1. Of course there were no planes on 9/11:
“The Weird Factor
Just a few for the record: Bush reading My Pet Goat to schoolchildren after being told of the attacks, the sudden appearance of the “Israeli art students” – and their buddies, the “laughing Israelis” – in the months and weeks leading up to the attacks, and the apparent passivity of US air defenses on that fateful day.
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The Weird Factor seems to intensify whenever there is some significant event in our ongoing “war on terrorism,” or whatever they’re calling it these days. My longtime readers will be familiar with my theory of how this works. Briefly: on Sept. 11, 2001, the impact of those airliners as they hit the Twin Towers sent us careening into an alternative dimension where up is down, right is left, and torture is the American Way – in short we landed in Bizarro World, where we have been trapped ever since. The post-9/11 cognitive shift that heralded our entry into this alternate dimension is amplified around these incidents, and certainly the most recent – the midair antics of the Undie Bomber – underscores the Weird Factor at its absolute weirdest.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/01/10/the-weird-factor/
2. Good – maybe they’ll stop using drones:
“Military Struggles to Make Sense of Drone Video Archive
Another Flood of Data, but Agencies Struggle to Analyze it
The military has it in their head that this intelligence could be of potentially enormous value, and so it continues to collect it. The analysts, however, are struggling to wade through all the largely irrelevant data hoping to find patterns for insurgents, evidence, and anything else that might be of use.
The Air Force is spending $500 million on a computer system that they hope will make sense of this, highlighting the important clips and filtering out the meaningless videos.
But every drone has a camera, and when there’s a camera, they may as well take a video. But newer drones have 10 cameras, all taking videos, and future ones will have 30+ cameras. It seems likely then that the computer systems will forever be struggling to catch up as the number of videos grows, and officials will be forever hoping that the next big breakthrough will finally yield some usable data.”
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/10/military-struggles-to-make-sense-of-drone-video-archive/
3. So Yemen is all about China:
“The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn’t end with Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that, the US establishes its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian Ocean’s western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The US has now foreclosed China’s options. The only country with a coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries have a Western military presence.
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Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the “great game” of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China’s economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy. “
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LA09Ak02.html
4. “Shahid Alam on Israeli Exceptionalism
The trope along which this book is organized is the concept of “Exceptionalism” that is often claimed by the state of Israel, and sometimes by Jews themselves. To Alam this is nothing other than a rhetorical device, and a moral posture, to ensure the West’s indulgence and support, to protect Israelis from any criticism, and exempt them from standards and behavioral norms that apply to other peoples. This “exceptionalism” is derived from their Biblical covenants and the belief in their inherent “chosen-ness”, their wrenching history of suffering and persecution, their considerable achievements in science, philosophy and philanthropy, and their current status as a people allegedly besieged by Islamic fundamentalists, anti-Semitic bigots, and the barbaric and self-destructive Arabs. To question anything about Israel is tantamount to denigrating every aspect of its special status.”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/01/torture-is-continuing-under-obama.html
6. “The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic Information War: “The Citizens Have Won”
French doctor and author of a book on the swine flu scam, Marc Girard, has declared victory in the information battle in Europe surrounding the swine flu vaccine following the decision by the French government to cancel 50 million doses and abandon the vaccine centers under intense political pressure.
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Since this is the same international corporate crime syndicate organised around the Bilderbergs that is also responsible for Codex Alimentatarius, GMO foods, poisoning us through water and other means, as well as for the financial crisis and instigating numerous false flag terrorist attacks and wars (Afghanistan, Iraq and now Yemen), there is a unique opportunity to deal with a multitude of problems by systematically dismantling the power structure of this group.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16880
7. “Plane Incident a False Flag Involving Trinity of CIA, Mossad, and RAW
The Christmas Day attempt by the son of a prominent Nigerian banker and business tycoon connected closely to top Nigerian leaders to detonate a chemical improvised explosive device aboard Delta Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam Schiphol to Detroit was a false flag operation carried out by the intelligence tripartite grouping of the CIA, Mossad, and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), according to WMR’s Asian intelligence sources who closely monitor the activities of the three agencies in India and Southeast Asia.
The tripartite alliance of the CIA, Mossad, and RAW were behind the terrorist attacks on Mumbai earlier last year and on December 28 Rupee News reported the three agencies worked together, along with former Afghan KHAD intelligence agents, to assassinate former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto: “The Benazir assassination was pre-planned and executed via triangulation by KHAD, RAW, CIA and Mossad using the most modern radioactive weapons available in the market. The Israeli PM publicly admitted helping India in Kargil recently. The purpose of the covert KHAD, RAW, CIA, Mossad operations is to destabilize Pakistan. The IMF plan to de-fang Pakistan in 2000 did not work, but provincial autonomy will make the center bankrupt triggering an implosion.”
The outcome of the failed terrorist attempt by Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab on the Detroit-bound plane has resulted in major Christmas gifts for the neocons and militarists who still call the shots on U.S. policy: the deployment of privacy-invasive millimeter wave (MMW) full body scanning equipment at airports in North America and Europe. The ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Peter King (R-NY), who is an ardent defender of the Catholic Church and its prelates in Ireland, has defended the scanning system which can image the naked bodies of passengers, including children and babies, an increase in the U.S. military and intelligence presence in Yemen, retention of US USAPATRIOT Act surveillance provisions, an increase in racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims — and because Mutallab is African — blacks in the United States, and more cumbersome travel restrictions for airline passengers.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16892
8. ““Political reporting” means “royal court gossip”
This reaction has nicely illuminated what our press corps is. The book is little more than royal court gossip, churned out by the leading practitioner of painfully sycophantic, Drudge-mimicking cattiness: Time‘s Mark Halperin. And all of the courtiers, courtesans, court spokespeople (i.e., “journalists”) and hangers-on who populate our decadent little Versailles on the Potomac can barely contain their glee over the opportunity to revel in this self-absorbed sleaze. Virtually every “political news” TV show is hyping it. D.C. reporters are boasting that they obtained early previews and are excitedly touting how intensively they’re studying its pages in order to identify the most crucial revelations. Just try to contemplate how things would be if even a fraction of this media energy and interest level were devoted to scrutinizing the non-trivial things political leaders do.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
9. “The Mushroom Effect
| He would have the reader believe that Hezbollah sports a new poster with a ‘mushroom cloud’ in front of Iranian embassy officials. Is Hitchens implying that such a parade, ‘poster’ and all, took place under the watchful eyes of the Lebanese authorities? Surely this would not have been in keeping with what Mr. Obama had in mind when on December 22, 2009 he said Lebanon is a crucial U.S. ally. Curiously, where was Murdoch’s Fox News to give this audacious act live coverage?
It is at this juncture in Mr. Hitchens’ article that absurdity makes way for manipulation. Having painted a picture of a mushroom cloud with a brush dipped in lies, he shamelessly brings Iran into every family room by connecting this imaginary picture to Flight 253 – the Christmas flight that almost killed 300 passengers. He connects the pretense, the lies, and the fear felt by a real and unrelated event to further demonize Iran. Although not a single Iranian has been responsible for a terrorist act, Israel must have an enemy at all times and Iran is the ogre du jour. Murdoch and his media empire will turn Iran into that enemy. His support of Israel is so strong–surpassing business interests, that a former London Times correspondent by the name of Sam Kiley stated: “No pro-Israel lobbyist ever dreamed of having such power over a great national newspaper.” Mr. Hitchens closes by saying that our intelligence ” coddle and excuse our enemies and treat us like criminals ……” Regrettably, he and his cohorts do not get treated like the criminals that they are. By way of lies, manipulation, and deception, they hypnotize us with fear until they win our consent for yet more killing. They are the culprits that cause our soldiers to die, the treasury be emptied, and our country be hated. They are the ones who are responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people across the globe. Travel? Only on his mushroom-enabled trips. For the rest of us, we can only survive by staying away from pens dipped in toxin.” |
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24367.htm
10. “The Implosion of the American Political Consciousness
Regressives understand in ways that progressives tend to be clueless about, the simple idea that, who narrates governs. The explanation for the right’s visceral appreciation of this wisdom is likely rooted in the survival instinct at the core of the human creature’s very DNA. When you’re peddling an absolutely absurd and destructive pile of bullshit, even dressing it up in pretty pink ribbons isn’t going to be enough. If you hope to have any prayer of making the sale, you gotta teach people from their earliest days that turds are really, really valuable. Get yours now!
This was one of Orwell’s most powerful perceptions in 1984, a book loaded with crucial insights about society, politics, government and human nature. The state could expend endless resources battling for the supremacy of a certain type of politics. That’s one option. Or, far more cleverly, it could just remove the possibility of imagining alternatives from the public’s consciousness. Much easier. Much cheaper. This is why Orwell concentrated so much on language in his novel. He understood that action requires desire, desire requires imagination, and imagination requires language.
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But we, in fact, are moving in the opposite direction. The level of vitriol in American politics grows uglier everyday, and the absence of rationality more astonishing. Back in the day, mainstream political actors weren’t in the habit of calling the president a fascist, or accusing him of seeking to murder senior citizens. They weren’t so unsophisticated as to call him a socialist at the same time they labeled him a fascist. They weren’t so intoxicated with their own venom as to believe that a president who so obediently serves the interests of Wall Street – to a degree that might have horrified even Richard Nixon – is some sort of maniacal leftist radical, bent on killing capitalism in America.
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All of this represents the pinnacle (one hopes) of regressive efforts to realize Orwell’s nightmare scenario. Americans feel rage – as they should – but they don’t know what at, exactly, or why. And they certainly don’t have the tools to envision better realities. What else could have happened after three decades of right-wing lies, intimidation and destruction? What else could be the product of presidents like Reagan and Bush, who so transparently served the interests of their class, but so effectively wrapped their predations in the maudlin cloth of the flag and the cranked up rhetoric of fear? What else could we expect from the vitriolic demonization of a so-called left so-called alternative like Clinton or Obama, whose politics are essentially the same as Reagan’s or Bush’s, sans the more nauseating genuflections toward values that, truth be told (and it must never be, of course), only apply to the stupid little people in practice?
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This condition represents an utter failure of the imagination, and therefore the startling ‘success’ of the regressive framing effort. This limitation of what is conceivable and the concomitant diminishing of expectations is the greatest triumph of right-wing marketing, and it’s Orwellian to its core. What makes it especially startling is that the alternatives in question are so commonsensical and so proximate in real life form, and yet even some progressives in America have been trained to lower their expectations enough to ignore the existence of these ideas and models. “
