapse democracy, is that the public good is completely ignored. Special interests spend a lot of time and energy gaming the system, and lobbying the government. The public, who have a lot to gain as a whole by opposing the acts of looting by special interests, are feeble in their opposition, because no single voter or family stands to lose that much from a single special interest's coercive goals. When you add up all the special favors doled out to corporations and special interests, however, it starts to really add up. In fact, such special interests and public corruption doomed the Roman Empire. Thus, we begin the slide into the dustbin of history.<br />
<br />
Excerpt of Peter Schiff's article below. Click article to read entire essay.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.europac.net/commentaries/website_fixable_obamacare_isn%E2%80%99t">Since Obamacare made its debut, discussions have focused on Ted Cruz'
efforts to defund the law and the shockingly bad functionality of the
Website itself. Fortunately for Obama, polling indicates that Senator
Cruz has lost, at least for now, the battle for hearts and minds. The
President has not been nearly so lucky on the technological front. If
current trends continue, the rollout may go down as the worst major
product launch in history. But given the government's enormous
resources, it's safe to say that the site itself will ultimately be
fixed. But when it is finally up and running, the plan's many deeper,
and more intractable, flaws will come into focus. That's when the fun
will really begin.</a><br />
<a href="http://www.europac.net/commentaries/website_fixable_obamacare_isn%E2%80%99t">
</a><a href="http://www.europac.net/commentaries/website_fixable_obamacare_isn%E2%80%99t">Put simply the program is built on a mountain of false assumptions and is covered by a terrain of unanticipated incentives. Any cleared-eyed observer should conclude that it is perfectly designed to raise the costs of care and wreck the federal budget. However, like just about every other complicated problem that bedevils the nation, the public has become far too caught up in the politics and has ignored the horrific details.</a>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-76986365535759816682013-10-28T13:44:00.000-07:002013-10-28T13:44:00.687-07:00Our Invisible Revolution by Chris Hedges<br />
<br />
Excerpt below. <a href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19658-our-invisible-revolution">Click for full article.</a><br />
<br />
By the time ruling elites are openly defied, there has already been a
nearly total loss of faith in the ideas—in our case free market
capitalism and globalization—that sustain the structures of the ruling
elites. And once enough people get it, a process that can take years,
“the slow, quiet, and peaceful social evolution becomes quick, militant,
and violent,” <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=386Mvoi4PDsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=what+is+anarchism?&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wglsUtDlKtDDiwK7yIGQAg&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20anarchism%3F&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=386Mvoi4PDsC&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=%22the+slow,+quiet,+and+peaceful+social+evolution+becomes+quick,+militant,+and+violent,%22&source=bl&ots=P9hkpsDXYZ&sig=8_kG3LIfVl_3uT-0KbQF6D5-Aig&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V_1rUoLOLaLJigKXg4CADA&sqi=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA%20-%20v=onepage&q=%22the%20slow%2C%20quiet%2C%20and%20peaceful%20social%20evolution%20becomes%20quick%2C%20militant%2C%20and%20violent%2C%22&f=false">as Berkman wrote.</a> “Evolution becomes revolution.”<br />
This is where we are headed. I do not say this because I am a
supporter of revolution. I am not. I prefer the piecemeal and
incremental reforms of a functioning democracy. I prefer a system in
which our social institutions permit the citizenry to nonviolently
dismiss those in authority. I prefer a system in which institutions are
independent and not captive to corporate power. But we do not live in
such a system. Revolt is the only option left. Ruling elites, once the
ideas that justify their existence are dead, resort to force. It is
their final clutch at power. If a nonviolent popular movement is able to
ideologically disarm the bureaucrats, civil servants and police—to get
them, in essence, to defect—nonviolent revolution is possible. But if
the state can organize effective and prolonged violence against dissent,
it spawns reactive revolutionary violence, or what the state calls
terrorism. Violent revolutions usually give rise to revolutionaries as
ruthless as their adversaries. “Whoever fights monsters should see to it
that in the process he does not become a monster,” Friedrich Nietzsche
wrote. “And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze
back into you.”Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-17882221609249523762013-10-28T08:17:00.001-07:002013-10-28T08:17:11.358-07:00The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks<a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/137174">Must read</a>, if you have a subscription. Even the introduction, though, is revealing as to why US officials are really so angry about Wikileaks, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden:<br />
<br />
<h1 class="print-title">
The End of Hypocrisy</h1>
<span class="print-link"></span>American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks<br />
Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore<br /><em>HENRY
FARRELL is Associate Professor of Political Science and International
Affairs at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/henryfarrell" target="_blank">@henryfarrell</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span>. MARTHA FINNEMORE is University Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University.</em>The
U.S. government seems outraged that people are leaking classified
materials about its less attractive behavior. It certainly acts that
way: three years ago, after Chelsea Manning, an army private then known
as Bradley Manning, turned over hundreds of thousands of classified
cables to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, U.S. authorities imprisoned
the soldier under conditions that the UN special rapporteur on torture
deemed cruel and inhumane. The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell,
appearing on <em>Meet the Press</em> shortly thereafter, called WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, “a high-tech terrorist.”<br />
More recently, following the disclosures about U.S. spying programs
by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency analyst, U.S.
officials spent a great deal of diplomatic capital trying to convince
other countries to deny Snowden refuge. And U.S. President Barack Obama
canceled a long-anticipated summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin
when he refused to comply.<br />
Despite such efforts, however, the U.S. establishment has often
struggled to explain exactly why these leakers pose such an enormous
threat. Indeed, nothing in the Manning and Snowden leaks should have
shocked those who were paying attention. Former Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, who dissented from the WikiLeaks panic, suggested as much when
he told reporters in 2010 that the leaked information had had only a
“fairly modest” impact and had not compromised intelligence sources or
methods. Snowden has most certainly compromised sources and methods, but
he has revealed nothing that was really unexpected. Before his
disclosures, most experts already assumed that the United States
conducted cyberattacks against China, bugged European institutions, and
monitored global Internet communications. Even his most explosive
revelation -- that the United States and the United Kingdom have
compromised key communications software and encryption systems designed
to protect online privacy and security -- merely confirmed what
knowledgeable observers have long suspected.<br />
The deeper threat that leakers such as Manning and Snowden pose is
more subtle than a direct assault on U.S. national security: they
undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with
it. Their danger lies not in the new information that they reveal but in
the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is
actually doing and why. When these deeds turn out to clash wit...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/137174">Link to article. </a>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-67107525121857402722013-10-16T08:39:00.002-07:002013-10-16T08:42:10.805-07:00Fascism comes from the center: not the left or the right. Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible. See this video. I have to say that the closing of public parks and memorials by the Obama administration is vile nonsense. More park employees are required to keep the public out than would be required to allow access.<br />
<br />
Both political parties have become enamored of authoritarianism and the abuse of power.<br />
<br />
This young man's defiance should be inspirational whatever your party affiliation is:<br />
http://youtu.be/kn7BFeg21n0<br />
Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-42134970527679130452013-10-14T20:17:00.001-07:002013-10-14T20:17:37.357-07:00The Folly of EmpireThe final days of empire give ample employment and power to the
feckless, the insane and the idiotic. These politicians and court
propagandists, hired to be the public faces on the sinking ship, mask
the real work of the crew, which is systematically robbing the
passengers as the vessel goes down. The mandarins of power stand in the
wheelhouse barking ridiculous orders and seeing how fast they can gun
the engines. They fight like children over the ship’s wheel as the
vessel heads full speed into a giant ice field. They wander the decks
giving pompous speeches. They shout that the SS America is the greatest
ship ever built. They insist that it has the most advanced technology
and embodies the highest virtues. And then, with abrupt and unexpected
fury, down we will go into the frigid waters.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_folly_of_empire_20131014">Read the rest of Chris Hedges' essay. </a>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-62304179920366916542013-10-08T08:59:00.001-07:002013-10-08T08:59:37.168-07:00Genetic Roulette - The Gamble of Our Lives - Spring 2013 Trailer!<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Yq0HMBQfdI0" width="480"></iframe>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-63148299102383215882013-10-03T08:12:00.000-07:002013-10-03T08:12:03.612-07:00Returning to the 'Real'<a href="http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/82831/returning-real">Nice essay</a> from <a href="http://kunstler.com/">James Howard Kunstler</a>:<br />
<br />
<b>The virtual is not an adequate substitute for the authentic </b><br />
<br />
A paradox of life in these times is the inverse relationship between
technological wizardry and the satisfactions of being a live organism in
a real place (i.e., on the planet Earth). It probably boils down to a
proposition that the American public is not ready to entertain: that <b>the virtual is not an adequate substitute for the authentic</b>. Eventually it will be a hard lesson to learn.<br />
<h2>
Poor Substitutes</h2>
Ours has been an age of producing ersatz substitutes for just about
everything. We call the housing subdivisions slapped up by the
production builders “communities” when they are just cartoon simulacrums
of a community. The <i>houses</i> within them are called “homes” in
order to confer emotional allegiance that they have not earned by being
things worthy of our affection in places worth caring about.<br />
The manufactured products we call “food” are visibly poisoning the
public in epidemics of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. And
the manner in which this “food” is dispensed to solitary “consumers” —
from drive-in-windows, microwave ovens, and convenience store racks —
has drained all nurturing social ceremony from the act of eating as
surely as it has drained out all the nutrition.<br />
Having scores of “friends” on Facebook is not about personal
association but is rather a marketing racket for a company set up to be
an advertising enterprise.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/82831/returning-real">READ THE REST OF THE ESSAY </a>Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7182550411909215149.post-82515391063068467122013-09-25T11:06:00.000-07:002013-09-25T11:06:10.271-07:00AN ANTI-WAR LAMENTATION <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">From the Sea Gyspy philosopher:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(click for full article)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<a href="http://theseagypsyphilosopher.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-anti-war-lamentation_2.html"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I am rowing home to my boat, which is anchored in a beautiful, isolated
cove near Key West. Suddenly, the solitude and peacefulness is
shattered by the sound of two military jets shrieking back towards the
nearby airbase.</span></span></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="http://theseagypsyphilosopher.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-anti-war-lamentation_2.html"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">As I cover my ears
and look scornfully towards them, a sport fishing boat comes blasting out of
the mangroves with 500 horsepower ensnared in its outboard motors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder to myself if the fish that they will
catch in their $100,000 boat will taste any better than the one that I just speared
from my little rowboat.</span></span></a></div>
<a href="http://theseagypsyphilosopher.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-anti-war-lamentation_2.html">
</a><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="http://theseagypsyphilosopher.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-anti-war-lamentation_2.html"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">When they passbeside me and see me covering my ears, they holler over to me, “That’s thesound of freedom.” I nodnoncommittally. For the remainder of theday my mind could not stop thinking about what I wish I could have said tothem. If only we could have shared abeer and some grilled fish and some open-mindedness, I would have tried to givethem a different perspective on the true essence of that sound.</span></span></a></div>
Jacob Gitteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.com1