Ashoka vs. Obama

Indian Emperor Ashoka lived some 2300 years ago. He's remembered for his wisdom, his efforts to promote peace, and his edicts on right behavior & respect for others. He reached out to the far corners of the then-known world to dig wells and to plant trees. Ashoka supported education and made provision for minority peoples.

"Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousnesses and serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Asoka shines, and shines, almost alone, a star."

     --  H.G. Wells (1921) The Outline of History. New York:Macmillan, p.371

From our own time, the name Obama might have become great. He promised much. He ruled a great nation, and pledged change & hope. But he fizzled, and failed without really trying. Anti-democratic, militaristic, champion of a dangerous secret police, Obama will be remembered, if at all, as just another shallow bum.

Militarism vs. Manning

Can U.S.Army Private Bradley Manning justly be tried by the U.S. military after releasing documentation of American war crimes and murder?

Surely not.

Middle East Feast

The USA tries to make peace in the Middle East.

Or do they?  Israel does what it wishes.

The USA pays out huge subsidies for the opportunity to pretend it's involved with peacemaking. But mostly "the Peace process" is bullshit: a few cozy dinners, a chance to act as statesmen for partisan fools who crave self-promoting TV coverage.

Hoping reportedly to renew key discussions, the USA today appointed Martin Indyk as special envoy & lead negotiator. Clearly Indyk's not neutral - he's a former research director for Israeli lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). It's more likely Marty's there to keep John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, on a very short leash.

For non-extremist ideas (link), see  Jewish Voices for Peace

Secret Police USA

Both Brad Manning & Eddie Snowden are tormented by the U.S. government not so much because they released truthful information to the media. They drew attention to criminal acts by our overseers, America's commissar class.

We now know the USA has a huge secret police system. 

It consumes monstrous chunks of our scarce resources.

Secret Police USA is insecure, and threatens all the world.


"Get back!  Do it now!"

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Bulger Brothers Back

William "Billy" Bulger was President of the Massachusetts Senate - over a period of 25 years he was New England's most powerful politician. Part of that time his criminal brother "Whitey" Bulger was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list (though corrupt police & FBI were happy not to find him).  Creepy...

http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/22935823/2013/07/25/stephen-rakes-had-image-made-of-bulger-brothers-before-death

We Kill Egypt

Democracy was overthrown in Egypt's recent military coup.

The military has begun to massacre the non-obedient.

Pres. Morsi's life is surely in danger.

As with Chile under Pinochet, to slow repression & killing puts the killers at risk. Only their paymasters can intervene - But will we?

Egypt's supreme military leader, General Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi, is a "good friend" of the USA & UK. In other words, a colonial stooge.

But al-Sisi is not without his own opinions. He gained infamy for supporting Egyptian "virginity tests" in 2011 after the toppling of US-backed dictator Mubarak.

General Sisi is former head of Egyptian military intelligence. He completed a Basic Infantry Course in the USA (link) sometime in the early 1980s, trained at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College in Oxfordshire (1992), and in 2006 finished a Masters Degree at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania.

According to Al Jazeera, General Sisi is "known for his close relationship with US military." -- Beirut's Daily Star (12 Sept 2012) reports Sisi "promised to raise the salary of all middle-ranking officers by $50 a month (while) 40 percent of the population live on less than $2 a day." Such pay raise wouldn't be from Sisi's personal funds, but from American foreign-aid grants to Egypt...

Why should American taxpayers pay for busting heads abroad?

We've police violence at home in Detroit, in Wisconsin, in New York's Zuccotti Park, & elsewhere across impoverished America... We pay for repression & torture elsewhere, and pay at home for our own jailers. The police are goons of our rulers, paid to protect upper class tranquility. We get gruffly ordered about, and clubbed when disobedient. Too many cops, too little justice.

Police Stun Wisconsin

Why care about Wisconsin democracy?

Police wade into crowds arresting protestors, whose constitutional right to freely assemble is revoked by decree. (link)
Why worry?   Very forthreich. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NRVgIN_jSM

Imprison All Reporters?

Bradley Manning is being tried by the U.S. military for "aiding the enemy" and now faces possible sentencing to life in prison. He's already been tortured & abused at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, and at Quantico, Virginia.

The information allegedly released by Manning (link) included details of U.S. military brutality & murder, as well as transcripts of U.S. diplomatic backstabbing. We're all better-off (as civilized humans, as voting citizens, and as funder-taxpayers) knowing the reality of U.S. militaristic power, secret bumbling and corruption.

Too little attention was aimed at the contents of these sordid US embassy cables - and the "military justice" system prosecuting Manning declared such truth irrelevant.

But remember: Manning had no direct contact with any enemy.

The confidential information Manning is accused of providing was spread by The Washington Post, the New York Times, the BBC, and hundreds of other news organizations. They capitalized on information Manning provided. The weakest messenger is being sacrificed, while many corporate shills posing as reporters & politicians continue exploiting our world.

Journalist A.H. Shaye, another scapegoat who reported inconvenient truth, was imprisoned for three years in Yemen after following-up a U.S. cruise missile attack that killed dozens of civilians (link). He wrote for The Washington Post and the New York Times, and interviewed anti-American activists in the region.

Those providing information of crimes & corruption by officialdom are imprisoned, while in Boston admitted mass-murderers now walk free. Kevin Weeks provided information on where bodies are buried and agreed to cooperate with police. Pat Nee is an admitted terrorist released from prison decades early. Crooked cops & sleazy special agents of the FBI have been allowed to evade justice.

So sick & sordid !

Secret Police

The above gentleman is on trial in Boston, accused of 19 murders and assorted mayhem over many decades. Much of the time he was working with the FBI.

James "Whitey" Bulger spent nine years from his late 20s in the federal prison system, including stints at Alcatraz & Leavenworth Federal Penitentiaries. He allegedly then went on to become a gangland leader, extorting millions from Boston area businesses and terrorizing the New England region, all the while a confidential informant to the FBI.

Bulger was well-protected. The FBI leaked details about informants to Bulger & associates; some were subsequently murdered. What we know is tip of the iceberg.

This is a great lesson on the dangers of a secret police.

Billions of Accusations?

No money for basic education. No money for our crumbling domestic infrastructure.

But there are hundreds of billions for overseas military adventurism. Billions to prop-up the military coup in Egypt, and Israeli extremist scum bum Netanyahu.  Subsidies for dozens of oppressive dictatorships that impoverish their lands & peoples, enriching parasitic gangs of thieves.

We spend hundreds of billions spying on ourselves, with the generated "intelligence" filtered abroad. We spend further billions on our domestic prison industry. Justice is little more than "just is"...

Foolish demagogues like U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) team with deluded opportunists such as U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI), Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Pres. Barack Obama to funnel our money to militarism & the secret police.

Never vote for these people.  Agitate & oppose them if you've still a chance.

Who Runs Us?

A mix of Americans last Saturday at a barbeque were discussing government & political affiliation. Most (perhaps all) were disgusted by today's situation, and complaints about U.S. politics were aimed at assorted problems.

One person sought to distill to a basic choice: "Who should control policies & funding, the Government - or the People?"

Discussion ensued.  Sadly, nobody considered their own Government "of the people, by the people & for the people."

The U.S. Government claims to be benevolent: so protective of us and well-meaning. But the mammoth systems of militarism & defense truly enslave us, as pawns in a rigid system serving a tiny well-connected minority. Americans are spied upon & shat upon by their police services, who serve themselves and crooked creeps such as Bulgers of Boston. There are far too many cops who simply boss people around - as if we were farm animals.

Fixed Class, America

Poorer U.S. students are being told by wealthy officials they're being 'saved' from high interest rates on student loans. But in fact, they're being screwed -- in comparison to friendly agreements with crooked banks. How can this be?

U.S. government funds are loaned to the biggest banks at below 1%, though most such banks have been in default and have troubled histories. Clearly, the Federal Reserve is comprised of bankers who largely help themselves and their industry.

A Congressional "bipartisan compromise" for student loans would lend initially at 3.86% for undergraduates (capped to 8.25%). Ten years of this program would earn the national government an estimated $184 billion. Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren & Edward Markey support legislation pegging student rates to the rate granted banks, presently 0.75%

But -- Don't hold your breath waiting. Agitate. Vote Green Party, or for those resisting the banker cabal. Poor students - thanks to Washington you'll remain poor.

Nuclear Deformities? Nah

Assorted plant deformities are being found in the vicinity of the Fukushima nuclear disaster (link). Officials say there's no proven relationship to the radioactivity release.  Local people claim otherwise.

Entry to the evacuation zone is still prohibited, so the closest land area is uninhabited and monitoring is controlled. What's happening at sea? Nothing good...

Zimmerman Justice

George Zimmerman hunted down and confronted an unarmed high school boy, and shot the kid dead. It was just 7PM when Trayvon Martin was killed.

Zimmerman was acquitted of both second-degree murder and of manslaughter. He now walks free, but Trayvon Martin's ghost will forever haunt his killer.

Zimmerman claimed he feared for his life. He may indeed have been afraid before, during and after the killing - but Zimmerman initiated the confrontation, and he finished it by shooting the teenager dead.

NFL quarterback Michael Vick was sentenced to federal prison for 23 months for dogfighting & killing a pit bull. Why is a dog more valued than a child who'd just gone shopping for ice tea & skittles candy? Zimmerman, the child-killer who refused to testify in his own defense, sniggered free: his supporters are well-pleased, and he himself seems unrepentant. The remains of Trayvon Martin lie violated, an ambushed child of racist & genocidal America.

 

Nuke Dude Dead

Masao Yoshida, nuclear engineer, died of cancer this week in Japan. He was chief of Fukushima Dai'ichi nuclear plant during the March 2011 explosions & meltdown. He remained based onsite, organizing Tokyo Electric Power Company's response to the disaster and monitoring the leakage of radioactivity into the surrounding air, ground and sea.

TEPCO has not acknowledged responsibility for Yoshida's collapsed health.

Yoshida was 58 years old.   吉田昌郎 ・ 元東電原発所長が死去

 

Invasive Government?

Does an individual have any abiding rights to their own DNA? Police followed a person they acknowledge was uninvolved in crime, and collected DNA from a drink bottle discarded at their workplace. The DNA was then used to link a dead relative to a series of crimes 50 years ago, and showed probable cause to force exhumation of the accused relative's remains.

The Boston Globe reports (13 July 2013, p.A7) that the extended family of Albert DeSalvo and his nephew "were outraged by collection of the DNA without their permission." A spokesman for the ACLU is quoted: "It's not hard to understand why people would be uncomfortable with having samples of their DNA collected and used without their knowledge."

Yet Professor of Law Rosanna Cavallaro of Suffolk University defends the police action. She claims: "It's pretty clear that any kind of discarded material is fair game for the police to retrieve and use to obtain information. If I take a cup and throw it in the garbage, that's saying to the world, 'I lost interest in this, it's not important to me, and I no longer care what happens to it.'"

One problem is technology is quickly developing. In the near future, if not now, cells and DNA are likely be bases for creating body parts or even cloned individuals. Would we have no say in such experimentation with our personal genetic material?

When we discard something in the trash, we've the expectation it's to be trashed, not that it serve as an experimental sample for the police, raw material for commercial laboratories, or a disqualification exhibit by our health insurance company.

Prof. Rosanna Cavallaro is a doofus. Or perhaps the newspaper printed only part of her comments. If "Rosanna+" clones were surreptitiously brought to market, she'd surely start singing a different tune...

Miss Deedy

Chris Deedy shot & killed a man in a crowded McDonalds in Waikiki. It was 2:30 AM. Both men had been drinking.

After the shooting, Deedy refused to be tested for drunkenness (see link).  Kollin Elderts was tested as a corpse, involuntarily.

Elderts is dead. Christopher Deedy is on trial for murder (second-degree).  No winners.

An inexperienced Federal employee, Deedy has worked for short periods in Baghdad (Iraq) and Benghazi (Libya). Deedy may have felt comfortable barking orders at the people of Hawaii as perhaps he'd done in the Middle East. Whatever the case, Deedy's use of deadly force, precipitous & ill-advised, was a major tragedy.

Sad!  (link)

Buying Egypt Misery

Each year the USA gives Egypt's military over $1.3 billion (link); $1,300,000,000 in "military aid"... Now Egypt's military has staged a coup overthrowing their elected government, and this week Egyptian military patrols are executing people on the streets.

Our monies flow continually. That's $25 million each week... (probably more in untraced funds).

America needs these multi-millions for its own development.

We need to get out of the overseas militarism business.

It's dirty, wretched & not our business.

Shadow Endurance?

Cape Cod, Massachusetts is downwind of Entergy's Pilgrim Nuclear Power plant. In case of accident, survivors can't run away -- gateways to the peninsula are near the nuclear site.

As with many nuclear facilities, danger and horrors multiply due to radioactive stockpiles (link). Pilgrim is a nuclear waste storage site, located on a beach.

The disaster at Fukushima taught little or nothing.  It's a tragedy when radioactive fallout enters the food chain & contaminates towns full of children. Git some radionuclide wit yer fish, beach sand & lobster...

Japan's disaster teaches of great danger & irresponsibility by nuclear reactor operators. Nothing can compensate for an accident. Wake Up America.

 

Pansy Press

Major media in the USA is servile. Corporate interests don't equal public interest.

Duh

Sad the Washington Post eliminated its ombudsman earlier this year (link). Editorial independence is abandoned. American Democracy has become a farce. Media treats us as silly sheep - choosing either to be boiled or broiled.

Even an objective veneer is abandoned.
US media serves big money employers.