Author Topic: Re: Golden Oxen's Open Forum: Dedicated To Free Speech & Peacably Assembling  (Read 4001 times)

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Fire tornado caught on camera as wildfires sweep across San Dieg
The earth changes are here.
     

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Greenwald: NYT’s new editor ‘subservient to national security state’

     

  Pulitzer Prize winner and Snowden go-between Glenn Greenwald said that incoming New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet has a “really disturbing history of practicing this form of journalism that is incredibly subservient to the American National security state.” Baquet, who is replacing the abruptly dismissed Jill Abramson, has been accused of playing a central role in spiking a story about illegal National Security Agency wiretaps when he worked at the Los Angeles Times in 2006.

By contrast, according to Greenwald, who was interviewed by HuffPost Live, Abramson was “probably the best advocate for an adversarial relationship between the government and the media.”


Baquet was implicated as a protector of the intelligence community in 2007 by NSA whistleblower Mark Klein. Klein had documentary and eye-witness evidence of “splitters” built into AT&T switching centersdesigned to copy domestic and international internet traffic, and forward it to the NSA. Klein initially took his story to an L.A. Times reporter, and was told it would be front-page material. After two months, however, Klein was told the story had been killed at the request of then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and then-NSA chief Gen. Michael Hayden.

The decision was made by the L.A. Times editor at the time, Dean Baquet.

When Klein told this part of his narrative on Nightline in 2007, Baquet confirmed he met with Negroponte and Hayden, but said it was his inability to comprehend the story inside Klein’s technical documents that moved him to pull the plug.

Klein then took his information to the New York Times, which published a detailed and fully understandable digest of the revelations in April 2006.

In the last year, the information leaked by Edward Snowden has confirmed what Klein and the New York Times reported. For her part,Abramson, in a January interview with Al Jazeera America, was asked if she viewed Snowden as a traitor or a hero. "I view him,” she said, “as I did Julian Assange and Wikileaks, as a very good source of extremely newsworthy information."

The New York Times has not been as closely associated with the Snowden revelations as have been, say, Greenwald and The Guardian, but the Times has not shied away from reporting the leaks, and, in its editorial pages, has embraced Snowden’s role in uncovering illegal government surveillance.

The contrast, is, it appears, striking. And it strikes Greenwald, who observed that if the past is anything to go by, the replacement of Abramson with Baquet “signals that the New York Times is going to continue to descend downward into this sort of journalism that is very neutered and far too close to the very political factions that it's supposed to exercise oversight over.”

. . . .

Any views expressed on The Scrutineer are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.



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On Point with Charlie McGrath- The Hate Train: Why Government Wants You to Hate Thy Neighbor

Charlie McGrath Presents Activist & Author William Grigg

Election season is upon on us and the hate train is full steam ahead. We discuss how politicians use the establishment media to keep the masses dumb downed and angry. William Grigg does a powerful, masterful job of showing how everything from race to religion has been weaponized in the battle for truth. We discuss who benefits from this hate pandering and how it has been implemented against the American people for decades to maintain the status quo and how it is leading America to its demise.

William Norman Grigg is a passionate activist & the author of several books including America’s Engineered Decline and Liberty in Eclipse: The Rise of the Homeland Security State. He was formerly a senior editor of The New American magazine, the official publication of the John Birch Society.

                     

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Popular Nonsense
« Reply #43 on: June 04, 2014, 08:15:08 pm »
JUNE 4, 2014
Popular Nonsense

John Stossel
6/4/2014 12:01:00 AM - John Stossel

"Young people are exploited!" "Income mobility is down!" "Poor people are locked into poverty!"

Those are samples of popular nonsense peddled today.

Leftist economist Thomas Piketty's book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" has been No. 1 on best-seller lists for weeks (with 400 pages of statistics, I assume "Capital" is bought more often than it is read). Piketty argues that investments grow faster than wages and so the rich get richer far faster than everyone else. He says we should impose a wealth tax and 80 percent taxes on rich people's incomes.

But Piketty's numbers mislead. It's true that today the rich are richer than ever. And the wealth gap between rich and poor has grown. Now the top 1 percent own more assets than the bottom 90 percent!

But focusing on this disparity ignores the fact that over time, the rich and poor are not the same people. Oprah Winfrey once was on welfare. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was a farmhand. When markets are free, poor people can move out of their income group. In America, income mobility, which matters more than income inequality, has not really diminished.

Economists at Harvard and Berkeley crunched the numbers on 40 million tax returns from 1971-2012 and discovered that mobility is pretty much what The Pew Charitable Trusts reported it was 30 years ago.

Today, 64 percent of the people born to the poorest fifth of society rise out of that quintile -- 11 percent rise all the way into the top quintile. Meanwhile, 8 percent born to the richest fifth fall all the way to the bottom fifth. Sometimes great wealth makes kids lazy and self-indulgent, and wrecks their lives

Also, the rich don't get rich at the expense of the poor (unless they steal or collude with government). The poor got richer, too. Yes, over the last 30 years, incomes of rich people grew by more than 200 percent, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, poor people gained 50 percent. That growth should matter more than the disparity. Piketty's data reveal times in our history when income inequality decreased: during world wars and depression. Do we want more of that?

It's right to worry about the plight of the poor, but not everything done in their name really helps them -- minimum wage laws, for example.

I've had hundreds of employees whom I paid nothing: student interns. Unpaid internships were allowed for years, because it was understood that interns learn by working. My interns learned a lot. Many went on to successful careers in journalism. One won a Pulitzer Prize. Many said they learned more working for me than at college (despite $50,000 tuition). They benefited and I benefited. Win-win.

So for years government ignored Labor Department rules that decreed unpaid internships legal only if an employer gets "no immediate advantage" from the intern.

Geez, who wants that? Of course I got an advantage from my interns. That's why I employed them!

Recently, President Barack Obama's Labor Department announced it would enforce the internship rules, and some interns sued their former employers, claiming internships were "unfair." Charlie Rose forked over a quarter of a million dollars. Word spread, so now unpaid internships are vanishing.

Some people say it's good that unpaid internships are gone, because they are unfair to poor people, who can't afford volunteer work. But getting rid of opportunities does nothing to help anyone. Employers lose and students lose.

Difficult as it can seem to make your own way in this world without a phony government promise that you'll be taken care of, or that every job will pay at least $15 an hour, success happens when markets are relatively free. Individual initiative creates new things, companies, job opportunities -- whole new ways of life -- that make the world better for all of us.

Government "help" ends up doing harm. Leave people free -- both as workers and employers -- to pursue opportunities they find worthwhile, and we will prosper in ways government planners could never imagine.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2014/06/04/popular-nonsense-n1847148/print

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World War II: The Unknown War — Paul Craig Roberts

Posted By pcr3 On June 9, 2014 @ 8:54 pm In Articles & Columns

World War II: The Unknown War

Paul Craig Roberts

In my June 6 column, “The Lies Grow More Audacious,” I mentioned that Obama and the British prime minister, who Obama has as a lap dog, just as George Bush had Tony Blair as lap dog, had managed to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany at the 70th anniversary of the Normandy invasion without mentioning the Russians.

I pointed out the fact, well known to historians and educated people, that the Red Army
defeated Nazi Germany long before the US was able to get geared up to participate in the war. The Normandy invasion most certainly did not defeat Nazi Germany. What the Normandy invasion did was to prevent the Red Army from overrunning all of Europe.

As I have reported in a number of columns, many, if not most, Americans have beliefs that are not fact-based, but instead are emotion-based. So I knew that at least one person would go berserk, and he did. JD from Texas wrote to set me straight. No one but “our American boys” won that war. JD didn’t know that the Russians were even in the war.

JD had the option of consulting an encyclopedia or a history book or going online and consulting Wikipedia prior to making a fool of himself. But he chose instead to unload on me. JD epitomizes US foreign policy: rush into every fight that you know nothing about and start new ones hand over fist that someone else will win.

It occurred to me that World War II was so long ago that few are alive who remember it, and by now even these few probably remember the propaganda version that they have heard at every Memorial Day and July 4th occasion since 1945. Little wonder that neither Obama nor Cameron or their pitiful speech writers knew nothing about the war that they were commemorating.

Propaganda has always been with us. The difference is that in the 21st century Americans have nothing but propaganda. Nothing else at all. Just lies. Lies are the American experience. The actual world as it exists is foreign to most Americans.

In 1973 a British television documentary series was released that chronicled WW II. Of the 28 episodes, only 3 and a part of a 4th acknowledge Russian participation in the war. From the British standpoint, victory was an Anglo-American victory.

This did not sit well with the Soviet government. The Soviets offered their film archives to the West. In 1978 a 20 part series of 48 minutes per episode was released in an American documentary television series narrated by Burt Lancaster. The documentary was titled: “The Unknown War.”

Certainly, it was a war unknown to most Americans, raised as they are on propaganda.

The Unknown War was a revelation to Americans because it demonstrated beyond all doubt that Nazi Germany lost World War II on the Russian front. Of the 20 episodes, “The Allies,” that is, the Anglo-Americans and free French, feature only in number 17. One out of twenty is about the correct proportion of the West’s participation in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

If you google The Unknown War you will find an entry on Wikipedia. The series might still be available on YouTube. It was taken off the air when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, a folly repeated by dumbshit Washington. It was more important to Washington that Russia be demonized than any truths should be presented, so the truth revealed in The Unknown War was removed from US TV. Later the documentary reappeared on the History Chanel.

In my June 6 article, I said, following the consensus of historians, that Nazi Germany lost the war at Stalingrad. In this article:
The Soviet Union was the scene of the battle that changed the course of World War II...
Global Research · globalresearch.ca
[1] historian Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels says that Germany lost the war 14 months earlier at the Battle of Moscow in December 1941. He makes a good case. Whether one agrees or not, the facts he presents are eye openers for the “exceptional, indispensable Americans” who believe nothing happens without them.

Normandy, June 1944, is 2.5 years after Germany lost the war in the Battle of Moscow. As historians have made clear, by June 1944 Germany had little left with which to fight. Whatever was left of the German military was on the Eastern Front.

At the 70th annual Normandy landing celebration in France, Obama informed his French vassal, President Hollande, that he, Obama, the ruler of the Exceptional Country, would not sit down to dinner with the Russian Putin. Americans are too good to eat dinner with Russians. So Hollande had to have two dinners. One for Obama, and then one for Putin. As food is still good in France thanks to the banning of GMOs, probably Holland didn’t mind. I myself would have enjoyed being at both dinners for the food alone.

Like all news that is important, the dinner for Putin, and its meaning, escaped the attention of the American presstitute media, the world’s greatest collection of ****. If memory serves, normally the Russians are left out of the Normandy commemoration celebrations. If the war was won in the West, what did the Russians have to do with it? Nothing, of course. “Our boys” did it all, just as JD informed me. Russians? What Russians?


But this time France invited Putin to the Normandy celebration, and Putin was not too proud to come. Putin spoke with European politicians in the off moments, and these politicians saw a real person, unlike Obama, a total fake.

The superiority of Russian diplomacy over Washington’s is clear to all. Putin’s position is: “we are here for you, we can work things out.” Washington’s position is: “do as we say or we will bomb you into the stone age.”

Russia is accommodating to its client states. Washington is not. Putin says that he is willing to work things out with the billionaire corrupt Oligarch imposed on Ukraine by Washington, but Washington has forced the Bulgarians to stop work on the South Stream Pipeline. This natural gas pipeline bypasses Ukraine by going under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. As Washington’s new puppet state in Ukraine has not paid its multi-billion dollar natural gas bill to Russia and threatens to disrupt the pipeline to Europe and to steal gas from it, Russia, despite Western sanctions, made preparations for a new pipeline route in order that Europeans do not suffer from winter cold and have their industries shut down and economies collapse from lack of energy.

Washington sees Putin’s commitment to Europe as a threat and has gone to work to prevent any Russian energy flows to Europe.

In contrast with Putin’s position, Washington’s position is: We don’t give a hoot what happens to our European puppets. Like the rest of humanity, European puppets don’t count and are dispensable, mere collateral damage, in the Indispensable Country’s war for world hegemony.

All that is important to Washington is that Russia is damaged regardless of the damage done to the puppet regimes in Western and Eastern Europe, including the moronic Polish government, possibly the only government on earth more foolish than Obama’s.

Washington is trying to break off Europe’s economic relations with Russia. Washington is promising to supply Europe with US natural gas obtained by fracking. This promise is a lie, like everything else Washington says.

On May 20 the Los Angeles Times reported that “federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the recoverable oil buried in California’s vast Monterey Shale deposits.” The Monterey Shale formation contains about two-thirds of the nation’s shale oil reserves, and only 4% are recoverable.
Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California's vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national "black go...
Los Angeles Times · latimes.com
[2]

William Engdahl has reported that at best the US has 20 years of natural gas from fracking, and that the price of the gas will be the despoiling of US surface and ground waters. Experts have pointed out that the infrastructure for transporting US natural gas to Europe does not exist and that it would take three years to build the infrastructure. What will Europe do for three years while it waits for US energy to replace the cut-off Russian energy? Will Europe still be there?

Washington’s European vassals should take note: Washington is prepared to destroy the economies of its vassals in order to score a one up on Russia.

How is it possible that by now Europe doesn’t understand how Washington thinks? Those bag full of money must be very large.

As I have reported several times, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security affairs told me years ago that Washington purchases European politicians with bags full of money. It remains to be seen if European “leaders” are willing to sacrifice their peoples and their own reputations in order to be complicit in the war that Washington is planning with Russia, a war that could mean the end of life on earth.

It is Europe’s call. If leaders emerge who tell Washington, “no dice,” the world is saved.
If instead European politicians want the money, the world is doomed.,


Europe would be the first to go.

www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/06/09/world-war-ii-unknown-war-paul-craig-roberts/ 




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 So glad you were able to continue with the very true opinions of an honest activist, GO. This is indeed an informative and worthwhile read and very educational for the novice which most of us on these blogs are. Do you happen to have an idea of what Robert's ideas might be for the turning around of this deplorable and desperate situation in regard to the steady collapsing of this sinking state? Anything beyond just departing from it for example? How about Chris Hedges rules for making a revolution?

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So glad you were able to continue with the very true opinions of an honest activist, GO. This is indeed an informative and worthwhile read and very educational for the novice which most of us on these blogs are. Do you happen to have an idea of what Robert's ideas might be for the turning around of this deplorable and desperate situation in regard to the steady collapsing of this sinking state? Anything beyond just departing from it for example? How about Chris Hedges rules for making a revolution?

Just my personal take from reading Robert's for years is the idea that he thinks we need to elect competent leaders. Due to the dumbing down of the populace and the welfare and food stamp state we have become, I consider that a very slim hope, but it is my view as well.

Wiith the military, the militarization of the police, NSA, MSM, chemical weapons etc., the idea of a revolution is a joke in my opinion.

Chris Hedge's knows what has happened to us for sure, but offers nothing viable for solutions in my view.
It was my pleasure to meet two people on DD, Peter and EL 'G who preached that physical resistance was now impossible, that they had all bases covered. Sadly I have come to accept their view.

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My three grandchildren from the next town, all boys age 4 through 11 brought me this present for Father's Day. Was I ever a proud grandfather when I received this gift.  :D :D :D

                                                           

                       A Gold Bar Piggy Bank.  What I always wanted.  ;D