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Welcome to crazy town

Phillip J. Watt
Collective Evolution
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 20:50 UTC
Image
Everywhere we look it's like we're living in crazy town.

For starters, most of the governments of the world advocate for backwards laws which seem so surreal it's hard to believe it's true. Natural and effective medicines are suppressed, our privacy increasingly invaded and corporate-benefiting and community-destroying regulations are being put in place.

The politicians are turning a blind eye to the capitalist circus - the inaccurately labelled 'free market' - which funnels the wealth and resources to those who already have it. The same goes for the military-industrial machine, the massive war-on-drugs policy failure and the damage to our planet. Where is the orchestrated salvation for a poverty stricken, unhealthy, mentally imprisoned and highly unequal global society?

Comment: "They Live", the Weird Movie With a Powerful Message

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Alarm Clock

U.S. cops kill more people in one month than UK cops in last 100 years


Sputnik
Thu, 02 Apr 2015 19:38 UTC
police
© Flickr/ Victoria Pickering
Here's a sobering statistic: police in the United States killed more people in the month of March of this year than British police have in more than 100 years.

The number of fatalities involving the police is at more than 100 in the past month — 111 to be exact — which comes to about three people killed by police each day in the United States.

The White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing issued a report last month recommending that the police focus on tactics that would "de-escalate" a situation to make it less likely that someone would end up getting shot and killed.

The report says that excessive and deadly use of force is used way too often, and that further training should be implemented to make sure situations that start out as relatively minor don't turn deadly, such as the incident where a New York City man accused of illegally selling loose cigarettes died after being placed in a chokehold.

The task force also recommends that the type of training that would be done to diffuse a situation should also pay particular attention to how it is working in communities of color, as those are the ones who come in the most contact with police.

The report suggests that the police need to be more transparent and held accountable when it comes to collecting data on police activity - including both fatal and non-fatal shootings - and that it include more than just shootings, but also stops and arrests, and any other number of encounters between people and the police, and that the data include information on race and gender and disability.

"Policies on use of force," the task force says, "should also require agencies to collect, maintain, and report data to the federal government on all officer-involved shootings, whether fatal or nonfatal, as well as any in-custody death."

Comment: These numbers are just staggering. If this isn't a sign that American society is already dead, we don't know what is. The United States is racist, violent, aggressive, and murderous -- both at home and abroad. It's no wonder the world is has a less than favorable opinion towards the 'great nation'.

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USA

Atlanta cheating scandal underlines the crisis of public education in the U.S.

Jerry White
World Socialist Web Site
Fri, 03 Apr 2015 17:12 UTC
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© Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kent D. Johnson, Pool/Associated Press
On Wednesday, four former elementary school teachers, two principals and five administrators in Atlanta, Georgia were convicted on state racketeering charges for inflating the results on standardized tests taken by public school students. The brutal and vindictive treatment meted out to the educators is a watershed in the campaign to vilify teachers and further dismantle the public education system in the United States.

The Fulton County prosecutor argued that charging educators under the state's Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which is ordinarily reserved for organized crime cases, was warranted because the educators personally benefited from changing the answers on the tests through bonuses and promotions. They face 20 years or more in prison.

In fact, an investigation by the Georgia governor's office in 2009 found that a "culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation infested the district," led by then-Superintendent Beverly Hall, with teachers facing humiliation, demotion and firing if they did not meet student achievement targets.

The convictions followed an unprecedented seven-year probe by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that was characterized by a "Salem witchcraft mentality," according to the defense attorney for elementary school teacher Dessa Curb, the educator acquitted of all charges.

The seven-month court case had the air of a show trial, with police mug shots of the defendants plastered across the web site and pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which launched the initial investigation into rising test scores and demanded that an example be made of the educators who did not make plea bargains.

Comment: The "education system" as it is in America is not actually educating anyone. It's about creating wage slave servants to the U.S. Empire. That's one of the reasons why the slavish obsession towards standardized tests exists. What has been created is a culture of churning out conformist sheep and stamping down independent free thought. The U.S. Empire wants followers, the more easily it is for them to control the populace.

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Sheriff

New Jersey man dies in police custody after being beaten unconscious, attacked by police dog


RT
Thu, 02 Apr 2015 20:28 UTC
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© Via Facebook/Vineland Police
An unarmed black man is dead after being beaten by New Jersey law enforcement and bit by a police dog, according to witnesses. Police in the southern Jersey town say the suspect was reaching for an officer's gun while they were trying to arrest him.

Vineland police were responding to a call about a disorderly person on Tuesday morning. When they arrived, they encountered 32-year-old Phillip White.

An anonymous witness told KYW that White was stumbling around a neighbor's fence when an officer pulled up and asked White if he needed medical assistance. The interaction then turned into an altercation.

"He started freaking out, he started like getting crazy, yelling," the witness said. "He threw a roundhouse kick and he missed the officer and the officer obviously tackled him."

He said the officer tackled White and then the officer's partner and a police K9 subdued White.

"He didn't want to listen. So they were telling him put your hands behind your back, put your hands behind your back. They were mushing his head to the floor," he recalled.

Agustin Ayala of Ayala Towing told the Daily Journal he was driving his tow truck when he saw two police cars on the street and two officers, including a K9 unit, trying to handcuff a man.

"He was resisting," Ayala said of White.

The officers were able to handcuff White and bring him to the ground. Ayala asked them to stop because he was concerned for the man's welfare, he said.

Comment:
The tyranny of law enforcement in poor communities is a window into our emerging police state. These thuggish tactics are now being used against activists and dissidents. And as the nation unravels, as social unrest spreads, the naked face of police repression will become commonplace. Totalitarian systems always seek license to engage in this kind of behavior by first targeting a demonized minority. Such systems demand that the police, to combat the "lawlessness" of the demonized minority, be, in essence, emancipated from the constraints of the law. The unrestricted and arbitrary subjugation of one despised group, stripped of equality before the law, conditions the police to employ these tactics against the wider society. "Laws that are not equal for all revert to rights and privileges, something contradictory to the very nature of nation-states," Hannah Arendt wrote in "The Origins of Totalitarianism." "The clearer the proof of their inability to treat stateless people as legal persons and the greater the extension of arbitrary rule by police decree, the more difficult it is for states to resist the temptation to deprive all citizens of legal status and rule them with an omnipotent police."

The Origins of Our Police State


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Sherlock

Former Guantanamo chief faces French court inquiry


RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:39 UTC
Major General Geoffrey D. Miller
© Reuters/Damir Sagolj
Major General Geoffrey D. Miller.
Guantanamo prison ex-chief Geoffrey Miller has been summoned by a French court over the use of torture in the detention facility a decade ago, following a lawsuit from two French citizens who were former inmates of the infamous military jail.

French citizens Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchellali have filed a lawsuit in a French court against the former Guantanamo chief, demanding a criminal probe into his actions.

On Thursday, the court granted the complaint, summoning the former American general to France for a hearing.

Comment: Hopefully this will have a snowball effect. These human rights violators must be brought to justice, including the politicians involved.

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Dollar

China to fund new high speed railway in Russia

Kira Egorova
Russia Behind The Headlines
Fri, 03 Apr 2015 14:26 UTC
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© TASS
China plans to invest 300 billion rubles ($5 million) in the construction of a high-speed railway from Moscow to Kazan. Of this sum, 250 billion rubles will come in the form of 20-year loans from Chinese banks.

According to business daily Vedomosti, the Chinese side discussed the financial details of this project with a representative of the Russian delegation at a meeting behind closed doors during the Boao Forum for Asia 2015.

Earlier, Alexander Misharin, first vice-president of Russian Railways, said that project financing would be offered in two currencies - rubles and yuan, writes the newspaper Kommersant. This project is more than just a promising idea - according to Misharin, for the state, the payback period of such projects is five to seven years.
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Brick Wall

Should you withdraw your money from the bank? Recent glitches and freezes in the system

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan
Fri, 27 Mar 2015 02:56 UTC
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The above right image was captured from a real ATM machine not long ago, and could be seen anytime for any reason by anyone operating on the digital grid.
If ever you needed a better motivation to get your funds out of the bank, this is a clear sign that a digital clampdown is coming.

There are increasing examples of technology failures and stricter bank policies that are keep people from getting their money.

And they are happening all across the globe.

Ulster Bank in Ireland just made news after customers were locked out of their accounts by a glitch that disabled access to wage money:
Following a number of complaints from those expecting their weekly and monthly salaries to post, the bank apologised on Twitter for the glitch.

"We're aware that a number of customers are experiencing delays in receiving credits this morning, our tech team are working on this at the moment," the bank's customer care account, @UlsterBank_Help tweeted.

Comment: So not only are there laws on the books effectively criminalizing one for taking out large amounts of one's own money, not only are their "glitches" in withdrawing your money electronically, but the whole banking system itself is dangerously over-leveraged ie., horrible "investments" have been made with your money, which leaves your money in a very precarious position.

See also:

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Quenelle

Take that Empire! FIFA rejects U.S. lawmakers calls to move 2018 World Cup out of Russia


Sputnik
Thu, 02 Apr 2015 14:21 UTC
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© Sputnik/ Alexey Nikolsky
World football's governing body FIFA rejected on Thursday a call by a bipartisan group of 13 US senators to move the 2018 World Cup out of Russia.

In a letter sent Tuesday and released publicly Wednesday, the Democratic and Republican US lawmakers said they "strongly encourage" the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) to move the global competition, arguing that allowing Russia to play host to the event "inappropriately bolsters the prestige" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

FIFA spokeswoman Delia Fischer rejected calls to strip Russia of the World Cup it was awarded in 2010.

"History has shown so far that boycotting sport events or a policy of isolation or confrontation are not the most effective ways to solve problems," Fischer wrote Wednesday in an email to the Associated Press.

The World Cup, she said, "can be a powerful catalyst for constructive dialogue between people and governments, helping to bring positive social developments."

"We have seen that the FIFA World Cup can be a force for good and FIFA believes this will be the case for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia."

FIFA President Sepp Blatter earlier slammed calls to boycott the 2018 World Cup in Russia saying football was "a symbol of unity."

"Football should be united, sport should be united when it comes to boycotts," Blatter said addressing the 39th UEFA Congress in Vienna. "Boycotts have never had any results."
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Phoenix

Massive fire raging at General Electric plant in Kentucky, US


RT
Fri, 03 Apr 2015 13:29 UTC
Massive fire at GE's Appliance Park in Buechel, Kentucky

Massive fire at GE's Appliance Park in Buechel, Kentucky, US.
A four-alarm fire ravaged a Louisville, Kentucky factory on Friday. Eyewitnesses say GE's Appliance Park facility was consumed in the blaze, and local media reported that all employees are safe and accounted for.

The fire broke out Friday morning within one of the buildings that composes the massive manufacturing park opened in the 1950s by General Electric. A local ABC News affiliate reported that the building is leased by Derby Industries, an industrial supply company. Building 6 at GE's Appliance Park was evacuated quickly after the blaze erupted, according to the ABC affiliate, and the network reported that the fire "consumed the building," sparing next to nothing.

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Attention

Baffin Island town in state of emergency as power outage continues


CBC News
Thu, 02 Apr 2015 00:14 UTC
arctic power outage
© David Kilabuk
A fire at the local power plant has led to a community-wide power outage in the Nunavut community of Pangnirtung.
Emergency supplies and generators on way to hamlet of Pangnirtung that is mostly in the dark

The Northwest Territories Power Corporation is airlifting two mobile generators to Pangnirtung, Nunavut, after an overnight fire at the local power plant knocked out power to the entire community of about 1,400.

"Loss of power in the community, in the North, in the winter time is a very serious situation," said Ed Zebedee, the territory's director of protection services in Iqaluit. The community relies entirely on the power plant that generates electricity from diesel fuel.

Environment Canada has called for a high of -15 C today with a low of -19 C expected tonight.

An emergency warming shelter has been opened at Attagoyuk Ilisavik School, where there is backup power. A few other buildings in the community also have backup power, but the rest are cold and dark.

"We opened the warming shelters very early this morning and people are starting to go there," Zebedee said. "We talked to the hamlet and they are getting food from the local stores so they can start feeding people."

The Nunavut government is now working towards getting charter flights to the community to bring people with high-risk health issues, such as those who may be on oxygen generators, to Iqaluit.

The government is also working with the public health agency in Ottawa to get cots, blankets and pillows, which will be flown into Pangnirtung in case residents have to sleep in the school.
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