U.S. Blames Northern Lights on Russia, Imposes Sanctions

 

The U.S. State Department has accused Russia of hacking into the ionosphere and generating excessive and annoying levels of Northern Lights.  The ongoing display of light saber rattling, apparently a misguided attempt to "show off" the technological prowess of their teams of warmongering physicists, extends its "tentacles of terror" deep into the sovereign territory of the U.S. and its European allies.  This has resulted in widespread panic in U.S. cities like Buffalo, NY and Detroit, MI, where public displays of drunkenness and rowdiness have skyrocketed.

While no evidence of Russian responsibility has been offered, White House spokesperson, Josh Earnest, recently stated:  "The motive is obvious.  The constant flashing and gyrating shapes in the sky are intended to cause sleep deprivation.  When people don't get enough sleep, their guard is down.  The Russians are trying to undermine our national security with this cheap stunt.  It's an unprecedented act of aggression and, trust me, will not go unanswered.  We are coordinating our response with the Department of Defense, NSA, CIA, and Hayden Planetarium in New York."

 

One reporter asked about the rumors that world-renowned astrophysicist, Dr. Neal deGraas Tyson, had been summoned to the White House to seek his expert advice on exactly what appropriate counter-measures and retaliation might be available.

"Well . . . Mr. Tyson appears to be a Putin-apologist and commie sympathizer.  When we approached him about this, after he stopped rudely laughing in our faces, the guy just shrugged his shoulders and walked away shaking his head.  What an arrogant man.  We are keeping our eye on him."

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, has just presented American demands to the United Nations Security Council that a comprehensive regime of economic sanctions be imposed on Russia for tampering with the electromagnetic field of the Earth.

"We need to show these Russians once and for all we mean business.  Today it's Northern Lights.  Tomorrow they'll be injecting vodka into the aquifers serving the citizens of the free world, or blasting balalaika music at us 24/7 from outer space.  This is an outrage and an act of war.  As humanitarians concerned with the welfare of people everywhere on this planet, it is our duty to support the Russian citizenry as they attempt to free themselves from the barbaric oppression and inhumane cruelty of government tyranny, by cutting off all food, water, medicine, electricity, and internet access.  Let these sanctions do their job.  Pass this resolution immediately!"

In a separate interview, another reporter asked Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, what will America do if the sanctions don't work.

"We have a Plan B.  If sanctions don't break the chains of totalitarian control which Putin is attempting to impose on the world, perhaps a few thousand cruise missiles will."

So . . .

Rest assured, folks, our enlightened leadership has the situation under control.  America will in the end triumph. 

But just to be safe . . .

While there is no medical evidence that Northern Lights per se can cause physiological damage, the FDA has just recommended that until this siege is brought under control, everyone should stay indoors and keep their blinds and curtains drawn. 

Should you have to go out at night, apply SPF-50 sun block to exposed areas and wear sunglasses.  DO NOT STARE AT THE LIGHTS!  It is unlikely but still possible that they contain subliminal "brainwashing" messages.  If you are bothered by the unusual urge to read Das Kapital by Karl Marx, or seized by the impulse to stand on a table and break out singing The Internationale, immediately see a doctor.  This is covered under Obamacare.




[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



U.S. Blames Northern Lights on Russia, Imposes Sanctions

Paying For The Peace Dividend

Understandably, the first reaction I get when I tell people we're going to get the U.S. government to refund to its citizens $4,826,000,000,000 is:  "What?  We can't afford that.  Our government is already in hock over $19 trillion and every year since 2000, we've been running a deficit."

Aside from the fact that the deficit spending -- which has been the focus of overwrought debates, ultimatums, government shutdowns, and a celebrated hand grenade tossed back and forth in the political blame game -- is both unnecessary and entirely intentional, the ultimate impact of the Peace Dividend is actually to remedy such fiscal irresponsibility.  The Peace Dividend refund drives a whole host of fundamental reforms which will over time help to put our financial house in order.  However, that's a topic for another blog.

The Peace Dividend is paid out over three years.  Thus, each year we have to come up with a little over $1.6 trillion each fiscal year.

Here's how we do it.  Here's how we raise a minimum of $1.6 trillion dollars each year . . .

$200 billion . . . cut from the official DOD budget.
$83 billion . . . cut from future Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria war budgets.
$45 billion . . . cut from homeland security agency budgets.
$32 billion . . . cut from the black budgets of the NSA and CIA.
$102 billion . . . raised from closing tax loopholes and taxing offshored money.
$469 billion . . . ending unnecessary and counter-productive corporate welfare.
$103 billion . . . raised by making corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
$400 billion . . . raising income taxes on the wealthiest to what they were in 1975.
$177 billion. . . raised from financial transaction tax on public trading.
$250 billion . . . raised by issuing domestic-use-only Peace Dollars.
$250 billion . . . raised issuing Peace Bonds for investing in a peaceful future.

I better slow down!  I'm already way over $2 trillion!

Now, as you all know, I'm not an economic analyst, a statistician, a financial wizard of any ilk.  Yet, I was able in broad strokes to demonstrate how simple it is to make the necessary adjustments.  Granted, my plan will have to be fine-tuned by acclaimed and self-anointed experts.  But before the proselytizers and pretenders armed with skepticism and hatchets subject us to their pompous, pedantic and patronizing pruning, just bear this in mind . . . 

 

The Peace Dividend is a refund due to American citizens.  That is a given.  Read my book.  It's all there.  I didn't make this stuff up.  The facts are clear.  American citizens have been the victims of the greatest rip-off of tax money in the history of the world.  They deserve -- and should demand, no excuses, no negotiation, no compromise -- a full refund.  No analysis can alter this reality.

Yes, it may be unprecedented.  It most certainly is controversial.  Traditionalists and those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo -- because it keeps them wealthy and in the centers of power -- will declare it outrageous!  Insane!  Irresponsible!  Impossible!

But the the truth is, what is outrageous, insane, irresponsible, and impossible is to promote and pursue never-ending war, keep needlessly killing innocent people -- including our own fine young men and women in uniform -- continue to turn America into a pariah in the world community with the incessant bombing and support of terrorist proxies.  What's truly outrageous, insane, irresponsible, and impossible is spreading chaos, destruction and death, fomenting terrorist attacks and an unparalleled refugee crisis across the globe.  What's outrageous, insane, irresponsible, and impossible is the pursuit of a psychopathic agenda of imperial conquest, which has destroyed our democracy and imposed a vulgar, savage regime of fear here at home, in the form of the insidious and fraudulent War on Terror.  This madness must be stopped or America will crumble under the weight of its own hubris and delusions of grandeur.

The point here is a simple one.  What's not lacking here are the mechanics of finding and refunding the money.  What's lacking is the political will.  What's lacking is any sense of responsibility among our corrupt pay-for-play political leaders.  What's tragically lacking is the public awareness of how far out-of-control the situation is.  Were people to wake up to what's really going on with our military madness, imperial delusions of world empire, and ruthless oppression of everyday citizens under a systematic, propaganda-fueled, carefully crafted and entirely orchestrated regime of totalitarian control by a veritable handful of rich and powerful elites, heads would role! 

Maybe I'm naive, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.  With 300 million guns at hand, when things start getting violent, we can only expect a bloodbath to unfold.  My sincere hope is that the urgently required regime change is still possible non-violently.  We do this by replacing any uncooperative legislators with ones who understand that their obligations are first and foremost to their constituents, that being elected to represent us, implies that they actually will represent us, putting our welfare and the health of our families and communities ahead of all else.

I propose the Peace Dividend as a decisive test.  It's a line in the sand.

Either "they" are for it or against it.

It's how we decide who to vote for.  If a candidate won't support it -- by signing a legally binding contract to guarantee his or her support -- we find one who will.

The games are over.  The rich and powerful plutocrats have had a good run.  They've bled the country and its citizens dry.  Now it's payback time.

If the politicos who've created and perpetuated the mess we're in can't own up to the error of their way and fix the problem, beginning with proper redress in the form of a full refund of the money taken fraudulently from good, decent, hard-working Americans, then they are not serious about making the necessary changes, regardless of what they say.

Either they give us our money back, or they get their walking papers.

They do not deserve our support and will be removed -- unelected -- from office.

These soon-to-be ex-congressman and presidential hopefuls are very talented people.

I'm sure they'll do well on the comedy club circuit or selling time-shares in the Caribbean.


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]


Paying For The Peace Dividend

Dealing With A Shark Attack

 

How do you deal with a shark attack in a swimming pool?

You drain the water and watch the shark suffocate.

The Peace Dividend strategy does exactly that.

It drains the pool of funds which our insane neocon-infested military establishment -- which includes the DOD, NSA, CIA, DHS, Congress, and the White House -- abuses with its never-ending wars and delusional monomaniacal pursuit of world empire.

We take back all of the money they've defrauded us out of for the past 24 years -- we could go back further but two-and-a-half decades is a good start -- then watch them desperately gasp and struggle as they try to persist in their aggressive bullying of the world. 

No money.  No more unnecessary wars. 

No money.  No more boondoggles like the F-35.

No money.  No more senseless waste like the trillion dollar upgrade of our nuclear arsenal.

No money.  America will start waging peace instead of waging war.

Peace is something we can actually afford.

The Peace Dividend, the pool of money totaling $4.82 trillion which was paid in taxes -- by you and I -- under false pretenses, collected on the basis of lies told us by our government  in support of wasteful D.O.D. extravagance and military aggression on no less than eight foreign countries since 1992, is money which will be distributed as a refund to each and every single American citizen.  It is our money, tax dollars paid in good faith by decent hard-working folks who trusted their government to put it to correct and proper use. 

We were fooled.

We were lied to.

We were conned. 

We were defrauded! 

We were callously ripped off!



The Peace Dividend refund comes to $14,952 for each and every living U.S. citizen, paid out over three years.

That comes to almost $60,000 for a family of four.

This is money which should have been ours to spend, and recovering it -- as is completely within our rights in a government of the people, by the people, for the people -- unlike the military madmen, we'll put it to good use.  We can buy some news clothes for the kids, pay down our credit cards, replace that car that's falling apart, take a long overdue vacation.

Am I crazy?

No . . . we are crazy if we don't stick up for ourselves.

We are crazy if we don't stop the abuse of power and hold our government accountable.

We are crazy if we don't reject and reverse this gross misappropriation of our tax dollars.

As victims of the worst crime in history -- the biggest tax rip-off ever -- we deserve full and immediate compensation.

Let's get started.

By the way, if anyone is tempted to ask me how a shark got into the swimming pool, I have a question for you . . .

How did so many homicidal, warmongering sociopaths get into the centers of power in Washington DC?

The Peace Dividend strategy is a direct attack on America’s systemic addiction to war by appealing to the self-interest of its citizens, literally INCENTIVIZING people to redirect their thinking and start WORKING FOR PEACE!

 

The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World is now available both as an ebook and deluxe paperback at all of the usual outlets . . .

Amazon (Kindle) / US . . . amzn.to/2cpIRfQ
Amazon (Print) / US . . . amzn.to/2cEhnCb
Amazon (Kindle) / UK . . . amzn.to/2cKXFsV
Amazon (Kindle) / Canada . . . amzn.to/2ciZKdl
Amazon (Kindle) / Japan . . . amzn.to/2cbf3TO
Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/2cWxvzd
Kobo (Indigo) . . . bit.ly/2cI8cB6
Apple iTunes . . . apple.co/2cqw7an
Smashwords . . . bit.ly/2cb6Cse
Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/2c3mJsl

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]


Dealing With A Shark Attack

Deep-State Doppelgängers

As an outsider -- I'm an American expat living in Japan -- I've had to seek out my own unique set of "insiders", individuals who have special access to the inner workings of the U.S.  My most fruitful source of insider information has turned out to be an Latvian taxi driver based in Youngstown, Ohio who has a network of informers deep within the bowels of our opaque government machinery.  His expert psychic talent plus the natural ability to see through both lead paint and building insulation, combine with his disarming knack for making light of any situation -- he has a sideline business as a stand-up comic at local area funerals -- to penetrate the most secure firewalls of secrecy put in place by the plutocrats and power brokers nestled in the Washington DC bubble.  I've never met him in person but we talk regularly on Citizens Band radio (channel 7).

What he told me yesterday was shocking and left me nearly speechless.  But speaking I am right now to share with you what I learned.

It doesn't matter who we vote for in the coming election for president!

This is not because as is commonly thought the electoral system is completely rigged.  Rather, it's because whoever is elected will immediately be disappeared by the Deep State security agencies and replaced with a robot which you and I will not be able to detect is a fake.  Then this deep-state controlled doppelgänger will do and say what it is programmed to say and do.  You and I will never be the wiser.

The NSA in conjunction with DARPA have been perfecting the science of anthro-robotics for this very purpose.  The results are astonishing.

The Donald Trump prototype is already being street tested.



On the other hand, the Hillary Clinton robo-doppelgänger has had some snags.  The finest researchers at the facility are having trouble capturing some of the tics, outlandish facial expressions and seizures which have recently become her trademarks.  After all, they've spent millions of dollars trying to emulate normal behavior, not that of a crazy person.  Look at this video and you'll see what they're up against.

They've still managed to come up with an "early version" of what they are confident will be a very convincing President Clinton II simulation.



No one gives Jill Stein a chance in hell of winning the election.  But the ever-cautious deep state robotics experts are taking no chances.  This early mock-up appears to need a little fine tuning but I'm confident they'll get it right by inauguration day.



DARPA and the NSA have decided they can replace Gary Johnson with a washing machine jacked up with some artificial intelligence and nobody will know the difference.  They are, however, having a little trouble keeping the feisty anthro-bot on message.



There you have it.  Voting is a complete waste of time!  Don't bother.

The good news is that the 23rd season of Dancing With The Stars will be showcasing such amazing talents as Amber Rose, Ryan Lochte, and Laurie Hernandez.  It would appear that November 8th will be a good day to just stay home and watch TV.



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



Deep-State Doppelgängers

“We want our money back!”

 

We have been ripped off!

We have been lied to, manipulated, and frightened into supporting the largest theft of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars ever __ easily the biggest heist in the history of the entire world.

If you buy a hair drier or a fruit blender at a store, then when you get home and find out it doesn't work, what do you do?  You go back and get a refund.

It's broken.

You deserve your money back.

Well . . . it's the same deal with wasteful government spending.

We paid our taxes in good faith. We trusted our political leaders to do the right things, to put it to good and proper use.

But they lied to us.

And we didn't just get a defective fruit blender or broken hair drier. We got defective wars, defective military equipment, defective leadership. We got a defective economy where only the rich do well and for the rest of us, it's broken.  The con artists we elected to office took our money, sometimes under false pretenses, and wasted it. We now have broken bridges, broken roads, broken schools, broken communities, broken homes!

In my previous two blogs, here and here, I railed against the enormous waste of taxpayer money on defense-industry profiteering, boondoggles, and the pursuit of unnecessary and fraudulent wars.

By my calculations, since 1992, over 24 years of bloated defense budgets resulting from bad foreign policy decisions, psychopathic delusions of world domination, two major wars, paranoid obsession with security which has trashed the Constitution and is well on its way to making America a police state, and pork barrel squandering of hard-earned taxpayer dollars, I came up with a total of $4.52 trillion entirely wasted.

$4.52 trillion, folks!

Look at this and try not to faint or have your head explode . . .
 
All this time, we regular Americans __ the ones that don't belong to country clubs __ could have used this money. 

If we had had this $4.52 trillion, we wouldn't be so far in debt, we wouldn't be struggling from paycheck to paycheck. We wouldn't have so many foreclosures and bankruptcies. We would have put this money to good use: Improving our homes and communities, properly feeding and clothing our kids, modernizing our schools.

Yes, we've been had. Big time!

And there it is in black-and-white __ with some green and purple thrown in for cheer.

Americans got a defective product. We were cheated and conned.

Now the bill has come due. 

$4,524,000,000,000!

This comes to $14,186 for every man, woman and child in America.

Or it means refunding $25,416 to each and every living person who filed a tax return in the last twenty-four years.

Either way you look at it, this money is due and payable . . . IMMEDIATELY!

And don't tell us the check is in the mail. We want to see some green!

Just load up all those MRAPs and other military trucks roaming around everywhere these days with some cash and start going house-to-house.

For the NSA clowns that are reading this blog and unconstitutionally spying on me, please do me a huge favor and pass along the above invoice to President Obama and Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew.  Please mark it 'Urgent'.  We expect to see some prompt action.

Write on the envelope . . .

You've had OUR MONEY long enough.
People are getting real IMPATIENT.
You stole it. Now give it back!

If this refund is not in the hands of every deserving American citizen very soon, I suspect a lot of people are going to get real testy.  I don't know how many pitchforks there are, but I do know there are over 300,000,000 guns floating around.

Just sayin'.

Yes, we want our country back.

Of course, we want our democracy back.

But for starters . . .

We want our money back!



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



“We want our money back!”

Freedom of the Press

 

My last piece was the longest, most intensively-researched, article I've ever posted here. Called Give Peace A Chance,  it contained a large number of links throughout in support of my various statements of fact.

Beyond some of the very eye-opening information I came across and cited in the piece itself, I had a startling epiphany.

Generally, I see noticeable differences in what is reported "out here" __ as you probably know, I'm an expat living in Japan __ and what I get from the American media.  These are sometimes slight but unmistakable differences in content, but more often of emphasis, as the respective articles understandably are tailored for different audiences.

But this time my realization went far beyond that. I encountered what can only be deemed crude and blatant censorship, a glaring lack of any coverage of specific noteworthy events by any of the standard U.S. news outlets __ the ones most commonly used by Americans.
Let me explain.

Sometimes I am accused of leaning too much on RT, the Russian news site. Personally I find it to be extremely valuable, mostly quite balanced, and a great source for a different take on world events. But since I sometimes get slammed by Russophobes for using that "damn Russkie propaganda rag", I typically try to mix in a lot of different sources when providing support for whatever point I'm trying to make.

Since they have solid __ if often undeserved __ reputations in America, I heavily rely on the Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes Magazine, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, Time Magazine, and occasionally USA Today.

For non-U.S. reporting I turn to Britain's Guardian, Telegraph and Independent, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and a few Asian online news sites.

What struck me was the number of articles related to the Ukraine crisis, the confrontation with Russia, the frenzy of military exercises throughout Europe, the escalation of the new Cold War stand-off between Russian and the West, and preparation for a possibly massive military conflict between NATO and Russia, which HAD NO COMPARABLE REPORTING in America's main stream media __ I mean nothing!

In other words, an item would be featured in RT, but Google produced no similar article in the American press.

There were numerous examples. But let me mention a few that stood out.

"Over 100 US armored vehicles roll into Latvia, NATO flexes muscles in Europe" was the headline in RT. No mention in the U.S. of what seems like a rather startling development.

You would expect an announcement like "US National Guard sends 12 F-15 interceptor jets to Europe to guard against Russia" to raise some eyebrows. Of course, since none of the major news programs __ at least none that I can find __ mentioned it, eyebrows got the day off.

A month after the Minsk II agreement struck by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, which specifically bars introduction from outside countries of material support and lethal weapons, we have "Poroshenko: 11 EU states struck deal with Ukraine to deliver weapons, including lethal", an ominous bit of treachery. While there is mention at an Iranian news site of Russian objections to this, and a link back to the RT article at Israel Foreign Affairs, discussion in major media forums is conspicuously lacking in the U.S. and Europe itself.

How about "US troops in Europe request bigger guns amid Russia anxieties", appearing April 25? Do Americans even know there are U.S. soldiers in countries right on Russia's border preparing for battle? They do only if they read the California Telegraph, a news outlet I never heard of before this.

No wonder very few in America seem aware of what's at stake here, the current magnitude of the tension, the potential for this crisis escalating into World War III, or the possibility of an apocalyptic nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S.

This is a frightening and dangerous breech of trust between the American people and its news sources. How are people supposed to make informed judgments about what their government is doing in their name without knowing what's going on?

Then again maybe the point is . . . they're not.

Of course, it's much worse than just sins of omission.

The other half of the story is the deception __ the gross distortions and outright lies that sometimes appear.

Sometimes the distortions are so profound, if you were to lay an article written for U.S. public consumption next to one on the exact same topic written by a correspondent from a non-NATO country, you would think they were about two completely different, unrelated matters. Often you get an entirely opposite rendering of what actually happened.

There is, of course, a pattern here. It's one I've seen unfolding and becoming increasingly obvious over the past few years.

At first it surfaced as journalists just respectfully aligning their perceptions and editorial perspectives to official government positions on any matters pertaining to international relations and formulation of foreign policy. Politeness and pandering discreetly replaced asking probing questions and conducting deep-source investigation.

That morphed into advocating and cheer leading on behalf of the government. We saw an abundance of this leading up to the second Iraq war. Press conferences with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were like frat parties before a home game.

American media now only mimics the official government line. Rather than actually cover the news, investigate it thoroughly and report it objectively, it merely takes dictation from the official spokespersons for the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies, including the NSA and CIA. Doing original research, challenging shoddy reasoning, objecting to spurious claims, demanding proof and corroboration, all have faded into a hazy memory of quaint bygone times.

I can only draw one conclusion.

There is indeed freedom of the press in America.

But it's not quite what I understood it to be.

Now it's the freedom to keep Americans in the dark.
It's the freedom cherry-pick from the vast array of newsworthy items and only publish those consistent with the preferred narrative of our government.

It's the freedom to suppress anything which official spokespersons find inconvenient or untimely in their ongoing effort to enforce their manufactured version world events.

It's the freedom to distort and invent facts which support official government policies.

It's the freedom to shape the national conversation in ways that aligns with the official view of developments and incidents.

It's the freedom to shape public perception by using loaded phrases and unrepresentative images, to editorialize while hiding behind a facade of objectivity.

It's the freedom to malign and demonize both national and international figures who the U.S. government has targeted for character assassination and marginalization.

It's the freedom to do balanced journalism, but with a new, different twist. Individual correspondents will balance their desire for career advancement with the demand they write the right kind of articles given the correct spin about a range of "acceptable" issues. News media organizations will balance their need for access to the White House and other high-level officials with the kind of coverage that meets the approval of those they access.

But I will give credit where it's due. Under this new definition of "freedom of the press", American journalists can now surely be saluted for unfailingly and aggressively exercising this time-honored privilege.

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself." --- Joseph Pulitzer

[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

The Case For Female Circumcision

There is no case for female circumcision.

But we live in a very sick world.

We've come to expect the worst.

So here you are . . . reading this.

I’m not being judgmental. I would have clicked on the link too.

Curious . . . confused . . . offended . . . appalled . . . outraged . . . sickened!

I would absolutely have to see what some psychopathic individual had to say
about such an inhumane, degrading and completely offensive practice,
what twisted justification some misguided misanthrope was proposing for
perhaps the ultimate assault on the dignity of females __ the mutilation
of their genitals.

But isn’t that the way things work these days?

There’s always some outrageous headline, some teaser being dangled, some
grotesque manipulation of our reality using loaded phrases and
press-your-hot-buttons language.

It’s not just the sensational stuff either. It’s often fluff, feel good blather which
plays on sympathies or compassion, fantasy or nostalgia, offering
hearts-and-flowers stories or syrupy melodrama, maybe patriotic anthems
and tales of alleged bravery and heroism    __ which dramatically slant
and obscure the truth.

Anyway . . . here we are: “The case for female circumcision.” 

Yup . . . that’s how it reads.  Sucked you right in!  I do understand . . .

 

You wanted to see some demented asshole try to stick up for grotesque and degrading mutilation. What would he look like? Maybe you wanted to both disdain and savor his depravity?

Why?

So you could gag? Hate someone for being so pathologically and sadistically ignorant?

Then share it on Facebook? Send out indignant Tweets?

Really show that bastard!

Yes, letting people know how we feel gets the job done, and more importantly, establishes that we're morally superior . . . because you and I could never support something so foul and inhumane and repulsive, right?

How about these photos? You and I paid taxes and that money went toward this . . .
 
I rest my case.

We all live in a glass houses. I’m not going to pretend I’m any different.

But that’s not the end of the matter, is it?

I am confident that most of you __ like me __ would like to do better.

We’d each like to turn things around and become the person we always 
believed we could and would be.
But to do that, we must first answer this question . . .

How did we become so numb?


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Camp Grenada

 

Hello muddah 
Hello faddah 
Here I am at  
Camp Grenada 

I frequently find myself making a completely wrong assertion about
America's shameful, unbroken record of military defeats over the past
seven decades. I keep saying America hasn't won a war since World War II.

What I keep forgetting was our glorious and decisive victory over the fierce, 
determined bastion of leftist, socialist, communist rancor and filth __ the island 
nation of Grenada.

Using a lethal combination of the U.S. Army's Rapid Deployment Force, U.S.
Marines, our Army Delta Force, and the Navy SEALS, we kicked their commie asses! 
The campaign was called Operation Urgent Fury.It took only a few short weeks to bring 
this defiant hooligan nation to its knees. We hit them hard and hit them where it hurts by 
bombing a mental hospital and killing eighteen patients. That's what they get for being 
crazy commies!

Grenada __ sneaky Bolshevists that they were __ tried to marginalize the magnitude
and grandeur of our victory with an audacious, not to say bizarre, and
in-the-end ineffective strategy. This unorthodox "curve ball" was that
they had virtually no army, no navy, no air force, practically no
military at all, to resist the conquering heroics of our fighting boys
in uniform.

That's right . . . they had only a handful of citizens in their military __ no Department 
of Defense, no military-industrial complex, no CIA, NSA, KGB. They didn't even have 
a KFC!

They did have an excellent education system, a thriving economy with no
unemployment, a decent and improving health care system, a bare minimum
of wealth inequality. Typical of misguided socialist countries all
across the globe, they believed in the laughably quaint idea that all of
the citizens of their country should be treated well and have an equal
share in the abundance created by their collective labors, love and
concern for their fellow man.

Ha!

We fixed that!

The unions were "reorganized", huge sections of the economy were privatized,
assets were gobbled up by U.S. corporations. Now, under the guiding hand
of a capitalist free market economy, and a puppet democracy which knows
who is boss and takes its orders from the good old corporate state U S of A,
unemployment hovers around 18%, poverty afflicts 32% of the population,
the small manufacturing sector continues to shrink, tourism has been hobbled 
__ partly due to the enormous destruction of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 __ and 
inflation is upwards of 5%, offsetting the modest growth of the economy.

However, a genuinely outstanding thing happened as a result of our saving this
struggling island nation from the scourge of socialism . . . and I would be remiss
to not mention it.

Grenada now has a KFC!

In fact, it has two!

Which will be great for our American troops if we ever have to invade again.

I sincerely apologize to any of you readers out there who depend on me to
be both truthful and accurate when recounting the achievements and
challenges of our great nation. I hope the corrected record I have
offered here serves to exonerate me, and I am forgiven by any who might
have been been misled or misinformed by my oversight in the matter of
America's military prowess.

Go Team America!

Fuck yeah!

[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Absentee Patriotism

 

It's no secret that I am very critical of the policies of this
administration, and the general direction America has been taking for
the past three decades.

As a result, infrequently but uncomfortably too often, I get this remark from
some rabid, myopic super-patriot who gets their understanding of our
political system from the box that his hot glue gun came in:

"You don't even live here. You have no right to criticize America."

It's one of those battle cries from desperately small minds which on the surface
offers some common sense logic but with bare minimum scrutiny falls
apart like stale Saltines.

Let's imagine . . .

It's 1938 and I am a Jew who has been living in Nazi Germany. I am getting
increasingly uncomfortable with developments both locally in my village
and nationally. So I leave and become an expatriate, a German citizen
living in a foreign country.

While living outside the sphere of the Reich and its pervasive propaganda
machine, I see that my discomfort was more than justified, that there
are horrible things going on in my home country which threaten not only
my fellow Jews, but threaten other individuals and the peace and
stability of the whole European continent. I learn from other
expatriates about the forced labor and concentration camps, and what
appears to be a well-planned program being put in place for the
extermination of millions of people. I learn of a massive build-up of
military machinery which portends provocations of neighboring countries
and promises massive military confrontation.

Are the people who question my now living overseas saying I would have had
no right to warn people about the developments I had learned about? That I
was disqualified by my foreign mailing address from speaking out against the
policies of "my country"? That I would not have had the right to at
least warn other Jews __ my fellow citizens __ and urge them to
escape as soon as possible or face possible extermination?

I would argue that not only would I have the right to be critical of my country, I would have a moral obligation, a duty to do so, openly and aggressively.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."  -  Edmund Burke

Am I making a comparison between today's U.S. and Nazi Germany?

Yes and no. Of course, anytime anyone wants to provoke a hysterical public
outcry on any matter these days, they just yell 'Nazi' or 'Hitler' or
'holocaust' and the knee jerk response is right there for the having.
That's not what I'm doing here. The U.S. is slowly descending into a
form of autocracy, a totalitarianism quite unlike Nazi Germany in many
respects. But I believe it is potentially as thoroughly and ultimately
menacing.

We can fret and argue about whether that's correct but that's not the point I'm making.

The simple point here is that, regardless of where I live or choose to travel, I share 
with every other American citizen the duty
to keep a watchful eye on what my government is doing in my name, and
to speak out when and where I see objectionable plans, policies,
declarations, or provocative acts towards other countries. It is
especially incumbent on me __ it is my responsibility as a citizen __ to
share from out here what is not available from within
U.S. borders, because of what is clearly massive censorship of the news
there by the government and main stream media, which have become
Siamese Twins joined at the pocketbook.

It is particularly my duty to warn others in America who are not as I am in a 
position to live elsewhere, of developments which portend the worst and pose 
threats to them.

We all see the signs. Often we don't know what to make of them. The incessant
puerile prattle of politicians and pundits creates a constant stream of
obfuscation and confusion.

But it is the duty of every single American citizen to try to make sense
of our increasingly precarious situation, and to share their insights with
their fellow citizens. It is our duty to call out the official
lies, the gross imbalance of power, the horrific inequality of wealth,
the ongoing and systematic efforts by our government to promote and
prosecute in our names policies and initiatives, foreign and domestic,
which if the public had full knowledge of, it would steadfastly reject.

It takes a lot of courage these days to speak out against the government,
especially the current administration, which has done a phenomenal job
of PR and spin, and certainly makes no secret of its intent to squash
dissent in America.

Yet,  despite massive surveillance of citizens by the security agencies, the
watch lists, the no-fly lists, the kill lists, the persecution of
whistle blowers, the beatings and arrests which the most peaceful
demonstrators now endure at the hands of the police, the suspension of
habeas corpus, gross abuses of the FISA Act and the National Defense
Authorization Act, there are still many courageous individuals and
organizations which continue the daunting but necessary battle to expose
the deeply entrenched and dangerous corruption which now poisons our
system of government.

I make no claims to be on the same level as these exemplary patriots, speaking
truth to power under the threat of persecution, an unconstitutional
repression of free speech and basic human rights, the whole of which is
more and more is beginning to exhibit parallels with some of the more
oppressive regimes in history.


 

Right or wrong, I'm just an ordinary citizen merely doing my duty.

Just like you.

I watch. I listen. I speak out. I vote.

I do what little I can.

I wish it were more.



[ This originated at the author's personal web page . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

From Bill To Hillary With Love

 

As we all know, everyone is being watched, monitored, recorded. No one can
escape the eyes and ears of the national security state.

Here is an excerpt from the transcript of a conversation between Bill and Hillary
Clinton recently culled from the files of the NSA.

Classified (TS-SCI Poly Clearance Required):  Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.
Cell phone interception, June 27, 2014, 10:34 pm.

Hillary:  "I don't know. That hope and change thing sure fooled a lot of people."

Bill:  "Yeah, but fool me twice. You know the drill."

Hillary:  "So what should I do?"

Bill:  "You know what worked for me. Tell people what they want to hear. Then
steal the agenda of the conservatives so you don't get attacked from the
right. Deregulate, bomb, suck up to Wall Street. It's a sure winner.
And you know what else clinched it for me?"

Hillary:  "What's that?"

Bill:  "Playing saxophone. People loved that. Especially black people."

Hillary:  "I can't play saxophone. You know how I hate putting things in my mouth."

Bill:  "That's for sure. Hey! How about guitar?"

Hillary:  "As long as I don't break my nails."

Bill:  "I've got it! We'll put you on a crash course and you can learn Stairway To Heaven.
That's it! It could be your campaign theme song. That would lock up the
hippie burnout vote. You know, all those delusional airhead idealists
who want peace, love and justice. OMG! I'm a fucking genius!"

Hillary:  "Yes, Bill, you really are. Which is why I still love you . . . sort of."

People ask . . . 'Is Hillary Clinton a neocon-lite?'

My unequivocal reply? Nope. No way! Not a chance. Actually . . .

Hillary Clinton is a neocon-heavy.

She is a neocon wet dream!

If she's elected, she'll make Margaret Thatcher look like Mother Theresa.

Especially, since as the first female president she'll be determined to show
how tough she is, how she can hold her own, bombing, bullying, and
bullshitting with the most bestial of the bellicose buckaroos and their
bursting ball sacks of belligerence and bombast.

Hey! How many children starved to death under sanctions on Iraq after 
Operation Desert Storm? Half a million? Ha! Mere child's play, my friends.
Ane then after we destroy Syria, there's Iran. That's just getting warmed
up. Then the real fun begins . . . Russia! . . . China! How many nukes
have we got ready to lob at them?

Hillary is putting on a good show. She has the best handlers money can buy.

But don't be fooled. Sweet talk is just that . . . talk.

It's all on record. At least some pundits are paying attention . . .

Clinton as 'Poster Child for the Military-Industrial Complex by Jacob Chamberlain
Hillary Clinton, the unrepentant hawk by Steve Chapman
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton? by Jacob Heilbrunn
"More Of A Neocon Than The Republican Nominee" by Joe Scarborough
Hillary Clinton Flaunts Her Surveillance State Baggage by Robert Scheer
Good Riddance To Warmonger Hillary Clinton by Bob Dreyfuss
Hillary Clinton's Militarism Exposed by Stephen Zunes
Hillary Clinton: Warmonger For The Bankster Elite by Charleston Voice
Hillary Clinton 2016: A Recipe For Endless War by Abby Martin

Sure, it would be nice to have our first ever female president. But let's not have 
putting a bullet item in the history books override common sense and good judgment.

Yes, we should have a female president but the right female.

Certainly not the pompous Mrs. Clinton.

Maybe this one here.

Better yet.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]