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The youtube video of 12 year old Victoria Grant speaking at the Public Banking in America conference last month has gone viral, topping a million views on various websites.
Monetary reform - the contention that governments, not banks, should create and lend a nation's money - has rarely even made the news, so this is a first. Either the times they are a-changin', or Victoria managed to frame the message in a way that was so simple and clear that even a child could understand it.
© unknown
Rothschild's London-listed RIT Capital Partners (RCP.L) said on Wednesday it was buying the 37 percent stake from French group Societe Generale's (SOGN.PA) private banking arm for an undisclosed sum.
The transatlantic union brings together David Rockefeller, 96, and Jacob Rothschild, 76 - two family patriarchs whose personal relationship spans five decades.
Bradley Manning
The alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower, detained and abused for two years in prison, now on secret trial, defends all our freedoms
Little did I know when I was helping with the preparations for making public the historic leak "Collateral Murder" - the 2007 footage of a US Apache helicopter firing at and killing a group of people claimed to be insurgents, which included a Reuters journalist, released by WikiLeaks in 2010 - that the person possibly responsible for the courageous act of bringing the war crimes exposed in that video into the public domain, where it belonged, would end up in a military prison, even subjected to torture for months. Today marks two years of imprisonment of Private Bradley Manning. Two years out of his 24 years is a long time in military prison. His treatment has been highly controversial, every step of the way.
Following every bit of information available during the first few months of his ordeal made it clear that the US government was going to use Manning as a warning to anyone else who might feel compelled to report on war crimes, or any other crimes they witness from within the system. Blow the whistle, goes the warning, and you will be buried alive by the state, shredded by the same secrecy machine a whistleblower would try to expose.
It took nearly six weeks for George Zimmerman, the Florida man accused of killing the teenager, to be arrested and charged with second-degree murder after enormous pressure from the public.
Zimmerman - the captain of a Neighbourhood Watch group - pursued Trayvon because he said that he thought he was acting "suspicious" and "up to no good". And that is exactly the same excuse used by President Barack Obama as he justifies ticking off names on a "kill list" for drone attacks.
While Obama called on federal, state and local authorities to work together as part of the investigation into the killing of Trayvon, just who is going to investigate the President for his extra-judicial killings? He is a man out of control, and while his predecessor justified his actions with a catch-all "God told me to do it", this president thinks he is God, making decisions about who should live and who should die.
Virtually every time the U.S. fires a missile from a drone and ends the lives of Muslims, American media outlets dutifully trumpet in headlines that the dead were "militants" - even though those media outlets literally do not have the slightest idea of who was actually killed. They simply cite always-unnamed "officials" claiming that the dead were "militants." It's the most obvious and inexcusable form of rank propaganda: media outlets continuously propagating a vital claim without having the slightest idea if it's true.
This practice continues even though key Obama officials have been caught lying, a term used advisedly, about how many civilians they're killing. I've written and said many times before that in American media discourse, the definition of "militant" is any human being whose life is extinguished when an American missile or bomb detonates (that term was even used when Anwar Awlaki's 16-year-old American son, Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen two weeks after a drone killed his father, even though nobody claims the teenager was anything but completely innocent: "Another U.S. Drone Strike Kills Militants in Yemen").
© Belle Mellor
More than a decade after George W Bush launched it, the "war on terror" was supposed to be winding down. US military occupation of Iraq has ended and Nato is looking for a way out of Afghanistan, even as the carnage continues. But another war - the undeclared drone war that has already killed thousands - is now being relentlessly escalated.
From Pakistan to Somalia, CIA-controlled pilotless aircraft rain down Hellfire missiles on an ever-expanding hit list of terrorist suspects - they have already killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians in the process.
At least 15 drone strikes have been launched in Yemen this month, as many as in the whole of the past decade, killing dozens; while in Pakistan, a string of US attacks has been launched against supposed "militant" targets in the past week, incinerating up to 35 people and hitting a mosque and a bakery.
In an article published in The Telegraph, the author cleverly uses a quote from a Deputy Director at Human Rights Watch making a general statement about the use of rape in detention facilities in order to humiliate, degrade and instill fear. However, he makes no direct reference to Syria, though the article clearly attempts to draw that abstract connection. In fact, as one reads further, the claims of rape and torture at the hands of Syrian security forces come from "activists" (the usual anonymous term applied to any quotable voice parroting the Western talking points regarding Assad and the regime) who have fled Syria. In fact, the so-called activists are, in many cases, wanted terrorists who have fled Syria not in fear of persecution but for fear of being brought to justice for their crimes.
The full text of the Press Conference in which the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Al-Ja'afari denounced "the tsunami of lies that were said a few minutes ago by some members of the Council". - Silvia Cattori
Western media has gone into overdrive to force the case for NATO bombardment of Syria
As the window of opportunity closes for the West to exploit the bloodshed at Houla, the Western media is increasingly backpedaling, retracting, and being caught in a crossfire of their own lies and propagandizing. BBC was caught initially using years' old photos from Iraq for their Houla coverage, while papers and networks across the board have had to adjust their narratives entirely as each new piece of verified evidence emerges.
What is known is that Syrian troops were engaged with armed militants of the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) in and around Houla. Syrian troops, as they have been doing throughout the conflict, were using artillery and tanks to target heavily fortified rebel positions from a distance. During or shortly after this exchange, militants began entering homes and killing families with knives and small arms fire. The FSA and Syrian opposition claim the militants were pro-government militias while the government claims they were foreign-backed Al Qaeda terrorists, known to be operating throughout the country. What they weren't, by all accounts, were Syrian troops.
Comment: They did the same thing in Iran in 2009 when they shot dead Neda Soltani and flashed the wrong image of her around the world:
Sickening Hypocrisy: the CIA's Dirty War in Iran
Caught red-handed
The UN according to Associated Press, has stated that, "most of the 108 victims of a massacre in [Houla] Syria last week were shot at close range, some of them women, children and entire families gunned down in their own homes." The UN has also stated that militants, not Syrian soldiers, were responsible for the massacre. The report cites "witness accounts" claiming the militants were "pro-government thugs known as shabiha," while the Syrian government has claimed the militants were foreign-backed armed terrorists.
This stands in stark contrast to the original narrative the US, UK, France and other NATO members have used to accuse the Syrian government for the atrocities, and even as the basis to expel Syrian diplomats. As stated by UK Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt, (emphasis added) "We are appalled at what appears to be credible reports that the Syrian regime has been responsible for the deaths of 92 civilians in Houla, including 32 children. The UN Head of Mission has been able to confirm the numbers and also that artillery tank shells have been used. If this is the case then it's an act of pure, naked savagery and we condemn it in the most strongest possible terms."
Video: UK Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt peddling what is now a confirmed fabrication, told for days to the public as the West maneuvered to leverage it against the Syrian government. The UN has now confirmed that artillery fired by government troops were not responsible for the massacre, and instead carried out by unidentified militants. Despite this, the UK has failed to retract earlier accusations and has instead expelled Syrian diplomats in an increasingly dangerous, irrational, aggressive posture.
Comment: Yes, the psychopathic perverts in power like to talk up rape when it suits them - usually to cast aspersions on their mark. The dark irony is that back home they commit mass rape of children all the time:
Beyond the Dutroux Affair: The reality of protected child abuse and snuff networks in a world ruled by psychopaths
Interestingly, accusing people of pederasty was a typical charge of then psychopaths in power against political dissidents during the collapse of Roman civilization...