Forum Post: For hope and democracy
Posted 10 years ago on Sept. 2, 2013, 2:31 a.m. EST by Spes
(0)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
This is our chance. We can make a difference this time. For too long the United States has gone around the world eliminating and attacking all those who oppose its rules and regulations. Now we can make a damn difference.
Obama has decided to seek Congress approval for military intervention in Syria, and with this decision it has given we the people a chance to say no.
It doesn't matter whether you like Assad or not, that is irrelevant. A military strike on Syria would cause a domino affect that would in turn kill a lot more people than it would intend to save.
There is one thing a Congress member cares about more than money, their constituents, us. We have to work together to do this next part.
Congress returns on Monday, September 9th, this gives only a week for this plan. We must relentlessly call them telling them our disapproval of the strike, we must protest outside of their offices, and we must threaten them with our votes. What that means is that if they choose to vote in favor of the strike, we will no longer vote for them.
This cannot be done by a few people, we need the American people to wake up and take a stand against this war. So please, pass this around. We only have until the 9th before they return.
Say no to war with Syria, we are not the world's police force. If we truly are the land of the free, we should not be bound to another war.
''This isn't about Syria. This is, for better or worse, about us - on the left and on the right. The generation that grew up watching the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has done a lot of “soul-searching” in ten years. We have walked across the moral high-ground that our leaders mapped out for us. We have discovered that it is a graveyard. The bodies buried on the Anglo-American moral high ground are beyond number, and the flowers that grow there are dank and reek of corruption. But not this time. Not again. Not in our name.'' from :
''There Are Too Many Bodies Buried On Britain’s Moral High Ground'', by Laurie Penny : http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2013/08/there-are-too-many-bodies-buried-britains-moral-high-ground ;
''Dubious Intelligence and Iran Blackmail : How Israel is Driving the US to War in Syria'', by Max Blumenthal : http://mondoweiss.net/2013/09/dubious-intelligence-and-iran-blackmail-how-israel-is-driving-the-us-to-war-in-syria.html & also consider :
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36075.htm .
fiat lux, fiat pax et at spes non fracta ...
Thanks for the edit, shadz. I thought one of the links in the ICH article was rather interesting, especially this excerpt:
"Another eyebrow-raising administration claim was that U.S. intelligence had “collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence” that showed the regime preparing for an attack three days before the event. The U.S. assessment says regime personnel were in an area known to be used to “mix chemical weapons, including sarin,” and that regime forces prepared for the Aug. 21 attack by putting on gas masks.
That claim raises two questions: Why didn’t the U.S. warn rebels about the impending attack and save hundreds of lives? And why did the administration keep mum about the suspicious activity when on at least one previous occasion U.S. officials have raised an international fuss when they observed similar actions?"
So, let's see here. We all know of Gen. Clark's revelation about "7 countries in five years," with both Syria and Iran on the list. Last summer, Obama states that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would "cross a red line." As a side note there's the recent disclosure that suggests the US assisted Iraq when Iraq used sarin gas on Iran back in 1988, and now there's suspicions our partners the Saudis supplied the weapons used in the recent alleged gas attack in Syria. Israel is now saying if Obama doesn't attack Syria, they would be forced to attack Iran. And all of this coming shortly on the heels of the supposed completion of our, ahem, work in Afghanistan, where we've established a permanent residence.
As you and I know, this has nothing to do with a gas attack and everything to do with central Asia's natural resources and America's rising desperation in trying to preserve the petrodollar. I've linked this before but it's worth a second go-round, especially Part 4, entitled "The New Great Game:"
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system/
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system-part-4/
And finally:
http://insight.rbs.com/articles/why-rmb-will-be-a-global-currency-by-2015.html
Solidarity, my friend.
gno
The ''public case for attacking Syria is riddled with inconsistencies and hinges mainly on circumstantial evidence, undermining U.S. efforts this week to build support at home and abroad for a punitive strike against Bashar Assad’s regime. The case Secretary of State John Kerry laid out last Friday contained claims that were disputed by the United Nations, inconsistent in some details with British and French intelligence reports or lacking sufficient transparency for international chemical weapons experts to accept at face value.'' from the excellent McClatchy link which you extracted and excerpted :
I strongly recommend all your links to anyone and everyone interested in this matter and re. your final fundamental point, I'll just restrict myself to this wee but very telling clip :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnFlsjhpGfw and also closely consider the following piece :
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18559-how-intelligence-was-twisted-to-support-an-attack-on-syria
Solidarity gno.
fiat lux ...
From Obama's description, Syria planned this sarin attack allowing us to know their plans beforehand, the when and where the attacks came from, and supplied gas masks for their supporters before the attack. This seems like some kind of set-up. 9/11 is one week from today, maybe there's a distraction being planned.
You might appreciate this:
Making the World Safe for Banksters: Syria in the Crosshairs
Wednesday, 04 September 2013 12:54 By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt Blog | News Analysis
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18604-making-the-world-safe-for-banksters-syria-in-the-crosshairs
How Intelligence Was Twisted to Support an Attack on Syria
Tuesday, 03 September 2013 09:05 By Gareth Porter, Truthout | News
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18559-how-intelligence-was-twisted-to-support-an-attack-on-syria
These articles reveal an almost complete attempt to force everyone to accept toxic derivatives as payment. The entire world would accept computer generated balances as real as a dollar bill. The BRIC countries appear to be their own cabal but there are certainly ties with them. The Japan economy model of the last decade may be as good as we can hope for here.
India's Depreciating Currency: Why the Panic?
Thursday, 05 September 2013 11:25 By Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. | Op-Ed
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18621-indias-depreciating-currency-why-the-panic
The plunging rupee is the big economics story of the day, and I'm trying to get up to speed on the issues. My immediate question, however, is why the panic? Yes, the rupee is down a lot in a short time — along with other emerging-market currencies. In fact, according to numbers from the Bank for International Settlements and my estimates based on the dollar-rupee rate, the rupee's fluctuations are small compared with the obvious comparator, Brazil.
We more or less know the story here. First, advanced countries plunged into a prolonged slump, leading to very low interest rates; capital flooded into emerging markets, causing currency appreciation (or, in the case of China, real appreciation via inflation). Then markets began to realize that they had overshot, and hints of recovery in advanced countries led to a rise in long-term rates, and down we went. (I don't think quantitative easing has much to do with it, although your mileage may vary.)
So the recent decline is sharp. But should India panic?
This would be scary if India was like the Asian crisis countries of 1997-1998 or Argentina in 2001, with large amounts of debt denominated in foreign currency. But unless I'm misreading the data, it is not.
Now, the depreciation of the rupee will presumably lead to a spike in inflation — but it should be temporary.
So at first examination this doesn't appear to be as big a deal as some headlines are suggesting. What am I missing?
Generation B (for Bubble)
The flood of money into emerging markets now looks in retrospect like another bubble.
For the moment, I don't see a good reason to believe that the bursting of this particular bubble will be catastrophic — what made the Asian crisis of 1997-1998 so bad was the high level of foreign-currency denominated debt, and that seems less of an issue now. In fact, the main danger, as Ryan Avent recently suggested in The Economist, seems to be policy overreaction: countries raising interest rates to defend indefensible exchange rates, leading to unnecessary slumps. But I have to admit that I'm less certain than usual about my diagnosis, because I'm still coming up to speed on the Indian economy in particular.
Here, however, is a side question: Why have we been having so many bubbles?
The answer you hear from a lot of people is that it's all caused by excessively easy money. But let's think about the longer-term history for a bit. See the chart on long-term interest rates in the United States since the early 1950s.
As you can see, there was a period of very high rates in the inflationary 1970s and early 1980s. Rates fell after the Volcker stabilization in the 1980s, but they stayed relatively high by '50s and '60s standards through the late '80s, the '90s, and even for much of the naughties.
Now, the thing you need to realize is that the whole era since 1985 has been one of successive bubbles. There was a huge commercial real estate bubble in the '80s, closely tied to the savings and loan crisis; a bubble in capital flows to Asia in the mid-'90s; the dot-com bubble; the housing bubble; and now, it seems, the B.R.I.C. bubble. There was nothing comparable in the 1950s and 1960s.
So, was monetary policy excessively easy through this whole period? If so, where's the inflation? Maybe you can argue that loose money, for a while, shows up in asset prices rather than the prices of goods (although I've never seen that argument made well). But for a whole generation?
So what was different? The answer seems obvious: financial deregulation. Banks were set free — and went wild, again and again.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Truthout has licensed this content. It may not be reproduced by any other source and is not covered by our Creative Commons license. Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed page and continues as a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University. He was awarded the Nobel in economic science in 2008. Mr Krugman is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes, including "The Return of Depression Economics" (2008) and "The Conscience of a Liberal" (2007).
Copyright 2012 The New York Times.
"Distraction"------Agree.
Egypt's US trained and supplied military are happy
their slaughter of their own people was not done with chemical weapons
My impression of that was the Egyptian military was easily capable of crushing the Brotherhood, and resistance didn't last long with not too many deaths. Russia should offer to "resign", Assad, and put another puppet there to buy Russian arms, but LeoYo's posted article above indicates war is necessary there to please the bankers.
Russia does supply 18% of global arms to the world
http://occupywallst.org/forum/no-war/
the world bank does like countries with their own resources having their own currency
there's a another bit I don't like about this case
it makes a distinction between methods of killing that allows the right through conventional explosions
this case is side steeping the issue of mass killing in general to seek a specific
suggesting other methods would be acceptable
You're a strong voice for peace - as ever Matt and you are dead right - small arms and artillery are the biggest WMDs known to man & The Empire and its allies pouring money and guns into Syria for over two years has helped create this gigantic 'shit sandwich' & now we're all expected to take a bite !!
When the Russians showed evidence of poison gas being used by 'The Rebels' in Aleppo or when the Turks caught a bunch of 'Al-Nusra Front' loons with poison gas on their territory ... we heard very little because it didn't suit The Empire's narrative. As ever Matt, ''W.M.D'' = Words of Mass Deception !!!
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18579-seven-arguments-against-going-to-war-with-syria & ...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36116.htm .
fiat lux, fiat lex et fiat pax ...
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Very true and people need to ask themselves ...
''Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan ?'' by Dr. David Ray Griffin : http://www.globalresearch.ca/did-9-11-justify-the-war-in-afghanistan/19891 and consider :
http://occupywallst.org/forum/911-worker-speaks-out-on-syria/ .. a powerful piece + see :
http://occupywallst.org/forum/911-a-geo-political-monster-a-cris-de-coeur-by-tim/ & then ;
"Work For Peace" : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33379.htm .
pax et lux ; hic et ubique ; nunc et semper ...
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There is a very telling 'alliance' against Syria and thank you most sincerely for your comment. It is very interesting what you say about the ARAMCO chemical engineer whom you met. In The KSA, the main majority Sunni populace is kept in a dulled and co-opted state by 'The Royal Family', who are paranoid about ANY notions of 'Democracy' and who detest all Shia people on a point of Wahhabi doctrine.They are also very paranoid about the fact that the oilfields in SaudiArabia are almost all in the Shia majority areas of the country and where the vast majority of all the skilled & educated workforce is Shia Muslim.
The Qataris and the UAE Sheikhs are on board with The Saudis and the goings on in Bahrain (home port of The US 5th Fleet) only add to the paranoia of the Al-Sauds, who are simultaneously a scourge upon the global Muslim body-politic as deeply reactionary anti-democratic influences And arch & long term allies of The U$A (ARAMCO=ARab AMerican {Oil} COmpany btw). I'll leave out the plans for the Iran-Syria-Lebanon oil pipeline or the ability to sell their hydro-carbons to China & India, if they should so choose for now and just finally append the following for the standing record here :
''Stopping Barry O’Bomber’s Rush to War'', by Ralph Nader : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36152.htm ;
''Syria and the Reality at Home in America'', by Robert Reich : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36143.htm ;
''Top 10 Unproven Claims for War Against Syria'', by Dennis J. Kucinich : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36147.htm ;
''Shady PR Operatives, Pro-Israel Ties, Anti-Castro Money : Inside The Syrian Opposition’s DC Spin Machine'', by Max Blumenthal : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36154.htm ;
''High-Level U.S. Intelligence Officers : Syrian Government Didn’t Launch Chemical Weapons''by 'WashingtonsBlog' : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36155.htm &
''An Israeli-Saudi-US conspiracy? Saudi Arabia’s 'Chemical Bandar' Behind the Syrian Chemical Attacks?'', by M. D. Nazemroaya : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36133.htm .
e tenebris, lux ...
Nice YT clip, shadz. Honestly, I haven't seen the movie yet since it deals with one of my least favorite people, but I might have to break down and do it now.
And what's funny is, as I was laying in bed last night thinking about this, before dozing off, I thought, "Hmmm, the public's against a military strike, a lot of politicians are against it, and a lot of the military are against it. It seems like the only power players in DC not speaking up against it are the banksters." Then Truthout posts this today, which LeoYo has also posted:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18604-making-the-world-safe-for-banksters-syria-in-the-crosshairs
I haven't read it yet, but I'm off to do that now.
And if you have any spare money laying around, call your bookie and place your bet. My money's on a <cough, cough> "limited punitive strike."
Brilliant link !!! Thanx both to Leo and you !! Gotta love Ellen Brown and her ability to 'follow the money' !
I will spare you details here of Ghaddafi's plans for a 'Gold Backed Pan-African Currency' or the plans to barter Libya's high quality, light sweet crude for commodities, food and raw materials with other African countries or Iran's 'Publicly Owned Central Bank' or Iran's plan for a Hydrocarbon Bourse that does NOT trade in dollars and the implications of this for the TPTB's 'petro-dollar' and for the United States' Dollar's 'global reserve currency status' & just append the following for you :
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18555-revealed-potential-fed-chair-summers-at-heart-of-global-economic-crisis & also consider ...
''War Is A Racket'', by Gen. S. Butler : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm
It's ALL about the $/£ 'g' and the long game really ain't that long for the Parasitic Banksters, Oligarchs, Plutocrats and Kleptocrats but hey, why give a fuck when there are squirrels, chipmunks and lemmings to worry about, eh ?! Also fyi : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36112.htm .
verum ex absurdo ...
This is a good a place as any to thank the internet gods for Truthout and ICH, and by extension, you and LeoYo for being their respective conduits to all of us here.
It is all about the $, £ and ¥, of course, and I live in hopes that the game is indeed short for Oligarchs and their worldwide cronies, puppets and agents. It does seem to be that they're in a mad scramble to suck up all they can as fast as they can because their rigged game has been exposed and people are tiring of playing and being played.
It's a coincidence, too, that you bring up Ghaddafi because right before logging on here I was reading about how, publicly, the administration has talked of the Asian pivot and that may be true to an extent, but all eyes have been focused as much or more on the "Dark Continent:"
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18614-the-pivot-to-africa-the-startling-size-scope-and-growth-of-us-military-operations-on-the-african-continent
The vast resources there are well-known, as is China's vying for their piece of that particular pie. And, of course, we know this:
http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/09/as-u-s-plans-7-billion-effort-to-electrify-africa-it-faces-challenges-at-home/
. . . has little to do with 'humanitarianism,' regardless of MSM spin.
Also, another thanks for alerting me to "Zero Anthropology" all those months ago, without which I couldn't link this very pertinent article:
http://zeroanthropology.net/2013/08/10/encircling-empire-report-23-obamas-scramble-for-africa/
And finally, for that small minority on this forum (you know who you are) that believe ousting Ghaddafi was the right thing to do, please read the following:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/
Excerpt:
"The overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya by an interventionist coalition including the U.S., France, and Britain similarly empowered a host of new militant Islamist groups such as the Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, which have since carried out multiple attacks on Western interests, and the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia, whose fighters assaulted U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In fact, just prior to that attack, according to the New York Times, the CIA was tracking “an array of armed militant groups in and around” that one city alone.
According to Frederic Wehrey, a senior policy analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on Libya, that country is now “fertile ground” for militants arriving from the Arabian Peninsula and other places in the Middle East as well as elsewhere in Africa to recruit fighters, receive training, and recuperate. “It’s really become a new hub,” he told me."
You know, it's abundantly clear even to the casual observer that the longer this so-called War on Terror continues (under whatever name), the more enemies that seem to appear. This cannot be lost on our MIC, which suggests to me it's deliberate. It's the only way they can remain relevant.
''On the back of 9/11 came Libya, a country whose western and eastern borders were successfully secured through 'revolutions', a country whose eastern region had already been secured months in advance, a country invaded illegally by FUKUS Axis special forces, in which the FUKUS Axis illegally aided a group in an internal conflict, in which war crimes were committed, in which military hardware was deployed against civilian structures, in which the Gaddafi grandchildren were murdered in their home.
''Why? Because Muammar al-Qathafi's plans for Africa were threatening the lobbies which control the FUKUS Axis. It was not for no reason that the Libyan leader was to receive a UN Humanitarian Prize in 2011.
''The legacy of 9/11 is therefore its consequences : torture, rape, murder, illegal detention, war crimes, atrocities, sodomy, urination in food, sleep deprival, setting dogs on detainees, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, racism...the list goes on and on and on and reads like a shopping list for Satan.'' from :
Many thanx for your comprehensive reply-comment and for your excellent links, which I am thoroughly recommending to all interested readers but I'll just limit my reply here, to appending the following :
''Lawlessness and Ruin in Libya'', by Patrick Cockburn : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36120.htm &
''Libya and Its Contexts'', by Greg Shupak : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36104.htm .
The 'WoT' is full of WMDs 'g', 'Words of Mass Distraction' being used as 'Weapons of Mass Distraction'. I really appreciated your 'Zero Anthropolgy' link btw because I hadn't been to that excellent website for a long time. Solidarity :-)
fiat pax ...
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I don't believe I'm ignoring anything. For one thing, you're making the assumption that what's being reported in the media is, in fact, what actually happened. The jury's still out on that matter. There's also the serious flaw in assuming there would be anything like a "limited scale intervention." Limited scale intervention is a piss-poor euphemism for "act of war." No matter how you paint it, that's exactly what it would be.
There's a lot going on over there that I'm unsure of, Zen, but one thing I'm absolutely 100% sure of, and that is: this has nothing to do with a gas attack.
"one thing I'm absolutely 100% sure of, and that is: this has nothing to do with a gas attack."
Truth.
Yep, you know what's really going on. And one of Leo's latest Truthout pieces is definitely a big piece of the puzzle, linking Larry Summer's "End Game" memo to General Clark's revelation about the secret "seven countries in five years" letter:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/18604-making-the-world-safe-for-banksters-syria-in-the-crosshairs
Veeery interesting . . .
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OK.
i'm not convinced congress represents the people
No war! It's the prime example of man's inhumanity to man. We HAVE to stop any military action against Syria. I'm flabbergasted that after Iraq and Afghanistan we want to get into another war.
I have called and emailed my congressman. I'm a Vietnam veteran (draftee). At 18 I was doing my time like every other soldier. No thought about whether we were right or wrong. I even considered the anti-war hippies as cowards. But over the years I'm become more worldly. We must stay out of other countries business. We aren't the world police. This is madness.
What about the Texas WAR on women and LBGT?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/03/texas-national-guard-refuses-to-offer-same-sex-couples-access-to-benefits-at-state-owned-facilities/
New horrors every day.
doesn't family value in Texas mean the oil conglomerates ?
That one goes and in hand with the various and sundry "defense" contractors.
Then there's the Monsanto fueled mono-culture farming.
Plenty of pollution to go around too.
The Texas National Guard is just following Texas law. Gay marriage is illegal in Texas. Are you suggesting the should violate the law?
I think the mayor of Boston has the best solution for Detroit. http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/09/03/boston-mayor-says-hed-blow-up-detroit-and-start-over/
How nice of you to say. I'm sure you agree with him.
Who said Texas law is legitimate?
When it comes to LBGT issues, it obliviously isn't.
Plus you skipped over the entire anti-woman stance, the lack of regulation that KILLS people, and so,so much more.
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