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2 + 2 = 4

Best of the Web: The Toulouse Murders

The current French presidential election campaign was rudely interrupted at its very start by a series of murders in and around the southwestern city of Toulouse. On March 11, a paratrooper was shot dead by a mysterious motorcyclist in Toulouse. Four days later, in the nearby garrison town of Montauban, two more paratroopers were shot dead in similar circumstances. Then, four days after that, early in the morning of March 21 in a residential neighborhood of Toulouse, a helmeted gunman approached a Jewish school and coolly shot dead a rabbi and three children at point blank range before driving off on his motorcycle.

Since the targeted paratroopers were reported to be of North African extraction, the first wave of reaction focused on the assumption that the gunman was a far right racist, comparable to the Norwegian mass murderer Ander Behring Breivik. Commentators and politicians rushed to blame rightwing campaign rhetoric for "stirring up hatred". Bernard Henry Lévy recycled his perpetual accusation that France is inherently anti-Semitic, writing: "So there you have it, France is a country where in 2012, in the third largest city, one can shoot at a Jewish school and kill several innocent children at point blank range." The insinuation that France as a whole was somehow guilty was echoed on the front page of the International Herald Tribune, which predicted that the political debate around the shooting was likely to continue as "soul-searching about the nature of France".

The reactions necessarily shifted drastically after it was reported that the lone killer had been identified as a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian extraction, Mohamed Merah. Rather than a neo-Nazi racist, the killer presented himself as an Al Qaeda fighter. As police surrounded his apartment in Toulouse, he reportedly claimed by telephone that he had killed the paratroopers for having fought in Afghanistan and murdered Jewish children to "avenge Palestinian children".

Comment: The statement:
"In any case, polls have shown no impact on voters' intentions from the Toulouse killings. The Toulouse drama is unlikely to affect the outcome of the presidential election, which takes place in two rounds on April 22 and May 6."
is not true. Sarkozy jumped in the polls in the week of the killings. He is now more or less neck and neck with Hollande for the first round and has moved to within 6 points of Hollande (47% to 53%) in the second round. As noted by Joe Quinn in his article Sarkozy's Backers To Use Toulouse Attacks To Steal French Election, France uses electronic voting for 4% of voters. This is enough to flip the vote in favor of Sarkozy in the second round.


Attention

Best of the Web: 20 Signs That We Are Witnessing The Complete Collapse Of Common Sense In America

Common Sense
© The Economic Collapse Blog

What do you do when an entire nation begins to lose the capacity to think rationally? Many Americans spend a great deal of time criticizing the government, and there is certainly a lot to complain about, but it is not just the government that is the problem. All over America, people appear to be going insane. It is almost as if we have been cursed with stupidity. Sadly, this applies from the very top of our society all the way down to the very bottom. A lot of us find ourselves asking the following question much more frequently these days: "How could they be so stupid?"

Unfortunately, we are witnessing a complete collapse of common sense all over America. Many people seem to believe that if we could just get Obama out of office or if we could just reform our economic system that our problems as a nation would be solved, but that is simply not true. Our problems run much deeper than that. The societal decay that is plaguing our country is very deep and it is everywhere. We are a nation that is full of people that do not care about others and that just want to do what is right in their own eyes.

We hold ourselves out to the rest of the world as "the greatest nation on earth" and an example that everyone else should follow, and yet our own house is rotting all around us. The words "crazy", "insane" and "deluded" are not nearly strong enough to describe our frame of mind as a country. America has become a sad, delusional old man that can't even think straight anymore. The evidence of our mental illness is everywhere.

The following are 20 signs that we are witnessing the complete collapse of common sense in America....

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: We Are All Conspiracy Theorists Now: The Mainstreaming of 9/11 Truth

Forumsweek cover
© Forumsweek
"Our leaders do not control the tides of history -- they are just surfing them. They are doing their best to keep on top of them. They do not make the tides -- the tides of history come from a million different vectors: our advancing technology, our advancing worldview. These are the things that actually make a difference to the flow of history, and our leaders try to sit on top of it, and perhaps try to give the impression that they are controlling it, but history's history. Time and tide -- they don't pay much attention to any human leader." - Alan Moore. This is quote is from Professor Sean Carney's essay, "The Tides of History: Alan Moore's Historiographic Vision."

Although 9/11 truth is still a red line in mainstream Western political discourse, the boundaries of discussion about the attacks are harder to enforce in the global alternative media, whose positive influence on public debate is rapidly expanding.

The global 9/11 truth and justice movement is not going away because it is based in reality and history. One of these days, it will become politically safe for mainstream organizations, journalists, and politicians to demand a new international investigation into the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is one of the organizations that is leading the charge in educating the global public about the scientific evidence behind the 9/11 truth and accountability movement. Its founder Richard Gage is currently on a lecture tour in Canada. He was recently interviewed by Victoria Handysides of Canada's Here Magazine. Here is an excerpt from her article called, "Truther disputes 9-11 attack":

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Sarkozy's Coup d'État: Mohamed Merah was French Intelligence Asset

French President Nicolas Sarkozy stands by soldiers
© AP Photo/Jacques BrinonFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy stands by soldiers carrying a coffin during a ceremony honoring the three soldiers killed by a suspect identified as Mohammad Merah.
Press reports and comments by top intelligence officials suggest that Mohamed Merah, the alleged gunman who killed seven people including three Jewish schoolchildren in a nine-day shooting spree in Toulouse, was a French intelligence asset.

These revelations raise questions about French intelligence's failure to stop Merah, and whether this failure was dictated by political considerations. The investigation of Merah was led by the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI), run by Bernard Squarcini - a close associate of incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy, previously running far behind Socialist Party (PS) candidate François Hollande in next month's presidential elections, has benefited from massive media coverage after the attacks and now is catching up to Hollande in polls.

In a March 23 Le Monde interview, Squarcini had confirmed that Merah had traveled extensively in the Middle East, even though his legal earnings were roughly at the minimum wage: "He spent time with his brother in Cairo after having traveled in the Near East: Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and even Israel. ... Then he went to Afghanistan via Tajikistan. He took unusual routes and did not appear on our radars, nor those of French, American, or local foreign intelligence services."

Squarcini apparently aimed to bolster the official explanation for Merah's ability to escape police: he was an undetectable "self-radicalized lone wolf." This story is being shattered by revelations that French intelligence agencies were apparently in close contact with Merah, trying to develop him as an informant inside Islamist networks.

Comment: Just as the FBI Organizes Terror Plots in the US, so the French intelligence apparatus is manipulating public opinion to favour Sarkozy's Backers.


Attention

Best of the Web: 9/11 Truth, Inner Consciousness and the "Public Mind"

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© politifake.org
With few exceptions the news that will shape public discourse is subject to a de facto censorial process of powerful government and corporate elites beyond accountability to the public. It is here that Sigmund Freud's notion of repression is especially helpful for assessing the decrepit state of media and public discourse in the United States. In Freud's view, one's collective life experiences are registered in the subconscious, with those particularly disturbing or socially impermissible experiences being involuntarily suppressed, only later to emerge as neuroses. Whereas suppression is conscious and voluntary, repression takes place apart from individual volition.

With opinion polls indicating at least half of the public distrusting the official account of September 11th, the foremost basis for the "war on terror", no public event has been more repressed in public consciousness via the mass media than 9/11. The enduring usefulness of Freud's theory is suggested in repeated manifestations of the repressed episode to haunt the public mind for which a surrogate reality has been crafted.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: The CIA's War On Human Consciousness

"From 1950 to 1962, the C.I.A. ran a massive research project, a veritable Manhattan Project of the mind, spending over $1 billion a year to crack the code of human consciousness, from both mass persuasion and the use of coercion in individual interrogation." - Professor Alfred McCoy, author of A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. This quote is from Prof. McCoy's interview with Democracy Now on February 17, 2006.
"Our brain is domineering when it comes to coping with reality. We sometimes see things not as they really are, sometimes invent categories that do not exist and sometimes fail to see things that are really there. There are people who have never seen or heard of an aircraft and will not be able to imagine it and a real airplane overhead will be distorted in their minds, creating alternative realities.

To recognize that what we call reality is only a consensus reality (only what we have agreed to call reality) is to recognize that we can perceive only what we can conceive. Captain Cook's ship was invisible to the Tahitians because they could not conceive of such a vessel. Joseph Pearce explains this best: "Man's mind mirrors a universe that mirrors man's mind."" - Bharati Sarkar, "Consciousness - Our third eye."
"Remember: those who are at the top of the heap will always take whatever steps are necessary to maintain the status quo. It is obvious that they cannot completely control the propagation of the information. So, how do they "keep secrets?" They don't. Everything is right out there in the public domain. Anybody who wants to can do the research we have done and come to the realizations we have in this process. BUT, not everyone is able to withstand the OTHER weapon of Mass Control: the fear of being labeled a "suspected or potential supporter" in a world where the Grand Inquisitor has total control over life and death." - Laura Knight-Jadczyk, "Mass Mind Control?"
Human Consciousness
© The ExcavatorThe T.V. Kills Your Brain With The CIA's Mass Mind Control Gun.
Before the CIA and NSA decided it was a good idea to invade your home without your knowledge to spy on you with advanced appliances, smart phones, computers, and other electronics, they invaded your mind to manipulate your understanding of reality and history, especially of epochal events like the JFK assassination and the 9/11 attacks.

It is disturbing to know that the CIA has been inside the public mind for half a century, and is now using its unthinkable technological capabilities to invade private homes to document and categorize each individual's behavioural patterns, lifestyle choices, information preferences, and daily habits.

Of course, state surveillance spooks cannot track and data-mine every space of information in this vast social ocean that we call the virtual world. But, that problem can be managed because the sharks of the state don't need to be aware of the entire environment to strike fear in the fishes and other creatures. Just the fact that sharks are buzzing around is enough to make any thinking fish freeze and adapt his thoughts, views, opinions, and patterns in order to placate the sharks' appetite for domination and total control.

2 + 2 = 4

Best of the Web: Sarkozy & Co, How Many Children Did You Kill This Night ?

Michel Collon, investigative reporter, in Libya shows what "collateral damage". really means...


Comment: How soon we forget.

For more information on the current Sarko situation, see these Sott articles:

Toulouse Attacks: The Official Story of the Death of Mohamed Merah is a Lie

Sarkozy's Backers To Use Toulouse Attacks To Steal French Election - UPDATE!

French Teacher Urges Minute's Silence For Murdered Patsy


2 + 2 = 4

Best of the Web: Not Since Hitler! Children 'Forced to Shout Long Live Sarkozy!'

The French president has caused an outcry after dozens of infant school children were forced to chant 'Long Live Sarkozy!' when he visited their school.

Parents complained about the youngsters being used as 'propaganda tools' after they were made to treat Nicolas Sarkozy as a hero, waving Tricolour flags and constantly shouting his name.

Some were even kissed by Mr Sarkozy, who is hugely unpopular and widely expected to lose the presidential election being held in France in the Spring.

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© Agency France Presse/Getty ImagesControversy: Nicolas Sarkozy (centre) with Mayor of Lavaur Bernard Carayon (second left) at a visit to a day-care centre in Lavaur. At a nearby infant school children were forced to chant 'Long Live Sarkozy' when he visited.

Comment: Seems Sarko is quite comfortable with manipulating any situation to further his agenda. After pulling off an American Style False Flag Attack in Toulouse, he must be feeling pretty comfortable; only Hitler went this far.

For more information, see these Exclusive Sott articles:

Toulouse Attacks: The Official Story of the Death of Mohamed Merah is a Lie

Sarkozy's Backers To Use Toulouse Attacks To Steal French Election - UPDATE!

Unfortunately it seems that some have bought into these lies and woe to anyone who dares to speak out as shown in this recent article:

French Teacher Urges Minute's Silence For Murdered Patsy

As always in these situations, the question of "Who benefits?" must be asked. For some, it would seem that the ends always justifies the means.


Cult

Flashback Best of the Web: Operation Sarkozy: How the CIA placed one of its agents in the presidency of the French Republic

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One should judge Nicolas Sarkozy according to his actions, and not according to his personality. Yet when his doings surprise even his own constituents, it is legitimate to take a detailed look at his biography and question the bonds that brought him to power. Thierry Meyssan has decided to write the truth about the French Republic's president background. All the information included in this article is provable, except for two assertions signalled by the author who alone takes full responsibility.
Tired of the overextended presidencies of François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, the French elected Nicolas Sarkozy counting on his energy to revitalize their country. They were hoping for a break with years of no-change and ideologies of the past. What they got instead was a break with the very principles which founded the French nation, and have been shocked by this "hyper-president", seizing every day a new dossier, attracting towards him the right and the left wing, and tearing apart all points of reference to the point of creating total confusion.

Like children who have just made a boo-boo, the French are too busy trying to find excuses for themselves to admit the magnitude of the damages and of their naiveté, and they refuse all the more to see who Nicolas Sarkozy really is, that they realize they should have known since a long time who he was.

Comment: So these are just some of the pathological characters responsible for directing France's policies towards wars for imperial plunder, wars for Israel and the malignant spread of superstition and fear throughout France and beyond.

Did you notice that Sarkozy has once before falsely arrested someone for crimes carried out by an assassin?

This snake has faked his way to the top, of which the recent CIA-Mossad production is just the latest drama in this sordid tale. Already his 'Departement du contrôle de la pensée' AKA MIVILUDES enforces thought control in France, with a view to exporting it abroad. Sarkozy now wants to "criminally punish ideological indoctrination and apologists for terrorism"? He need look no further than his minions and masters.
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence

There exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult -- the cult of intelligence. Its holy men are the clandestine professionals of the Central Intelligence Agency. Its patrons and protectors are the highest officials of the federal government. Its membership, extending far beyond governmental circles, reaches into the power centers of industry, commerce, finance, and labor. Its friends are many in the areas of important public influence -- the academic world and the communications media. The cult of intelligence is a secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy. The purpose of the cult is to further the foreign policies of the U.S. government by covert and usually illegal means, while at the same time containing the spread of its avowed enemy, communism. Traditionally, the cult's hope has been to foster a world order in which America would reign supreme, the unchallenged international leader. Today, however, that dream stands tarnished by time and frequent failures. Thus, the cult's objectives are now less grandiose, but no less disturbing. It seeks largely to advance America's self-appointed role as the dominant arbiter of social, economic, and political change in the awakening regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And its worldwide war against communism has to some extent been reduced to a covert struggle to maintain a self-serving stability in the Third World, using whatever clandestine methods are available.



Bad Guys

Best of the Web: French President Sarkozy Sees Opportunity for Censorship, Seizes It

problem, reaction, solution graphic
© n/a
In the wake of a horrific rampage, in which Mohamed Merah (now dead after a 32-hour standoff with police) reportedly murdered three French soldiers, three young Jewish schoolchildren, and a rabbi, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has begun calling for criminal penalties for citizens who visit web sites that advocate for terror or hate. "From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally punished," Sarkozy was reported as saying.

Apart from the obvious flaws in Sarkozy's plan--users, can, of course, use anonymizing tools to view the material or simply access it from a variety of locations to avoid appearing as "habitual" viewers--there are numerous other reasons to be concerned about criminalizing access to information.

First, there's no guarantee that criminalizing access to hate speech or terrorist content will end the very real problems of hate crime and terrorism. Extremist violence didn't start with the Internet and it won't end with it, either.

Second, who defines "hate speech"? In France, that definition includes Holocaust denial, which in the past resulted in Yahoo! discontinuing auctions of Nazi memoribilia (the collectors of which are not, by any stretch, all sympathizers). And negative comments about France's Muslim community have also resulted in criminal penalties, most notably in the case of actress Brigitte Bardot, who has been convicted five times for "inciting racial hatred." While Holocaust denial and comments about Muslims such as those made by Bardot may be deplorable, they should not be criminal.

Finally, while Sarkozy is not--yet--calling for websites to be blocked, it wouldn't be a stretch; after all, France already offers mechanisms for blocking child pornography and "incitement to terrorism and racial hatred." If Sarkozy were to decide censorship is the answer, one major risk would be overblocking: there's nary a country in the world that censors the Internet without collateral damage (in Australia, for example, testing on a would-be censorship regime found the site of a dentist blocked, among others).

EFF has serious concerns about the implications of Sarkozy's comments. When a democratic country such as France decides to censor or criminalize speech, it is not just the French that suffer, but the world, as authoritarian regimes are given easy justification for their own censorship. We urge French authorities to judge crime on action, not expression.