Puppet MastersS


Stock Down

Beyond basket case: Statistics tell the tale of irreplaceable losses for the Ukrainian economy

Olga Shelkova
Slavyangrad.org
Tue, 09 Sep 2014 04:02 UTC
Ukrainian workers
© Unknown
The published results by the Goskomstat (Federal Bureau of Statistics) of changes to the Ukrainian economy during the first half of 2014 can be shocking. But the most important figures in the situation at hand are not the fact that the GDP fell 4.5% , nor even that the gross domestic product is predicted to fall -7% by the end of the year, but the irreplaceable losses concealed by these frigid statistics - the losses that will destroy the actual possibility of a Ukrainian economic recovery in the future.

********

We are speaking primarily about the collapse of the industrial sector, which is accelerating. During the period from January to June, the volumes of industrial production shrank by 5.8%, while July alone brought that sector down by another 12%. The most profound damage was suffered by the coal sector (-28.7%), the automobile production (-23.8%), the chemical manufacture (-22.2%), the oil refining sector (-15.9%), the rubber industry (-13.8%), metallurgy (-12.3%), and furniture production (-12.5%). Clutched by war, the Lugansk and Donetsk regions have lost 56% and 28.5%, respectively, of their industrial potential. The crisis of the component supply from Donbass in turn led to the collapse of the industrial giant of Zaporozhie (ZAZ). This enterprise lowered its production volume by 98.9%, and by October will probably stop all manufacturing, leaving 21,000 workers out of the street.

The industrial potential was also dented by the fall in exports to Russia, which ranged from 25% to 70% over the different sectors. For example, automobile production lost 40% of all exports, metallurgy - 32.6%, agricultural - 37%.

It must be noted that these horrific statistical indicators include the period during which Ukraine had a legitimate government, and economic relationships with Russia were actively developed. With the complete severance of economic ties with the Russian Federation by the Kiev Junta, the pace of industrial collapse will only accelerate.

Comment: See also:

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Target

Exploring the insidious power of propaganda

Karel van Wolferen
The Unz Review
Thu, 04 Sep 2014 02:49 UTC
Image
© Unknown
To study the effects of political propaganda in what used to be called the 'free world' there could hardly be a better time than now. We are living through an instance of insidious propaganda that has clean contours. It fills a common need. In a period of large-scale slaughter and other man-made disaster the morally conscious person can do with some clear categories of good and bad, desirable and despicable. Political certainty, in other words. You can even sell wars using 'moral clarity' as a sales pitch, as happened with Iraq and Afghanistan.


Comment: To understand the distinction between those susceptible to propaganda and those that aren't, see: Moral Endo-skeletons and Exo-skeletons: A Perspective on America's Cultural Divide and Current Crisis


Good-evil classification is easy enough when we have imprisoned journalists decapitated by jihadis. Those who "will do something about that" are automatically placed in the 'good guys' category. But there is a problem of murkiness in this sample. Syria's Assad has been listed for years at the top of the bad guy list, and yet he appears to be changing into something of an ally of those who are intent now on setting things straight. On top of which, the fact that the radical Islamists out of which ISIS emerged were funded and encouraged by the United States and its Arab allies is not a deep secret, and the fact that none of this mayhem would now exist were it not for the sorcerer's apprentice effect of the decapitation of the Iraqi state in 2003 has been pretty much agreed on.


Comment: See: Orwell's Oceania and the present situation

In Orwell's novel, the way the Oceanian government regularly swaps allies for enemies highlights its power to control the thoughts of its citizens. The most brainwashed are those within the intellectual class who are responsible for rationalizing the government's complete reversals to the general public.

The Ukraine sample is more clear-cut. Here we have fighters for democracy and other Western values in Kiev vs a character who is throwing a spanner in the works, who does not respect the sovereignty of neighbors, and whose intransigence does not lessen, no matter what sanctions you throw at him.
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War Whore

Business as usual: Arms firms implicated in illegal US drone strikes 'bought influence' at NATO summit


RT
Tue, 09 Sep 2014 03:43 UTC
NATO leaders in Wales
© Reuters/Rebecca NadenNATO leaders watch a fly-past by the Red Arrows during the NATO summit at the Celtic Manor resort, near Newport, in Wales September 5, 2014.
Arms firms that provide core military components for drones deployed by the US to conduct covert strikes in violation of international law bought access to NATO's summit in Wales last week, a British human rights charity says.

The defense companies concerned doled out up to £300,000 to 'exhibit' their military wares at the conference in Newport. Among the firms present were General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and MBDA, according to a British government press release.

General Dynamics manufacture Hellfire missiles utilized in most US drone strikes, while Raytheon make the targeting system for the Reaper drone deployed by the CIA and other actors to conduct strikes across the globe. Lockheed Martin operates as a contractor to provide select support services for both the Reaper and Predator, and MBDA is a European company that manufactures the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Brimstone - a variant of the Hellfire missile.

US drone strikes have roused widespread international criticism. Critics emphasize attacks carried out in foreign states with which the US is not at war are in violation of international and US law. This is particularly evident in the case of Yemen and Pakistan, they caution.


Comment: The military-industrial complex does not miss out on a chance to stoke the fires of war, so as to profit from the unfolding suffering. The NATO leaders are mere puppets, who do as they are told, even when it defies all human logic.

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Bizarro Earth

Orwell's Oceania and the present situation

Joe Emersberger
telesurtv.net
Fri, 05 Sep 2014 02:14 UTC
Image
© Unknown
We don't need to urgently debate how to defeat ISIS any more than "we" ever had to urgently debate how to depose Assad, Gadaffi, Hussein or any other former ally of the West.

The following passage is from George Orwell's 1984:
"At one rally, the speaker is forced to change his speech halfway through to point out that Oceania is not, and has never been, at war with Eurasia. Rather, the speaker says, Oceania is, and always has been, at war with Eastasia. The people become embarrassed about carrying the anti-Eurasia signs and blame Emmanuel Goldstein's agents for sabotaging them. Nevertheless, they exhibit full-fledged hatred for Eastasia."
In Orwell's novel, the way the Oceanian government regularly swaps allies for enemies highlights its power to control the thoughts of its citizens. The most brainwashed are those within the intellectual class who are responsible for rationalizing the government's complete reversals to the general public.

For the past few years, Western pundits were fiercely debating how to bring down Assad's dictatorship in Syria. Should "we" bomb Syria or merely ramp up military aid to the "moderate" rebels? The propaganda was so intense that even some supposedly "independent" outlets took to the task of labeling those who dissented, or simply expressed perfectly rational doubts, as "useful idiots" or apologists for Assad.
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Eiffel Tower

National Front party leader calls to dissolve France's lower house - 'the only responsible decision'


RT
Mon, 08 Sep 2014 11:39 UTC
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© Reuters/Philippe WojazerFrance's far right National Front political party leader Marine Le Pen.
France is in a "catastrophic situation" and the newly reshuffled cabinet is a "circus," National Front party leader Marine Le Pen said on Sunday, urging President Hollande to dissolve the National Assembly.

Speaking to French media, the head of France's right-wing National Front likened the recent reshuffle of Prime Minister Manuel Valls' cabinet to an "illusionist performance," calling it a "circus."

Le Pen suggested that French President Francois Hollande should dissolve the National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament. She added that it was "more than necessary" and "the only responsible decision" Hollande would make since he became head of state five years ago.

"Francois Hollande tries to save time, but the damage is too deep," Le Pen argued.

In August, Hollande asked Valls to form a new government following tensions within his cabinet over the country's economic policy.
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Top Secret

U.S. memo redactions leave doubts on Stellar Wind data surveillance program

Charlie Savage
The New York Times
Sat, 06 Sep 2014 00:00 UTC
eyeball in keyhole
© www.i4u.comThrough a peephole darkly.
The Justice Department has released a newly declassified version of a May 2004 legal memo approving the National Security Agency's Stellar Wind program, a set of warrantless surveillance and data collection activities that President George W. Bush secretly authorized after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But questions about the program remain.

A more heavily redacted version of the memo had been released in 2011 as part of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The new version includes previously censored references to the existence of the data collection related to Americans' phone calls and emails.

The Obama administration voluntarily reprocessed the memo from Jack Goldsmith, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, in light of the fact that it had declassified the existence of the bulk phone and email data programs last year after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor.
The fuller release adds to the public record of an important historical episode. However, the government continued to redact crucial portions of the memo that would answer a primary remaining question about the history of Stellar Wind: What prompted the Justice Department to conclude in early 2004 that one aspect of the program, which collected records about Americans' emails in bulk, was illegal - even though it permitted other aspects, like warrantless wiretapping and the bulk collection of Americans' phone records, to continue?
"They have continued to keep redacted something very significant," said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U.

Comment:
Excerpts from Memorandum for the Attorney General, May 6, 2004
Review of the Legality of the STELLAR WIND Program
The following excerpts begin page 102

It is thus significant for the reasonableness of the STELLAR WIND program that the President has established a system under which the surveillance is authorized only for a limited period, typically for 30 to 45 days. This ensures that the justification for the program is regularly reexamined. Indeed, each reauthorization is accompanied by a fresh reassessment of the current threat posed by al Qaeda.
(no wonder there were so many terrorist "plots" and amber alerts...deadlines!)

The Supreme Court has squarely determined that an individual has no Fourth Amendment protected "legitimate expectation of privacy regarding the numbers he dialed on his phone."...[T]elephone subscribers know that they must convey the numbers they wish to call to the telephone company in order for the company to complete the call for them. In addition, subscribers know that the telephone company can and usually does record such numbers for billing purposes. As a result, the Court concluded that subscribers cannot claim "any general expectation that the numbers they dial will remain secret."
(but phone companies aren't going to put you on a "no-fly" list!)

E-mail users have no subjective expectation of privacy in e-mail meta data information. Just like the numbers that a caller dials on a telephone, the addressing information on all e-mail is freely shared with an e-mail service provider to enable the delivery of the message. The user fully knows that he must share that information to have his mail delivered. Second, even if a user could somehow claim a subjective expectation of privacy in e·maiI meta data, that is not an expectation "that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.'"
(so by magic, they know what society deems reasonable - and what if it is the opposite?)

Just as telephone users who "voluntarily conveys" information to the phone company "in the ordinary course" of making a call "assume the risk" that this information will be passed on to the government or others, so too do e-mail users assume the risk that the addressing information on their e-mails may be shared. Thus, such addressing information is simply not protected by the Fourth Amendment.
(it wouldn't be a risk if the government didn't want it)

[Regarding] regular letters in the U.S. mail. "[S]enders knowingly expose the outsides of the mail to postal employees and others," and therefore have "no reasonable expectation that such information will remain unobserved..."
(postal employees are extremely unlikely to take out a warrant for your arrest!)

We conclude that, notwithstanding the prohibitions of FISA and title 18, under the current circumstances of the ongoing armed conflict with al Qaeda and in light of the broad authority conferred in the Congressional Authorization, the President, as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive, has legal authority to authorize the NSA to conduct the signals-intelligence activities described above; that the activities, to the extent they are searches subject to the Fourth Amendment, comport with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment; and thus that the operation of the STELLAR WIND program as described above is lawful.
(legal circular thinking works every time!)

The document is worth checking out:
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/olc_stellar_wind_memo_-_may_2004.pdf

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Nuke

Top Russian expert: Ukraine joining NATO will lead to nuclear war


Presstv.ir
Mon, 08 Sep 2014 05:55 UTC
American scholar of Russian studies Stephen Cohen has said that if Ukraine joins NATO, it will lead to a "nuclear war."
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© PressTVAn empty desk at NATO summit.
"First of all, by NATO's own rules, Ukraine cannot join NATO, a country that does not control its own territory. In this case, Kiev controls less and less by the day. It's lost Crimea. It's losing the Donbas - I just described why - to the war," he said.

"Secondly, you have to meet certain economic, political and military criteria to join NATO. Ukraine meets none of them."

"Thirdly, and most importantly, Ukraine is linked to Russia not only in terms of being Russia's essential security zone, but it's linked conjugally, so to speak, intermarriage. There are millions, if not tens of millions, of Russian and Ukrainians married together. Put it in NATO, and you're going to put a barricade through millions of families. Russia will react militarily," the scholar explained.

Cohen also noted that the West is mainly to blame for the crisis in Ukraine, Washington's Blog reported.

Comment: 'Ukraine is just a pretext' for NATO to justify it's existence, says Russian Foreign Minister

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Candle

Israeli human rights organizations sez Israel is unwilling to investigate harm caused to Palestinians


Btselem.org
Thu, 04 Sep 2014 18:37 UTC
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© APAimages/Rex Features
B'Tselem and Yesh Din, the two leading Israeli human rights organizations in monitoring the investigations of offenses committed by security forces against Palestinians, find that the military law enforcement system is a complete failure. After examining the results of hundreds of investigations, the organizations assert that the existing investigation mechanism precludes serious investigations and is marred by severe structural flaws that render it incapable of conducting professional investigations.

The existing apparatus is incapable of investigating policy issues or breaches of law by senior ranking military officials, and fails to promote accountability among those responsible. The figures show that the Israeli authorities are unwilling to investigate human rights violations committed by security forces against Palestinians. The failure of the Government of Israel to implement the Turkel Commission's recommendations, more than a year and a half after their publication, only reinforces this conclusion.

B'Tselem has decided to break with its previous practice concerning military operations in Gaza and reject a request made by the Military Advocate for Operational Matters Lt. Col. Ronen Hirsch to provide the military with information regarding "irregular" incidents that occurred during Operation Protective Edge. B'Tselem has changed its approach due to the poor track record of MAG Corps investigations so far.
B'Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad said: "B'Tselem believes it is crucial to investigate the directives and orders given to the forces by top political officials and military commanders. This is especially true of suspicions regarding unlawful policies concerning attacks, which received prior approval from the MAG Corps. Common sense has it that a body cannot investigate itself. Yet, again, the military will be investigating its own conduct in Operation Protective Edge; again, these investigations will not be supervised by anyone outside the military. It would be a welcome change if, instead of the existing whitewashing mechanisms, an independent apparatus were established to investigate suspected violations of international humanitarian law. Were such a mechanism established with the real aim of uncovering the truth and taking measures against those responsible - we would do our best to professionally assist its work."

Comment: Over 90 percent of population of Israel love killing and so do the IDF. Why would any of them investigate harm (death and suffering) caused to the Palestinians? The citizens of Israel are just following their soulless psychopathic leader of Israel.

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Light Sabers

Best of the Web: Ukraine: Obama, NATO beg for more war - Putin endeavors to bring peace

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch.org
Sun, 07 Sep 2014 16:18 UTC
"In the implementing of their policies, our western partners - the United States first and foremost - prefer to be guided not by international law, but by force. They believe in their own 'exceptionalism', that they are allowed to decide on the fate of the world, and that they are always right."

- Russian President Vladimir Putin
"What did we do to deserve this? What did we do to deserve being bombed from planes, shot at from tanks, and have phosphorous bombs dropped on us? ....That we wanted to live the way we want, and speak our own language, and make friends with whom we want?"

- Alexander V. Zakharchenko, Chairman of The Council of Ministers of The Donetsk National Republic, The Vineyard of the Saker
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There is no way to overstate the significance of what has transpired in Ukraine in the last three weeks. What began as a murderous onslaught on the mainly Russian-speaking population of east Ukraine, has turned into a major triumph against a belligerent and expansionistic empire that has been repulsed by a scrappy, battle-hardened militia engaged in a conventional, land-based war. The conflict in east Ukraine is Obama's war; launched by Obama's junta government, executed by Obama's proxy army, and directed by Obama's advisors in Kiev. The driving force behind the war is Washington's ambitious pivot to Asia, a strategy that pits Russia against Europe to prevent further economic integration and to establish NATO forward-operating bases on Russia's western border. Despite the overheated rhetoric, the talk of a (NATO) "Rapid Reaction Force", and additional economic sanctions; the US plan to draw Ukraine into the western sphere of influence and weaken Russia in the process, is in tatters. And the reason it is in tatters is because a highly-motivated and adaptable militia has trounced Obama's troopers at every turn pushing the Ukrainian army to the brink of collapse. Check out this frontline update from The Saker:

Comment: Unfortunately, Putin is dealing with Kiev, U.S., EU, NATO - part of the global pathocracy. If you want to understand what is going on in Ukraine, study ponerology:
Lobaczewski titled his book Political Ponerology, reclaiming for the use of science a word that means, in religious studies, "the study of evil, the nature of evil, the origin of evil, and evil in relation to the Divine Government." It was this last subdivision of the definition that interested Lobaczewski, though his focus was on the study of evil in relation to what could be called normal human government inspired and motivated by conscience. Lobaczewski writes:

"In the author's opinion, Ponerology reveals itself to be a new branch of science born out of historical need and the most recent accomplishments of medicine and psychology. In light of objective naturalistic language, it studies the causal components and processes of the genesis of evil, regardless of the latter's social scope. We may attempt to analyze these ponerogenic processes which have given rise to human injustice, armed with proper knowledge, particularly in the area of psychopathology. Again and again, as the reader will discover, in such a study, we meet with the effects of pathological factors whose carriers are people characterized by some degree of various psychological deviations or defects.

Ponerology describes the genesis, existence, and spread of the macrosocial disease called evil. Its causes are traceable and can be repeatedly observed and analyzed. When humanity manages to incorporate this knowledge into its natural worldview, it will have defensive potential as yet unrealized. " (Lobaczewski)

Global Pathocracy, Authoritarian Followers and the Hope of the World


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Eye 2

Poking the bear: US, Ukraine launch joint maritime exercises in Black Sea


RT
Mon, 08 Sep 2014 13:34 UTC
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© Reuters/U.S. Navy/Tamekia L. PerdueThe guided-missile destroyer USS Ross
Ukrainian and American naval forces are taking part in joint maritime drills dubbed Sea Breeze 2014, which began on Monday in the northwestern part of the Black Sea and will last till September 10.

"Today in the north-west part of the Black Sea, we are beginning the joint Navy exercises of Ukraine and the US, known as 'Sea Breeze 2014'. The exercises will continue until September 10. The aim is to set up safety measures in areas dangerous to ships," Colonel Andrey Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine's National Security Council, told reporters as cited by AP.

The objective of the exercises is "an international operation on establishing and securing a maritime safety zone in a crisis area," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said earlier. The drills are part of a program for Kiev-Washington defense cooperation in 2014 and were approved by a presidential decree on March 25, it added.

Comment: For the historical context of the Ukrainian conflict check out this video:

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