http://www.sott.net Signs of the Times, featuring news and commentary on world events. Never wavering in our unending search for the light of truth in a pathocracy driven world! en-us Original content Copyright 2009 by Signs of the Times. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:44:33 -0500 http://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net http://www.sott.net http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197390-Hell-Comes-Home-Killing-is-the-ultimate-traumatic-experience There's no armor, it turns out, for conscience. So our men and women are coming home from the killing fields wounded in their heads, used up, greeted only by the military's own meat grinder of inadequate health care and intolerance for "weakness." "Frankly, in my more than 25 years of clinical practice, I've never seen such immense emotional suffering and psychological brokenness." This is what whistleblower psychiatrist Kernan Manion wrote recently to President Obama about his experience counseling Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, as reported by Salon. In September, Manion, having been told to "cease and desist all further correspondence with the government," was fired by the Navy for his urgent, outspoken communiqués about the mental-health minefield the military has on its hands. Two months later, of course, the issue of PTSD was blown into the national headlines by the massacre at Fort Hood. And a day after that, according to Salon, the body of a Marine was found at Camp Lejeune and a fellow Marine was arrested for the murder. The wars we fight keep getting worse, or seem at any rate to back up on us with an ever-intensifying fury. Our war on terror is tightening the psychological vise on our collective insecurity, beginning with the soldiers who are fighting it. Salon, citing official figures, reported that 42 Marines committed suicide in 2008 and 146 attempted to do so. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197390-Hell-Comes-Home-Killing-is-the-ultimate-traumatic-experience Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:30:59 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197379-Internet-Under-Siege It is ironic that President Barack Obama would travel to China and speak against government control over the internet. If the American Department of Homeland Security has its way new cybersecurity laws will enable Obama's administration to take control of the internet in the event of a national crisis. How that national crisis might be defined would be up to the White House but there have been some precedents that suggest that the response would hardly be respectful of the Bill of Rights. Many countries already monitor and censor the internet on a regular basis, forbidding access to numerous sites that they consider to be subversive. During recent unrest, the governments of both Iran and China effectively shut down the internet by taking control of or blocking servers. Combined with switching off of cell phone transmitters, the steps proved effective in isolating dissidents. Could it happen here? Undoubtedly. Once the laws are in place a terrorist incident or something that could be plausibly described in those terms would be all that is needed to have government officials issue the order to bring the internet to a halt. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197379-Internet-Under-Siege Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:23:06 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197367-US-home-foreclosures-at-record-high-as-jobs-crisis-deepens The number of home loans in the US that are either in foreclosure or at least one payment past due reached one in seven last month, a record high, according to a survey released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The survey found that nearly 10 percent of mortgage holders were at least one payment behind on their mortgages, while 4.47 percent of them were in foreclosure. Both of these are the highest figures on records dating back to 1972. About 7 million households are behind on payments or in foreclosure. These figures present just one indicator of the worsening conditions facing US workers caught up in the longest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The number of people behind on their mortgage payments has doubled since last year, as has the percentage in foreclosure, according to the survey. The foreclosures were spread throughout all borrower categories, with high-quality, fixed-rate mortgages showing the fastest growth in delinquencies, not the sub-prime mortgages that initiated the foreclosure crisis. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197367-US-home-foreclosures-at-record-high-as-jobs-crisis-deepens Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:22:36 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197347-Economic-Crisis-Is-Getting-Bloody-Violent-Deaths-Are-Now-Following-Evictions-Foreclosures-and-Job-Losses Despite ever rosier economic predictions and a surging stock market, the body count from the economic crisis is destined only to grow in the weeks and months ahead. In 2007, Jason Rodriguez was fired from his position at an Orlando, Florida engineering firm and ended up taking a job as a "sandwich artist" at a Subway restaurant. His salary was cut nearly in half and his debts mounted until, last May, he filed for bankruptcy, listing his assets at just over $4,600 and his liabilities at nearly $90,000. Although he lived only 30 minutes away, according to his former mother-in-law, America Holloway, Rodriguez barely saw his son. When the boy asked why his father didn't visit, Holloway said Rodriguez told him: "'Because I don't have any money. I don't have a job. I don't have anything to eat. When things get better, I'll come see you.'" Things never got better. On November 6th, the 40-year-old Rodriguez went back to the downtown high-rise office building where he had worked and reportedly opened fire, killing one person and wounding five others at his old firm. Asked to comment following the shooting, a local lawyer who represented Rodriguez in his bankruptcy proceedings, said "That's how it is right now. He's a very typical client. Of people that are suffering through the economy right now, there's nothing extraordinary about him... except that." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197347-Economic-Crisis-Is-Getting-Bloody-Violent-Deaths-Are-Now-Following-Evictions-Foreclosures-and-Job-Losses Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:49:40 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197343-Obama-campaign-promise-in-2007-The-first-thing-I-will-do-as-president-is-take-our-troops-home-you-can-take-that-to-the-bank- http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197343-Obama-campaign-promise-in-2007-The-first-thing-I-will-do-as-president-is-take-our-troops-home-you-can-take-that-to-the-bank- Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:04:01 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197217-The-American-Taliban-Religious-right-is-trawling-for-assassins- This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Nov. 17, 2009. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197217-The-American-Taliban-Religious-right-is-trawling-for-assassins- Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:33:20 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197128-Britain-must-de-Zionise-Itself-Immediately On Monday the British TV broadcaster, Channel 4 screened "Inside Britain's Israel Lobby", a devastating expose of the Jewish lobby in the UK*. 'We couldn't find a conspiracy' affirmed Peter Oborne the Daily Mail's political commentator behind the film. He was right. After running the show for so many years, the Jewish lobby's purchasing of British politicians and media presence is in the open. The Guardian reported today that two years ago a controversial study by American academics Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer explored the influence of the Israel lobby over US foreign policy "but Britain's pro-Israel organisations have been subjected to far too less scrutiny." This is indeed the case, and as Oborne disclosed, both British politicians and Zionist pressure groups enjoy it to the max. In the film Sir Richard Dalton, a former ambassador to Libya and Iran, said: "I don't believe, and I don't think anybody else believes these contributions come with no strings attached." I would suggest that 'strings attached' is a very gentle way of putting it. 'Chained to submission' would be far closer to the truth. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197128-Britain-must-de-Zionise-Itself-Immediately Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:21:06 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197127-Dispatches-Inside-Britain-s-Israel-Lobby Dispatches investigates one of the most powerful and influential political lobbies in Britain, which is working in support of the interests of the State of Israel. Despite wielding great influence among the highest realms of British politics and media, little is known about the individuals and groups which collectively are known as the pro-Israel lobby. Political commentator Peter Oborne sets out to establish who they are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying. He investigates how accountable, transparent and open to scrutiny the lobby is, particularly in regard to its funding and financial support of MPs. The pro-Israel lobby aims to shape the debate about Britain's relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it. Oborne examines how the lobby operates from within parliament and the tactics it employs behind the scenes when engaging with print and broadcast media. [ Click here to watch the video ] http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197127-Dispatches-Inside-Britain-s-Israel-Lobby Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:13:27 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197081-Obama-s-Strongest-Supporters-Suffering-the-Most-in-Recession-While-Elites-Thrive The young, the black and the poor are among those who are being hammered unmercifully in this long and cruel economic downturn that the financial elites are telling us is over. President Obama's strongest supporters during the presidential campaign were the young, the black and the poor -- and they are among those who are being hammered unmercifully in this long and cruel economic downturn that the financial elites are telling us is over. If the elites are correct, if the Great Recession really is over, then these core supporters of the president are being left far, far behind -- as are blue-collar workers of every ethnic and political persuasion. Nobody wants to talk seriously about class in America, but the elites are smiling and perusing their stock portfolios while the checklist of Americans locked in depressionlike circumstances just grows and grows: construction and manufacturing workers, young men without college degrees (especially young black and Hispanic men), teenagers, and those who were already poor when the recession began. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197081-Obama-s-Strongest-Supporters-Suffering-the-Most-in-Recession-While-Elites-Thrive Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:14:07 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197050-The-greatest-country-on-Earth-Around-50-million-Americans-go-hungry The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track, according to a federal report released Monday that shows particularly steep increases in food scarcity among families with children. In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children -- more than one in five across the United States -- were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million youngsters the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million. Among people of all ages, nearly 15 percent last year did not consistently have adequate food, compared with about 11 percent in 2007, the greatest deterioration in access to food during a single year in the history of the report. Taken together, the findings provide the latest glimpse into the toll that the weak economy has taken on the well-being of the nation's residents. The findings are from a snapshot of food in America that the U.S. Agriculture Department has issued every year since 1995, based on Census Bureau surveys. It documents both Americans who are scrounging for adequate food -- people living with some amount of "food insecurity" in the lexicon of experts -- and those whose food shortages are so severe that they are hungry. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/197050-The-greatest-country-on-Earth-Around-50-million-Americans-go-hungry Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:03:00 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196980-Will-We-Ever-Stop-the-Killings- Every time the young stick-up man tugged at my companion's purse with his left hand, she would pull back, causing the muzzle of the pistol he held in his right hand to swing back and forth. Its line of fire each time was directed across my chest and if he accidentally or deliberately squeezed the trigger this piece might never have been written. "Give him your purse!" I insisted, meaning that hanging on to it wasn't worth our lives. Still, she refused and the tug-of-war in the parking lot of my apartment building continued. "Here!" I said to the gunman, pitching my wallet to him, "take this!" He caught the wallet, turned and fled across a wide, deserted ballpark. Even in the darkness, we could follow him running for a long way, silhouetted in the lights of the U.S. Capitol, lit up at night ahead of him like a giant white cake. A few days later I received a call from a Maryland department store inquiring if I had sent a young man to buy a TV set on my credit card. A store detective arrested the youth and I dutifully showed up in court on the day of the trial only to learn he had skipped. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196980-Will-We-Ever-Stop-the-Killings- Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:50:14 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196969-Ireland-County-Clare-lake-shows-ice-age-came-quickly It wasn't quite The Day After Tomorrow but it's closer than we thought. An analysis of mud from Lough Monreagh, a lake in Co Clare, has revealed that Europe was struck by a sudden mini ice age 12,800 years ago, suggesting the kind of rapid climate change previously seen only in Hollywood disaster movies. It was believed that the "Big Freeze" took about a decade to set in. Based on an analysis of Greenland's ice cores, scientists have estimated that the Younger Dryas, as the event is also named, occurred gradually. However, after analysing mud deposits from Lough Monreagh, William Patterson of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, has found that the freeze took only months to take hold. Using a very precise robotic scalpel, Patterson and his colleagues shaved 0.5mm layers from the lake bed, each representing up to three months of sediment. Carbon isotopes in the samples recorded changes to biological activity in the lake, while oxygen isotopes revealed temperature and rainfall patterns. The tiny mud deposits showed for the first time that temperatures in Ireland dropped suddenly in the space of several months at the time of the Big Freeze. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196969-Ireland-County-Clare-lake-shows-ice-age-came-quickly Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:10:12 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196922-US-monetary-system-Robber-Baron-era-design-makes-US-debt-peons-forever-You-knew-that-right- "At first blush, a man is not capable of reporting truth; he must be drenched and saturated with it first." - Henry David Thoreau, I to Myself. As I've previously written, the interest payment on the national debt is now ~$450 billion every year, there is no plan to ever repay the debt (we only pay the interest), and our monetary system only and always creates money as debt: condemning us to perpetually increasing debt for ourselves and our posterity. This debt-based monetary system was institutionalized through the Robber-Baron Federal Reserve in 1913. It takes the money-creation power of the US and transfers it to banks, that then create money as debt and lend it to us. Because the government gave away this power, they have to borrow their own money. The solution, as advocated by many of the America's brightest historical minds, is to merely transfer the money-creation power back to the people. The idea is supported among US third parties, and growing factions among the Republican and Democratic parties. The most well-known current journalists/advocates on this topic that I know of are Ellen Brown, Bill Still, Paul Grignon, and Stepen Zarlenga. What this policy change means is to transfer power to the peoples' representatives, government, which will require a concurrent (and unimaginable) transformation of transparency and accountability. As we know, when our government and so-called mainstream media lie about policy of such magnitude as military invasions that kill millions, you can count on their lies with trillions of dollars. A political strategy of state-level, rather than national, might be a better starting place (and here). http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196922-US-monetary-system-Robber-Baron-era-design-makes-US-debt-peons-forever-You-knew-that-right- Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:54:42 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196912-Morality-vs-Material-Interests Myths of Our Time It is conventional wisdom that it was the draft that ended the Vietnam war. According to this explanation, cowardly college students subject to the draft and their unpatriotic families, forced an end to the war. This is Karl Marx's explanation. Material interests, not empty morality, are said to have brought the war to an end. That fact that in those days the US still had an independent media of sorts that sometimes framed the war in moral terms is ignored. Are we sure, for example, that the film of the naked little girl running in terror down the road burning with napalm was ineffectual in arousing moral opposition to the war? Are we certain that it wasn't an aroused moral conscience that brought about the end of the war but was college students' fears for their lives and limbs? If we ascribe ending the war to material interests, it makes ending the war look as unworthy as the war itself. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196912-Morality-vs-Material-Interests Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:57:04 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196818-Beliefs-The-Power-Behind-Unending-Warfare In unconventional warfare, manipulated beliefs are used to displace inconvenient facts. When waging war by way of deception, false beliefs are an oft-deployed weapon. Recall Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda? Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories? Iraqi meetings in Prague with Al Qaeda? Iraqi purchases of yellowcake uranium from Niger? All these claims were reported as true. All were later proven false or, worse, fabricated. Yet all were widely believed. Only the yellowcake uranium was conceded as bogus before the invasion of Iraq. As the U.S. crafted its response to the provocation of a mass murder on U.S. soil, those widely shared beliefs shaped a consensus to wage war on a nation that had no hand in it. A similar deception - traceable to the same source - is now working to expand this war to Iran. Based on fast-emerging events, the next conflict could include Pakistan. The modern battlefield has shifted. Ground warfare is now secondary. Likewise air strikes, combat troops, naval support and even covert operations. Those physical operations are all downstream of information operations. Manipulated beliefs come first. Psyops precede bombs and bullets. Hardware ranks a distant third. First and foremost are the consensus shapers and thought manipulators who target perceptions and opinions until a critical mass of agreement is reached. Then comes war. Those skilled at such duplicity induced coalition troops to war in Iraq. Knowledge was their target. Manipulate thought and all else was downstream. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196818-Beliefs-The-Power-Behind-Unending-Warfare Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:00:33 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196716-Video-US-army-uses-video-games-as-part-of-recruitment-drive As its troops continue to face lengthy and mutiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is looking at new ways to attract potential army recruits. The US military says the economic downturn and rising unemployment are sending more and more young people into their recruiting offices. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196716-Video-US-army-uses-video-games-as-part-of-recruitment-drive Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:35:57 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196734-Don-t-join-Everything-they-advertise-and-tell-you-about-how-it-s-a-family-friendly-army-is-a-lie- The military operates through indoctrination. Soldiers are programmed to develop a mindset that resists any acknowledgment of injury and sickness, be it physical or psychological. As a consequence, tens of thousands of soldiers continue to serve, even being deployed to combat zones like Iraq and/or Afghanistan, despite persistent injuries. According to military records, over 43,000 troops classified as "nondeployable for medical reasons" have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan nevertheless. The recent atrocity at Fort Hood is an example of this. Maj. Nidal Hasan had worked as a counselor at Walter Reed, hearing countless stories of bloodshed, horror and death from dismembered veterans from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. While he had not yet served in Iraq or Afghanistan, the major was overloaded with secondary trauma, coupled with ongoing harassment about his being a Muslim. This, along with other factors, contributed towards Hasan falling into a desperation so deep he was willing to slaughter fellow soldiers, and is indicative of fissures running deep into the crumbling edifice upon which the US military stands. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196734-Don-t-join-Everything-they-advertise-and-tell-you-about-how-it-s-a-family-friendly-army-is-a-lie- Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:35:11 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196791-Gerald-Celente-American-Public-Losing-Everything-to-Facist-Oligarchs- Gerald Celente is one of the world's best trend forecasters. In the following 4-part radio interview, Celente blasts current political and economic "leadership" as beholden to large corporate and financial interests. As I've documented, professionals who work with economics are using unprecedented harsh language in attempt to get Americans' attention to the loss of trillions of our collective dollars. His comments include (paraphrased): "Too big to fail" banks are anathema to real capitalism. US economy is like a ruthless mafia ripping-off the American public. The US is being looted. US economy is no longer capitalism, it's oligarchies and fascism. We are witnessing the greatest heist in American history, and the banks are doing it. I don't like getting raped. I don't like my money going to Goldman Sachs." Do you have eyes to see and a mind to understand? These crimes are an affront to my intelligence. Bankers are money junkies lying to get their money fix. We have a criminal gang of money junkies dealing scams to get money from us. They never have enough. And for what? For gambling. This is no different from the French Revolution. The money junkies are in for a shock. The second American Revolution has begun. They are not my political leaders; they are political hacks. We are going back to royalty and serfs. This country doesn't have a clue what's going on, their minds have been deadened looking at presidential reality shows and bowing to political demagogues. What people have to do more than ever is think for themselves. And reform is not on the way. Senator Bird's "reform" bill is nothing but empty rhetoric. My favorite economic analyst, Washington's Blog, gives a great overview. One helpful context to consider is the American economy is suffering from parasites. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196791-Gerald-Celente-American-Public-Losing-Everything-to-Facist-Oligarchs- Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:32:25 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196740-Israeli-Terrorism-Against-America-INCONCEIVABLE- What? What?? Whaaaaat?!?!?! No, this can't be. According to an article appearing in one of Israel's biggest mainstream news outlets - Haaretz - Israeli Military Intelligence is AT THIS VERY MOMENT trying to "figure out" what went wrong in 1954 with something known as the "Lavon Affair", described by the news outlet as a "sabotage operation" by Israel in "bombing theaters, post offices and U.S. and British institutions, and making it seem as though Egypt was behind the bombings". Ohhhh, this simply can't be, or as the character Vizzini infamously said over and over again in that adorable movie the Princess Bride - "INCONCEIVABLE". Israel - the apple of God's eye - deliberately bomb American buildings with the intention of blaming it on her Arab enemies in order to achieve a desired political outcome? Deliberately put innocent civilian life in jeopardy with an overt act of state terrorism? She would NEVER do something like this, and especially not to her bestest buddy in da whole-wide woyld, America. After all, the Jews are God's chosen people, and something like this would be a sin and they - the Jewish people - don't sin. In a word - INCONCEIVABLE. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196740-Israeli-Terrorism-Against-America-INCONCEIVABLE- Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:31:28 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196644-Video-Robert-F-Kennedy-Jr-on-Vaccine-Cover-Up Part 1 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196644-Video-Robert-F-Kennedy-Jr-on-Vaccine-Cover-Up Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:09:28 -0500