We no longer live in a genuine democracy (or Constitutional Republic if you want to be precise). We live in an Empire with a faux democratic veneer that is in place to keep people believing that "politics as usual" (aka, voting and the two party system) actually works at the national level. It doesn't. Not any more. For one thing, we can no longer be certain that our votes are being counted as cast. But even if they are, we see over and over again that the laws of the land are "bent" and "fashio...

I'm fortunate to not have an addictive personality type. Although I've tried almost everything at one time or another (mostly in my wanton youth!), the only thing I'm addicted to is tobacco -- and even that habit I can quit when I'm ready to face the withdrawal. I've been smoking cannabis since I was 19 in 1967. There have been times when I've gone years without it but now I enjoy smoking in the evenings. Not every evening but most. It is my 'kick back and unwind' inebriant of choice. I have n...

Imagine you go on a hike in territory you've never been before. It is going to be a long hike and you need a map to help you find your way to whatever scenic spot you're interested in. Now, all that is going to work out just fine so long as you have an accurate map and you know how to read it. However, if your map is inaccurate in some important details OR if you don't know how to read the map you have very well (regardless of how accurate it is), you're going to get confused and lost. Possibly ...

There is Something Very Wrong with the “Suicide” of William Kruse Posted on June 24, 2010 by willyloman by Scott Creighton UPDATE – (H/T to an old friend) - , the new Masters of the Gulf, and are harassing the residents with impunity just like any third-world corporate tyranny would. BP’s head of security riding around in the taxpayer’s county patrol cars pulling over citizens and interrogating them because they filmed something, stealing their identification, intimidating them… while the d...

 
have "energy independence." Many of us who were adults and paying attention back in the early 1970s understood that it was a VERY bad idea to develop an advanced, global, technological civilization based on non-renewable energy sources. Way beyond the pollution factor, there is the question of the long-range stability of such a global civilization based upon a finite commodity. Energy consumption (and other uses of hydrocarbons, such as plastics) has grown exponentially in the past 40 years -- ...

What to call it? I knew, for example, that when I poked the hole voting for Obama that what I was going to get was exactly what I've gotten. No surprise. It was clear to me from the 04 Convention that Obama was being 'groomed' to play a role in national politics. The only question was, was it going to be Hilary or Obama? I figured it would be Obama. I remember before the primary an upper middle class liberal friend of mine rattling on about Obama saying, "We're going to take our country back, wh...

The brain is silent. It doesn't make a sound. So, as I think about these words before I type them, what is this "voice" "I" "hear" if not "imagined"? And what is "imagination" if not a form of "dreaming"? It seems to me that before we can ask WHY (whatever), we need to ask "how do I know"? Deconstructing that question may take a life time. What "knows"? What IS "knowing"? Most importantly, it seems to me, would be the ability to move beyond the abstract and theoretical into the realm of dire...

or likely ever will divulge to us. What is common knowledge is nothing more nor less than what they've wanted to be common knowledge. Everything else, regardless of its merit, gets tossed down the "conspiracy theory" rabbit hole. "A bunch of kooks and nuts, I tell ya." Yeah, that and, "these aren't the droids you're looking for," are examples of the black art's craft. It's all about perception management. The Bush Cabal lied through their teeth about everything all the time, even at times when...

The earliest post I can find of mine goes back to Oct 2003. I think I may have joined before that time but it is so long ago now I can't remember. Prior to DU (midlate 90s) I was on a yahoo email list with some noted (notorious to some) researches. I wasn't always clear about their identities but some who I'm certain or am fairly sure were participaing include: , , , and others. I was an early member of moveon.org and participated in gathering signatures to give to my Congresswoman Barbara L...

What do you EXPECT of those plastic manikins masquerading as "informed" people? Formed, yeah, but "informed"?? You think their JOB is to INFORM the public in any way that might empower it against the interests of the corporate/state? GIVE ME A FRIGGN' BREAK! They are there TO SELL: They are there sell us a consumerist perception of reality; they are there to sell the ILLUSION of a functioning, democratic republic; they are there to KEEP HIDDEN everything they don't want you to know and see. Oh,...

My partner of many years, David, died of a brain tumor the day after Valentine's Day, 1997. David had been diagnosed with the tumor only a few days before and although Drs scheduled surgery, I believe the truth of the matter is that the tumor was inoperable but we were not told that. About twenty four hours earlier, David had gone into a comma from which he was never to return. David was estranged from most of his immediate family, especially his father and two of his siblings; his mother had p...

I"m a proud "truther" and I fully acknowledge that SOME "conspiracy theories" are pointing in the wrong direction and are based on inconclusive evidence. However, that doesn't mean that all conspiracy theories fall in to that pejorative sense. I agree with Peter Dale Scott's analysis: There is a "public state" and a "deep state". (Link) One thing in the public arena may be occurring while a completely different thing may be happening behind the scenes within the 'national security bureaucracy' o...

sketching the outlines of the "deep" aspects of the "national security state" infrastructure. For people unfamiliar with Scott, here is a 60 minute interview with him filmed at UC Berkeley a few years ago. It covers both his personal history and delves into some of his most relevant concepts. It is entitled "Wealth, Empire and the Future of America": (Link) Here is an on-line excerpt of Scott's most recent book, "The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America": (Link) <snip&g...

the Constitution I will assume every damn one of them is sworn to protect. I don't care "why" they did it; whether they were deceived or whether they were just following orders. Some of them had to have known that the policies and operations many of them were engaged in were both illegal and immoral. If anything, it is THIS coming to light they are most afraid of. My advise isn't to Obama -- I think he knows what the right thing to do is. My advice is to the "national security bureaucracy" itsel...

Is it the "national security" of the American people -- or the "national security" of the interests of a very wealthy and powerful elite? One might think these two things would coincide, that what is in the interest of one will be in the interest of the other. But is that in fact the case? I believe recent history shows us quite clearly that this is a myth and these "interests" often conflict. So this raises a more important question, can "national security" be used as a blanket to hide criminal...

Consciousness is the fundamental experience and "attention" is the key to everything. What our society has yet to grasp is the significance of the various qualities of consciousness and how they are directly connected to any possibility of true human evolution. We are now at the point of an evolutionary imperative. We are now up against the limits of a particular frame of consciousness that arose during the Renascence and has become increasingly cemented in place since the industrial revolutio...

We're now learning that a lot of what the 9/11 Commission was given as "factual intelligence" regarding al Qaeda's role in 9/11 was produced under torture. Everyone should be aware that the Commission began from the point of view that the most important "facts" were already known: That al Qaeda alone was responsible for 9/11. I've been saying for years that the Bush administration produced LESS evidence to substantiate that claim than they did to substantiate that Iraq had WMD, that they were an...

First of all it is true that Bush, Cheney, and much of the NEOCON gang are currently out of political office. However, the forces that put them there and kept them there for eight years, keeping most of their malfeasance covered up in the media -- those people, those forces, haven't gone anywhere. The NEOCON coup d'état was largely but not exclusively a military coup, reinforced by the events of 9/11 which allowed them to put in place a proto-police state infrastructure, all under the rubric of ...

They WANTED something to happen. The NEOCONs openly said so in their September 2000 White Paper, "Rebuilding America's Defenses." The paper is a long "wish list" for significantly more money for the US "defense industry" and outlined a variety of weapons programs -- including the development of gene-specific bio-weapons. That is, a biological weapon designed to target a specific genetic group. The scientific possibility of such a weapon aside, the very IDEA that a group of men now in high places...

What evidence do we have that "al-Qa'ida" was responsible for 9/11 that did NOT come from the same "intelligence" sources that were "fitting" the intel around the NEOCON Iraq policy -- or under the direct application of torture? Why do we assume they were producing a "fitting intelligence product" in one instance but not in the other? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Richard Clark was right. Prior to 9/11, the "al-Qa'ida" alarm bells were ringing off the hook, at least in certain circles. But, si...

Oh, yeah, maybe there are some perverts who get off on it, too -- that wouldn't be the least bit surprising -- but that isn't why Bush/Cheney/NEOCONS needed to torture their captives. We already know a variety of ways they made the "intelligence" "fit" their military expansionism. They created an "enemy" and called it al Qaeda ("database") and made it into this big bad boggy man (replacing the old, worn out and discarded big bad boggy man of Communism backed by the evil USSR). As has been made c...

implementation of social mythologies. He is a close associate of Rice, was the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and had regular (and secret) contact with Carl Rove during that time. Are we going to find out to what extent the 9/11 Commission based its findings, especially its fundamental assumptions, on information derived from torture? Clearly, Zelikow knew under what conditions that "intelligence" was derived. Clearly he also knew how to handle the "minders" that kept questions and a...

I don't care whether people believe "9/11 was an inside job" or not. It was but even if people don't believe it, it doesn't matter. The point is WE LIVE IN A CRIMINAL OUT OF CONTROL SOCIETY. We live in a global empire of insatiable greed that 'trickles down' to the consumerism we need to fill our empty lives. It is literally -- not figuratively -- literally KILLING US. It is killing us with toxic waste. It is killing us with toxic products. It is killing us with toxic food. It is killing us with...

Someone please explain to me WHY we're in Afghanistan again? To stop "the database" (al Qaeda) of all bin Laden's associates??? To stop terror by blowing up poor people and pouring white phosphorus on their children???? Give me a fucking break. We are there to secure the ME and South Asia markets in petroleum and heroin and to establish an imperial beach head for global market dominance. THAT IS WHY OUR MILITARY IS THERE -- it has nothing to do with terrorism. nothing! WE -- the US military in...

The whole thing was cooked up before 9/11. The CIA had a report for invading Afghanistan on *'s desk the day before. They'd started drawing up plans for invading Iraq, to finish what PaPa * didn't complete months before. The NEOCON's needed a "New Pearl Harbor" to "rebuild America's defenses". Hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars thrown at the MIC. COUNTLESS lives lost and destroyed and for what?? These are IMPERIALIST wars of aggression FOR OIL, NATURAL GAS PIPELINE ROUTES AND CONTROL OF THE HEROIN ...

Everyone wants to get their little piece of the pie. But the underlying problem is a global economic system that is classist and fascist and has been a long, long time. You can't really "fix it" one piece at a time. Yeah, maybe you win one battle here but loose two battles there. To really make significant change you have to identify the core of the beast and go for the jugular. typo

I understand completely that the president is under constraints and has inherited the biggest mess in US history. Criticism of policy should not be misconstrued as lack of support. On the contrary, criticism of policy will actually support Obama in having the political power to counter some of the constraints he is under. typo

apparently, especially in the military, they are only for "some" people. As a gay man who grew up in a homophobic world, I understand and respect Lt. Choi's decision to not accept or hide behind regulations that are inherently dishonest, immoral and demeaning. Most people have yet to grasp the harm such explicit and implicit taboos cause not only to individuals but to society as a whole. What kind of society holds up these virtues as guiding principals around which character forms on one hand an...

They knew they were lying when they said "no one could have forseen..." just the same as when they said it in regard to 9/11 -- and just like when they were lying about WMD and when they said "we don't torture" on and on and on. They lied about EVERYTHING. Why anyone would believe any of it is what is beyond me! And don't give me the "incompetence theory" -- total BS. When you are incompetent you fail. These rat bastards "look" like failure only because the outcomes don't match the stated inten...

I'm beginning to understand you are somewhat new to all this. I don't know you personally so I just don't know what you're aware of and not. As stated elsewhere in this thread, my interest in this began years prior to 9/11 (and actually dates back to the JFK assassination when I was a teenager). As my signature indicates, I'm very influenced by the writings of Peter Dale Scott (and others) who look at the world from a perspective that is quite different from that of corporate news. Just giving y...