Shamus Cooke

U.S. politicians have cried wolf over austerity long enough for the public to ignore them. A perfect time, then, for politicians to actually unleash the wolves. Barring an unlikely last minute deal, here’s a short list of some of the massive, national bi-partisan-created austerity cuts, according to the New York Times:

● 600,000 food stamp recipients will be cut from the program
● Massive education cuts. According to President Obama: “Once these cuts take effect thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off and tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care for their kids. ”
● 12 billion in Medicare cuts (more to come after 2013)
● Millions receiving unemployment will see their checks cut by 11% (an average of 132 a month)
● Federal funds to state governments will be cut, creating even more deficits for states and municipalities, and thus more localized cuts (the states have already made austerity cuts of $337 billion!)

Also, 700,000 jobs are expected to be lost, while 70,000 kids are also expected to be kicked off of Head Start.

And this is just for 2013. The current plan for the austerity “sequester” cuts is $100 billion of federal cuts every year for ten years, equaling massive cuts to jobs, Medicare, education, and completely destroying federally funded social programs. - Will it actually happen this time?

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Stephen Lendman

Iran threatens no one. Israel's a longstanding a regional menace. It's nuclear armed and dangerous. Washington and Tel Aviv menace humanity.

Multiple P5 + 1 talks were held. Almaty, Kazakstan ones are the latest. Nothing gets accomplished. Washington obstructionism prevents it. Israel does so covertly.

Netanyahu reacted as expected. Bluster substitutes for reason. "(T)here are no measures that will make Iran heed the demands of the international community aside from military sanctions against it," he said. Iran won't end its "military nuclear program. (It) continues to violate all the international standards. Therefore I believe that the world must tighten the sanctions and make it clear that if it continues with its plan, there will be military sanctions." - He means war.

Nuclear talks are subterfuge. Washington, Israel, and EU nations know Iran's program is peaceful. Claiming otherwise is red herring cover for regime change.

US plans are longstanding. Independent governments aren't tolerated. Subservient pro-Western ones are demanded. In 1979, Iran ended a generation of repressive Reza Shah Pahlavi rule. He was Washington's man in Tehran. He remained so until the Islamic Republic of Iran replaced him. Iranians aren't about to roll over for America. Their independence matters more. They're not about to surrender it nor should they.

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Stephen Lendman

Neo-cons' map for destroying, Russia, China & Pakistan

In late 2011, Obama prioritized reasserting America's Pacific presence. His Asia pivot was announced. It involves advancing America's military footprint. Doing so aggressively is planned.

China's growing economic might and military strength are targeted. So is checking Russia at the same time. Containment is policy. Cold war politics is back. Unchallenged global dominance is prioritized. Anything goes intends to maintain it. War in a part of the world hostile to invaders is possible.

Vietnam echoes remain audible. So are Afghanistan ones today. China's a far more formidable adversary. So is Russia. It's hard imagining any country challenging them militarily. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. America hasn't won a war since WW II. Lessons weren't learned. Permanent war remains policy. War profiteers demand it.

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Stephen Lendman

Allan Rock, le recteur de l'Université d'Ottawa (lapresse.ca)

In June 2008, Allan Rock became university president. He's a former Canadian politician and UN ambassador. He's a pro-Israeli flack. He supports its worst crimes.

His administration is unprincipled. It's marked by secrecy, political censorship, abuse of power, and repudiation of fundamental university values. He targets academic and speech freedoms. He violates Canadian law.

Article 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states: "Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association."

Article 7 assures "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person and the right not to be deprived thereof in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."

Hardline rule is university policy. What Rocks says goes. Faculty and student activists are targeted, vilified, persecuted, suspended and dismissed.

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Thomas Sowell

Cass Sunstein needs to reread John Stuart Mill.

John Stuart Mill’s classic essay “On Liberty” gives reasons why some people should not be taking over other people’s decisions about their own lives. But Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard has given reasons to the contrary. He cites research showing “that people make a lot of mistakes, and that those mistakes can prove extremely damaging.”

Professor Sunstein is undoubtedly correct that “people make a lot of mistakes.” Most of us can look back over our own lives and see many mistakes, including some that were very damaging.

What Cass Sunstein does not tell us is what sort of creatures, other than people, are going to override our mistaken decisions for us. That is the key flaw in the theory and agenda of the left.

Implicit in the wide range of efforts on the left to get government to take over more of our decisions for us is the assumption that there is some superior class of people who are either wiser or nobler than the rest of us.

Yes, we all make mistakes. But do governments not make bigger and more catastrophic mistakes?

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Sampath Perera

On February 18, the Pakistani government transferred operational control of its strategically-located deep-sea port at Gwadar, Balochistan province to China. India, a rival of Pakistan and of China, has expressed concerns over the deal—highlighting the increasingly complex geo-political rivalries stoked by the Obama administration’s policy of “pivot” to Asia.

Gwadar is situated on the Arabian Sea, just 180 nautical miles (330 kilometres) from the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of the world’s oil supply passes. It offers a prime location to monitor shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz from the Persian Gulf, as well as access to cheap land routes or Middle East trade through Pakistan into western China and Central Asia.

The agreement to transfer the port to the state-owned China Overseas Port Holding Company was signed in a ceremony attended by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, several ministers, and Chinese Ambassador Liu Jian. The previous operator, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA), withdrew after Islamabad refused to provide large land allotments the PSA wanted for development work around the port.

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Stephen Lendman

It's no surprise. It's been that way for years. Iran's legally entitled to enrich uranium. Dozens of other countries do the same thing. Tehran alone is criticized.

Managed news misinformation begets more of it. Washington, Israel, and European partner collaborators repeat it ad nauseam. They lie. They know they're lying. They repeat what they know is false. Media scoundrels regurgitate it. Doing so makes them complicit.

Americans are the least informed, most entertained people anywhere. They're mindless about what matters most.

Propaganda works. A new Gallup poll explains. It found 99% of Americans believe Iran's nuclear program threatens US security. Its nonexistent nukes are considered more dangerous than nations with real ones. Previous polls called Iran America's top enemy. China ranked second.

Paul Craig Roberts calls thinking America's "national disability." Indifference lets Washington get away with murder and much more.

Iran fully complies with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) provisions. Its nuclear program is peaceful. US intelligence says so. Annually it repeats earlier assessments.

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Alex Lantier

This article was first published on 15 June 2010

For anyone who was still undecided, the New York Times has made it official: the war in Afghanistan is an imperialist war of plunder.

This is the inescapable conclusion of yesterday’s lead article, “US Discovers Mineral Riches in Afghanistan,”[*] on Pentagon plans to hand over Afghan mineral resources to major mining corporations and financial firms.

The New York Times cited “senior American government officials” saying that US surveying teams had found “nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan.” At current market prices, this includes $421 billion in iron ore, $274 billion in copper, $81 billion in niobium (a metal used in producing superconducting steel), $51 billion in cobalt, $25 billion in gold, $24 billion in molybdenum, and $7.4 billion in “rare earth elements.” The Times left out the value of Afghanistan’s extensive supplies of gemstones and natural gas. Nonetheless, it concluded that Afghanistan might “be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world.”

This bonanza is safely in the hands of the US military and major transnational corporations, the Times explained.

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Alex Lantier

The exposure of the bloody record of US Special Forces raids and air strikes in Afghanistan highlights the criminal character of Washington’s deployment of troops and drones to Niger, announced on Friday, ostensibly to fight Al Qaeda. Niger is a strategically located country near oil pipeline routes for the massive Nigerian oil industry and itself home to some of the world’s largest uranium mines. France last month invaded its neighbor, Mali, with US support. As in Afghanistan, these forces will soon be engaged in the torture and murder of African civilians and opponents of US imperialist intervention.

A meeting of Afghanistan’s National Security Council (NSC) chaired by President Hamid Karzai asked US Special Forces to leave Wardak and Logar provinces in two weeks, following an NSC review of reports that the American troops had tortured and murdered Afghan civilians.

The statement issued by the Afghan government—itself a puppet regime set up by the United States and its allies—is a damning indictment of the US-led NATO occupation of Afghanistan, now in its thirteenth year.

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Eric Peters

Perhaps you have seen the loathsome “no more hesitation” target practice sheets (see here, if you haven’t) provided to the Department of Heimat Sicherheitsdienst by an entity called Law Enforcement Targets, Inc. They depict old men, young mothers, pregnant women – even a little boy. Anyone who has seen these cretinous confections has been dismayed – and outraged. What sort of sick mind would even think to create such things – let alone actually create them? And can you imagine the reaction if someone made shooting targets depicting cops? No doubt there would be two-in-the-morning SWAT raids and probably a Waco-style barbeque of the offenders.

But I’d like to bring up another aspect of this despicable affair that’s just as telling – and perhaps even more dismaying. The same government that hectors the country relentlessly about diversity is apparently very happy with a certain homogeneity when it comes to portraying “domestic extremists” on shooting targets: White older man; white young mother; white grandmother; white little boy. No diversity at all.

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Stephen Lendman

"J'ai confiance, l'Afrique est en marche."

It shouldn't surprise. Nobel committee members prioritize doing it. America's Presidential Medal of Freedom honors genocidists. So does Israel's equivalent award.

UNESCO is the UN's educational, scientific and cultural organization. It stresses "building peace in the minds of men and women." It "works to create the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values." Through dialogue it hopes "world can achieve global visions of sustainable development encompassing observance of human rights, mutual respect and the alleviation of poverty, all of which are at the heart of UNESCO’S mission and activities."

Its rhetoric and policies differ. Double standards reflect UN priorities. Officials are Western tools. They honor their own. They violate UN Charter provisions. They do so with impunity. Millions die as a result. Millions more suffer horrendously. Imperial ruthlessness assures it. Global dominance is prioritized. Mass destruction and slaughter further what international law prohibits.

UNESCO paid no attention. Doing so allies it with wrong over right. It betrays its mandate. It calls for respecting commonly shared values and human rights.

On February 21, the UN News Centre headlined "French President François Hollande awarded UNESCO peace prize." It's for his "valuable contribution to peace and stability in Africa."

He's gone all out to wreck it. He's waging lawless imperial aggression. He's slaughtering innocent civilians. He's committing crimes of war and against humanity.

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Bill Van Auken

John Brennan, the president’s choice to lead the C.I.A., with
Senator Dianne Feinstein of the intelligence committee

There is no significant opposition within the US ruling establishment to the president acting as judge, jury and executioner in the name of an endless “war on terror.”

The Obama White House has stonewalled requests from Congress for access to legal opinions written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel justifying the administration’s drone assassination program.

According to a report published Thursday in the New York Times, the administration has worked out a cynical political strategy to keep the documents secret while avoiding any disruption in its bid to gain Senate confirmation of its nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, the architect and director of the assassination program.

While denying the drone legal memos requested by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, thereby risking having one or two of them cast votes against the nomination, the White House is soliciting Republican votes by releasing classified material on the attack last September that killed four Americans at the US consulate and a secret CIA annex in the eastern Libyan port city of Benghazi.

“The strategy is intended to produce a bipartisan majority vote for Mr. Brennan in the Senate Intelligence Committee without giving its members seven additional legal opinions on targeted killing sought by senators and while protecting what the White House views as the confidentiality of the Justice Department’s legal advice to the president,” the Times reported.

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Stephen Lendman

Zygmunt Bauman is UK-based University of Leeds Emeritus Professor of Sociology. His work spans five decades. He's now aged 87. His wide-ranging interests include consumerism, globalization, ethics, power, the status of workers, intellectuals in society, and nature of modern relationships.

He's best known for analyzing links between modernity and the Jewish holocaust, postmodern consumerism, and discussing broad moral/political perspectives. He distinguishes between earlier modernity forms ("solid modernity") and what's commonplace today. It's characterized by fragile social relations, he believes. They're created and broken by neoliberal harshness.

His metaphorical use of "liquidity" captures the shifting character of individualized/globalized lives. His new book is titled "Culture in a Liquid Modern World." Among other topics it discusses culture in a globalized world and what's happening in today's Europe. He describes utopia's end. In recent decades it's been privatized. It once meant imagining well-designed societies. They guaranteed meaningful, dignified, gratifying lives. Today's world is inhospitable. It's beyond redemption, he believes.

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Wolfgang Weber

German Chancellor Angela Merkel chats with
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert (R)
before the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin.

The return of German imperialism
German industry, government planning for resource wars

On Tuesday, February 19, the German cabinet consisting of the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union and Free Democratic Party agreed to deploy 330 German soldiers for a long-term mission in Mali.

Prior to March 1 the German parliament (Bundestag) will be presented with two separate mandates and is expected to give parliamentary approval to German participation in France’s shabby colonial war in Africa. The Bundestag debate on the cabinet proposal commenced on Wednesday.

According to the terms of the first mandate, 180 armed soldiers are to be deployed to Mali as part of a European Union “training mission”. The German contingent includes 40 engineers and 40 soldiers with medical training plus military physicians. The task of the other 100 soldiers is to “protect German soldiers” and provide “support when necessary”.

The second mandate involves 150 soldiers carrying out “logistical support”. This involves the use of an Airbus for the refuelling in the air of French Rafale fighter jets and Mirage bombers. Without air refuelling the French planes would be unable to cover the long distances from France and other African countries to their targets in Mali.

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Stephen Lendman

Jeremy Hammond

America is no democracy. It never was an isn't now. Obama enforces police state harshness. It's official policy. Lawless entrapment reflects it.

Hammond is one many victims. Some call him the other Bradley Manning. They do so for good reason. He founded the web site HackThisSite. In 2003, he created it after graduating from high school.

On March 5, 2012, FBI agents arrested him in Chicago. They'd been investigating the Anonymous hactivist group. They use computers for political activism. They're connected likeminded groups. They include LulzSec, Internet Feds and AntiSec. Hammond's an AntiSec member. He and five other computer hackers were charged with high-profile cyberattack crimes. Accusations allege he committed them against corporations and government entities. His views are clear and unequivocal.

"I have always made it clear that I am an anarchist-communist," he says. "I believe we need to abolish capitalism and the state in its entirety to realize a free, egalitarian society." "I am not into watering down or selling out the message or making it more marketable for the masses."

His commitment led to his undoing. He believed betrayal was a click away. "We know we'll finish in prison," a fellow hacker said. "Jeremy knew he'd be raided." It's why he worked quickly. "He wants people to remember him." He never imagined one of his own would betray him. Hector Xavier Monsegur (aka Sabu) was a trusted ally. He ended up conspiring with FBI agents instead. More on that below.

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Johannes Stern

Peter Schwarz: German industry, government planning for resource wars

Germany is making intensive preparations to conduct new wars to secure resources. This was the unmistakable message of a lead article in Germany's business newspaper Handelsblatt, “Expedition Resources: Germany's new course.”

The article shows the real face of the German bourgeoisie. As in the first half of the twentieth century, when it twice played a central role in plunging humanity into world war, it is again moving to enforce its imperialist interests through war. “The previous political measures to secure raw materials are reaching their limits,” the Handelsblatt states. Dependence on raw materials is the German economy’s Achilles heel, the paper writes: “Industry is plagued by the fear that the high-tech sector in Germany could be cut off from essential supplies.”

The very same business circles that financed Hitler are again banging the war drums.

The article cites an interview with Dierk Paskert, the manager of the Resource Alliance founded in 2011. Members of the alliance include Volkswagen, ThyssenKrupp, Bayer and BASF—firms that either directly supported Nazi war plans, or whose predecessors did. Now they work closely with the German government to plan how Berlin will secure access to critical raw materials across the globe, by force if necessary.

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Peter Schwarz

Johannes Stern: The return of German imperialism

A year ago, leading German industrial companies launched the Resource Alliance (Rohstoffallianz) for the purpose of securing the supply of selected raw materials for its shareholders and corporate members. To achieve this goal, it is calling for the use of military assets.

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, the manager of the Resource Alliance, Dierk Paskert, called for “a strategically oriented foreign economic and security policy” to ensure the supply of raw materials for German business.

Although this policy should be guided by the “objective of free and transparent commodity markets,” Paskert said, “it would be naive to take this for granted in the near future.” Developments had moved in “exactly the opposite direction, unfortunately.” Therefore, Paskert concluded, “we [Germany], together with our partners in the EU and NATO, must take on more responsibility in foreign economic and security matters.”

“Taking responsibility in security matters” is a euphemism for military operations. This is indicated by the reference to NATO, a military alliance. — Paskert is calling for resource wars.

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Eric Peters

Something very good – though very dangerous to the congealing police state (but not to liberty-minded people) has occurred: Millions of Americans have decided they will not abide by any demand they register their firearms – much less surrender them. And are saying so – openly.

More than a few local sheriffs have also publicly stated they will not enforce any such demands. For the first time in living memory, the debate is not fundamentally about which guns – or how many guns. It is about whether the government has any business even knowing whether you’ve got guns at all – much less dictating the type you’re allowed to have.

It’s a Rubicon moment – because this idea involves a great deal more than merely firearms. It is an assertion – though not fully conscious, yet – that trampling the rights of any individual because of the actions of another individual is an ethical outrage. Not just the right to keep a gun. All rights.

The Beat-era author/philosopher William S. Burroughs once quipped: “After a shooting, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.” He said that decades ago and at long last, people are coming to resent being vilified – and punished – not for anything they did. But because some other person did something. Or even worse, because some other person might do something.

Group guilt isn’t selling as well as it once did. And the stock people take in individual responsibility seems to be increasing.

Perhaps because the orbit of liberty has constricted so dramatically – especially during the past 10 years. Instead of gradually increasing the temperature so that the frog doesn’t notice he’s being boiled alive until it’s too late for him to hop out of the pot, they’ve cranked up the heat suddenly – and the frogs are now aware of what’s happening to them. And beginning to hop…

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Tony Cartalucci

Image: Rampant CO2, high global temperatures, rising sea levels. A look into the future? No, this is Mesozoic North America 250-65 million years ago. Climate change has happened long before humanity's emergence, it will happen again, with or without us. The key to preserving what we as humans value, including not only our cities, towns, and countrysides, but also ecosystems and species - is to devise technical, pragmatic solutions to ensure no matter what the climate does, we can not only survive, but thrive.

In reality, the diminutive, corporate-media inflated rally in DC was organized by the very corporate-financier special interests that have been wreaking terrible havoc on both the human population and the environment of this planet for decades. They are demanding action from a government that already represents their interests. Their demands are policies, particularly financial tax schemes that they themselves created and are are best positioned to benefit from while making no discernible impact on the very real environmental threats we collectively face.

It was an exercise in manufacturing consent for policies already long-ago devised and simply waiting for piecemeal implementation.

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Stephen Lendman

Editor: In a bid to shore up the Jewish vote, Democratic candidate Obama in 2008 made a surprise visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall. There he pledged his "unshakeable commitment to Israel's security". He also wore a yarmulke, the idea of which is to cover your head, certainly not in subservience to the Jews, but to show modesty before God.

Now, stooping to new levels of shamelessness and moral vacuity, he'll be back in stolen land again, to receive a piece of shiny metal for his services to the misbegotten Zionist state. Helping Peres murder people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, Obama has put the phony political entity "Israel" above America and the Jews above everyone else. God apparently does not fit into their lethal scheme at all.

Imagining honoring crimes of war, against humanity and genocide. Imagine calling war on humanity honorable. Imagine granting a nation's highest civilian award for waging it. It shouldn't surprise. Obama will receive Israel's Presidential Medal of Distinction. More on him below.

On February 18, Shimon Peres announced the award. It'll be given during Obama's March visit. It's his first as president. He'll get it at Peres' Jerusalem residence. An Israeli press release said: "It will be the first time in history that a serving president of the United States of America will receive an award of this kind from the president of the State of Israel." Peres' spokesperson added:

"Barack Obama is a true friend of the State of Israel, and has been since the beginning of his public life. As president of the United States, he has stood with Israel in times of crisis." "During his time as president, he has made a unique contribution to the security of the State of Israel, both through further strengthening of the strategic cooperation between the two countries and through the joint development of technology to defend Israel against rockets and terrorism."

In 2012, Peres established the award. Henry Kissinger among others received it. Israelis and non-citizens are eligible. It's given to those "who have made an outstanding contribution to the State of Israel or to humanity, through their talents, services, or in any other form."

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