A reader of SOTT.net sent us these photos of the aftermath of the recent blizzard in New York City. With records being broken all across the northern hemisphere, particularly in Europe and the US, it looks like SOTT's prediction that we are entering an Ice Age is coming true. Of course, the denialists will tell us that we have confused weather for climate, but when these same people confuse the War on Terror for the War Against the People, it is clear just who is really confused.

"Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors."

- Lewis H. Lapham

The year 2011 will bring Americans a larger and more intrusive police state, more unemployment and home foreclosures, no economic recovery, more disregard by the US government of US law, international law, the Constitution, and truth, more suspicion and distrust from allies, more hostility from the rest of the world, and new heights of media sycophancy.

2011 is shaping up as the terminal year for American democracy. The Republican Party has degenerated into a party of Brownshirts, and voter frustrations with the worsening economic crisis and military occupations gone awry are likely to bring Republicans to power in 2012. With them would come their doctrines of executive primacy over Congress, the judiciary, law, and the Constitution and America's rightful hegemony over the world.

If not already obvious, 2010 has made clear that the US government does not care a whit for the opinions of citizens. The TSA is unequivocal that it will reach no accommodation with Americans other than the violations of their persons that it imposes by its unaccountable power. As for public opposition to war, the Associated Press reported on December 16 that "Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. can't let public opinion sway its commitment to Afghanistan." Gates stated bluntly what has been known for some time: the idea is passe that government in a democracy serves the will of the people. If this quaint notion is still found in civics books, it will soon be edited out.

In Gag Rule, a masterful account of the suppression of dissent and the stifling of democracy, Lewis H. Lapham writes that candor is a necessary virtue if democracies are to survive their follies and crimes. But where in America today can candor be found? Certainly not in the councils of government. Attorney General John Ashcroft complained of candor-mongers to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Americans who insist on speaking their minds, Ashcroft declared, "scare people with phantoms of lost liberty," "aid terrorists," diminish our resolve," and "give ammunition to America's enemies."

Today the British newspaper The Daily Mail ran a 'human interest' story about a British soldier who is planning to run 52 marathons to "raise money to thank the medical staff who helped him".

Private Karl Hinett was involved in an event that took place in Basra, Iraq in 2005 that produced the 'iconic war image' of Hinett's burning Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) and his comrade Sgt Long in flames jumping from the turret. Hinett, who was on fire inside the APC, plans to run the marathons to contribute to a £3million appeal launched by The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity to fund a Home For The Brave, a non-medical centre for injured military ­personnel.

According to The Daily Mail, the back story on the image is:

Pte Hinett was just 18 when the attack took place on September 19, 2005. The Warrior came under attack from a mob throwing bricks, stones and petrol bombs in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.There were four other soldiers on board - Sgt George Long, 2nd Lieutenant John Cliffe, Lance Corporal Jo McCann and Private Ryon Burton - who all escaped serious injury.

It was Sgt Long who was seen in the horrific image relayed around the world, his body in flames as he jumped from the turret. Pte Hinett was on fire inside the tank.Seconds after the picture was taken, he wrestled his way out and on to the ground, where he passed out and was taken to hospital. Doctors feared he would die of his burns.

And that's it folks. There's nothing else of any public interest in this story. It really is just the heart-warming tale of a brave British soldier who wanted to give back to other brave British military personnel who did so much for him and for the Iraqi people....

Well, there is one other little detail, but it's so insignificant I can fully understand why the Daily Mail failed to mention it. Although I seem to remember commenting on it at the time:

It's Christmas morning in the year of the Christian dispensation, 2010 and I'm finding that I'm hard-pressed to be Merry about much of anything. If you want to read something cheerful and uplifting about Christmas, stop now and go elsewhere.

Yes, I am more than thankful for my wonderful family and friends and the extraordinary good times we have together, and I know that I am blessed beyond all expectations I ever had for my life. But in a sense, that's part of why I am unable to feel "Merry" about Christmas.

You see, within the circle of my family and friends, we share common values and aims that are based on love and caring and sharing, and all around us we see a world where those values have been degraded and corrupted to the point that they are either no longer recognizable, or they have disappeared altogether. This is incredibly painful and even moreso because we know that the way the world could be is so different from what is, and that this "what is" will, inevitably, affect us personally.

When, as a result of being part of a loving, cohesive group of creative and intelligent beings, one realizes that such a group is surrounded on all sides by creatures in whom the rule of the jungle prevails - the strong dominate the weak, conflict and rule by thugs is the order of the day - it is really hard to feel very Merry.

The situation is so bad that I see no hope for humanity at large at all. Extinction of our race is the inevitable outcome and I am no longer the only person who thinks so; even some mainstream scientists and pundits have written as much. They don't seem to be able to put their finger on the root of the problem, tending to blame it on effects, not causes, but they feel the prickle of the hairs rising on the back of their neck, and they sense the wolf circling in the darkness.

I find this to be truly diabolical. I'm reminded of someone I know who grew up in the eastern bloc, telling me that if you didn't join the right party-sponsored organizations as a young student, then you'd find yourself having trouble getting into college, getting a decent job, etc. You had to be on the "inside" and "vetted" by the state to really get anywhere in society. In America, this TWIC and SWAC stuff smacks of exactly that sovietization, and, as usual, is already creeping incrementally. And the TSA is involved in it, extending their reach way beyond what we might have expected.

DHS is leaning on NYC unions, via a "directive," to encourage member construction workers to get TWIC (transportation worker identity credential), a biometric ID, that requires you submit to a government background check and give the government your DNA! You know the rest of the story -- either get vetted by the TSA or you don't work (shall be able neither to buy nor sell).

The Miami 7, the Fort Dix 6, the Newburgh 4, the Underwear Bomber, the Portland Car Bomber... The FBI has set up then knocked down dozens of terrorist straw men in an effort to convince you that the 'war on terror' is real. This is a very real war for your mind and we may all pay a high price for ignoring it.

We have an unprecedented capacity to absorb scandals. Wikileaks or no, Americans wake up each day to a new set of outrages, yet nothing changes. With hundreds of channels at our fingertip and a billion songs sloshing in our skulls, no crime against country, man or earth can linger long enough in any brain cell to matter. All synapses are currently busy with bullshit, yet again, thank you.

There have always been enough incriminating evidences to fill several Pentagons and CIA headquarters. It takes no dick or hacker to know that the U.S. government is duplicitous and sadistic. It lies and kills compulsively. Though hardly alone, America's unique in her reach and influence. As an empire, our sick tendencies become everybody else's problems. Without our "leadership," would Poles and Ukrainians kill and be killed in Iraq? Would Germans patrol Afghanistan? Would Georgia pick a fight with Russia, only to have its ass kicked? We don't just commit evils, we train many others to do it. We graduated thousands of torturers from The School of the Americas. After some bad press, it was niftily re-christened 'The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation'. (Similarly, Blackwater is now Xe.) Our tactics haven't changed, and waterboarding, openly admitted to by our cynically sinister capos, is the very least of it. No criminal confesses to everything. "Ah, I only do some shoplifting on the side, Your Honor. No beating or rape or nothing."

Starting yesterday, 16 December 2010, Yahoo decided to return all 276 E-mail Editions sent to our subscribers who signed up with a Yahoo e-mail address.

In the past, we would receive returned messages because we are part of Yahoo's "spam feedback loop". This means that if someone labeled the E-mail Edition as junk, we would be notified. We would then promptly remove their e-mail address from the mailing list.

In addition, we received other detailed error messages from Yahoo explaining the reason why our E-mail Edition was rejected for a particular address.

This time, we got: "554 Content not allowed [299]".

Reading Joe Baegent's brilliant essay - AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM? Ignorance and courage in the age of Lady Gaga - has added considerable weight to some thoughts I've had of late regarding so-called political activism. This issue has, of course, been brought to the fore by the Wikileaks/Julian Assange saga which is, as far as I can see, a truly devious set-up - a tar-baby - that puts a person in the position of either accepting lies delivered on the platform of truth, or rejecting the principle of truth along with the lies.

The social, cultural and resultant political problems we face have become such a Gordian knot of pathological influences that any political action along legal pathways appears to be doomed to fail. Human beings are so divided, so immersed in their illusions, that there is no possibility of any unified political action - and the ONLY action that would work would be, of necessity, unified - the majority of humanity acting as One against the tiny minority of Pathocrats. Baegent notes, quite accurately,

What America really needs is a wall-to-wall people's insurrection, preferably based on force and fear of force, the only thing oligarchs understand. And even then the odds are not good. The oligarchs have all the legal power, police, jails and prisons, surveillance and firepower. Not to mention a docile populace.

In short, the situation is pretty much as described in the movie "V for Vendetta" in this revealing exchange:

Dominic: What do you think will happen?
Finch: What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people *with* guns.

So Julian Assange is in prison, for now. There appears to be no case against him that any authority in their right mind would waste time on, unless the goal is to simply prolong the drama, which it may well be. Wikileaks arrived on the scene at a very interesting time. In the US, unemployment at record levels (22% at least), massive numbers of foreclosures and trillions of taxpayers' money given to save the banks from their own greed. In Europe, similar 'banking crises' brought on government 'austerity' measures whereby the people would bail out the banks with the only currency really worth anything - the sweat of our brows and our standard of living. Human currency is the real 'wealth' of any nation or government on this planet.

So millions protested and called strikes in Greece, France, the UK, Ireland etc. Such demonstrations of people power are perhaps the only weapons we have left against the corrupt elite of this world. Of course, it is knowledge of the extent of the blatant lies and corruption of the elite that galvanise the people to act in this way, and therefore the right of the people to know what their government is doing is fundamental. The principle on which Wikileaks acts, therefore, is to be supported to the last. I do have a small problem with the current Wikileaks issue however and that is the massive media coverage that it is garnering. I find little in the leaks themselves to warrant such prolonged media exposure, and, from my reading of public comments on the contents of the leaks themselves, I don't see them leading to any sort of massive public demonstrations. We can only hope that they will encourage more and better leaks so that the truth will finally be known and that may lead to action in the public sector.

As a result of having copious evidence to hand regarding the reality of government conspiracies aimed at manipulating public opinion, I have to admit also to being somewhat conspiracy-minded. It's a weakness, I know. But bear with me, I have a few questions to put to you; I'll answer a few of them, but feel free to come up with your own theories of the conspiratorial ilk or not:

Manipulating public opinion - does anyone disagree that all governments engage in this to one extent or another?

If yes, why does the government wish to manipulate public opinion?