John W. Whitehead

“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
— Charles de Montesquieu

Red Light Cameras, Drones and Surveillance: Fleecing the Taxpayer in the Age of Petty Tyrannies

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the name of the national good by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions. We, the middling classes, are not so fortunate. We find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes.

As I point out in my book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the NSA; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; roving TSA sweeps; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

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Finian Cunningham

They say an expert liar needs to have a good memory to succeed in maintaining deceptions. This is because sooner or later the liar is liable to trip himself up with his own previous lies.

Only weeks after the deadly chemical weapons incident near the Syrian capital Damascus on 21 August, the Western narrative is coming apart at the seams from its own lies.

Recall that this was the “horrific” incident that nearly resulted in the US and its allies launching an all-out war on Syria. “The US doesn’t do pin-pricks,” said President Barack Obama sinisterly as American warships armed with hundreds of Tomahawk Cruise missiles suddenly honed in on the Mediterranean country.

Western turgid claims that Syria’s government forces had carried out an atrocity against civilians with deadly Sarin nerve gas were always tenuous from the outset.

Where are the names and graves of the more than 1,400 people that Washington so adamantly claims “beyond doubt” were killed by Syria’s army? What about the alleged intercepts that the US said it had obtained between Syrian army commanders? Where is the “conclusive intel” that Washington, London and Paris all said they had to justify punitive military attacks on the sovereign government of President Bashar al-Assad?

There is a growing host of evidence that soundly negates the Western claims, and indeed supports an altogether more credible and disturbing narrative. Namely, that a large-scale killing took place near Damascus on 21 August involving Saudi and Western military intelligence in collusion with the foreign-backed anti-government mercenaries. Civilians, including children, were murdered in cold blood, perhaps by lethal injection, in order to stage a provocation that was aimed as a pretext for a US-led military assault on Syria.

That all-out attack on Syria was all the more pressing because of the floundering regime-change objective of the Axis of Evil comprising Washington, London, Paris, Riyadh, Doha, Tel Aviv, Amman and Ankara.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 has come to
symbolize the French Revolution, when a people rose up to
exercise their right of revolution. (Wikipedia)

"The American people need to stand up to the executive branch, take back their civil liberties, close down the police state, break up the media conglomerates and reestablish an independent press."

In less than 2 days, if the Treasury secretary can be believed, the Treasury will not have enough money to pay all its bills and will have to prioritize. This doesn’t mean default, as interest on Treasury bonds, notes, and bills will be right up there with the military and NSA. If Washington defaults on its bonds, Washington’s power will be gone with the wind regardless of whether the Treasury pays the military.

Whatever the outcome, Washington has already cooked its goose. Washington’s prestige and credibility have been hammered.

China, Washington’s largest foreign creditor, has responded to Washington’s inability to govern itself with a call for a de-Americanized world. The state news agency, speaking for the Chinese government, said that the “days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated, and a new world order should be put in place.” China does not mean by “a new world order” the conspiratorial concept popular on the American right-wing. What the Chinese government means is a departure from the American world order based on the US dollar as world reserve currency and US financial imperialism.

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