Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, October 18, 2012
Homeschooling, The Most Radical Social Movement in America, Terrifies the Establishment / Politics / Educating Children
I have just read the best article in National Review that I can remember in the last 40 years. Of course, this is not saying a great deal, because I stopped reading National Review about 40 years ago. I used to write for it occasionally. My introduction to the magazine was in the fall of 1959, when I was a freshman at Pomona College. I read it faithfully for about five years, and intermittently until the early 1970s. After that, my interests shifted.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Venezuela vs. Argentina, Which Will Run Out of Money First? / Politics / Emerging Markets
Martin Hutchinson writes: After a surprisingly comfortable re-election, Venezuela has decided to stick with Hugo Chavez and all that comes with him.
That has prompted The Wall Street Journal and other pundits to forecast nothing less than economic doom for Venezuela in 2013.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Why You Should Never Call the Police / Politics / US Politics
Would you dial up a known criminal, like a murderer or rapist, to come help you after you've been the victim of a crime? No? Then why in the world would you call the police after you've been assaulted, robbed or otherwise violated?
The police do not consider their job to protect you. They used to at least pay lip service to "keeping the peace", but nowadays in the USSA it is clear their job is to enforce the law. In fasco-communist America, the law stopped being about your protection decades ago. The law is about the expansion of state power and control. That's why there are so many of them, with more coming all the time.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Why The Nobel Peace Prize For The EU Is Flawed / Politics / Euro-Zone
While everybody was asleep in a grandiose globalization and unification dream, a dream whose benefits and desirability were - and still are - hardly ever questioned if at all, separate languages and cultures simply remained what they were: separate. Now that globalization starts to show its dark and ugly flipside of economic depression, a repeal of many unifications and a split-up of larger entities, created for economic and political reasons only, into their smaller components, is inevitable.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Banks Punished For Central Bank and Political Errors / Politics / Banksters
In recent decades politicians have increasingly followed the Keynesian prescription of economic growth through continued government borrowing and the creation of undreamt of amounts of fiat money by central banks. To facilitate this process, the larger commercial banks have acted as the central banks' de facto distribution system, and as a result have grown ever larger while accepting progressively greater risks.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Is the Cold War Heating Up ? / Politics / New Cold War
Sasha Cekerevac writes: Having been relegated to the history books, the Cold War between the West and the East appears to be heating up again. On one side, we have increasing tensions with China; U.S. politicians claim that China is a currency-manipulator and China has massively increased its spending in defense, which is threatening the security in that part of the world. If we look to the Middle East, tensions are now rising with Russia.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Voting is A Fool’s Game! / Politics / US Politics
Gary D. Barnett writes: The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting. ~ Charles Bukowski
Voting is a fool’s game. Many might find that statement offensive, but considering our plight, I can’t imagine why. There are so many who have been fooled into thinking that voting is a sacred right, and one that guarantees freedom. The opposite of course is the case. The fooled among us seem completely willing to embrace this ruse; thus allowing the many to continue to be ruled by the few. The result then of voting in this country is oligarchy, making it one of the most worthless endeavors of mankind.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
European Satellites Ordered To Drop Iranian Broacast Channels In Disregard of Free Speech / Politics / Mainstream Media
New York, New York: Back in the 1960’s, A British poet, Adrian Mitchell, one of the great bards of that era, wrote a poem that went on to become a stage show in the West End of London. It was called Tell Me Lies about Vietnam and represented one voice among millions in the world then opposing that War
It was addressed, “To Whom It May Concern” and began with words that became its refrain:
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
China’s Pyramid of Power, The Communist Party Elite / Politics / China
China celebrated another achievement last week, as Mo Yan became the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize for literature. The selection of Mo was praised by a Chinese nationalist tabloid as a sign that mainstream China could "no longer be refused by the West for long."
Mo grew up in Shandong province in northeastern China, and during the Cultural Revolution, he left school to work in the fields, finishing his education in the army, according to The Guardian. The author draws upon his rural upbringing in his novels, mixing historical perspective with mythical elements. His real name is Guan Moye, but he chose "Mo Yan" as a pen name meaning "don't speak," to reflect the culture in which he grew up.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Fiscal Cliff Threatens U.S. With Recession, Politicans Lack Ability to Find Solution / Politics / US Economy
Bloomberg Television's Trish Regan sits down with four CEOs for a special edition of "Street Smart" focused on fixing the country's debt. Tune in to hear from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, NASDAQ CEO Bob Greifeld, UPS CEO Scott Davis and Honeywell CEO David Cote, who are all part of the Fix the Debt campaign.
The CEOs agree: It's Washington's fault we're not hiring and not spending. Honeywell's Cote says, "If we were playing with fire in the debt ceiling, we'll be playing with nitroglycerine now when it comes to the fiscal cliff."
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Monday, October 15, 2012
Why Are We Bailing Out the Banks - The Big Lie / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Economics and the corporate media did exemplary service in promoting 'the Big Lies' of the financialisation crisis, most notably efficient markets theory and the trickle down theory of stuffing the rich with even greater power and wealth in the thought that some of the excess would fall on the path for the little people.
They have tied these old canards so carefully to emotional arguments that even after the crisis and collapse, many people will still respond reflexively to anything that shakes their faith in a failed, fallen system.
Monday, October 15, 2012
BLS Keeping Up Statistical Appearances / Politics / Economic Statistics
Last week, supporters of the current administration rejoiced over job numbers released by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS). For the first time since the administration came to power, the official unemployment number fell below 8%. Keynesian cheerleaders all claimed the numbers meant we are surely on the road to economic recovery, just in time for Christmas, and also, the election. Others saw through this ruse.
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Monday, October 15, 2012
The Real Reason America Nuked Japan / Politics / US Politics
Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives
Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.
But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56):
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Monday, October 15, 2012
Will the US Disintergrate? / Politics / US Politics
Jack D. Douglas writes: An essay by Simon Black, sent to me by Wes Drawdy down in South Carolina, is a very good overview from the ground up of what's happening in the Spanish Financial Crisis and is very similar to what is already happening in Greece, Italy and Portugal and will likely soon be happening in France and northward. He emphasizes the "capital flight" he could see all around him, people rushing to get their money out of the Spanish banks before emergency laws impose severe restrictions on withdrawals, as has already begun in less drastic ways in Italy, and getting it out of Spain, especially to nearby Andora. The financial Media are covering this, but they are emphasizing the banks' massive borrowing to the de facto insolvent Spanish government, which makes the banks de facto insolvent, while all officials are pretending this is not yet at the critical level which could produce a full scale banking panic any day. The Media also do not catch the sense of growing panic among the people in general, as Black does.
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Monday, October 15, 2012
Nobel Prize Heralds the Shining Future of Quantum Computing / Politics / Technology
Quantum Computing is one of the most interesting innovations happening in science today -- as ATCA 5000 has repeatedly pointed out -- and yet it is also one of the hardest to explain. The latest Nobel prize shows that "Quantum Computing" is not some esoteric mystical concept: it is extremely concrete.
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Sunday, October 14, 2012
London's Bankster Parasites Paradise / Politics / Banksters
Whenever financial swindlers prosper at the expense of investors or a bank jiggers interest rates to bugger their competitors or tax evaders flee fiscal crises or rent gouging petrol monarchies recycle profits or oligarchs pillage economies and drive millions to drink, drugs and destitution they find a suitable secure sanctuary in London. They are wooed and pursued by big British realtors eager to sell them multi-million dollar estates, trophy properties and landmark mansions.
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Sunday, October 14, 2012
Syria Regime Change, False Flag Energy / Politics / Energy Resources
For the Libya war and regime change things were easy: Libya is a big supplier of oil and gas to Europe. Quickly replacing the Gaddafi regime was necessary, despite "the Colonel" being recycled back into grace with a Condoleeza Rice, Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi smile and handshake, and replaced by a Shariah-proclaiming shaky government and its fundamentalist militias, who celebrated Sept 11th 2012 in a special way, by killing the US ambassador. But hydrocarbon supplies are vital!
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Sunday, October 14, 2012
War with Iran Keshe Weirdness / Politics / Iran
Danté Xavier Voltaire writes: Is there a hidden dimension to the war posturing against Iran by the Western Alliance?
Mehran Tavakoli Keshe, an Iranian born Nuclear Engineer, Inventor and Founder of The Keshe Foundation, based in Belgium, claims to have helped the Iranian Government develop a ‘superior’ space program based on his nuclear plasma technology. The Iranian Government openly promotes their space program and may have used a Keshe technology based ‘UFO’ style anti-gravity spaceship complete with tractor beams to capture the infamous US RQ170 Sentinel drone, an event which embarrassed the Obama administration and shook the CIA in December 2011.
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Saturday, October 13, 2012
Figures Lie, Liars Figure, the Math of Mainstream Economists / Politics / Economic Statistics
We also have a way to vastly increase US household income – the feds have only to spend more money! Just add zeros. How about that? The poor family has not a dime more in real, spendable income…but we’ve managed – by clever use of mathematics and economics – to double its income.
But that illustrates the nature of modern economics. It is all numbers…and none of them mean anything. And none means less than the zero.
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Friday, October 12, 2012
Nobel Peace Prize for Europe for Not Starting World War III / Politics / GeoPolitics
Sorry, but history didn't end sometime between your birth and your breakfast today...
BACK in 2009 when Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize just nine months after becoming US president, he said he felt "surprised" and "deeply humbled".