Puppet MastersS


Treasure Chest

The greatest propaganda coup of our time? Absolving the Fed of any accountability for what is likely the crime of the century‏

federal reserve
© n/a
There's good propaganda and bad propaganda. Bad propaganda is generally crude, amateurish Judy Miller "mobile weapons lab-type" nonsense that figures that people are so stupid they'll believe anything that appears in "the paper of record." Good propaganda, on the other hand, uses factual, sometimes documented material in a coordinated campaign with the other major media to cobble-together a narrative that is credible, but false.

The so called Fed's transcripts, which were released last week, fall into the latter category. The transcripts (1,865 pages) reveal the details of 14 emergency meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in 2008, when the financial crisis was at its peak and the Fed braintrust was deliberating on how best to prevent a full-blown meltdown. But while the conversations between the members are accurately recorded, they don't tell the gist of the story or provide the context that's needed to grasp the bigger picture. Instead, they're used to portray the members of the Fed as affable, well-meaning bunglers who did the best they could in 'very trying circumstances'. While this is effective propaganda, it's basically a lie, mainly because it diverts attention from the Fed's role in crashing the financial system, preventing the remedies that were needed from being implemented (nationalizing the giant Wall Street banks), and coercing Congress into approving gigantic, economy-killing bailouts which shifted trillions of dollars to insolvent financial institutions that should have been euthanized.

Light Sabers

Socialism's critics look at Venezuela and say, 'We told you so'. But they are wrong‏

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© The IndependentThe Venezuelan people have taken to the streets in huge numbers against a human rights-abusing regime
I once wrote about the "hierarchy of death" - the macabre process by which the newsworthiness of death is ranked. The fame or influence of the deceased; whether they are a Westerner or not; the colour of their skin; whether they are affluent or poor: all are crucial factors. But the perceived political significance of death is important too, as the latest wave of political turbulence in Venezuela illustrates.

Here's the right-wing narrative. The Venezuelan people have taken to the streets in huge numbers against a human rights-abusing regime. The response has been murderous repression, with each death damning evidence of a monstrous autocracy. The government's economic policies have caused nothing but ruination for the population, demonstrating once again that "socialism" is an abject failure. Those who challenge this narrative, like myself, are nothing but dupes, useful idiots, the modern-day equivalents of the Fabians who went to Stalin's Soviet Union and lauded it as a new civilisation.

Comment: Venezuela: It's the opposition that's anti-democratic


Bad Guys

Prelude to World War?‏

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© Unknown
On 24 February 2014 US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held a press conference to announce some of the details of Pentagon's 2015 budget. Beyond the news of cuts in war fighting machinery and personnel - and the pox of "irresponsible" sequestration on the federal government - Hagel made a point of indicating that the world is becoming an increasingly volatile place. He also seemed to express a bit of disgust for nation building of the type attempted by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those sentiments are directly at odds with the core element of US national and global security strategy in operation since the late 19th Century. Those strategies employ the USA's considerable instruments of national power to: 1) actively destabilize "elected" governments (Ukraine, Venezuela) through the use of NGO's, intelligence agencies and proxy groups; 2) prop up brutal regimes (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt) through a US congressionally approved program, executed by the US military, called Foreign Internal Defense; 3) information operations conducted via the printed press, social media, radio, television and film that seek to shape the cognitive local to global environment in favor of US national interests.; and 4) existentially destroy foreign governments through direct military action in conjunction with the weaponry of finance capitalism to create new markets.

Quenelle

Best of the Web: Obama's dumbest plan yet: The coup in Ukraine

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© Telegraph
"Washington and Brussels ... used a Nazi coup, carried out by insurgents, terrorists and politicians of Euromaidan to serve the geopolitical interests of the West." - Natalia Vitrenko, The Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine

The United States helped defeat Nazism in World War 2. Obama helped bring it back.

As you probably know by now, Obama and Co. have ousted Ukraine's democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, with the help of ultra-right, paramilitary, neo-Nazi gangs who seized and burned government offices, killed riot police, and spread mayhem and terror across the country.

Chess

Ukraine's protests: The context

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© libcom.orgLeader of the extreme far-right Svoboda party Oleh Tyahnybok.
Western corporate media outlets have been noticeably reluctant to delve too deeply into the neofascist wing of the Ukrainian protest movement.

The protests against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych have been presented as essentially a resurgence of democratic pro-European values against a corrupt Kremlin-backed regime.

The truth is more complex, combining geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the EU with mass impoverishment following the Soviet Union's collapse.

Comment: For more background on the rise of the extreme far-right in the Ukraine and it's support by Western powers read:
Geopolitical dimensions of the coup in Ukraine, and why fascist militias are necessary for Western powers
The extreme right emerging as the dominant voice in Ukraine
Is the US backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine?


Colosseum

Symbolism at its finest: Rome just days away from bankruptcy

marino mayor rome
© AFP Photo/Gabriel BouysIgnazio Marino, Rome's mayor
The Italian capital may go bankrupt within a few days, says the Mayor, as the government cannot agree on how to fill the city's $1.17 billion budget gap.

The city is in danger of repeating a Detroit-style bankruptcy, and in so doing becoming the first major political problem for new prime minister Matteo Renzi. On the first day of his premiership, Renzi had to withdraw a decree, promulgated by his predecessor Enrico Letta that would have helped the city of Rome fill the €816 million ($1.17 billion) budget gap. Rome's Mayor Ignazio Marino was asking for €485 million from central government to compensate Rome for the extra costs it incurs in its role as a major tourist destination, the nation's capital, and the seat of the Vatican. However, the plan was opposed by opposition lawmakers in parliament on Wednesday, showing it had little chances of being passed.

USA

From Guantanamo to limitless war, Obama's failure to live up to his own five commandments

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© Unknown
In January 2009, Barack Obama entered the Oval Office projecting idealism and proud to be the constitutional law professor devoted to turning democratic principles into action. In his first weeks in office, in a series of executive orders and public statements, the new president broadcast for all to hear the five commandments by which life in his new world of national security would be lived.

Thou shalt not torture.

Thou shalt not keep Guantanamo open.

Thou shalt not keep secrets unnecessarily.

Thou shalt not wage war without limits.

Thou shalt not live above the law.

Five years later, the question is: How have he and his administration lived up to these self-proclaimed commandments? Let's consider them one by one:

Cardboard Box

Ukraine security forces "regain" Crimea airports without firing a shot

Simferopol airport
© UnknownFile photo shows Crimea international airport in Simferopol.

Ukrainian authorities say they have regained control of two airports in the country's semi-autonomous region Crimea after armed gunmen seized the buildings.


The country's National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy said Friday that there had been an attempt to occupy the airports in Crimea, security forces, however, has taken full control of them.

The developments come as Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov earlier in the day accused Russian troops of staging an "invasion" of Crimea's international airport in Simferopol and the Belbek airfield near the city of Sevastopol, which is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet.

A spokesman for Russia's Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet denied that Russian troops had any involvement in the airport occupations.

Earlier on Friday, a group of armed men in military uniforms briefly seized an airport in the regional capital of Crimea. Eyewitness said about 50 gunmen in military uniforms arrived at Simferopol International Airport in military trucks to search for Ukrainian airborne troops.

The group, however, left after finding out that Ukrainian military forces were not present on the tarmac.

Comment: So this staged take-over of the airports were most likely another false-flag event with the aim of accusing Russia of invasion and stir up anti-Russian feelings across the Western world. The Cold war headlines and editorials have already been made in the Western media.

It doesn't matter that Russia has denied it or that locals from around the airports have said that they were not Russian soldiers. The Ukrainian forces also retook them without firing a shot. Something does not add up.

A commenter (Deo Cassar) on Press TV wrote:
So the truth has finally emerged. It was all simply an excercise in mass deception. There was never any take over by Russian troops, nor self defence troops who took over vthe airports. They were simply NATO Russian speaking specail forces calling themselves Crimean Defence Force?! The great deceiver has exceeded its level of decit. The hype behind the story that Russian trops had taken over the airport was only a sham to deceive the Crimean people and deny them the right to react. It also served as an excuse to justify the cancellation of the 2010 deal to extend the lease of Sevastapol harbour to the Russian fleet and throw them out. Now it is time for the Crimean people, the true Russian speaking Crimean people to rise up and throw the Neo-Nazi trash out to their Northern dustbins.



Dollar

Flashback The fraud of Obamacare: Only 51,000 uninsured Americans enrolled

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© Livetradingnews
"Paltry total amounts to less than 1 percent of uninsured; Cost of website now over $7,000 per enrollee"

A new report today in the Daily Mail finally answered a question the Obama Administration would not for the past 10 days - namely, how many people have successfully enrolled in Obamacare's federal "exchange" website healthcare.gov.

The answer is a paltry 51,000. To put that in context, it's a small fraction of one percent of the uninsured population. It falls far short of the 7 million enrollment figure that is widely believed to be the administration's goal.

The cost to taxpayers is staggering. According to reports, taxpayers have footed the bill for $363 million to get this "glitchy" exchange enrollment website off the ground. That comes out to $7118 per enrollee thus far. This gives a whole new meaning to "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Quenelle - Golden

French football star Nicolas Anelka banned for five matches and fined £80,000 for making public gesture that signals you are fed up with the Western elites' lies

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QUENELLE!
West Bromwich Albion have suspended Nicolas Anelka after the Frenchman was banned for five matches by the Football Association and fined £80,000 for the quenelle gesture that he performed after scoring against West Ham United in December.

The club announced their decision following confirmation from the FA that an independent regulatory commission had found Anelka guilty of making a gesture that was "abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper, and that included a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief".

The punishment was the most lenient that the FA could have imposed under their new anti-discrimination rules. However, the governing body reported that the three-man panel "did not find that Nicolas Anelka is an antisemite or that he intended to express or promote antisemitism by his use of the quenelle".

It remains to be seen whether Anelka will appeal against the punishment, which includes attending a compulsory education programme. The 34-year-old said from the outset that the quenelle was a "special dedication to my comedian friend Dieudonné [M'Bala M'Bala]" and maintained that the gesture he made at Upton Park on 28 December was anti-establishment rather than antisemitic.

Comment: The gesture IS a gesture against racism, you numbskulls! Along with everything else the Powers That Be lie about all day every day!

Altogether now...