Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
America's Criminal War on Iraq 10th Anniversary / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War.
In October, 2002, I wrote a cover-story about Iraq for the first issue of American Conservative magazine, entitled "The March to Folly." My article predicted the impending invasion of Iraq would be a disaster for all concerned.
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Saturday, March 16, 2013
Sequester Holding Americans Hostage / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
Judges who wish to assure that a jury has no outside influence will sequester them.Legally, a sequestered jury is seized by authority and isolated from all outside influences.
The jurors are escorted into and out of the courtroom. They aren’t allowed to read newspapers, listen to radio news, or watch TV news, ’lest they could be influenced by the media. They are escorted to and from meals, and isolated from other customers. They can’t discuss the case with family or friends. They can’t even go home at the end of the day; they’re housed in hotel rooms.
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Saturday, March 16, 2013
Pope Bashing Media Blitz "Proves All Is Well" / Politics / Religion
By: Andrew_McKillop
EVERY DAY THE DOW HITS RECORD HIGHS
Of course soaring equity indices are nothing to do with the real economy - only the naive would (or could) imagine the opposite. However, one direct spinoff is Pope bashing. The new Pope's primal error was to almost say outright that mass poverty can be linked with the greedy rich and their casino economy. Rapidly, Pope bashing has become "de rigeur" in official government friendly media.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Darwin And The Crisis Of Christianity / Politics / Religion
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE PRIMAL SOUP
In the primal soup of our ex-democracies in meltdown, as we thrill to one petty demagogue after the other, the 'recourse to religion' is surely making a comeback. This will also bring back the 160-year-old crisis of Christian, Juadaic and Islamic doctrine set by the theory of evolution. Darwinist defenders of "large scale abiogenesis-based evolution" present things as follows. Four and a half billion years ago our young planet's naked land masses were almost completely engulfed by shallow primordial seas, their waters formed by inorganic atmospheric and volcanic-tectonic chemical processes. Powerful winds gathered random molecules from the atmosphere and some were deposited in the seas. Tides and currents thrust the molecules together. Then, somewhere in this ancient shallow ocean or at its edges the miracle of life began. The first organized form of primitive life was a tiny protozoan one-celled animal. Billions of protozoa soon populated the ancient seas and were completely self-sufficient in their sea-water world, feeding on bacteria and other organisms, which had also miraculously been formed. Much later on, life in the seas spread to the land and to the air.
Friday, March 15, 2013
The Great Society is Dead / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_T_Bucci
The complicity by both US political parties in a collaborative zeal to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is now "on the table" for all to view after each group unveiled their budget plans during the week of March 11. As a senior citizen, once an executive making three figures per hour and now living below the poverty line, constricted by multiple sclerosis in a US state run by a Tea Party Express Governor, Mr. "X" says he feels like someone living on death row.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Greek's Radical Left: The Dangers of the Disaffected and the Unemployed / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: STRATFOR
In last week's Geopolitical Weekly, George Friedman discussed how the global financial crisis has caused a global unemployment crisis and how Europe has become the epicenter of that crisis. He also noted that rampant unemployment will give way to a political crisis as austerity measures galvanize radical political parties opposed to the status quo.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Pope Francis And Global Poverty / Politics / Religion
By: Andrew_McKillop
CONSPIRACY THEORISTS SAY
The new Pope wafts in on a magic carpet of Oppression theology, not Liberation theology: Pope Francis will tell the people to accept poverty, distribute poverty, tone it down a little, tuck it under the carpet. Keep the party going - for the rich.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
New Pope, Old Doctrine, Can the God Gene Survive Revelations of the Secret of Life? / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Black / White Smoke Monster spoke and the next Pope was anointed as Gods representative on Earth (for Catholics).
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Greece Gathering Political and Social Storm Threatens Europe and America / Politics / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: EWI
The similarities between Greece and pre-WWII Germany are striking.
- Nazi salutes.
- Praise for Adolf Hitler.
- Swastika-like banners.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Venezuela: On the Death of Chávez and the Ailing Bolivar / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Although Hugo Chávez, the socialist presidente of Venezuela, has finally met his maker, the grim reaper is still lingering in Caracas. As it turns out, Chávez was not the only important Venezuelan whose health began to fail in recent weeks. The country's currency, the Venezuelan bolivar fuerte (VEF) may soon need to be put on life support. Indeed, in the past month the bolivar has lost 21.72 percent of its value against the greenback on the black market (read: free market).
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
EU Passes Law Forcing Countries to Take Bailout; Spain First Target? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Shedlock
Want a bailout? Need a bailout? Actually, it does not matter what your country wants or needs.
By a 526 to 86 vote, the nannycrats in Brussels just passed a regulation that will require a country to accept a bailout if offered.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Americans Can't Afford the Future - Unemployment, Taxes and Unfunded Retirement are Squeezing Generation's / Politics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
Adam Taggart writes: The American spirit is rooted in the belief of a better tomorrow. Its success has been due to generations of men and women who toiled, through both hardship and boom times, to make that dream a reality.
But at some point over the past several decades, that hope for a better tomorrow became an expectation. Or perhaps a perceived entitlement is more accurate.
It became assumed that the future would be more prosperous than today, irrespective of the actual steps being taken in the here and now.
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Wednesday, March 13, 2013
SMI Labour Benefit's Culture Catastrophe - Come to Britain and We Will Pay Your Mortgage! / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
You want a FREE £200k+ House? Then come to Britain, and we will give this and much more, only thing you need to do in return is to vote Labour. Britain continues to suffer the consequences of rampant Labour government bribery of the electorate in terms of expanding the width and breadth of the benefits culture that has resulted in enticing approx 1/5th of those of working age that could work ( 8 million) to instead park themselves onto benefits for life where the name of the game is how to maximise benefit receipts rather than engage in productive activity.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Fed's Bubbles to Slaughter Middle Class / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Michael_Pento
When central bankers dedicate their existence to re-inflating asset bubbles, it shouldn't at all be a surprise to investors that they eventually achieve success. Ben Bernanke has aggressively attempted to prop up the real estate and equity markets since 2008. His efforts to increase the broader money supply and create inflation have finally supported home prices, sent the Dow Jones Industrial average to a record nominal high and propelled the bond bubble to dizzying heights.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
An Orwellian America, Unsound Money Leads To Statism / Politics / US Politics
By: Gordon_T_Long
Macro Insights - March 2013
As a young man, I voraciously read George Orwell's "1984", Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Alvin Toffler's trilogy which included "Future Shock", "The Third Wave" and "Power Shift". During the era of the Vietnam War, I wondered seriously about the future and how it was destined to unfold. Now being considerably older, I have the vantage point to reflect back on my early ruminations and expectations. Unfortunately, I am too old to alter the lessons that are now so painfully obvious. Instead, I pass the gauntlet to those who can understand and take action on what I have unavoidably come to expect for America.
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Tuesday, March 12, 2013
North Korea's Strategy - Ferocious, Weak and Crazy / Politics / North Korea
By: STRATFOR
On Jan. 29, I wrote a piece that described North Korea's strategy as a combination of ferocious, weak and crazy. In the weeks since then, three events have exemplified each facet of that strategy. Pyongyang showed its ferocity Feb. 12, when it detonated a nuclear device underground. The country's only significant ally, China, voted against Pyongyang in the U.N. Security Council on March 7, demonstrating North Korea's weakness. Finally, Pyongyang announced it would suspend the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, implying that that war would resume and that U.S. cities would be turned into "seas of fire." To me, that fulfills the crazy element.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Economic Zombie Apocalypse, End of Civilisation is Here! / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
Gary Gibson writes: The end of civilization is already here. Most of humanity has been turned into an unthinking mass of economic zombies that are looking to feast on the still living flesh of the few survivors. This may explain the increasing popularity or obsession with all things zombie. From fiction to pub crawls, the zombie apocalypse seems to be on a lot of minds, probably as an unconcious manifestation of economic reality.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Bank of England Governor's Last Cunning Plan to Transfer RBS Bad Debts onto Tax Payers / Politics / Banksters
By: Nadeem_Walayat
In a Black Adder Baldrick-esk moment the soon to be pensioned off Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King announced his last cunning plan to help his bankster brethren by suggesting that all of the bad debts at the bankrupt tax payer bailed out RBS should be transferred to a tax payer owned bad bank (i.e. added to UK national debt) so that RBS can then be floated onto the stock market and that the politicians can thus announce that they made a profit for the tax payers.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Vatican's Next GodFather - What's More Important To You, Italy or the Dow? / Politics / Italy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
During the Italian election weekend two weeks ago, I watched all three Godfather films on a local station. Very convenient, since they can teach you quite a bit about Italy, even if you've seen them a dozen times already in the past. The abdication of the pope sort of rounded off the history lesson, and I was thinking: OK, now I'm good to go.
After the results came in and Beppe Grillo and the Five Star movement (M5S) became the single biggest "party", I was going to simply repost my February 10 article Beppe Grillo Wants To Give Italy Democracy, in which I wrote about my meeting with Beppe and the ideas we talked about which I took away from that. He had won big, but it was clear that most people still had no idea who he is.
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Sunday, March 10, 2013
Ron Paul on Congress, Drones, and The Imperial Presidency / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week the US Senate took a break from debating the phony cuts known as "sequestration," for Senator Rand Paul to hold a 13-hour filibuster to force the Obama administration to state whether it believes the President has the right to kill American citizens with drones on US soil. I find it tragic that there has to be a discussion on an issue that should be so self-evident.
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