Saturday, September 10, 2016

This Time It IS Different

ORIGINAL LINK

By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at

I was talking with a business partner in Asia earlier today.

He'd spent last night at a private gathering for institutional money managers and high net worth investors, put on by Credit Suisse private bankers.

He remarked to me that, as he sat there listening to these guys, he realised the majority of the investment world is quite simply no longer focussed on any fundamental value criteria. None of that stuff matters anymore.

Instead they're all watching to see what the central banks are doing next, in order to adjust for capital flows and make sure they don't end up on the wrong side of the trend.

The same sentiment was echoed to me by Todd Harrison, a former partner and head of trading at Cramer Berkowitz LLC, earlier this week in a conversation I recorded for subscribers (I'll publish it on Monday) where he told me that none of the usual metrics he uses to value markets work any longer. They've become useless.

This is of course how we find ourselves with stocks trading at 350 times earnings and $13 trillion in debt trading at negative yields.

Central bankers commandeer the sovereign bond markets, thereby pushing investors further down the risk curve in an unprecedented global hunt for yield.

A drive that has so obscured the perception of risk that we now find ourselves with venture capitalists writing cheques for startup tech companies with little to show sans an idea and a "strong board" valued at $25m to $50m pre-money valuations.

Cheques, I might add, that have scant chance of ever being cashed by those same investors on any sort of acceptable ROI.

Unless we really have entered a new paradigm where everything is awesome, deficits don't matter, debt is money, fat is the new skinny, and companies are profitable when they lose money.

A million guys walk into a Silicon Valley bar

That we're overdue a recession purely based on the business cycle, overdue the end of the credit cycle, and overdue on the debt super cycle all makes perfect sense. After all, these are the sorts of activities entirely consistent throughout history.

If we watch closely we can see however that the entire market is shifting closer to the kitchen door, with investors increasingly moving out of long dated debt into shorter dated debt maturities. Out of illiquid issues into those which are still offering greater liquidity.

Investment timeframes are narrowing. It's getting hot in the kitchen and the smart money is moving towards the exits.

Markets exhibiting extremes change at the margin and rarely because of quantitative reasons but rather because of qualitative reasons - a phenomenon I discussed last week.

Most of the time political change in the developed world doesn't really mean much. You get one set of podium donuts replaced by another set but not a whole lot changes. Until you get radical change.

This happens when Joe Sixpack is finally fed up with the status quo and votes for radical change. I detailed how this is taking place in Europe in what I called a 7-step blueprint to the easiest short in recent history. And just two weeks later we saw Merkel suffer a surprising defeat in her home town to the anti-immigrant AFD.

The series of elections beginning in the US but extending to Germany, France, and the Netherlands next year are going to be pivotal to how the world gets restructured. And rest assured - there will be winners and losers.

When you get radical political change the markets don't know how to discount the future which brings me to the US of A where for as long as I can remember it didn't really matter too much whether the reds or blues won the match.

Today, on the other hand, both candidates actually offer some fairly serious consequences. Consequences that really matter to global markets so fragile and delicate that they make egg shells look positively sturdy.

Therefore I thought it worth sharing with you my friend Kuppy's take on the two candidates. It is not distinctly dissimilar to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's thoughts when asked about who he'd prefer as president of the United states.

Julian Assange Trump vs Clinton

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Crook vs. Jerk

“For a country with over 300 million people, why do you choose such bad politicians?”

Yup, I’ve been doing business overseas for a while now and I keep getting the same question from foreigners who simply cannot decipher the American political system. Heck, I often ask myself the same questions.

A few years ago, I had this conversation;

Him: Will George W. Bush invade my country?

 

Me: Don’t worry, he can’t find it on the map...

Fast forward 8 years:

Him: Why is your Nobel Prize winning President starting wars with everyone, including a race war in America?

 

Me: Hell if I know. It’s embarrassing to all of us in America.

In all these exchanges, I can chuckle, drink my beer and proudly say that I didn’t vote for them. However, as I go through my daily rounds, this year’s election is just too dysfunctional to laugh at.

On one hand, we have the most corrupt person to ever run for President of the United States. From the Clinton Initiative slush fund financed with illegal dealings with corrupt overseas oligarchs and villains to the stonewalling of numerous federal investigators she continues to operate like some post-Soviet apparatchik.

In order to deflect criticism of her past, she has incited a race war that is both disturbing and repulsive to all that America stands for. Her utter subjugation of the media is both shameful and astonishing. Google has changed its search ranking system, Twitter routinely censors her opponent’s supporters, and The New York Times has become a ministry of propaganda.

Joseph Goebbels could only dream of the sort of power that she wields. Her methods are anathema to the American system of transparency, honesty and an independent press.

With that said, I have to give her credit.

Through 30 years of scandal, illicit dealings, and outright felonious behavior; she has remained remarkably untouchable, whereas a lesser politician would have been incarcerated long ago. Cold, shrewd, ruthless and calculated—lord knows, she wants the Presidency worse than anyone else alive. Her determination really is impressive.

Offsetting this criminality is quite possibly the biggest jerk on earth. As a guy growing up in New York, I remember that every society paper was filled with his endless feuds.

Every business paper was full of his lawsuits and those who were counter-suing him. Abrasive, inconsiderate and offensive have been hallmarks of his self-promotion. Nothing is more humiliating than being fired before millions of viewers on television—yet, he reveled in that power.

Now, on the national stage, he has taken this offensiveness to new levels by insulting whole countries. Does he have a filter? No, he actually enjoys the fight. Is he the image that America wants to project globally? Of course not.

And, as I sit on a patio and drink my beer, I have to explain this all to my foreign friends.

I’ve tried to illuminate the nuances and dive into the details but in the end, this election is about two words—Crook vs. Jerk. America’s most notorious Crook is up against America’s most notorious Jerk. Who do you want running your country? Crook or Jerk?

Explained in those terms, most foreigners take a deep breath and come up with some version of the following, “We all look up to America and your desire for transparent and honest politicians. What separates my country, with its chaos, from yours is the fact that your politicians are honest.”

To that, I laugh a bit because America has done a great job of brainwashing the world with its propaganda. Our career politicians are as corrupt as any banana republic’s, except ours usually steal in the name of the large corporations that finance them—as opposed to their own families. Only true outsiders from the political mainstream, those who’ve never been part of the system, can say that they’re not beholden to any special interest or corporation.

So, does Jerk beat Crook? Or does the Crook steal the election? Thankfully, I do most of my business overseas — I’ll survive no matter what the outcome is. As an American, I sure wish we had better choices, but I still have to explain this election to everyone I meet.

Crook vs. Jerk sums it up. To most of my friends, mired in corrupt and dysfunctional systems, America is a beacon of hope. Too bad it seems as though Crook is leading in the polls.

Clinton vs Trump

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- Chris

"2016: A choice between Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs" — Edward Snowden

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Friday, September 9, 2016

Why Does Propaganda Work? Some People Want It

ORIGINAL LINK

Submitted by Daniel Lattier viaThe Foundation for Economic Education,

There’s a principle in hypnotism that goes like this: A person cannot be hypnotized against his will. He must be a willing subject. He must be fully cooperative.

So it goes with propaganda. For propaganda to be effective, it requires submissive subjects. As Professor Nicholas O’Shaughnessy wrote, propaganda is a “co-production in which we are willing participants.”

Propaganda is typically defined as the dissemination of particularly biased information in support of a political or ideological cause. In his 1965 book Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, philosopher Jacques Ellul provided us with some of the basic characteristics of propaganda: it thwarts dialogue, it is geared toward the masses, it utilizes various media, it is continuous, it is not intended to make one think.

Disable the Brain

If these are the characteristics of propaganda, then it is no exaggeration to say that we are surrounded by it today. Most news organizations have become partisan shills and propagandists. They provide viewers with a steady stream of videos, audio clips, images, and articles—most lacking nuance and of dubious intellectual merit—that serve the intended purpose of promoting an ideology while fueling disdain for the “opposition”. And they have become very successful doing it.

The reason they are successful, I fear, is that most people today want to be propagandized—though they would never admit it. Most people want to be given ideological marching orders and talking points from an authority. Most people have zero interest, and see little value, in engaging with arguments put forward by those who hold differing positions, unless it’s to ridicule them. Most people want to simply choose the news media organizations that best fit with their selected ideological camps and immerse themselves in their informational streams.

This realization is unfortunate, but not really surprising. Over the past few hundred years we’ve had a massive democratization of public discourse and higher education in the West. A continually larger percentage of the population has gone to school for longer and longer periods of time, and has been given the impression that, as a result of this education, they are enlightened “critical thinkers” whose opinions have as much value as the next person’s.  

Yet, at the same time, we must confront the question raised by Dorothy Sayers in her famous 1947 essay “The Lost Tools of Learning”:

“Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined?”

The fact is, though everyone goes through the education system today, most are not provided with the building blocks of thought. Most are no longer taught logic. Most are not shown how to engage in rational debate.

Avoiding Complexity

And even if these skills were better taught in today’s schools, I highly doubt that our situation would be that much better. If history and experience are any indicators, the difficult reality is that most people either don’t possess the intellectual chops for doing battle with complex and controversial ideas, or they choose not to undertake the discipline necessary to acquire this skill.  

In the past, when confronted with new or different ideas, people who did not achieve the heights of formal education had the values and traditions embedded in their communities to fall back on. These provided them with a foundation—a “common sense”—by which to assess the merit those opinions that may differ from their own.

But today, hyper-individualism, increased urbanization, the breakdown of the family, and ideological divisions have caused a decline in the formative influence of community, and reduced our access to the “common sense” that it can provide.  

Intellectually insecure and socially uprooted, many people are now desperate for some authority to cling to, someone who will give simple expression to the inklings of thoughts and instincts to which they can neither give adequate voice nor adequately live out.   

Is it any wonder, then, that so many people would seek out propaganda today, and that its providers would be so happy to oblige?



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"Dear Mark Zuckerberg. No, I Will Not Remove This Picture..."

ORIGINAL LINK

Update: Facebook has backed down....

BREAKING: Facebook reverses itself, will allow posting of iconic 1972 photo of naked, screaming girl running from napalm attack.

— The Associated Press (@AP) September 9, 2016

 

*  *  *

Authored by Espen Egil Hansen via AftenPosten.no,

Dear Mark Zuckerberg.

I follow you on Facebook, but you don’t know me. I am editor-in-chief of the Norwegian daily newspaper Aftenposten. I am writing this letter to inform you that I shall not comply with your requirement to remove a documentary photography from the Vietnam war made by Nick Ut.

Not today, and not in the future.

The demand that we remove the picture came in an e-mail from Facebook’s office in Hamburg this Wednesday morning. Less than 24 hours after the e-mail was sent, and before I had time to give my response, you intervened yourselves and deleted the article as well as the image from Aftenposten’s Facebook page.

To be honest, I have no illusions that you will read this letter. The reason why I will still make this attempt, is that I am upset, disappointed – well, in fact even afraid - of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society.

First some background. A few weeks ago the Norwegian author Tom Egeland posted an entry on Facebook about, and including, seven photographs that changed the history of warfare. You in turn removed the picture of a naked Kim Phuc, fleeing from the napalm bombs – one of the world’s most famous war photographs.

Tom then rendered Kim Phuc’s criticism against Facebook for banning her picture. Facebook reacted by excluding Tom and prevented him from posting a new entry.

Listen, Mark, this is serious. First you create rules that don’t distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs. Then you practice these rules without allowing space for good judgement. Finally you even censor criticism against and a discussion about the decision – and you punish the person who dares to voice criticism.

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Aftenposten's Editor-in-chief Espen Egil Hansen.
Aftenposten/Nick Ut

Facebook is for the pleasure and benefit of the whole world, myself included, on a number of levels. I myself, for instance, keep in touch with my brothers via a closed group centered on our 89 year old father. Day by day we share joys and concerns.

Facebook has become a world-leading platform for spreading information, for debate and for social contact between persons. You have gained this position because you deserve it.

But, dear Mark, you are the world’s most powerful editor. Even for a major player like Aftenposten, Facebook is hard to avoid. In fact we don’t really wish to avoid you, because you are offering us a great channel for distributing our content. We want to reach out with our journalism.

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Aftenposten's print front page Friday.

However, even though I am editor-in-chief of Norway’s largest newspaper, I have to realize that you are restricting my room for exercising my editorial responsibility. This is what you and your subordinates are doing in this case.

I think you are abusing your power, and I find it hard to believe that you have thought it through thoroughly.

Let me return to the picture I mentioned by Nick Ut. The napalm-girl is by far the most iconic documentary photography from the Vietnam war. The media played a decisive role in reporting different stories about the war than the men in charge wanted them to publish. They brought about a change of attitude which played a role in ending the war. They contributed to a more open, more critical debate. This is how a democracy must function.

The free and independent media have an important task in bringing information, even including pictures, which sometimes may be unpleasant, and which the ruling elite and maybe even ordinary citizens cannot bear to see or hear, but which might be important precisely for that reason.

"If liberty means anything at all," British George Orwell wrote in the preface to Animal Farm, "it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

The media have a responsibility to consider publication in every single case. This may be a heavy responsibility. Each editor must weigh the pros and cons.

This right and duty, which all editors in the world have, should not be undermined by algorithms encoded in your office in California.

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The original post on Aftenposten's Facebook page.
Skjermdump

Mark, please try to envision a new war where children will be the victims of barrel bombs or nerve gas. Would you once again intercept the documentation of cruelties, just because a tiny minority might possibly be offended by images of naked children, or because a paedophile person somewhere might see the picture as pornography?

Facebook’s Mission Statement states that your objective is to “make the world more open and connected”.

In reality you are doing this in a totally superficial sense.

If you will not distinguish between child pornography and documentary photographs from a war, this will simply promote stupidity and fail to bring human beings closer to each other.

To pretend that it is possible to create common, global rules for what may and what may not be published, only throws dust into peoples’ eyes.

The last decade has shown the extent to which unpredicatable and destructive things can happen when publication refuses to take into account the context.

The controversy over the Mohammad-caricatures, which flared in late 2005 and still remains a heated debate, had unknown consequences simply because the context and the original justification for publication were ignored.

The drawings were put into entirely new contexts, censured and condemned based on allegedly universal religious rules. This resulted in large demonstrations, violence and killings – and a remaining, potent threat against the freedom of speech. Some of the persons involved must still live with police protection.

Facebook did not go global until this controversy had passed its peak. Your approach, Mark, might possibly have been to ban publication of Mohammad-drawings? If so, Facebook would in a stereotype way have stood on the side of the extreme religious forces, in opposition to the freedom of speech. You would have overruled the individual editor’s assessment. Those of us who were in the centre of events at the time had to weigh the pros and cons day by day – and make decisions based on the reality we were in.

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This is the message Aftenposten received from Facebook.

It was – and remains – different in Oslo and Karachi.

The controversy over the caricatures demonstrates just how impossible and illogical it is, trying to live with universal rules for publication in a time which is multi-religious, muli-cultural and multi-everything. Every human practice differs a lot as to geography, politics, social and economic conditions.

The least Facebook should do in order to be in harmony with its time is introduce geographically differentiated guidelines and rules for publication. Furthermore, Facebook should distinguish between editors and other Facebook-users. Editors cannot live with you, Mark, as a master editor.

These measures would still only soften the problems. If Facebook has other objectives than just being as big as possible and earn as much money as possible – and this I am still convinced that you have, Mark – you should undertake a comprehensive review of the way you operate.

You are a nice channel for persons who wish to share music videos, family dinners and other experiences. On this level you are bringing people closer to each other. But if you wish to increase the real understanding between human beings, you have to offer more liberty in order to meet the entire width of cultural expressions and discuss substantial matters.

And then you have to be more accessible. Today, if it is possible at all to get in touch with a Facebook representative, the best one may hope for are brief, formalistic answers, with rigid references to universal rules and guidelines. If you take the liberty to challenge Facebook’s rules, you will be met – as we have seen – with censorship. And if someone will protest against the censorship, he will be punished, as Tom Egeland was.

I could have continued, Mark, but I have to stop at this point. I have written this letter to you because I am worried that the world’s most important medium is limiting freedom in stead of trying to extend it, and that this occasionally happens in an authoritarian way. But I am also writing – and I hope you will understand this – because I take a positive attitude to the possibilities that Facebook has opened up. I only hope that you will utilize the possibilities in a better way.

Sincerely yours Espen Egil Hansen Editor-in-chief and CEO Aftenposten

PS. I enclose a commentary from Aftenposten’s 73 year old cartoonist Inge Grødum to the censorship practiced by Facebook. What does the algorithm say? Is it within?

b9b3bcc0-0a3c-4416-a9ce-188e5f68b402?fit



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Facebook censors Norwegian Prime Minister after she posts iconic Vietnam War photograph

ORIGINAL LINK

shutterstock_181985711-980x652.jpg

Zuckerberg

(Credit: Shutterstock)

For the better part of a week, Facebook’s “community standards” police have been engaged in contretemps with Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, over an article by one of its writers titled “Seven photographs that changed the history of warfare.”

The lead image for the story was Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Terror of War” — the iconic photograph of a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack — one that undoubtedly deserves inclusion in any such discussion. Facebook, however, deemed the post to be in violation of its community standards and suspended author Tom Egeland’s account.

The company also removed the article from Aftenposten’s Facebook page, a move with which its Editor-in-Chief Espen Egil Hansen took issue. In an open letter, Hansen accused Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg of “abusing [his] power,” adding that “I am upset, disappointed — well, in fact even afraid — of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society.”

“The media have a responsibility to consider publication in every single case,” he continued. “This right and duty, which all editors in the world have, should not be undermined by algorithms encoded in your office in California. Editors cannot live with you, Mark, as a master editor.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg responded to the situation by posting the image on her Facebook wall. She accompanied the photograph with a message, writing that “I appreciate the work of Facebook and other media to stop pictures and content showing abuse and violence. But Facebook gets it wrong when it censors pictures like these. It contributes to restricting the freedom of speech.”

Facebook responded by deleting her post.

For its part, the social media behemoth told Business Insider that “[w]hile we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community.”



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9/11 Anniversary: Government Hid and Destroyed 9/11 Evidence

ORIGINAL LINK

Presumption of a Cover-Up …

Judges and lawyers know that – if someone intentionally destroys evidence – he’s probably trying to hide his crime. American law has long recognized that destruction of evidence raises a presumption of guilt for the person who destroyed the evidence.

So what does it mean when the US government intentionally destroyed massive amounts of evidence related to 9/11?

Judge and Prosecutor Destroy Evidence

For example, it was revealed in May that the judge overseeing the trial of surviving 9/11 suspects conspired with the prosecution to destroy evidence relevant to a key suspect’s defense. And see this.

(The Defense Department has also farmed out most of the work of both prosecuting and defending the surviving 9/11 suspects to the same private company. And the heads of the military tribunal prosecuting the 9/11 suspects said that the trials must be rigged so that there are no acquittals.)

Destruction of Videotapes

The CIA videotaped the interrogation of 9/11 suspects, falsely told the 9/11 Commission that there were no videotapes or other records of the interrogations, and then illegally destroyed all of the tapes and transcripts of the interrogations.

9/11 Commission co-chairs Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton wrote:

Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

And:

Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.

 

If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations.

Destruction of Air Traffic Control Tapes

The tape of interviews of air traffic controllers on-duty on 9/11 was intentionally destroyed by crushing the cassette by hand, cutting the tape into little pieces, and then dropping the pieces in different trash cans around the building as shown by this NY Times article (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view) and by this article from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Pentagon Fibs

The 9/11 Commissioners concluded that officials from the Pentagon lied to the Commission, and considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements.

Soviet-Style “Minders”

The chairs of both the 9/11 Commission and the Official Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 said that Soviet-style government “minders” obstructed the investigation into 9/11 by intimidating witnesses (and see this).

In other words, the minders obstructed witnesses from openly and candidly talking about what they knew.

Undermining Investigation

President Bush and Vice-President Cheney took the rare step of personally requesting that congress limit all 9/11 investigation solely to “intelligence failures.”

The administration also opposed the creation of a 9/11 commission. Once it was forced (by pressure from widows of 9-11 victims) to allow a commission to be formed, the administration appointed as executive director an administration insider, whose area of expertise is the creation and maintenance of “public myths” thought to be true, even if not actually true, who was involved in pre-9/11 intelligence briefings, and who was one of the key architects of the “pre-emptive war” doctrine. This executive director, who controlled what the Commission did and did not analyze, then limited the scope of the Commission’s inquiry so that the overwhelming majority of questions about 9/11 remained unasked (see this and this).

The administration then starved the commission of funds. The government spent $175 million – over $300 million in today’s dollars – investigating the Challenger space shuttle disaster. It spent $152 million on the the Columbia disaster investigation. It spent $30 million investigating the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But the government only authorized $15 million for the 9/11 Commission.

The government also failed to provide crucial documents to the 9/11 investigators. And see this.

The government refused to share much information with the Commission, refused to force high-level officials to testify under oath, and allowed Bush and Cheney to be questioned jointly.

Moreover, as reported by ACLU, FireDogLake, RawStory and many others, declassified documents shows that Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The 9-11 Commission took this warning to heart, and refused to examine virtually any evidence which contradicted the administration’s official version of events. As stated by the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism – who was the point man for the U.S. government’s international counterterrorism policy in the first term of the Bush administration – “there were things the [9/11] commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about.

Censorship

An FBI whistleblower named Sibel Edmonds has been deemed credible by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups.

The ACLU described Edmonds as:

The most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.

Famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says that Edmonds possesses information “far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers”. He also says that the White House has ordered the press not to cover Edmonds:

I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to ‘How do we deal with Sibel [Edmonds]?

 

The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn’t get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told “don’t touch this . . . .”

And the government has gone to extraordinary lengths to prosecute and harass whistleblowers and journalists who write stories questioning government narratives.  (And see this and this.)

Black Boxes

The FBI long ago found and analyzed the “black box” recorders from the airplanes which hit the Twin Towers, but has consistently denied that they were ever found. And see this.

Saudi Role

Investigation into Saudi government aid to 9/11 conspirators was also obstructed.

For example, Philip Shenon – the 20-year New York Times reporter who wrote a book on the 9/11 Commission – reports:

The [911] commissioner said the renewed public debate could force a spotlight on a mostly unknown chapter of the history of the 9/11 commission: behind closed doors, members of the panel’s staff fiercely protested the way the material about the Saudis was presented in the final report, saying it underplayed or ignored evidence that Saudi officials – especially at lower levels of the government – were part of an al-Qaida support network that had been tasked to assist the hijackers after they arrived in the US.In fact, there were repeated showdowns, especially over the Saudis, between the staff and the commission’s hard-charging executive director, University of Virginia historian Philip Zelikow, who joined the Bush administration as a senior adviser to the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, after leaving the commission. The staff included experienced investigators from the FBI, the Department of Justice and the CIA, as well as the congressional staffer who was the principal author of the 28 pages.

 

Zelikow fired a staffer, who had repeatedly protested over limitations on the Saudi investigation, after she obtained a copy of the 28 pages outside of official channels. Other staffers described an angry scene late one night, near the end of the investigation, when two investigators who focused on the Saudi allegations were forced to rush back to the commission’s offices after midnight after learning to their astonishment that some of the most compelling evidence about a Saudi tie to 9/11 was being edited out of the report or was being pushed to tiny, barely readable footnotes and endnotes. The staff protests were mostly overruled.

Indeed, an FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House.

As the New York Times notes:

Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence ….The accusation stems from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s refusal to allow investigators for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.

Letting Terrorists Go Free

A former FBI translator who Senators Leahy and Grassley, among others, have claimed is credible, and who the administration has gagged for years without any logical basis — has stated that “this administration knowingly and intentionally let many directly or indirectly involved in that terrorist act [September 11th] go free – untouched and uninvestigated”?

Destruction of Physical Evidence

The former head of fire science and engineering for the agency responsible for finding out why the Twin Towers and World Trade Center 7 collapsed on 9/11 (the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology) – who is one of the world’s leading fire science researchers and safety engineers, with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering – wrote that evidence necessary to determine the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Centers was being destroyed. And see this.

In addition, the official investigators themselves were largely denied access to the site and the evidence contained there, or even access to such basic information as the blueprints for the World Trade Center.

The government has also refused to release the computer models showing how the trade centers fell, making it impossible for anyone to double-check its assumptions.

Whether you believe the Twin Towers and World Trade Center building 7 were brought down with explosives or by airplanes and fires, destroying evidence prevented engineers and scientists from figuring out what went wrong … to prevent skyscrapers from collapsing in the future.

In addition, the government has refused to release many of the videos and photographs taken on 9/11 in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) inquiries. And lawyers and researchers who have reviewed videos produced by the government in response to FOIA requests have told Washington’s Blog that the government produced intentionally degraded versions which make it impossible to see or hear details.

9/11 Commissioners Disgusted … and Call For a New Investigation

The 9/11 Commissioners publicly expressed anger at cover ups and obstructions of justice by the government into a real 9/11 investigation:

  • The Commission’s co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”
  • The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) – who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry – said “At some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened“. He also said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.”
  • The Co-Chair of the congressional investigation into 9/11 – Bob Graham – and 9/11 Commissioner and former Senator Bob Kerrey are calling for either a “PERMANENT 9/11 commission” or a new 9/11 investigation to get to the bottom of it
  • 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman says that a new investigation should be “vigorously pursued

Planting False Evidence

Planting false evidence is another act which creates presumption of guilt.

The type of torture used by the U.S. on alleged surviving 9/11 co-conspirators is of a special type. Senator Levin revealed that the the U.S. used Communist torture techniques specifically aimed at creating FALSE confessions. (and see this, this, this and this).

According to NBC News:

  • Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based upon the testimony of people who were tortured
  • At least four of the people whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators information as a way to stop being “tortured”
  • One of the Commission’s main sources of information was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ
  • The 9/11 Commission itself doubted the accuracy of the torture confessions, and yet kept their doubts to themselves

Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh – who broke the Iraq torture and Vietnam massacre stories – writes:

Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the terrorists’ identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, “Whatever trail was left was left deliberately — for the F.B.I. to chase“.



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'What About Tutoring Instead of Pills?'

Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan is one of the world's leading experts in child development. In a SPIEGEL interview, he offers a scathing critique of the mental-health establishment and pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of incorrectly classifying millions as mentally ill out of self-interest and greed.

http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-847500.html

SPIEGELWhat does it mean if millions of American children are wrongly being declared mentally ill?

KaganWell, most of all, it means more money for the pharmaceutical industry and more money for psychiatrists and people doing research.

SPIEGELAnd what does it mean for the children concerned?

KaganFor them, it is a sign that something is wrong with them -- and that can be debilitating. I'm not the only psychologist to say this. But we're up against an enormously powerful alliance: pharmaceutical companies that are making billions, and a profession that is self-interested

Texas prisoners allegedly forced to work in system inmate calls “modern-day slavery”

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Prison Cell

(Credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

The Texas prison system forces inmates to work long hours for no pay, in what a prisoner has described as a form of “modern-day slavery.”

Jason Renard Walker, a man incarcerated in Amarillo, Texas, published a letter this week in Truthout titled “Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons Is Modern-Day Slavery.”

Walker noted Texas prisoners do a variety of jobs. They tend to more than 10,000 head of cattle, raising and processing beef, pork and chicken. They also grow 24 different crops. Inmates manufacture soap and clothing, and work as painters, electricians, maintenance workers, cooks, janitors and dog trainers.

Prisoners, Walker said, are “required” to do this labor for free. “If they refuse, they receive discriminatory punishment and thus longer stays in prison,” he wrote.

Some prisoners work up to 12 hours a day, without pay. “This is flat-out, modern-day slave labor and it will continue as long as society accepts the notion that prisoners deserve less,” Walker said.

Black Americans are very disproportionately affected by what Walker describes as this system of modern-day slavery. The Texas prison population is roughly evenly split racially, with approximately one-third black inmates, one-third white and one-third Latino. According to the 2015 census, however, just around 13 percent of the Texas population is black, while 43 percent is non-Hispanic white and 39 percent is Latino.

Texas has the biggest prison population in the U.S. and more facilities than any other state, with more than 143,000 people incarcerated in 124 prison units.

“It is also known for being one of the most self-sufficient and profitable prison systems in the nation, thanks to prison labor,” Walker said.

This prison labor is overseen by Texas Correctional Industries, a department within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice that was established in 1963.

According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s annual report from 2014 (the most recent year available), Texas Correctional Industries made $88.9 million in sales in fiscal year 2014.

The report noted that Texas Correctional Industries operates 37 facilities, producing a variety of products, including mattresses, shoes, garments, brooms, license plates, printed materials, janitorial supplies, soaps, detergents, furniture, textile and steel products.

Texas Correctional Industries also provides numerous services, such as furniture refinishing, tire retreading and auditorium and school bus refurbishing.

It says one of its goals is to “reduce department cost by providing products and services to TDCJ [the Texas Department of Criminal Justice] while selling products and services to other eligible entities on a for-profit basis.” It also says its goals are to give inmates “marketable job skills” and “help reduce recidivism.”

Prisoners manufacture these goods and provide these services, Texas Correctional Industries says, for state and local government agencies, political subdivisions, public education systems and public and private institutions of higher education.

Salon contacted Texas Correctional Industries with a request for comment on Walker’s letter. It said to speak with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice public information office.

Robert C. Hurst, the public information officer at the department, told Salon, “We’re not going to comment specifically on his letter.”

He did however speak in general about Texas Correctional Industries. “Part of the core mission of the agency is to promote a positive change in their behavior and prepare them for re-entry into society. We believe having a job is critical to their long term success,” Hurst said.

“While inmates are not paid, they can acquire marketable job skills which could lead to meaningful employment upon their release,” he added. “Offenders can also receive good conduct time for participating in work and self-improvement programs while incarcerated. For many — but not all — offenders, ‘good time’ credits may be added to calendar time served in calculating their eligibility for parole or mandatory supervision.”

In his letter, Walker pushed back against these claims. “Whenever TCI is scrutinized by the public for this practice, they note that prisoners receive other rewards for their labor, such as time credits called ‘Good Time’ or ‘Work Time,'” he said.

“On paper, these credits are supposed to cut down the prisoner’s sentence and allow them to be released on mandatory supervision — earlier than they would if these credits didn’t exist. But in reality, mandatory supervision is discretionary,” Walker explained. “This means that the parole board doesn’t have to honor these credits. It can keep denying a prisoner’s release until they have served their entire sentence.”

In his statement to Salon, the public information officer at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice defended the work program as a way to train inmates.

“There are a wide variety of jobs within the prison system much like those beyond the perimeter fence. Offenders may be assigned to work in support positions, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and maintenance. The agency also has a one of the largest agricultural operations in Texas helping supply food and clothing to the offender population,” Hurst said.

He noted that more than 5,000 inmates are assigned to Texas Correctional Industries, which “offers specialized training in a number of areas including braille transcription, warehouse operations, printing-graphic design and wielding.”

In his letter, Walker called this program a “money-making scheme.”

“Prisoners are human. Prisoners deserve the same rights as people on the outside. We are more than the dregs of society and dead weight. In fact, we are actually keeping the prison system functioning with no pay,” he wrote.

Walker concluded: “All work and no play is inhumane under any circumstances. And prisoners must be paid for their labor.”

The movement against prison labor is growing. Citing prison labor — along with problems like long-term solitary confinement, inadequate healthcare, overcrowding and attacks — incarcerated people throughout the U.S. organized a national prison strike that began this week, on the 45 anniversary of the uprising at Attica prison. Inmates in at least 40 facilities in 24 states are participating.



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Thursday, September 8, 2016

400 Sq. Ft. Tiny Cottage in North Carolina

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400-Sq.-Ft.-Tiny-Cottage-in-North-Caroli

This is a 400 sq. ft. tiny cottage in North Carolina. It’s built by Gerry and Teal Brown of Wishbone Tiny Houses. Please enjoy, learn more, and re-share below. Thank you! 400 Sq. Ft. Tiny Cottage in North Carolina Please learn more using the resources below. Thanks. Resources Wishbone Tiny Homes (builder) Tiny House Town […]
TinyHouseTalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA TinyHouseTalk?d=qj6IDK7rITs


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The Tyranny of 9/11: The Building Blocks of the American Police State from A-Z

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The U.S. government now poses a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity ever could!

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” ― Edward R. Murrow

We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties.

We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade the citizenry to march in lockstep with a police state. In doing so, we have proven Osama Bin Laden right. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”

These past 15 years have indeed been an unbearable, choking hell.

What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.

This is not freedom. This is a jail cell.

Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

Our losses are mounting with every passing day.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11.

Since the towers fell on 9/11, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, underwear bombers and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the true enemy to freedom was lurking among us all the while.

The U.S. government now poses a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity ever could.

While nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government and its agents have easily killed at least ten times that number of civilians in the U.S. and abroad since 9/11 through its police shootings, SWAT team raids, drone strikes and profit-driven efforts to police the globe, sell weapons to foreign nations, and foment civil unrest in order to keep the military industrial complex gainfully employed. (Syria’s bloody civil war in which CIA-armed militias have been fighting FBI-armed militias is a prime example of the government’s Machiavellian schemes gone awry.)

No, the U.S. government is not the citizenry’s friend, nor is it our protector, and life in the United States of America post-9/11 is no picnic.

Here’s an A-to-Z primer to spell out exactly what government tyranny means post 9/11.

A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. A police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”

B is for our battered BILL OF RIGHTS. In the cop culture that is America today, where you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is rarely held accountable for violating your rights, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much.

C is for CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE. The latest governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties—namely, the right to property—is being carried out under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, a government practice whereingovernment agents (usually the police) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property.

D is for DRONES. It is estimated that at least 30,000 drones will be airborne in American airspace by 2020, part of an$80 billion industry. Although some drones will be used for benevolent purposes, many will also be equipped with lasers, tasers and scanning devices, among other weapons—all aimed at “we the people.”

E is for ELECTRONIC CONCENTRATION CAMP. In the electronic concentration camp, as I have dubbed the surveillance state, all aspects of a person’s life are policed by government agents and all citizens are suspects, their activities monitored and regulated, their movements tracked, their communications spied upon, and their lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness dependent on the government’s say-so.

F is for FUSION CENTERS. Fusion centers, data collecting agencies spread throughout the country and aided by the National Security Agency, serve as a clearinghouse for information shared between state, local and federal agencies. These fusion centers constantly monitor our communications, everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government agencies, which are now interconnected: the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police.

G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and GLOBAL POLICE. The federal government has distributed more than $18 billion worth of battlefield-appropriate military weapons, vehicles and equipment such as drones, tanks, and grenade launchers to domestic police departments across the country. As a result, most small-town police forces now have enough firepower to render any citizen resistance futile. Now take those small-town police forces, train them to look and act like the military, and then enlist them to be part of the United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that is part of a global police force.

H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal hollow-point bullets, which violate international law. Ironically, while the government continues to push for stricter gun laws for the general populace, the U.S. military’s arsenal of weapons makes the average American’s handgun look like a Tinker Toy.

I is for the INTERNET OF THINGS, in which internet-connected “things” will monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government “thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.

J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass punishment has given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by jailing large numbers of Americans for inane crimes.

K is for KENTUCKY V. KING. In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers can break into homes, without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home as long as they think they have a reason to do so. Despite the fact that the police in question ended up pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong apartment and violated just about every tenet that stands between us and a police state, the Court sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.

L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement and private agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants, all across the country. This data collected on tens of thousands of innocent people is also being shared between police agencies, as well as with fusion centers and private companies. This puts Big Brother in the driver’s seat.

M is for MAIN CORE. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation. As Salon reports, this database, reportedly dubbed “Main Core,” is to be used by the Army and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security. As of 2008, there were some 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.

N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for routine police matters. In fact, more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually possession of some small amount of drugs.

O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION. Thanks to an overabundance of 4500-plus federal crimes and 400,000 plus rules and regulations, it’s estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. As a result of this overcriminalization, we’re seeing an uptick in Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room.

P is for PATHOCRACY and PRECRIME. When our own government treats us as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, mistreated, and then jailed in profit-driven private prisons if we dare step out of line, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is apathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.” Couple that with the government’s burgeoning precrime programs, which will usefusion centers, data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics in order to identify and deter so-called potential “extremists,” dissidents or rabble-rousers. Bear in mind that anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or somewhere in between—is now viewed as an extremist.

Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. Qualified immunity allows officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing. Conveniently, those deciding whether a police officer should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all cronies with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.

R is for ROADSIDE STRIP SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out strip searches, blood draws and even anal probes for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense. In the past, strip searches were resorted to only in exceptional circumstances where police were confident that a serious crime was in progress. In recent years, however, strip searches have become routine operating procedures in which everyone is rendered a suspect and, as such, is subjected to treatment once reserved for only the most serious of criminals.

S is for the SURVEILLANCE STATE. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of this new age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

T is for TASERS. Nonlethal weapons such as tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets and the like have been used by police as weapons of compliance more often and with less restraint—even against women and children—and in some instances, even causing death. These “nonlethal” weapons also enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. A Taser Shockwave, for instance, can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button.

U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT BY POLICE. No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their safety. Yet the fatality rate of on-duty patrol officers is reportedly far lower than many other professions, including construction, logging, fishing, truck driving, and even trash collection.

V is for VIPR SQUADS. So-called “soft target” security inspections, carried out by roving VIPR task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams, are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat.

W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your home. While these mobile scanners are being sold to the American public as necessary security and safety measures, we can ill afford to forget that such systems are rife with the potential for abuse, not only by government bureaucrats but by the technicians employed to operate them.

X is for X-KEYSCORE, one of the many spying programs carried out by the National Security Agency that targets every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. This top-secret program “allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”

Y is for YOU-NESS. Using your face, mannerisms, social media and “you-ness” against you, you can now be tracked based on what you buy, where you go, what you do in public, and how you do what you do. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are being rolled out in states all across the country.

Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE. We have moved into a new paradigm in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more than childish behavior. In some jurisdictions, students have also been penalized under school zero tolerance policies for such inane "crimes" as carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, bringing nail clippers to school, using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble switchblades. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

The choices before us are straight-forward.

We can live in the past, dwell on what freedoms we used to enjoy and shrug helplessly at the destruction of our liberties.

We can immerse ourselves in the present, allowing ourselves to be utterly distracted by the glut of entertainment news and ever-changing headlines so that we fail to pay attention to or do anything about the government’s ongoing power-grabs.

We can hang our hopes on the future, believing against all odds that someone or something—whether it be a politician, a movement, or a religious savior—will save us from inevitable ruin.

Or we can start right away by instituting changes at the local level, holding our government officials accountable to the rule of law, and resurrecting the Constitution, recognizing that if we fail to do so and instead follow our current trajectory, the picture of the future will be closer to what George Orwell likened to “a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

# # # #

John W. Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. He is the president and spokesperson of the Rutherford Institute. Mr. Whitehead is the author of numerous books on a variety of legal and social issues, including A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arkansas and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law, and served as an officer in the United States Army from 1969 to 1971.



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America The Illiterate

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Authored by Chris Hedges in Nov 2008, via Strategic-Culture.org,

We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities. 

There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.

The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge. 

The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless.  They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.

Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichés, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both. 

The ability to magnify these simple and childish lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, gives these lies the aura of an uncontested truth. We are repeatedly fed words or phrases like yes we can, maverick, change, pro-life, hope  or war on terror. It feels good not to think. All we have to do is visualize what we want, believe in ourselves and summon those hidden inner resources, whether divine or national, that make the world conform to our desires. Reality is never an impediment to our advancement.

The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates, Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.

In our post-literate world, because ideas are inaccessible, there is a need for constant stimulus. News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that “Hamlet” can be as entertaining as “The Lion King” and perhaps as educational. “Culture,” she wrote, “is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment.”

“There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect,” Arendt wrote, “but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.”

The change from a print-based to an image-based society has transformed our nation. Huge segments of our population, especially those who live in the embrace of the Christian right and the consumer culture, are completely unmoored from reality. They lack the capacity to search for truth and cope rationally with our mounting social and economic ills. They seek clarity, entertainment and order. They are willing to use force to impose this clarity on others, especially those who do not speak as they speak and think as they think. All the traditional tools of democracies, including dispassionate scientific and historical truth, facts, news and rational debate, are useless instruments in a world that lacks the capacity to use them.

As we descend into a devastating economic crisis, one that Barack Obama cannot halt, there will be tens of millions of Americans who will be ruthlessly thrust aside. As their houses are foreclosed, as their jobs are lost, as they are forced to declare bankruptcy and watch their communities collapse, they will retreat even further into irrational fantasy. They will be led toward glittering and self-destructive illusions by our modern Pied Pipers—our corporate advertisers, our charlatan preachers, our television news celebrities, our self-help gurus, our entertainment industry and our political demagogues—who will offer increasingly absurd forms of escapism.

The core values of our open society, the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense indicate something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to understand historical facts, to separate truth from lies, to advocate for change and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially acceptable, are dying. Obama used hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds to appeal to and manipulate this illiteracy and irrationalism to his advantage, but these forces will prove to be his most deadly nemesis once they collide with the awful reality that awaits us.



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