Author Topic: War Provocations and Peace Actions (Read 20376 times)

AGelbert · « **Reply #120 on:** January 04, 2017, 06:47:22 pm »

Agelbert NOTE: Cheney, the REAL 911 mastermind, proceded to cash in on that false flag "Pearl Harbor" by invading Iraq, no matter what even the military said!

Iraq War a War Crime - Pushed by Cheney Over Objections of Joint Chiefs

John Kiriakou on RAI(7/10)

Published on May 7, 2015

On Reality Asserts Itself, former CIA official Mr. Kiriakou says that VP Cheney chaired a morning phone call where the Joint Chiefs and CIA openly argued against the invasion of Iraq - a decision made in the summer of 2002.

AGelbert · « **Reply #121 on:** January 05, 2017, 08:10:06 pm »

January 5, 2017

Moving US Embassy to Jerusalem Would Be a Dangerous Provocation

The Trump administration might make a historic break with US policy and draw international outrage by following through on its rhetoric, warns New Internationalism director Phyllis Bennis

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=18069

AGelbert · « **Reply #122 on:** January 06, 2017, 06:09:31 pm »

In Syria, Western Media Cheer Al Qaeda

Thursday, 05 January 2017 11:05

SNIPPET:

I’m still haunted by what I saw at Al-Razi Hospital in what was then government-held West Aleppo. I watched as one ambulance after another dropped off civilians wounded by rebel mortars fired into residential neighborhoods around the clock. Medical staff quickly went to work on a man whose chest was pierced by a piece of twisted metal. A frantic woman lingered close by, shouting, “He’s the only son I have left!” The man was soon pronounced dead and the woman collapsed in agony.

A boy mourns outside the morgue in West Aleppo after his father was killed by rebel mortars. (photo: Rania Khalek)

Down a crowded hall, 10-year-old Fateh stood on a blood-smeared floor, crying beside a gurney where his 15-year-old brother, Mohammad, was lying. Blood had soaked through the bandage on his leg, but the medical staff was too busy with more life-threatening injuries to take notice. The boys were lucky to be alive. They had been moving furniture out of the house with their younger cousins earlier in the day when they were struck by rebel mortars. Their 6-year-old cousin, a girl, was in the ICU. Their 4-year-old cousin, a boy, had been killed.

Across the street, grieving families waited outside the morgue to identify the bodies of their recently deceased loved ones. A group of sobbing children explained to me how they had watched their father die that morning from the balcony of their apartment. A rebel mortar struck him as he was parking his car. Meanwhile, a shell-shocked father told me his 10-year-old son was shot and killed by a sniper while fetching water on the roof.

A grief-stricken woman, mourning the loss of her husband, cursed the government for not hitting the rebels—or “terrorists,” in her words—hard enough. Her family members agreed, complaining that the Syrian government was being too soft on the armed groups that they blamed for destroying their city.

Underneath all the grief and calls for revenge was exhaustion. After five years of war, these people were tired. I didn’t meet a single Syrian in the government areas I visited who hadn’t lost friends and family since the war started. But their suffering, with a few minor exceptions, has been largely disappeared from Western media, probably because the people most responsible for it are supported by the West.

Even those who expressed disapproval of Russia’s involvement in their country told me they hold the US and its regional allies—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey—most responsible for the disintegration of their country.

These sentiments totally contradict one of US media’s most pernicious lies—that US inaction allowed the bloodshed in Syria to continue with impunity.

“Many thousands of people have been killed in Aleppo…but Washington shrugs,” lamented the New York Times (12/14/16). “The United States’ inaction in Syria has transformed our country into nothing other than a bystander to the greatest atrocity of our time,” complained Leon Wieseltier in the Washington Post (12/15/16).

But Washington has intervened (FAIR.org, 10/1/15)—and by doing so, it prolonged the bloodshed and empowered Al Qaeda.

Full DETAILED article:

http://www.therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/3011

Sine Qua Non Plutocratic Ruling Principle: "The people must always be provided with an enemy".

AGelbert · « **Reply #123 on:** January 10, 2017, 08:09:54 pm »

Originally POSTED Sep 11, 2012:
This being 9/11, I've decided to let the Diners in on some knowledge I have as a former air traffic controller that convinced me it was an inside job within a day or so of the event. The tip-off for me was the Pentagon.

I aired this knowledge on the Huffington Post years later (I think it was in 2005) when she finally couldn't censor comments on it because an article was written on the subject by some movie star or writer (AFTER Arianna had denied Jesse Ventura the freedom to write on 9/11 at hufpo). An army of Hasbara **** were out in force (you could tell they were A. not Americans by their writing and B. They had all these cartoon character avatars). I took one of them apart piece by piece and he ended up asking me where I lived.

I got a little more aggressive in my comments and, of course, they were censored.

So what do I know? Washington D.C. is wall to wall radar AND is a prohibited area. That means you fly in and out of Reagan International on a VERY specific route along the Potomac (River route). The "excuse" that the Tracon (tower radar approach control) was "out of communication" with the "outside world" was the most outlandish piece of bullshit I have ever heard. Remember, THAT was the reason given for them not communicating with the Air Force to scramble jets (in this case jets were ALREADY in the air being sent to the wrong areas).

Potomac Tracon (terminal radar approach control) controls the approach of all aircraft coming into Reagan International and several other area major airports. Potomac Tracon is 33 miles west southwest of Reagan and the Pentagon. There is no way in God's good Earth that ANY lack of communications occurred between them and Reagan Tower. There are about SIX levels of redundancy in communications from several transmitters on dedicated frequencies, back up transmitters and receivers on each frequency to fiber optic land lines that provide voice and remote radar data from the overlaying artcc (enroute radar traffic control center 10,000 feet and above) to satellite feed backups for everything. There are multiple lines to various Air Force Bases around with INDEPENDENT systems for a fail safe operation in case of nuclear missile attack.

Washington Center was tracking the aircraft headed for the DC area. The false generated targets from NORAD exercises is total bullshit because NORAD doesn't work airplanes! Air traffic controllers work airplanes! And we know damned good and well what a computer generated false target looks like. I trained people and ran the target generator scenarios myself as a training department instructor during the late 70s. Now they've got LCD displays and then we had CRT (cathode ray tube) round scopes but the radar and computer operation to translate a primary (no transponder to give altitude data) target to a data bock with speed and direction has not changed. I could NOT, as an instructor generating targets to make my students sweat, generate those targets onto an active display. All training targets have a "T" on the data block anyway. NO ONE in atc was confused due to "exercises".

About the 9/11 post, back in 2012

I was just reading the Surly1 post and decided to reply as an extemporaneous thing. I had no plans to do so. I went round and round with my brother controllers (all retired) after 9/11 and they shoved their heads straight into the sand as quickly as possible but they KNEW! Like you say, EVERYBODY KNOWS. Well, they knew and just didn't want to talk about it. I told you before one of them was CIA from Vietnam (flew for Air America). That shithead posted a big flashy photo display of how "they"(Ay-rabs) attacked America. It was very professionally done. Said a "friend of his" prepared it. Uh uh... This same guy that appeared to be "mourning" was inordinately bubbly and said in an e-mail how he probably had run into Mohammad Atta at the flight school near Fort Myers, Florida he frequented. The flight school is at an airport that was one of the ones the CIA used during the IRAN-Contra caper run by Oliver North to fly drugs into the USA and weapons out to the contras. Chucky ended up giving me the finger because I asked him too many pointed questions. :icon_mrgreen:

Chucky was famous for using FAA telephone lines to run query software at night (while he was home) to check every bulletin board and CompuServe fax outlet looking for freebee programs to download on the tax payer dime. The weasel would then claim they were "his" software! Him and his stupid TRS-80 Radio Shack piece of crapola. :laughing6:

The day after he transferred out we reformatted the hard drive to kill all his spy software on the IBM PC with windows 3 (I believe). What a slippery thief that guy was. But I digress. 9/11 has a very sick inertia because a very large group of otherwise decent people just doing their job are forced to keep quiet about a huge crime. Later on, if they decide they want to talk, they fear doing so because they will have to admit that they kept quite about it for several years. The top dogs know this and know they can DO IT AGAIN because everyone that remained mum the first time is now an accessory. Mafia tactics by our fascist gooberment.

Back to 9/11, the twin towers had been hit and every atc facility and their mothers knew that aircraft had hit (at the management level within minutes - less than 15). At the controller level, you can be sure the people in Washington Center were told by controllers from Boston center and New York center that some hijackings were in progress BEFORE the planes hit the towers. Next you have this primary target (no transponder to give altitude data - just some moving object that provides a radar return above 50 mph) headed towards the DC prohibited area. Immediately Washington Center tells Potomac Tracon who, in turn, tells Reagan Tower. This must be done because no altitude info is available so you don't know who's airspace this NORDO (NO RADIO) potential hijack is going to violate in the capital.

But here's the kicker. We HAD TO routinely save two weeks of radar tracking data with a 100% accurate record of air traffic movements in case a loss of separation standards had occurred (known in atc parlance as a "deal" that you could get disciplined and possibly fired for). Controllers don't report "deals" unless they can't avoid it unless it was a near mid-air collision, the pilots saw each other and are screaming bloody murder. Again, the guy/gal on position normally is not being monitored by a sup so they cross their fingers. The pilots land and call the facility or wait a few days to do it. Sometimes they don't bother. If they do, your sup tells the training department to pull the voice tapes (also saved for two weeks) and the radar data to see if you went below minimum separation standards. You, the controller, are required to write up a statement summarizing the events. The controller knows his goose is cooked here so he doesn't dare lie.

When the "aircraft" that hit the pentagon performed it's impossible maneuver of a descending 360 degree spiraling turn at around 500 mph the tower radar recorded the track and the speed, Potomac Tracon recorded the track and the speed and Washington center recorded the track and the speed.

The paltry visuals the Pentagon released of a MISSLE striking the pentagon was blatantly obvious to me. I'm very experienced in seeing planes fly near buildings; they move MUCH slower than that. It was a missile. All they had to do in ATC was look at those radar tracking tapes.

A missile has 1,000 mph or greater velocity. The thing that hit the Pentagon was moving a lot faster than 500 mph. It's on the radar data. If the RADAR TRACKING data from THREE INDEPENDENT ATC FACILITIES was destroyed, that is undeniable proof that Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney ran an inside job, PERIOD. Guess what? When I mentioned the radar data on hufpo the Hasbara dude asked where I lived.

But there is more. A B767 is, as you know, is an airplane

. Airplanes have a limitation in flight. The turning radius is a function of the bank angle and speed.

That means that the faster you go, the steeper you need to bank the airplane in order to keep your turn radius, as in a 500 mph jet, from being several miles in radius (if you are turning 360 degrees as was the case on 9/11).

Missles are not airplanes and don't have this problem because they use vectored thrust, not bank angle, to control turning radius.

The 360 degree banked turn the alleged B767 executed in a descending spiral to smack the Pentagon was NOT possible for a B767 at that speed due to the stresses the required bank angle would have on the aircraft (look ma, no wings!).

More bank angle equals more wing loading. At 60 degrees the pilot feels two G forces and the wings weigh twice as much as in level flight.

In any aircraft from a piper cub to a B747, when you exceed 60 degrees of banked turn, you are pulling 2 Gs plus on the entire aircraft structure. Above 60 degrees, the Gs increase exponentially. Aerobatic aircraft require plus or minus 6 G strength for FAA certification.

Commercial jet liners lose their wings (B767 max allowed plus 2.5 Gs and minus 1.0 G to avoid structural damage) trying to keep a 70 or 80 degree bank angle at 500 mph in a descending spiral needed to cover the track the government says was traversed to smack the Pentagon.

Only a missile or a fighter aircraft with a missile ready to fire could do that.

Impossible G forces for a B767

As a matter of fact you COULD beef up the wings of a B767 DRONE to do this maneuver (the only possible scenario in the second twin tower strike due to speed and turn rate). However, at the Pentagon, the hole was too small. It was a missile.

AGelbert · « **Reply #124 on:** January 15, 2017, 04:50:58 pm »

JFK, Obama, and the Unspeakable

Published on Jul 26, 2015

Religion professor James Douglass tells why Jack Kennedy was killed -- the Bay of Pigs, the fight with the US steel industry, the Cuban missile crisis, and, especially, Kennedy's secret correspondence with the supreme enemy, Russian Premier Khrushchev, about their mutual desire to avoid nuclear disaster by ending the Cold War.

Douglass contends that the same forces within the US government that killed Kennedy are present still, and that their removal of JFK gives strong warning against initiating a non-war economy and a foreign policy based on cooperation and peace.

AGelbert · « **Reply #125 on:** January 23, 2017, 08:32:32 pm »

Iraqis are furious over Trump's claim that America will 'maybe' get another chance to take their oil

By Hunter

Monday Jan 23, 2017 · 5:17 PM EST

SNIPPET:

Quote

“There’s no way Trump could take the oil unless he launched a new military front and it be a new world war,” said Kareem Kashekh, a photographer who works for the Popular Mobilization Units, a new branch of Iraq’s armed forces consisting of former militiamen and volunteers fighting against ISIS.

“He cannot do it. He cannot succeed,” said Dawoud Ali, a 30-year-old Baghdad resident and a member of Ansar al-Aghida, one of the Shiite militias fighting against ISIS. “Of course I would fight the Americans if they came for the oil.”

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/23/1624184/-Iraqis-are-furious-over-Trump-s-claim-that-America-will-maybe-get-another-chance-to-take-their-oil

AGelbert · « **Reply #126 on:** January 24, 2017, 05:01:56 pm »

Quote

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values… when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4, 1967

"maladjusted" Martin Luther King Jr.

AGelbert · « **Reply #127 on:** January 26, 2017, 06:08:35 pm »

Vermonters of good will are VERY ANGRY at Trump's latest RACIST empathy deficit disordered action.

Trump ready to close door on refugees bound for Rutland

Jan. 25, 2017, 6:33 pm by Adam Federman and Jasper Craven

Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program Director Amila Merdzanovic, left, and Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, speak at a meeting in Rutland. File photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger

SNIPPET:

For members of Rutland Welcomes — a group that has organized to support Syrian refugee resettlement — the news of the president’s order was devastating.

“We’re really disappointed,” said Hunter Berryhill, a spokesperson for the group. Berryhill described the suspension of the program as “unjust, inhumane, shortsighted and heartless.”

Trump derives his power to unilaterally freeze immigration for broad blocs of people from section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. That law allows the president to curtail immigration of certain groups on various grounds, including national security and terrorism concerns.

https://vtdigger.org/2017/01/25/trump-ready-to-close-door-on-refugees-bound-for-rutland/

EXCELLENT COMMENT by Rob Williams!

Quote

Rob Williams

The one word solution to this federal/imperial overreach? NULLIFICATION. The Vermont legislature can declare the Trump administration’s executive order to be “null and void” within the borders of our Green Mountains, and bring the Syrian refugees here as we have been planning to do for months.

Both constitutional and historical precedent are on our side – see Vermont’s 1858 nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act as one example.

I hope our elected legislators will have the foresight and courage to consider this option.

Free Vermont, and long live the UNtied States!

Agelbert NOTE: Please, spare me any babbling about Federal Law "pre-emption" and a Republican Supine Supreme Court. In the case of Executive Orders, State Rights CAN override them LEGALLY (NO, the Civil War WAS NOT about State's Rights!).

Here's another powerfully truthful comment:

Quote

Patty Smith

The military industrial complex dictates US foreign policy for profit. US foreign policy creates terrorists through regime change and illegal covert activities. Then US immigration policy bans victims of US aggression from seeking asylum. It’s no wonder the US is considered the greatest threat to world peace.

Yet the American people continue to be blind to the connection between our “strong military” and global instability.

Both major parties are to blame and so are the majority of the American people who continue to march blindly to the drumbeat of war.

Sadly, the bigots also commented with their typical doubletalk and closet racist comments disguised as, "We gotta take care of our own first" crocodile tears. Selfish, racist people always use duplicity to disguise their lack of compassion for fellow humans and other life forms in the biosphere.

I will post just one of these comments, which was countered by a Vermonter of good will.

Quote

michael olcott

a good person doesnt take food from their own to feed their neighbor when both are starving. im so glad that all who feel as you do and Mayor Chris Louras have managed to eliminate the homeless and all other poverty related issues down there,oh wait we need to take care of our own people first before we bring others that would consume our resources.

Richard M Roderick

I don’t think resources are being diverted. The United States, Vermont and Rutland have the ability to take care of the number of refugees that are coming and take care of our own citizens. It often just lacks the political will. We are a country of immigrants.

AGelbert · « **Reply #128 on:** January 26, 2017, 07:19:42 pm »

Keith Olbermann thinks Trump is nuts. I think Trump is a megalomaniac, but I don't think he is off his rocker. That said, I agree with Olbermann that Trump's actions lately certainly have not been rational. The video aside, it has been fascinating since the election to watch the right wingers try to imagine Trump's actions as "reflecting a reasoned approach."

The straw grasping attempts by the right wingers to give legitimacy to that POS POTUS are pathetic. But I'm sure the "greed is good" crowd will keep trying celebrate their megalomaniac leader.

A Plea to Trump Fans: This Man Is Dangerous

Quote

Welcome to the Resistance, practical guide to what we all can do now for America

Should We Give Trump a Chance?

AGelbert · « **Reply #129 on:** January 27, 2017, 04:26:20 pm »

Doomsday Clock Now Two and a Half Minutes to Midnight, Thanks to Trump

By Deirdre Fulton

Common Dreams Jan. 26, 2017 06:53PM EST

The symbolic Doomsday Clock inched closer to midnight on Thursday and we have President Donald Trump largely to thank for the ominous development.

At the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Thursday morning, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board moved the hands of the iconic clock 30 seconds closer to "midnight" or the end of the world.
For the first time in the 70-year history of the clock, "the board has decided to act, in part, based on the words of a single person: Donald Trump, the new President of the United States," according to a press statement.

Quote

The nuclear danger of a Trump presidency, combined with his and his administration's climate denialism, heighten the risk of a global catastrophe, the group warned.

"As we marked the 70th anniversary of the Doomsday Clock, this year's Clock deliberations felt more urgent than usual," said Rachel Bronson, executive director and publisher of the bulletin. "In addition to the existential threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, new global realities emerged, as trusted sources of information came under attack, fake news was on the rise and words were used by a President-elect of the United States in cavalier and often reckless ways to address the twin threats of nuclear weapons and climate change."

A further statement from the full board noted that the development comes even as Trump had only held office for a few days.

"Just the same, words matter and President Trump has had plenty to say over the last year," it read. "Both his statements and his actions as President-elect have broken with historical precedent in unsettling ways. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or outright reject expert advice related to international security, including the conclusions of intelligence experts. And his nominees to head the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency dispute the basics of climate science. In short, even though he has just now taken office, the president's intemperate statements, lack of openness to expert advice and questionable cabinet nominations have already made a bad international security situation worse."

Agelbert NOTE: Trumplethinskin supporters will find the video in the following link to be "disrespectful" of El Presidente. Trumpers may even claim it's a "media hatchet job from clueless" people. Unfortunately for these deluded followers of Trump, it is rather difficult to associate cluelessness with the SCIENTISTS on this board. So all I can say to the Trumpers is, good luck demonizing serious scientists.

We-the-honest-people are all watching you lying propagandists wailing and moaning about "negative" news against your dear leader. Go back to your KKK headquarters and give Bannon a call and request a new "strategy". THIS STRATEGY:

, now that "give Trump a chance" has been exposed as total BS, is ALSO not going to help your racist, fascist cause at all.

http://www.ecowatch.com/doomsday-clock-trump-2216983060.html

But then again, I'm sure you Trumplethinskin supporters will get a Fascist General or two to rally to your mendacious and duplicitous propaganda pitch. But you will not fool absolutely anyone with critical thinking skills.

AGelbert · « **Reply #130 on:** January 28, 2017, 04:18:54 pm »

Agelbert NOTE: I wish to take this opportunity to thank El Presidente Trump for his recent amazing single handed achievement!

Trump is responsible for the most successful action resulting in radically improving the health of Mexicans in the last 40 years (AT LEAST!)

NOW you KNOW what Trump meant when he said "everyone would be covered" in his health care plan!

Of course, uh, he may not see it that way

, especially when his corporate friends lose their profit arse in Latin America.

God works in mysterious ways.

God can even get Trump to do some good!

I invite all Americans to follow the prudent healthy Mexican example of boycotting corporations that sell stuff that harms your health and/or you wallet.

Now for you Trumpers who may disagree with those "over excited" Mexicans, I'm sure you can drum up a Tea Party style twist to justify the Red Blooded American boycott of these corporations by just claiming they are all traitors because they "took jobs to Mexico!"...

Print up a lot of posters like the above to ALERT red blooded patriotic Americans about all those Nabisco goodies jobs that went to Mexico! And we need to start growing our own bananas and Avocados too! USA! USA! USA!

Oh, and never mind that Illegal immigration crossings into the US from Mexico are at a 40 YEAR LOW. Listen to Trump and K-Dog! Build that WALL! What's 15 billion dollars in extra taxpayer money when Trump is gonna provide "all those jobs", eh? Trust Trump, he'll get it outta dem Mexicans real, real soon. But, uh, for now, Americans gotta "temporarily" PAY for what El Presidente said Mexico was gonna pay for...

Mexicans protest Trump with massive boycott of U.S. companies Walmart, McDonalds, Coke, Starbucks...

By Leslie Salzillo

Saturday Jan 28, 2017 · 1:19 AM EST

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/27/1626276/-Mexicans-begin-boycotts-American-companies-in-protest-of-Donald-Trump

AGelbert · « **Reply #131 on:** January 28, 2017, 10:38:40 pm »

Quote from: Palloy2 on January 28, 2017, 09:44:42 pm

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-28/soon-there-could-be-only-49-states-america
Soon There Could Be Only 49 States In America
Jan 28, 2017
Submitted by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

Activists in California have just taken an integral step that could leave America with only 49 states in the near future. Yes California, a pro-secession organization, received approval Thursday to begin collecting signatures from residents to put “Calexit” on the ballot for a 2019 special election.

Yes California has been working toward secession for some time, but with President Donald Trump’s election last year, their efforts gained momentum as frustrated residents questioned their willingness to bow down to a president they don’t support. According to a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos this month, nearly one in three supports secession — a sharp uptick from a similar survey conducted in 2014. With secession becoming a viable alternative, it’s possible that support may continue to grow.

Quote
We'll just take our avocados and legal weed and go#CalExit #CalifrEXIT
— beea ? (@LeasLame) November 9, 2016

The organization submitted their ballot proposal to California’s state government in November, and on Thursday, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla gave them the green light to begin collecting signatures. They need 585,407 people to sign their petition by July 25. If they succeed, the referendum will make it onto the 2018 ballot. If it passes, the state will hold a special election the following year. The Sacramento Bee reports:

Quote
“The proposed measure would strike language from the California Constitution defining the state as ‘an inseparable part of the United States of America, and the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land.’ If it passed, there would be a statewide special election in March 2019 to ask voters if they want California to become an independent country.”

Many Americans often joke about California leaving the union, highlighting how wildly different residents of the Golden State are from those of America’s heartland. Indeed, Yes California appears to agree.

Quote
“America already hates California, and America votes on emotions,” Marcus Ruiz Evans, one of the group’s founders, told the Los Angeles Times. “I think we’d have the votes today if we held it.”
In a recent post on their website announcing their progress, they wrote:

Quote
“In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.”

It’s understandable why secession has become a proposed solution considering California has long struggled with many systemic problems. As Yes California points out:

Quote
“Although charity is part of our culture, when you consider that California’s infrastructure is falling apart, our public schools are ranked among the worst in the entire country, we have the highest number of homeless persons living without shelter and other basic necessities, poverty rates remain high, income inequality continues to expand, and we must often borrow money from the future to provide services for today, now is not the time for charity.”

Though Yes California points out practical reasons for secession, they also argue the underlying justification for their movement from a philosophical standpoint:

Quote
“However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidizing other states of this country,” they write. “It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law.”

Further:
Quote
“It is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations. We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as just a U.S. state.”

California has the sixth largest economy in the world, bolstered by the film industry, Silicon Valley, agriculture, and the state’s biggest cash crop — cannabis — which voters legalized in November.

While the practical and philosophical reasons for secession are compelling, it’s doubtful many residents are looking beyond President Donald Trump. California leans heavily to the left, and Democrats hold a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature. California was largely responsible for Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory.
Further, though Yes California stresses the importance of voluntary association, it’s doubtful an independent California government would ask taxpayers what programs they’d like to fund. Ultimately, though California as a country would certainly be beneficial for decentralization and localization efforts, it would operate as a government and, as such, force Californians to participate.

Nevertheless, the movement reflects undeniable divisions within the United States, especially in the era of Donald Trump. Other states are also eyeing secession, including Texas, Washington, and Oregon.

As Anti-Media observed shortly after the election:
Quote
“People are rioting and protesting over Trump’s win throughout California but celebrating in Alabama, and against the backdrop of an ever-encroaching federal government, it appears these differences are growing difficult to reconcile.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-28/california-threatens-cut-funds-washington
California Threatens To Cut Off Funds To Washington
Tyler Durden
Jan 28, 2017

With secession threats looming, the state of California is reportedly studying ways to suspend financial transfers to Washington after the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities.

With California counties among the Top 10 who stand to lose tax-payer funding for providing sanctuary to illegal immigrants...

KPIX5 reports that officials are looking for money that flows through Sacramento to the federal government that could be used to offset the potential loss of billions of dollars’ worth of federal funds if President Trump makes good on his threat to punish cities and states that don’t cooperate with federal agents’ requests to turn over undocumented immigrants, a senior government source in Sacramento said.

The federal funds pay for a variety of state and local programs from law enforcement to homeless shelters.

“California could very well become an organized non-payer,” said Willie Brown, Jr, a former speaker of the state Assembly in an interview recorded Friday for KPIX 5’s Sunday morning news.

“They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.”

California is among a handful of so-called “donor states,” which pay more in taxes to the federal Treasury than they receive in government funding.

AGelbert · « **Reply #132 on:** January 29, 2017, 09:37:48 pm »

Agelbert NOTE: Over the centuries, as the leaders in human civilization increasingly pursued privilege over principle, this rampant increase in elite human iniquity resulted in massive, unjust and totally unnecessary human inequity.

I present this article to readers in order to educate them on how we have been propagandized to believe Capitalism is "good" because it "creates wealth". This flawed world view is analyzed and exposed as folly. The key is the flawed assumptions about WHY poverty exists, WHY wealth exists and WHAT THE RELATIONSHIP between the two IS.

SNIPPET:

Quote

We noted this in the article we published here a few weeks ago, "4 Things You Probably Know About Poverty that Bill and Melinda Gates Don’t," and it rubbed many people the wrong way. It’s understandable that this feels counterintuitive at first because it seems to defy basic logic. Wealth is something, and poverty is nothing. Wealth is the outcome of action, so it must follow that poverty is what exists before or in the absence of action. In other words, poverty must be a default state. Right?

The problem with this intuitive theory of poverty is that it ignores context—from the quality of education, to race and gender privilege, to physical and mental health, to luck and coincidence and much more. Even more important than all that, though, is the fact that it pretends that what happened yesterday has no bearing on today. When it comes to the global economic system and issues of mass poverty, the all-important yesterday is measured in decades and centuries. If we don’t understand this long view, we don’t really understand anything.

Why is all this so important? Because it is impossible to solve an entrenched problem like mass poverty without understanding how it came into being. There’s every reason to believe we can overcome poverty, if we take the time to understand and learn the lessons from how it is created.

Here are just three ways mass poverty has been created.

3 Ways Humans Create Poverty

Poverty isn't just a fact of nature. We made it happen, and we can fix it.

https://www.fastcoexist.com/3043284/3-ways-humans-create-poverty

AGelbert · « **Reply #133 on:** January 29, 2017, 11:32:07 pm »

The President of the United States Explicitly Endorses Torture — a Crime Against Humanity

Alex Emmons

January 27 2017, 5:12 p.m.

Even George W. Bush called torture abhorrent.

“Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law,” he wrote on the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture in 2004.

Bush’s words were outrageously insincere and hypocritical, considering that his administration brutally tortured hundreds of captives in the war on terror, referring to it euphemistically as “enhanced interrogation.”

But in his first week as president, Donald Trump won’t stop telling the world that he approves of torture, thumbing his nose at a basic international norm of legality and decency.

What is entirely unprecedented is his willingness to use the word “torture” — a crime by definition — while openly defending it.

Trump conceded on Friday that he will defer to his defense secretary, retired Gen. James Mattis, who holds a contrary opinion. But in doing so, he reiterated his personal support for torture.

Mattis “has stated publicly that he does not necessarily believe in torture or waterboarding or however you want to define it — enhanced interrogation I guess would be a word that a lot of — words that a lot of people would like to use,” Trump said at a joint press conference with U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May. “I don’t necessarily agree, but I would tell you that he will override because I’m giving him that power.”

Trump continued: “I happen to feel that it does work. I’ve been open about that for a long period of time. But I am going with our leaders. And we’re going to — we’re going to win with or without, but I do disagree.”

Trump told ABC News Wednesday that he asked “people at the highest levels of intelligence” whether torture works. “I asked them the question, “Does it work? Does torture work,” said Trump. “And the answer was, “Yes, absolutely.”

Multiple federal laws establish “torture” as a punishable crime. The 1996 War Crimes Act punishes any “grave breach” of the Geneva conventions, including “torture.” The 1994 U.S. anti-torture statute says that someone who “commits or attempts to commit torture” can be punished by a 20-year prison sentence. And the UN Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. ratified in 1994, says “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever … may be invoked as a justification of torture.” The charter for the International Criminal Court calls it a “crime against humanity” when conducted on civilians, and a “war crime” in the context of war.

Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney went to outrageous lengths to deny that what they practiced amounted to torture. In one widely-discredited memo, for example, the Bush Justice Department argued that in order to constitute torture, pain inflicted on captives had to rise “to the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function” — a standard that they argued allowed for keeping detainees naked in near-freezing temperatures, handcuffing them in an uncomfortable standing position for up to 40 hours; prolonged sleep deprivation; and waterboarding — an iconic form of torture since the Spanish Inquisition.

President Reagan — sanctified by today’s Republicans — signed and advocated for the UN Convention Against Torture. In his letter to Congress urging its ratification, Reagan described “torture” as “an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.”

Trump has said that he will defer to Mattis. But on Wednesday the New York Times and Washington Post published a draft executive order that would pave the way for reopening the CIA’s secret prisons, or “black sites.” The draft order was widely interpreted as a precursor to possibly restarting torture, and senators from both parties condemned it.

Trump’s statements are certainly having one effect: They hurt the global effort to combat torture, which relies on international pressure from credible nations. Leaders from monarchies, dictatorships, and human rights violators will quickly realize they can practice torture without drawing condemnation from the leader of the free world.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/27/the-president-of-the-united-states-explicitly-endorses-torture-a-crime-against-humanity/

AGelbert · « **Reply #134 on:** January 30, 2017, 08:16:47 pm »

Quote from: JRM on January 30, 2017, 11:01:59 am

Suspect in Quebec mosque terror attack was of Moroccan origin, reports show
Published January 30, 2017

" .... One of two gunmen who shouted 'Allahu akbar!' as they opened fire at a mosque in Quebec City was of Moroccan origin."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/01/30/at-least-five-killed-in-shooting-at-quebec-city-mosque.html

I was surprised by the suspects being Muslim. I know the different sects have wars with one another in the middle East. This is the first I've heard of Muslim on Muslim mass violence in North America.

Of course, a suspect is simply that -- a suspect. I just find this strange.

I don't believe for a second that the Quebec shooting was anything but a right wing attack spurred by Trump's Crusade against Muslims. It is expected that certain elements in the media will try to flip this into a demonization of Muslims. The Quebec terrorism is only the beginning of the massive racist right wing hate crimes that Trump and his evil supporters have unleashed.

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