Truth Has Become Un-American

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HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.


PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

"The Western presstitutes are either corrupt beyond belief or ignorant beyond belief. Nothing else can be said for them."

Those of us who have exited The Matrix are concerned that there are no checks on Washington’s use of nuclear weapons in the interest of US hegemony over the world.

Washington and Israel are the threats to peace. Washington demands world hegemony, and Israel demands hegemony in the Middle East.

There are two countries that stand in the way of Washington’s world hegemony—Russia and China. Consequently, Washington has plans for preemptive nuclear strikes against both countries. It is difficult to imagine a more serious threat to mankind, and there is no awareness or acknowledgment of this threat among the Congress, the presstitute media, and the general public in the United States and Washington’s European vassal populations.

Two countries and a part of a third stand in the way of Greater Israel. Israel wants the water resources of southern Lebanon, but cannot get them, despite twice sending in the Israeli Army, because of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is supplied by Syria and Iran. This is why Syria and Iran are on Washington’s hit list. Washington serves the military/security complex, Wall Street and the over-sized US banks, and Israel.

"I see a lack of clarity about the threat that Russia faces in Russian media reports and articles posted on Russian English language websites. I see a lack of clarity in Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s continued efforts to work out an accommodation with Washington. How can Lavrov work out an accommodation with Washington when Washington intends to dominate or isolate Russia?"

It is unclear if the Russians and Chinese understand that Washington’s hostility toward them is not just some sort of misunderstanding that diplomacy can work out.

Clearly, Russia hasn’t interfered in the US presidential election or invaded Ukraine, and does not intend to invade Poland or the Baltics. Russia let go the Soviet empire and is glad to see it gone, as the empire was expensive and of little benefit. The Soviet Eastern European empire comprised Stalin’s buffer against another Western invasion. The Warsaw Pact had no offensive meaning. It was not the beginning, as misrepresented in Washington, of Soviet world domination.

I see a lack of clarity about the threat that Russia faces in Russian media reports and articles posted on Russian English language websites. I see a lack of clarity in Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s continued efforts to work out an accommodation with Washington. How can Lavrov work out an accommodation with Washington when Washington intends to dominate or isolate Russia?

Lavrov and Russian media organizations do not always show awareness that it is not Washington’s intention to accommodate other national interests.

It cannot be otherwise for these three reasons:

  1. The budget for the US military/security complex is the largest in the world. It is larger than the Gross Domestic Product of many countries. It includes not only the Pentagon’s budget but also the budgets of 16 US intelligence agencies and the Department of Energy, which is the location of the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant and 16 other national laboratories. When all the elements are added together, the military/security complex has annually the power and profit from $1,000 billion. An empire of this sort just doesn’t give up and go away because some president or some part of the electorate want peace. The “Russian Threat” is essential to the power and profit of the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned Americans 56 years ago. Just imagine how entrenched this power is now.
  2. The neoconservatives, who control both US foreign policy and the Western media’s explanation of it, are mainly Jews of Zionist persuasion. Some are dual Israeli-US citizens. The neoconservatives believe that the collapse of Soviet communism means that History has chosen the United States as the socio-politico-economic system, and that the US government has the responsibility to assert the hegemony of America over the earth. Just read the neocon documents. They assert this over and over. This is what it means that America is the exceptional and indispensable nation. If you are the indispensable nation, every other nation is dispensable. If you are exceptional, everyone else is unexceptional. The claim that the neoconservatives make for the US is similar to the claim that Hitler made for Germany.
  3. As Israel controls US Middle East policy, Israel uses its control to have Washington eliminate obstacles to Israel’s expansion. So far Israel has achieved the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s government and chaos in Iraq, Washington’s war on Syria, and Washington’s demonization of Iran in the hope that sufficient demonization will justify war.

For the Russian Foreign Minister to believe that it is possible to reach an accommodation with Washington, other than a Russian surrender, is nonsense. Perhaps this is Lavrov’s use of diplomacy to delay the US attack while Russia prepares. Or perhaps Lavrov is just a diplomat who sticks to his last, despite the facts.

Much of the Russian media, both in Russian and foreign language broadcasts and websites, thinks that the Western misrepresentation of Russia is just a mistake and that that facts, once they are established, can rectify the mistake. These Russian journalists don’t understand that Washington could not care less about facts. Washington desperately needs an enemy, and Russia is the enemy of choice.

The Chinese government seems to think that Wall Street and US corporations are too dependent on the cheap Chinese manufacturing labor, which keeps the US system fueled with profits, to jeopardize these profits by going to war.

By underplaying the risk of war, Russia and China fail to mobilize world opposition to Washington’s recklessness and, thereby, enable Washington’s move toward war.

The presstitutes serving the National Security State continue to drive toward conflict. Consider Newsweek’s May 26, 2017, cover story with Putin on the cover and the caption: “The Plot Against America: Inside Putin’s Campaign to Destroy Democracy in the U.S.”

The whore media at work: How filthy can they get? No need to ask. Manure is in their blood, and they are sociopathic in their servility to the billionaire criminals running the show.

It is difficult to imagine such ignorant nonsense from a mainstream news magazine. Democracy in America has been destroyed by special interest groups, by a US Supreme Court decision that gave the reins of power to special interest groups, and by a hoax war on terror that has destroyed the US Constitution. And here we have the presstitutes saying that Putin is destroying American democracy. Clearly, there is no extant intelligence anywhere in the Western media. The Western presstitutes are either corrupt beyond belief or ignorant beyond belief. Nothing else can be said for them.

Consider Time magazine’s cover. It depicts Trump turning the White House into the foundation for the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral, which rise above the White House, symbolizing America’s subservience to Russia under President Trump. This extraordinary propaganda seems to be readily accepted by the bulk of the Western populations, peoples who will die as a result of their insouciance.

Criminal—literally—propaganda at work. These people should be put before a Nuremberg war crimes tribunal and dealt accordingly.

Even writers critical of Washington, such as Paul Street’s recent article on CounterPunch and the English language Russian website, Strategic Culture Foundation, cannot bring themselves to state the truth that the US military/security complex needs a major enemy, has elected Russia for that role, and intends to defend this orchestration to the end of humanity on earth.

Street writes about “How Russia Became ‘Our Adversary’ Again.” According to Street, Russia became the enemy of choice because Russia protected part of the world’s population and resources from being exploited by global capital. Russia became the number one enemy of the US also because Putin stopped the American exploitation of Russia economically. Putin is in the way of Washington’s exploitation of the world.

Much of what Street says is correct, but he is hesitant to state it in a straightforward manner. He has to dilute his message by repeating the obligatory propaganda. Street calls Trump, who originally wanted normal relations with Russia, an “orange-haired brute . . . [who admires] Putin’s authoritarian manliness.”

Trump’s problems originated in his goal of normalizing relations with Russia. Hillary is the brute who intended to worsen the relations.

Putin is a democrat, not an authoritarian. The authoritarians are in Washington. Surely Paul Street and CounterPunch know this. But Street has to protect himself from speaking some politically incorrect truths about the US and Russia by throwing in some anti-Putin propaganda and denigrating President Trump.

That peace with Russia and China would undermine the justification of the $1,000 billion military/security budget, and that the military/security complex is the American government, is too much truth for most writers to state.

Truth is the most rare element in the Western world, and we will not be permitted to have much of it much longer. Increasingly, truth is difficult to find. Soak it up while it is still available. 

About the Author

PCR

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts attended four of the finest universities, studied under two Nobel Prize-winners in economics, authored 20 peer-reviewed articles in journals of scholarship, and published four academic press peer-reviewed books, including Harvard and Oxford Universities, and seven commercially published books. His most recent book is The Neoconservative Threat to World Order: Washington's Perilous War for Hegemony. 

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uza2-zombienationI see a lack of clarity about the threat that Russia faces in Russian media reports and articles posted on Russian English language websites. I see a lack of clarity in Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s continued efforts to work out an accommodation with Washington. How can Lavrov work out an accommodation with Washington when Washington intends to dominate or isolate Russia?

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Manchester Attacks: What Price Hypocrisy?

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HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

by JOHN WIGHT

The lack of a coherent anti-terrorism strategy in Washington and by extension the West, as emergency services deal with the devastating aftermath of yet another terrorist atrocity in Europe – this time a suicide bomb attack at a concert in Manchester, England – has been thrown into sharp relief during President Trump’s tour of the Middle East.

Specifically, on what planet can Iran be credibly accused of funding and supporting terrorism while Saudi Arabia is considered a viable partner in the fight against terrorism? This is precisely the narrative we are being invited to embrace by President Trump in what counts as a retreat from reality into the realms of fantasy, undertaken in service not to security but commerce.

The Bald Man for Bald-faced Lies. Pathologically ignorant and unencumbered by any principles except egoism, Trump can make any type of grotesquely untrue statement without a single sign of remorse. Only results matter. (Art by DonkeyHotey)

Indeed those still struggling to understand why countries such as the US, UK, and France consistently seek to legitimise a Saudi regime that is underpinned by the medieval religious doctrine of Wahhabism, which is near indistinguishable from the medieval religious extremism and fanaticism of Daesh and Nusra in Syria – those people need look no further than the economic relations each of those countries enjoy with Riyadh.

The announcement that Washington has just sealed a mammoth deal with its Saudi ally on arms sales – worth $110 billion immediately and $350 billion over 10 years – is all the incentive the US political and media establishment requires to look the other way when it comes to the public beheadings, crucifixions, eye gouging, and other cruel and barbaric punishments meted out in the Kingdom on a regular basis.

Specifically, on what planet can Iran be credibly accused of funding and supporting terrorism while Saudi Arabia is considered a viable partner in the fight against terrorism? This is precisely the narrative we are being invited to embrace by President Trump in what counts as a retreat from reality into the realms of fantasy, undertaken in service not to security but commerce.

The sheer unreality of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, as he stood shoulder to shoulder with President Trump during the latter’s state visit to the country recently, lamenting the chaos and carnage in Syria, which he described as having been “one of the most advanced countries” prior to a conflict that has wrought so much death and destruction, the sheer unreality of this is off the scale – and especially so considering the role the Saudis have played in providing material, financial, and ideological and religious support to groups engaged in the very carnage in Syria as has just been unleashed in Manchester.

There are times when the truth is not enough, when only the unvarnished truth will do, and in the wake of the Manchester attack – in which at time of writing 22 people have been killed and 60 injured – we cannot avoid the conclusion that neither principle nor rationality is driving Western foreign policy in the Middle East, or as it pertains to terrorism.

Instead it is being driven by unalloyed hypocrisy, to the extent that when such carnage occurs in Syria, as it has unremittingly over the past 6 years, the perpetrators are still described in some quarters as rebels and freedom fighters, yet when it takes place in Manchester or Paris or Brussels, etc., they are depicted as terrorists. Neither is it credible to continue to demonize governments that are in the front line against this terrorist menace – i.e. Iran, Russia, Syria – while courting and genuflecting at the feet of governments that are exacerbating it – i.e. Saudi Arabia, previously mentioned, along with Qatar, Kuwait, and Turkey. Here, too, mention must be made of the brutal and ongoing injustice meted out to the Palestinians by an Israeli government that shares with the Saudis a doctrine of religious exceptionalism and supremacy, one that is inimical to peace or the security of its own people.

Ultimately a choice has to be made between security and stability or economic and geopolitical advantage, with the flag of democracy and human rights losing its lustre in recent years precisely because the wrong choice has been made – in other words a Faustian pact with opportunism.

As the smoke clears, both literally and figuratively, from yet another terrorist atrocity, we are forced to consider how we arrived at this point. And when we do we cannot but understand the role of Western extremism in giving birth to and nourishing Salafi-jihadi extremism. Moreover, in the midst of the understandable and eminently justifiable grief we feel at events in Manchester, it behooves us not to forget the salient fact that Muslims have and continue to be the biggest victims of this terrorist menace, unleashed in the name of religious purity andsectarianism, and that it is Muslims who are also doing most to confront and fight it, whether in Syria, Iraq, Libya, or Afghanistan. It should not escape our rendering of the issue either that what each of those countries have in common is that they have all been victims of the Western extremism mentioned earlier.

It bears repeating: you cannot continue to invade, occupy, and subvert Muslim and Arab countries and not expect consequences. And when those consequences amount to the slaughter and maiming of your own citizens, the same tired and shallow platitudes we are ritually regaled with by politicians and leaders intent on bolstering their anti-terrorism and security credentials achieve little except induce nausea.

Enough is enough. 

About the Author
 John Wight is the author of a politically incorrect and irreverent Hollywood memoir – Dreams That Die – published by Zero Books. He’s also written five novels, which are available as Kindle eBooks. You can follow him on Twitter at @JohnWight1

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There are times when the truth is not enough, when only the unvarnished truth will do, and in the wake of the Manchester attack – in which at time of writing 22 people have been killed and 60 injured – we cannot avoid the conclusion that neither principle nor rationality is driving Western foreign policy in the Middle East, or as it pertains to terrorism. Instead it is being driven by unalloyed hypocrisy, to the extent that when such carnage occurs in Syria, as it has unremittingly over the past 6 years, the perpetrators are still described in some quarters as rebels and freedom fighters, yet when it takes place in Manchester or Paris or Brussels, etc., they are depicted as terrorists.

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Does the Washington Post Distribute Fake News?

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Eric Zuesse, simulposted at strategic-culture.org

BE SURE TO PASS OUR ARTICLES ON TO KIN, FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES

There are two kinds of fake news:

One is a report of something that actually didn't happen, which for a newspaper to do can reasonably be called lying, inasmuch as a newspaper is expected to report only things that happen, and any violation of that strict standard ” which separates journalism from propaganda ” is at least negligence violating the very reason why consumers purchase or subscribe to a newspaper (that reason being trustworthiness). This deception amounts unqualifiedly to lying, in any case where a reasonable assumption can be made that the given false ˜news' report's falsehood results from the publisher's propagandistic orientation and intention to deceive on that given matter. (This might be done in order to please the controlling stockholder of an advertiser, or for many other reasons.) In such cases, the fake news is propaganda instead of news. To sell to consumers propaganda as ˜news' is additionally to deceive them into paying the publisher in order to become deceived by the publisher; so, it's a deception on top of a deception; it is actually deception-squared. That's why selling such ˜news' is even worse than merely giving it away for free (such as honest PR or propaganda is ” it is free). 

WaPo editor in chief Marty Baron (red tie) surrounded by accomplices in disinformation. The paper is owned by Jeff Bezos, lord of Amazon, a billionaire with strong financial and political ties to the CIA.

The other type of fake news is omission of a crucial fact from a report, whenever the omission is so crucial that it will sway some readers to believe " when "not is true, and therefore such an omission is equivalent to lying. This is a far more subtle type of deception, because it relies upon the consumer to deceive himself, instead of upon the publisher explicitly asserting the falsehood to the reader or hearer. Such "sins of omission are impossible to outlaw, but are more insidious than direct lying is, because any publisher can easily abuse this power to deceive, merely by making clear to his employees what types of facts they will be penalized (demoted etc.) for reporting. For example, any publisher who causes employees to exclude stating as a fact that some public official is lying or did lie about a particular matter, when proof is available that the given official did lie about it, would be publishing fake news on that matter. However, more often, a publisher simply establishes a policy not to hire editors (or producers) who would allow a report to be published that calls a "liar a person whom the publisher favors, not even if that person can be proven to have lied ” he may be said to have "erred maybe, but not "lied. The tendency, therefore, is that people in power may be described as "lacking in experience or etc., but not described as a "liar.

Examples will be provided here of both types of fake news in the Washington Post, all of which examples exhibit the same intention to deceive readers in the same type of way on a particular broader subject. This broader subject that's being deceptively presented is whether or not the U.S. should conquer foreign countries; or, in other words, whether or not America's military-industrial complex (which thrives upon taxpayers' enhanced appetites for financing and shedding blood for the nation's conquests abroad) will be served. Service to that objective is otherwise called "neoconservatism or neoconservative propaganda, which is the way that the Washington Post will be documented here to be. Understanding the motive for such fake news is far more complex; the only issue to be addressed here is the fake news itself ” this particular agenda (neoconservatism) for the WP's fake news:

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First of all, here, will be the paradigmatic case of neoconservative propaganda: the deceptions that were perpetrated upon the American public in order to invade Iraq.
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As has been pointed out by many books and by some bloggers, the Washington Post was, in 2002 and 2003, one of the leading deceivers of the American public into invading Iraq so as to eliminate Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The fact that President George W. Bush lied to assert that he was in possession of conclusive evidence that Hussein was producing WMD in 2002 was, in at least one instance, incontestable practically at the very moment that he said it, but this crucial fact was never reported by the Washington Post, not even when the authoritative agency in the particular instance, the IAEA, made repeated attempts to draw the attention of America's reporters to the lie. During a press conference with Britain's Tony Blair, Bush said, on 7 September 2002, that a "new report had just come out of the IAEA that Iraq "were six months away from developing a [nuclear] weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need, in order to invade and overthrow Saddam Hussein. The IAEA made clear that "There's never been a report like that issued from this agency, but the WP (like the rest of America's press) failed to report that the IAEA was accusing the U.S. President, of, essentially, concocting an IAEA ˜report', on this vitally important matter, a ˜report' that never existed ” in other words, of outright lying in order to assert that the case to invade Iraq had already been made by the IAEA. This instance wasn't like all of the U.S. ˜intelligence failures' in which the President's own ” i.e. U.S. ” intelligence agencies, had refused to contradict him in public; this was instead an entirely independent intelligence agency that the President was citing as an authority here ” and they were directly contradicting him, in public, about it. They just couldn't get word out about that, to the American public. So, the idea that Bush wasn't lying in order to ˜justify' his invading Iraq, but was only relying upon America's own faulty intelligence agencies regarding the matter, definitely does qualify as fake news in the WP, and it persists even today, as fake ˜history' about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The invasion on 20 March 2003 wasn't ˜an error'; it was a crime, and a very massive one.
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This fake news that Bush had ˜erred' to invade Iraq was of the indirect type because it entailed suppression of the crucial fact from being published; it wasn't fake news because the WP published their own lies about it. However, such stenographic ˜reporting' of the government's lies is merely passing along a dictatorship's propaganda, not publishing real news. Real news always requires a publisher's own investigation and the skepticism that any real scientist has about any allegation. In matters so important as an invasion of a foreign country, ˜news'-reporting can't get any worse than such stenography being palmed-off as ˜news', and the persons to be blamed for this fraud against the public are never the mere employees (who might lose their jobs if they don't comply) but the publisher himself or herself ” ultimately the controlling stockholder in the firm, who wouldn't invest in the given ˜news'-organization if it were to be fully honest.
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More recently, the WP has published fake news about Syria's Bashar al-Assad (who is a Ba'athist, like Saddam Hussein was), like it had published fake news about Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
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All were based upon PR-agency-shopped allegations and questionable evidence (like ˜Saddam's WMD' etc. had also been) from people who either were, or could have been, Al Qaeda affiliated, or else Islamic Brotherhood affiliated, extremist Islamists ” supporters of Sharia law. And it all started with (and the WP's ultimate sources were uncorroborated testifiers as having personally experienced what was shown in) "the Caesar photographs, from "the Syrian Detainee Report. As wikipedia puts it (my boldfaces):
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The source, who for security reasons is identified only as Caesar, was at the time a photographer with the Syrian military police who worked secretly with a Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Movement. His job was "taking pictures of killed detainees" at just two military hospitals in Damascus.[5] He told war crimes investigators that he used to be a forensic investigator. But once the Syrian uprising began, his job became documenting the corpses of those killed in Syrian military prisons.[8] He did not claim to have witnessed executions or torture.
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As the U.S. government's Wilson Center explains about the Syrian National Movement:
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The 2011 uprising
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After Syrians launched their own uprising in March 2011, the [Muslim] Brotherhood took a leading role in assembling the exiled opposition in the Syrian National Council. It was launched in August 2011. The Brotherhood was the only organized and experienced movement among an otherwise deeply fragmented opposition. It also had support from Qatar and Turkey. But its domination over the opposition in exile was contested. The Brotherhood's immediate challenge was competition from rival Islamists who secured influential positions on the Syrian National Coalition, the Council's successor, which was established in November 2012.
The rival Islamists included the Coalition's first president, Sheikh Mouaz al Khatib. Khatib, a former preacher at the historic Umayyad Mosque, had special legitimacy since he had just left Damascus. Another rival was Imad al din al Rashid, former vice-dean of the Faculty of Sharia of Damascus. His Syrian National Movement, an alliance of secularists, moderate Islamists and Salafis ["Salafis means extreme fundamentalist Muslims], failed to recruit significant following.
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Both Qatar and Turkey are run by fundamentalist ("Sharia) Sunni Muslims who want to conquer the Shia Muslims who lead the fundamentalist Shia regime in Iran and the non-sectarian secular regime in Syria. These Sunnis want also a (U.S.-supported) gas pipeline to be built through Syria to transport Qatar's gas into the EU to grab market-share away from Russia, which is the main country that America's aristocracy wants to weaken and ultimately to conquer. 
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Saddam Hussein had been supported by America's aristocracy when Saddam was trying to conquer Shiite Iran back in the 1980s, but became opposed by the U.S. aristocracy as soon as he turned against and invaded fundamentalist Sunni Kuwait and became friendly toward secular Russia, which since 1979 has been plagued by (U.S.-Saudi-backed) "mujahideen (who became called "Taliban and some of whom then became "Al Qaeda) and other fundamentalist Sunnis in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and elsewhere, who want a Sharia-law-ruled Russia. The Obama regime in America came into office in 2009 determined to overthrow Syria's secular leader Bashar al-Assad; and, starting in 2010, actively pursued organizing rebels against Syria's secular government. On 24 September 2010, Jared Cohen of Hillary Clinton's State Department was working to find a way to stir demonstrations to bring down Assad's government; and, on 23 June 2011, he was meeting inside the London Ecuadorean Embassy with Google's Eric Schmidt to pry out of Julian Assange information about how to do this; and, on 25 July 2012, Cohen was (now as a high Google executive paid by top Hillary backer Schmidt) telling Hillary's other aides about Cohen's own progress in putting the Syrian overthrow-plan into effect. Google also assisted the 1 March 2013 start of Hillary's plan for the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, which used nazis to bring down Ukraine's government, just as they used jihadists to bring down Syria's government ” extremist haters of Russians in both cases.
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With ˜allies' such as Saudi Arabia's despots, and such as the apartheid Israeli ˜democracy' (which latter is so theocratic it doesn't even have any constitution), the U.S. government is no ˜democracy', despite its Constitution (which the U.S. government routinely violates). But whereas the Washington Post calls Russian Television ˜fake news', Russian Television presents news about those regimes and their allies, while the WP presents lies about RT, and about Russia, and about any ally of Russia (such as Saddam Hussein was, and Bashar al-Assad is). If this sounds like a lopsided characterization, it's nonetheless stated because the associated reality is also lopsided. That's the reality which should be reported but is instead blacked-out in America's press
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Of course, one of those Russian allies is Syria, whose government the U.S. government therefore is at war against, and has invaded, while pontificating that the world's most ˜aggressive' country is Russia, and while claiming to be the moral authority that can dictate morality to the ˜barbarous' Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin.
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On 16 December 2016, Human Rights Watch published "If the Dead Could Speak: Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria's Detention Facilities, claiming to confirm the "Caesar photos. Then, on 7 February 2017, Amnesty International published "Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Exterminations at Saydnaya Prison, Syria, further ˜confirming' the alleged depravity of Assad's government. Yet a third ˜authority' that was additionally cited in the three articles in the Washington Post that were here referred to as having alleged that Assad was doing these types of things to innocent people during the U.S.-Saudi-Qatari-Turkey-UAE-Kuwait war to conquer his country, was the Syrian Network for Human Rights. How reliable, then, are these three alleged ˜authorities' on that subject?
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Wikipedia's section "Criticism of Human Rights Watch has a subsection "Allegations of Bias, which states, among other things: 
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Ideological and selection bias
HRW has been accused of evidence-gathering bias because it is said to be "credulous of civilian witnesses in places like Gaza and Afghanistan" but "skeptical of anyone in a uniform."[1] Its founder, Robert Bernstein, accused the organization of poor research methods and relying on "witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers."[2] In October 2009, Bernstein said that the organization had lost critical perspective on events in the Middle East:[2] "[T]he region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region."[2] HRW responded by saying that HRW "does not devote more time and energy to Israel than to other countries in the region, or in the world".[3] Tom Porteus, director of the HRW's London branch, replied that the organization rejected Bernstein's "obvious double standard. Any credible human rights organization must apply the same human rights standards to all countries."[4]
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According to The Times, HRW "does not always practice the transparency, tolerance and accountability it urges on others."[1]  ¦
Fundraising
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On September 7, 2010, it was announced that George Soros planned to donate $100 million to Human Rights Watch.[69] Soros' donation was criticized by Gerald Steinberg, founder of NGO Monitor.[70]
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Journalists have criticized Human Rights Watch for requesting, encouraging or accepting financial donations in Saudi Arabia and for its fundraising methods.
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Moreover, the PR department of New York's Syracuse University headlined on 17 December 2016, "HRW Validates Caesar Report on Syrian Torture, First Reported by Law Professor David Crane and reported regarding the HRW study, which was co-authored by Professor Crane:
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Commissioned by London law firm Carter-Ruck on behalf of Qatar, the Caesar Report's other co-authors were international prosecutors Sir Desmond Lorenz de Silva QC and Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. This team ” which also included forensics experts ” analyzed 835 images, 150 of those in depth, uncovering evidence of starvation, beatings and strangulation, as well as an obsessive documentation of the killings. The lawyers also cross-examined Caesar and found him to be "a truthful and credible witness," according to Crane.
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Qatar had commissioned anti-Assad PR from HRW, and got what they had paid for, in their "Caesar Report.
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Regarding Amnesty International's report, which was issued on 7 February 2017, the invariably cogent "Moon of Alabama blogger headlined and documented appropriately about it the same day, "Hearsay Extrapolated ” Amnesty Claims Mass Executions In Syria, Provides Zero Proof, but one could also say that it provided zero evidence (but lots of allegations). Three days later, the also credible Tony Cartalucci bannered "US Cooks Up New Syrian Atrocities Amid Syrian Talks. Then, yet another day later, on February 11th, the brilliant Rick Sterling headlined "Amnesty International Stokes Syrian War and he utterly destroyed the AI study's credibility. Among many other things, he tracked the AI study's funding and backing back to Soros and other rabid haters of Russians. Finally, on February 25th, Paul Mansfield bannered "Amnesty fake report 'Human Slaughterhouse' invents Assad war crimes to undermine Syria peace talks. 
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As regards the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), it (and other U.S.-arsistocracy-backed fronts) was discussed by Helena Glass, on 8 February 2017, headlining "Amnesty International “ A Propaganda Machine:
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Like the Syrian Observatory of [for] Human Rights, the SNHR is a one man show. One man who lives in the UK, who has no background, and who adamantly and openly hates Assad. Neither of these ˜organizations' list their funding although it is widely believed to come from the UK's GCHQ.
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BOTH organizations claim to have ˜a network of spies on the ground in Syria with whom they converse daily for information'. Like SOHR, Fadel Abdulghani, the Director of Syrian Network of Human Rights, lists absolutely no previous background or history on social media sites. He never existed prior to becoming an expert¦and Chairperson of his one man show.

Maryam Rajavi, co leader with her husband of the MEK (People's Mujahedin), a strange and supposedly Marxian sect in exile that has fought Iran's post-Shah governments and is now being primed by the West for further mayhem against Teheran.

But it gets worse: Fadel Abdulghani is aligned with the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which the US and Australia consider an alias of MEK. MEK, headed by Maryam Rajavi was considered a terrorist organization by the US as of 2003 and was delisted in 2012.

It gets worse: The delisting of MEK as a terrorist organization was made by then Secretary of State “ Hillary Clinton! Uh-oh.
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Thus it would appear that one of Amnesty International's prime source[s] for their claim that Assad tortured and murdered 13,000 comes from one man who is affiliated with a former terrorist organization who has no background or previous experience and who would seem to have been ˜created' from thin air¦and possibly funded by GCHQ!  Wow!
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Apparently, Maryam Rajavi openly declares that she is the leading advocate and voice to ˜violently over-throw the government of Iran'.
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The international war to overthrow Assad is barbaric, and nothing that is said in the present article is necessarily rejecting the possibility that some of the gruesome things that have been alleged about Assad's handling of his side of that international invasion against Syria's government might be true. But that's not the topic here, anyway; the topic is instead the question as to whether the Washington Post has fake news. It certainly does  ”and lots of it," including also, for example, that ˜news'paper's continuing not to report that the coup that occurred in Ukraine in February 2014 was a coup by the U.S., and no grass-roots democratic revolution, such as the U.S. regime (and its propaganda-organs) claim it to have been. That ˜news'paper's subscribers are buying propaganda. 

About the author

EricZuesseThey're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

 

 

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uza2-zombienationRegarding Amnesty International’s report, which was issued on 7 February 2017, the invariably cogent “Moon of Alabama blogger headlined and documented appropriately about it the same day, “Hearsay Extrapolated ” Amnesty Claims Mass Executions In Syria, Provides Zero Proof, but one could also say that it provided zero evidence (but lots of allegations). Three days later, the also credible Tony Cartalucci bannered “US Cooks Up New Syrian Atrocities Amid Syrian Talks. Then, yet another day later, on February 11th, the brilliant Rick Sterling headlined “Amnesty International Stokes Syrian War and he utterly destroyed the AI study’s credibility. Among many other things, he tracked the AI study’s funding and backing back to Soros and other rabid haters of Russians. Finally, on February 25th, Paul Mansfield bannered “Amnesty fake report ‘Human Slaughterhouse’ invents Assad war crimes to undermine Syria peace talks.

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NPR Attempts To Undermine WikiLeaks’ Credibility With Deliberate, Brazen Lie



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HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

As if we needed another reason to want the legacy media to die screaming all alone in an ill-reputed nursing home, National Public Radio has just added one more to the planet-sized pile. NPR, which just Wednesday released an anti-WikiLeaks attack editorial disguised as a movie review, has made a deliberate attempt to tarnish WikiLeaks’ 100% perfect record of authentic and accurately-vetted releases by going out of its way to report that the publishing organization had posted nine gigabytes of partially inauthentic documents.

In reality, WikiLeaks did not post 9 gigabytes of anything, but only tweeted a link to a pre-existing cache of documents allegedly from French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron on a site that very plainly does not have the WikiLeaks URL, with a very clear disclaimer that it didn’t know who was responsible for posting them.

Obviously, there is a massive difference between the notorious transparency advocacy site wikileaks.org and the things that its Twitter account tweets about; attributing the 9 gigabytes of documents to WikiLeaks just because the organization’s social media account made a tweet about them is like attributing the authorship of a Guardian article to J.K. Rowling just because she shared it on Twitter.

This establishment media tactic of deliberately conflating WikiLeaks’ Twitter account with the actual organization in order to smear its reputation is not a new tactic. In March MSNBC’s infinitely recursive self-parody Rachel Maddow deceived America in exactly the same way by telling her audiencethat WikiLeaks’ drops were the same as its social media posts about those drops, digging up a tweet from October and citing its timestamp as evidence that Russia Today knew about the WikiLeaks drop before it happened. RT had already defended itself back when this baseless conspiracy theory first popped up, pointing out that it tweeted about the drop before WikiLeaks did because it had been watching the actual website and not its Twitter account, and WikiLeaks pointed out this moronic plot hole as well. That didn’t stop Maddow from dredging it back up and pretending she didn’t know she was repeating a long-debunked lie that a ten-second google search would disprove, though:

WikiLeaks was quick to fire back at NPR’s obnoxious allegation.

After keeping its deliberately deceitful headline on the internet for hours, influencing god knows how many of its seven million followers on Twitter and god knows how many others who viewed it elsewhere, the Maddow muppets behind NPR’s Twitter account thanked WikiLeaks for “clarifying”, and said they’d corrected the “implication”.

Uhh, it’s not an “implication”, shitbags — you didn’t “imply” anything, you fucking said it. Plainly. In words. You reported as fact that WikiLeaks had posted nine gigabytes of partly inauthentic documents. You told your massive audience that WikiLeaks did something they did not do and never would do, and then you pretended it was a mistake and called it an “implication”, which is like punching someone in the face and then apologizing for accidentally bumping into them.

NPR then had the gall to completely ignore universal journalistic convention and label their retraction a “clarification”.

As if that weren’t enough of a blatant, despicable attack completely bereft of journalistic integrity, after running their reprehensible psy-op NPR still left a quote from a “cyber-attacks specialist” in the article they’d tweeted asserting, based on precisely zero evidence, “It seems that all this hacking was directed on Macron by Russia’s propaganda teams, and we all know that WikiLeaks actively is working for Russia.”

Gaaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!

Can you believe this shit? These are the same lying sleaze spittoons who have publicized the unforgivable Bana Alabed psy-op on more than one occasion, who have displayed highly suspicious loyalties to the CIA and other deep state entities, and who have consistently been spouting the same exact oligarchic lies about Russia and Syria as their corporate media brothers and sisters.

These deep state propaganda networks have got to go. America’s entire oppressive system is held together by mass media psy-ops and establishment propaganda narratives; if we can sufficiently disrupt public trust in these heinous institutions there may yet be the possibility of democracy and freedom in America someday. Here is an article I wrote recently about some strategies I’ve come up with for making this happen. Here is another. I welcome your additional thoughts and creativity on actualizing this agenda as well, and encourage you to create your own media to help replace these geriatric parasites once and for all.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, or even tossing me some money on Patreon so I can keep this gig up.

 

About the Author
 
Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 

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uza2-zombienationThese deep state propaganda networks have got to go. America’s entire oppressive system is held together by mass media psy-ops and establishment propaganda narratives; if we can sufficiently disrupt public trust in these heinous institutions there may yet be the possibility of democracy and freedom in America someday. Here is an article I wrote recently about some strategies I’ve come up with for making this happen. Here is another. I welcome your additional thoughts and creativity on actualizing this agenda as well, and encourage you to create your own media to help replace these geriatric parasites once and for all.

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From Right to Left, a Vet’s Perspective


LUCAS BERARD |    IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WARhoriz grey line

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON.

A brave Iraq Vet testifies to his experiences in war and the truths he now holds dear.
"The Media is all too happy to keep the general public flailing in the dark; mix 1 cup of football, 2 tablespoons of “reality” TV,  a pinch of anger, and a few dashes of fear. Mix well, cover with misinformation and bake at WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE for about ten years..."

ORIGINALLY Published by Lucas Berard on 06/04/16  |
Visit and support the Iraq Veterans Against the War Website

THOUGH it feels somewhat arrogant, I must begin by stating that I am a combat vet. I don’t speak about it often, and even then, only in small snippets. I don’t really feel a need to describe my experiences to others, as there will always be much lost in the translation from memory to story. I deployed with the Marines in Fallujah (2004-2005), and with the Army in Kirkuk (2008-2010). The only reason I say it now is to establish validity with all of you; I too have felt disdain for those who talk about something they’ve never experienced.

I’ve seen more than some, and less than others. And what I’ve seen has lead me directly to the place I am today- Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Rutledge, Missouri. I usually write as a “fellow Rabbit (community resident)”, but today I’d like to speak to all of you from my veteran roots, to explain my reasoning and hopefully appeal to some of you. Here is some of my story.

I joined the Marines in 2002 among the panic that ensued after 9/11. We were PISSED- and so was I. At the time my best career prospect was moving up the management chain at KFC- and I felt that the military would make me stronger, more disciplined, more confident, and more respectable among my peers than a life of food service ever could.

"I would argue that those who have seen the face of war lose their faith in politics, as war is the greatest expression of its failure...I think it's fitting that we find ourselves in a state of constant war now- our political structure is failing us at every turn, at home and abroad. The Republicans may have taken the Senate, but it's going to be the same song and dance- it always is..."

I soaked it up like a sponge, every bit of it: the esprit de corps, the prevailing viewpoints of superiority and violence of action, a love of weaponry, and the desire to use it. I believed that I was serving the best interests of the American people, and the widespread adulation of the general population reinforced that idea. I felt that I was doing the right thing. It was the first time in my life that I felt proud of something that other people also saw as a worthy endeavor.

It wasn’t until my first deployment in 2004 that my thoughts began to wander. The night before the assault on Fallujah began, I sat on the top of a forklift and watched the pre-emptive airstrikes. Using my night vision goggles, I could see where the explosions were going to erupt in advance, via the aircraft’s UV laser guidance. The bombings were met with much excitement by all of us, and some nervousness as well; we knew tomorrow would be a much more immersive experience.

The first few weeks I never thought twice about what we were doing. Iraqis weren’t people, they were insurgents, terrorists, and evil to their core. Sure, there was a population- somewhere- that wanted our version of freedom, but they were a phantom, and we never saw or heard of them directly. There were only those who hated God, America, women, and any viewpoint that didn’t align with their own. And their sights were set squarely on those of us that would dare to breach their city. I was so enveloped in protecting my team/squad that it took me a while to step back and look with a more broad perspective at what it was we were actually doing.

After some time, I began to feel uneasy about the rampant destruction and violence I was witnessing. Most of the buildings that still stood looked like blocks of burnt Swiss cheese. The rest were piles of rubble. There were bodies in the streets; the smell of fresh cordite intermingled with decomposition, burning tires, and trash. We listened to the radio traffic of our infantry brothers’ injuries and KIA’s. We were in and out of the city on a daily basis, tracking down and dodging IED's, and when we were back at camp, we were constantly harassed by RPG and mortar attacks. Even one of our units admin buddies was severely scared by mortar fire, just weeks into the deployment. I found myself angry that so many were dying at the behest of safe, suited politicians.

I would argue that those who have seen the face of war lose their faith in politics, as war is the greatest expression of its failure.

I think it's fitting that we find ourselves in a state of constant war now- our political structure is failing us at every turn, at home and abroad. The Republicans may have taken the Senate, but it's going to be the same song and dance- it always is.

I was deeply disturbed by the loss of life- on both sides. I found myself becoming more isolated, divided as to how I should feel. I was angered at the deaths and injuries of our own, but it never detracted from the pity I felt for the local population as well. After all, we were in their country, kicking down the doors of, and often utterly destroying, their homes.

In the City (78)

 

In the City (66)

In the city.

I began to wonder how Americans would feel if China decided to rile their population up for war with the US. The Chinese population would be made to feel totally justified through media manipulation, and Americans would feel as though a great injustice was occurring. Would we not fight that occupational force? I would hope so- but then we’d be labeled “insurgents”, while we would consider ourselves to be “freedom fighters”.

I imagine that we would then feel much like the Iraqis.

In the City (67)We remained in theater for some time after the assault ended, assisting with the first elections (since the 1950’s), assisting EOD in responding to possible IED’s/weapons cache’s, and POW handling and transport.

Not long before our deployment ended, we were leaving Camp Fallujah for a routine mission (don’t remember what exactly). As per protocol, my vehicle blocked the local traffic as the rest of the convoy turned onto the road (MSR Tampa).

As the convoy was passing us, my gunner shouted down to us that a dump truck had pulled onto the shoulder of the highway, passing the stopped traffic, and wasn't showing any signs of slowing down.

Due to the angle of our vehicle, he was the only one of us that could really see what was happening from that direction. He shouted again. I responded with “Light ‘em up!” I heard the bolt of the 240g rack, and a burst of fire. Then we all watched as this massive truck flew by us, with a trail of smoke and steam, seemingly under no control. The vehicle finally came to a stop a few hundred meters up the road. No explosion.

We approached to see two men scrambling out of the truck, one shot in the leg. Father and son. It turns out that the brakes had failed, and they had made a choice between endangering all those stopped in front of them or going around, and risking their own lives by crossing Americans. We patched the father up as best we could and sent them back to Camp Fallujah, where they were to receive compensation for the damage to the truck, and further medical attention.

I was relieved that no one needlessly died, but the event shook me, nonetheless. How many other times had the “fog of war” resulted in similar actions? How many others had been injured, died, or been taken prisoner for no other reason than miscommunication or unfortunate circumstance? How many people were now dead or imprisoned- not because they hated America, but because they loved and defended their homes? I felt like an invader- an occupier; not a defender of my homeland.

I wasn’t even IN my homeland- I was in someone else’s.

[dropcap]I [/dropcap]left Fallujah with a vastly different outlook on military action, and the circumstances in which it should be used.

From what I could tell, I was pretty much the only one that felt that way. I often wondered if the problem was me. It took a few more years before I was able to feel that I wasn’t crazy, nor a “sympathizer with the enemy”. I was a human being, and despite all I had been taught through the military and media, I still knew that non- Americans are just as human, with the same desire for the personal freedom and security of their families. And their reward for defending their home was death or imprisonment at Abu-Ghraib or Guantanamo.

Upon returning to Japan (where my unit was stationed), we were met with a “hero’s welcome”. We were inundated with fancy dinners, speeches, salutes, and ceremony. I felt that deep swell of pride resurface, and within a few months, the horror and doubt that I had felt so pointedly had moved to the back of my mind. I had more money than ever, and the respect of fellow Marines, friends, and family. Still, I had decided against re-enlistment- the thoughts were mostly gone, but certainly not forgotten.

I left the corps in 2006 in an attempt to land a federal job. It took about three months before I realized that I was vastly unprepared- the military will train us to fight and to “do our duty”, but once that’s done, they aren’t very keen on spending the time or money to help with the transition to civilian life. It doesn’t benefit the Corps; they’d rather keep us around. Consequently, I joined the army in 2007, mainly because I wanted to spend some time in Europe. Two weeks after signing up, I shipped out to Germany.

This is also about the time that I first saw “An Inconvenient Truth”, a presentation by Al Gore of the evidence and ramifications of man-made climate change. Though I’m never quick to trust a politician, the presentation was shocking enough that I began my own research in an attempt to either verify or debunk it.

I found a very troubling trend:

If the website, network, or publication took a political stance- there was a TON of debate. Over POLICY, not science.

If the website, network, or publication was operating on a solely scientific level, there was NO debate at all- Anthropogenic Climate Change was real, happening, and the consequences of unchecked fossil fuel usage were dire indeed. Yet somehow, the public was still sharply divided.

The discovery added a completely new dimension to my perspective. I became more motivated, more vocal in my distrust for politicians and the US media. Occasionally, I would talk to my peers, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. The young 20-somethings didn’t care, and the seasoned leaders, most with families, just didn’t have the time or mental energy to think about it. When one’s life is dedicated to military service, it is very difficult to find room for anything else.

We deployed in 2008 and were based out of Kirkuk. Though attacks were still fairly commonplace, it was not at the level of ferocity that I had experienced during my previous deployment. I did, however, get a strong sense that the people were tired of the occupation, and apathetic to supporting anyone. It was a much less stressful deployment for me. Still, I never once felt as though I was “defending freedom”- I felt I was a symbol of its suppression.

I again left military service in 2010, and by that time had developed one hell of a drinking problem (which began not long after returning from Fallujah). I was going through a 12 pack a day- minimum. I would usually go back to the store for another 6 or 12 before I’d pass out, shitfaced. It was about the only way I could sleep soundly, if not well. I had gotten married to a Marine I had served with, but it was more out of a sense of nostalgia than anything else. It only took a few months of my drinking and cloudy disposition for the relationship to end. I slipped into a deeper depression, drinking more, and holding everyone around me accountable for actions they never (directly) took. I saw most as ignorant accomplices to a government that craves war for the sake of profit.

It took a couple of years for me to move forward from that point. I began putting my effort into understanding how the political divide between the left and right had grown so large, so quickly. I was amazed at how hateful Americans were toward one another, and how acceptable it was to be that way. No wonder we’re fine with destroying other cultures and countries; we’re already completely fine with hating each other, here at home!

The constant stream of PURPOSEFUL misinformation from our “trusted” news sources is particularly troubling to me. Whether left or right, the facts and figures were sliced and diced in order to paint a specific picture, and garnish a specific reaction from the public. I even found myself disappointed in left-leaning climate change coverage; I found they often played a similar game as the deniers, and it destroyed their credibility in my eyes. I found that in order to get objective news, one has little choice except to look to sources outside of the US. Again, the politics of the matter was superseding the truth of it.

The common thread really seems to be politics- which is, in the US, utterly and absolutely ruled by campaign financing. Money rules our democracy, trumping the best interest of the people for the best interest of already ultra-wealthy corporations and elitists. They own the networks via advertising dollars, and our government via campaign contributions. The voice of the people is drowned out under a thick layer of funding. Even if the people could be heard, they are likely very ill-informed by the media, thus vulnerable to being lead to desired decisions, as opposed to making independent, educated ones.

We need great leaders now more than ever, and I can’t imagine a scenario where great leaders come from privilege. Leaders- the best ones- are borne of difficult lives and experiences.

I think veterans have been purposefully sidelined by a stigma of PTSD in order to keep them fearful of the public eye, and thus far away from public service. I believe our government fears the respect that the public has for us, as well as our integrity, determination, and loyalty to the people- not money. I believe there is a major leadership deficit in Washington, and it’s one that veterans could fill.

I think it's fairly plain to see that many of our politicians have no regard for the well-being of our country. They consider personal profit and campaign contributions (for others and themselves) above all else, and will continue to spur the true patriots, in any way they can, to pave their path with sacrifices, necessary or not.

I would argue that anyone who is committed to a life of financial gain is wholly incapable of truly committing to anything else.

I often find myself wondering if we need to be looking to Washington for leadership at all. I have shifted to the mindset that our real leaders, with real convictions, are too busy DOING to get involved in the dog-and-pony show in D.C. Our politicians simply can’t be trusted in my view- there’s just too much money flying around, and not nearly enough work getting done. Plenty of talk, sure- but not much in the way of progress or reasonable compromise. I don’t see it as the fault of one party or another- it is the combination of both that has failed us miserably.

And the Media is all too happy to keep the general public flailing in the dark; mix 1 cup of football, 2 tablespoons of “reality” TV,  a pinch of anger, and a few dashes of fear. Mix well, cover with misinformation and bake at WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE for about ten years.

This is the recipe for political extremism and rampant consumption; It was cooking while we were gone, and many of us are just now beginning to see what’s popped out of the oven. That smell of freedom that we missed so much while we were serving no longer reminds us of what our moms used to make; it resembles that of a burnt approximation.

I believe this is where veteran leadership can step in, far away from Washington and its useless red/blue pissing contest. I believe we have a calling. I believe we have a vital role to play in the process of moving this country forward. And I believe we are failing in that mission, through a combination of personal apathy and media marginalization.

We need to be stepping in to jobs and roles that fulfill the needs of our society. We need to be educating ourselves, and not depending on Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN for our information. We should be looking for, and calling out, the attempts at misinformation and censorship that is driving the country to indecisiveness and ruin.

They offer nothing but fear mongering and bad intel- and they should be left behind by the public in favor of objective, fact-based reporting. The public just needs to see respectable people taking that leap.

Many of us are very aware of the costs associated with following bad intelligence; the wrong decisions are made in their wake. Consequences thereof, in all their chaotic and unforeseen forms, will eventually come crashing into reality.The smoke clears and the mirrors get shattered, all that remains is what was true and what we decided to believe.

We owe it to ourselves to check our current beliefs against unfiltered information- which takes a personal commitment, one that is much easier than the commitments we’ve made in the past. Just look and read!

Both ends of the current political spectrum are pushing out further, consistently and consciously utilizing that bad intel…and they are leading us away from one another by pushing us to believe that any other viewpoint is “unpatriotic”, “uneducated”, “socialist”, or “communist”.

They are pathetic labels to place on any citizen who is voicing their political beliefs. The labels come from fear; a desire to immediately discredit the words of the opposition. There is often little truth to them.

We should be very wary of those willing to use such labels, as they prefer to generalize, as opposed to testing and/or embracing new ideas and complexity. The old system is NOT WORKING- but anything "new" is immediately lumped into terrible categories by those that fear change, in order to inspire the same fear in others.

In this respect, vets have a distinct advantage. No one can question our patriotism, our love of country, nor our ability to serve selflessly; our records speak for themselves. It also puts us in a position that we must not leave unfilled. I believe we will continue down the hateful path we’ve collectively chosen unless:

Those who have fought the wars are the ones considering if we push for more…

Decisions are being made by those who understand having less material things is not a hindrance to our lives; it allows for a more sustainable population, more mobility, and more money in our pockets…

Decisions are being made by those who understand that technology (such as solar and wind) can be a great help to become truly self-sufficient, and thus free of being at the mercy of foreign powers or a dwindling resource to meet our needs…

Decisions are being made by those of us who understand that hatred, love, truth, lies, and liberty are not exclusive to any one country or people- those priorities exist in proportion to the People’s desire for them.

I believe we have a responsibility as veterans to protect this country. Our oaths didn't come with an expiration date, nor are they combat-specific. To leave military service, only to spend the remainder of our lives living only for ourselves, and at a time when leadership is so desperately needed here, is a discredit to our namesake.

It is my great hope for veterans come home to continue the fight for this country. There is a violent battle raging here which threatens to tear this country apart…and divided we will most certainly fall.

 

About the Author
  I served four years in the Marine Corps (2002-2006), and three years in the Army (2007-2010). My first deployment was to Fallujah in 04-05, second was Kirkuk 08-10). In the years following my first deployment, I became increasingly skeptical of the both reasoning behind the Iraq war, as well as the nationalist fervor being driven by mainstream media. The lack of concern for the lives of so many people seems to mean very little to the general population. I think we're being collectively pushed to continue unnecessary bloodshed for the sake of profits for a select few. I currently live at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage (Rutledge, MO), and advocate for environmental responsibility and personal independence via growing one's own food, supplying one's own power, water, natural building techniques, etc.

 

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uza2-zombienationWhat will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?

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