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The spectre of 1932: How a loss of faith in politicians and democracy could make 2012 the most frightening year in living memory

Dominic Sandbrook
The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:13 UTC
The dawn of a new year is usually a time of hope and ambition, of dreams for the future and thoughts of a better life. But it is a long time since many of us looked forward to the new year with such anxiety, even dread.

Here in Britain, many economists believe that by the end of 2012 we could well have slipped into a second devastating recession. The Coalition remains delicately poised; it would take only one or two resignations to provoke a wider schism and a general election.

But the real dangers lie overseas. In the Middle East, the excitement of the Arab Spring has long since curdled into sectarian tension and fears of Islamic fundamentalism. And with so many of the world's oil supplies concentrated in the Persian Gulf, British families will be keeping an anxious eye on events in the Arab world.
Image
© unknown
The Battle of Cable Street: Mosley's fascists tried to march through the Jewish East End, a scene that could be repeated
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Radar

Positioning for War With Iran?

Madison Ruppert
End The Lie
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:00 UTC
USS John C. Stennis
© US Navy
The United States Navy's USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74)
There are some distinct geopolitical rumblings occurring in the general region surrounding Iran that is quite concerning for someone like myself and I'm sure Tehran as well.

This includes a major sale of cutting-edge F-15SA fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, Iran spotting the John C. Stennis aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz, a sale of advanced missile interceptor systems to the United Arab Emirates, warnings from the Russian envoy to the United Nations of global destabilization in 2012 and new awards for Raytheon for the AESA radar system and contracts for US/NATO missile systems.

After Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the West continued to push for sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the United States' Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain countered with similar saber-rattling.

The Iranian navy chief, Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, stated that closing the Strait of Hormuz would be "easier than drinking a glass of water."
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Gear

The Lies of War: Leaving Iraq, Remembering Vietnam

Jack Random
Information Clearing House
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:08 UTC
WW 2 soldiers
© n/a
"You are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries - from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced down fascism and communism, to you - men and women who fought for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to those who attacked us on 9/11.

The most important lesson that we can take from you is not about military strategy - - it's a lesson about our national character. Because of you, we are ending these wars in a way that will make America stronger and the world more secure."

- President Barack Obama, Address to Troops at Fort Bragg, December 14, 2011
The lies of war are forgotten as easily and readily as the wrappings of Christmas or the resolutions of a new year. Like a child still in diapers, the lessons of war must be learned again and again until finally they are taken to heart.
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Footprints

270,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto

Danielle Magnuson
growswitch.com
Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:19 UTC
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© organicconsumers.org
More than 270,000 organic farmers are taking on corporate agriculture giant Monsanto in a lawsuit filed March 30. Led by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, the family farmers are fighting for the right to keep a portion of the world food supply organic - and preemptively protecting themselves from accusations of stealing genetically modified seeds that drift on to their pristine crop fields.

Consumers are powerful. For more than a decade, a cultural shift has seen shoppers renounce the faster-fatter-bigger-cheaper mindset of factory farms, exposéd in the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. From heirloom tomatoes to heritage chickens, we want our food slow, sustainable, and local - healthy for the earth, healthy for animals, and healthy for our bodies.
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Heart - Black

US, Iowa: In Des Moines Newt Gingrich Cries When Asked About His Mom

Jason Clayworth
The Desmoines Register
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:55 UTC
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© David Purdy/The Des Moines Register
Newt Gingrich will answer Iowa moms’ questions during a CafeMom.com campaign stop at Java Joe’s in Des Moines on Friday, December. 30, 2011.
Newt Gingrich today wiped away tears and was handed a tissue by an audience member in Des Moines when he became emotional onstage while talking about his mother.

"I get teary eyed every time we sing Christmas carols," Gingrich said before his speech was overcome with emotion at an event hosted at Java Joe's Coffee in Des Moines by CafeMom.com, a secular, bipartisan organization.

The crowd - roughly 100 people in a jam packed room - expressed a compassionate sigh of emotion.

He explained that his mother loved singing in the choir and when he was very young she made him sing in the choir.

He then told the crowd that he remembers his mother as happy, enjoying life and her friends but noted that late in her life she was in a long-term care facility and battled with a bipolar disorder.
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Star of David

The Sad, Sad World of Israel's Big-Time Liars

Stuart Littlewood
Redress
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:42 UTC
us,israel,flag
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes" (attributed to Mark Twain)
Meet another of Israel's undesirables, Yuli Edelstein.

He is the regime's Propaganda Minister (or to be more precise, Minister for Disinformation and Diaspora) and he runs the biggest lie machine in the world.

His task is to make the Israel "brand" smell sweeter. The reason it stinks, of course, is the regime's putrid morals and murderous conduct, which the lie machine works overtime to try to justify and excuse. It will always fail. You cannot build a decent brand image on lies, obnoxious behaviour and a massive attitude problem.

The racist squatter minister

Edelstein hit the headlines over Christmas when he told everybody that the Arabs are "a deplorable nation". He was speaking at a public diplomacy event (incredible as it may seem!) at Yor Yehuda, which I'm told means "light of Juda".

He said that "as long as the Arab nation continues to be a deplorable nation, which continues investing in infrastructure for terrorism, education to hate and welfare for the families of shaheeds [martyrs], there will be no peace."

The reporter asked Edelstein's office if the minister was aware that there are some 80 [sic - in fact, the population of the Arab world is about 280 million, excluding the diaspora] ] million Arabs in the world, from Sudan to Syria. A spokesman replied: "Yes, there are - and the minister meant them all."
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Bacon

New Zealand Law Mirrors US and Canada, Fake Food Safety Bills

Marti Oakley
The PPJ Gazette
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:51 UTC
food market
It comes as no surprise that the fake food safety bill passed here in the US in what was clearly a staged event that required the complicity of the other 99 Senators who voluntarily vacated the US Senate chamber to allow "Dirty Harry" to cast the only vote as "unanimous" is being mirrored, replicated and implemented in many other countries. Canada passed its C-36 bill shortly after "Dirty Harry" completed his task here in the US, and now it appears New Zealand food rights are on the chopping block too.

What are the chances that New Zealand Retailers Association would come up with what appears to be a line of propaganda nearly identical to the crap foisted on the American public as their rights to produce and consume foods of their choice were attacked relentlessly by Big AG and the bio-pirates along with other corporate interests who stand to profit immensely at the expense of the public? These are the same interested party's and stakeholders who rammed C-36 through Canada's parliament.

And here we see the same limp arguments coming out of New Zealand, promoted by yet another retailers association intent on convincing New Zealanders that their food supply and production, needs "modernization". Modernization with regards to food can be easily defined as centralization of food production and supply to provide market monopolies to multi-national corporations. The greatest threat to food supply chains around the world is industrialized food which provides neither safe food, nor nutritious food. Progress on the food bill:
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Eye 1

Want to Get "Noticed" by US Government Spies? Just Tweet the Words 'drill' or 'recovery'!!!

Rob Waugh
The Daily Mail
Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:59 UTC
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The Department for Homeland Security announced plans to scan social networks for keywords such as 'human to animal', 'outbreak', 'strain' and 'drill', and then identify users, claims an online privacy group
  • Fake profiles used by Department of Homeland Security, says privacy group
  • List of keywords flags 'danger' signal
  • DHS may attempt to identify users from their accounts
  • Keywords include 'virus', 'drill' and 'illegal immigrant'
The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them.

Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, according to an online privacy group.

The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'.
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Bad Guys

Mossad hints nuclear Iran not existential threat to Israel: report


The Daily Star
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:37 UTC
The chief of Mossad has reportedly hinted that a nuclear-armed Iran does not necessarily pose an existential threat to the Jewish state, Hareetz said Thursday.

The newspaper quoted Israeli ambassadors at a briefing by Mossad's director Tamir Pardo Tuesday as suggesting that should the Islamic Republic attain nuclear-weapons capability, this would not necessarily pose an existential threat to Israel.

"What is the significance of the term existential threat? Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely. But if one said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an existential threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop and go home. That's not the situation. The term existential threat is used too freely," one of the ambassadors, who spoke to the Israeli newspapers, quoted Pardo as saying.
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Eye 1

Beware Corporate Psychopaths - They Are Still Occupying Positions of Power

Brian Basham
Independent.co.uk
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:37 UTC
Image
© News.com.au
Over the years I've met my fair share of monsters - rogue individuals, for the most part. But as regulation in the UK and the US has loosened its restraints, the monsters have proliferated.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled "The Corporate Psychopaths: Theory of the Global Financial Crisis", Clive R Boddy identifies these people as psychopaths.

"They are," he says, "simply the 1 per cent of people who have no conscience or empathy." And he argues: "Psychopaths, rising to key senior positions within modern financial corporations, where they are able to influence the moral climate of the whole organisation and yield considerable power, have largely caused the [banking] crisis'.


Comment: The number may be as high as 6 percent of the world population.


Comment: For more information on psychopaths, see these Sott links:

Ponerology 101: Snakes in Suits

Not All Psychopaths Are Criminal

Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes

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