Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Slovakia's Nuclear Schizophrenia - Shut Down, Continue As Usual or? / Politics / Nuclear Power
By: OilPrice_Com
The implosion of the USSR in December 1991 produced massive economic "collateral damage" in its East European allies, as they simultaneously sought both to assert their new-found independence and draw closer to their potential European allies on the western side of 1946's "Iron Curtain."
Following the euphoria amity quickly devolved down to practical issues, one of which was that the European Union was leery of welcoming new members after the collapse of Communism that relied on power from Soviet-era nuclear power facilities, especially in the wake of the April 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine.
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Thursday, January 05, 2012
Playing the 'Free Markets' Canard and the Myth of Self Regulation / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Jesse
ca·nard/kəˈnär(d)/
Noun:
a. An unfounded or false, deliberately misleading story : a fabricated report
b. a groundless rumor or belief.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Why Attacking Iran Will Not Work in 2012 / Politics / Iran
By: Patrick_Henningsen
All signs coming out of Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv are pointing towards a pre-emptive military strike against Iran in 2012. But a number of key indicators are also pointing towards an unsuccessful, unlikely operation, whose failure could result in a military and economic tailspin from which the United States and Israel are unlikely to recover.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
America in Desperate Need for a Revolution / Politics / US Politics
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes:
Rampant profiteering by Congress and greedy bankers is forcing us to weigh the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune against honesty and transparency - both of which are being trampled by crony capitalists in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
What's at stake is whether gross criminal activity and reckless disregard for the public will continue to be whitewashed by regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Federal Reserve, courts, and Congress, which encourage half-baked civil fraud charges followed by non-prosecution agreements and nickel-and-dime fines.
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Thursday, January 05, 2012
Getting Out Before the Gates Slam Shut on the U.S. Police State / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator) : L: Doug, a lot of readers have been asking for guidance on how to know when it's time to exit center stage and hunker down in some safe place. Few people want to hide from the world in a cabin in the woods while life goes on in the mainstream, but nobody wants to get caught once the gates clang shut on the police state the US is becoming. How do you know when it's time to go?
Thursday, January 05, 2012
US, EU Warmongers Wage Economic War on Iran / Politics / Iran
By: Mike_Shedlock
One might think the US and EU would have enough economic problems already to risk oil soaring to stratospheric heights by an embargo of Iranian oil.
Unfortunately, common sense never gets in the way of bureaucrats and fools or their foolish missions.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Please Daddy-Cool Bomb Iran, Just One More War… And I Need The Money / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_Butter
The first really big irony is when “we” were trying to persuade that lunatic Khomeini to stop beating the living daylights out of “our good friend” Saddam Hussein, no matter how much sophisticated ordinance and poison gas we sold him, there were two conditions for the lunatic to stop:
1: Saddam Hussein had to go.
2: There had to be some approximation of democratic elections in Iraq.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Hot Air Rises But Carbon Markets Fall / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
The potential for carbon finance to hit a final limit to its credibility, and implode in 2012 is high and rising. As we know, global warming theorists would be short of talkshow material without "tipping points" and climate forcing, drawing on everything from heavily overworked CO2 to more exciting, seemingly higher tech specialty themes like the possible role of adipic acid, freons and halocarbons, 'black carbon' and heavy metals, even cosmic ray breakdown particles in the atmosphere - - to explain why they believe global average temperatures have to rise. As we also know or are invited to believe, carbon traders huddled over their playstation consoles doing the Fibonaccis and losing other peoples' money are preventing this happening.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
U.S. Iran War Imminent in Straits of Hormuz? $200 a Barrel Oil? / Politics / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
The pieces and policies for potential conflict in the Persian Gulf are seemingly drawing inexorably together.
Since 24 December the Iranian Navy has been holding its ten-day Velayat 90 naval exercises, covering an area in the Arabian Sea stretching from east of the Strait of Hormuz entrance to the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden. The day the maneuvers opened Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told a press conference that the exercises were intended to show "Iran's military prowess and defense capabilities in international waters, convey a message of peace and friendship to regional countries, and test the newest military equipment." The exercise is Iran's first naval training drill since May 2010, when the country held its Velayat 89 naval maneuvers in the same area. Velayat 90 is the largest naval exercise the country has ever held.
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Tuesday, January 03, 2012
The American Empire is Over, Brace for an Horrifying Decent / Politics / US Politics
By: Videos
Chris Hedges "Brace Yourself! The American Empire Is Over & The Descent Is Going To Be Horrifying!"
"We have undergone, I think, in the last few decades a kind of slow motion coup d'état."
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
The Outlook for the New Year, Tyranny in the Forecast / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
This past year has not been a good one for the 99%, and the new year is likely to be even worse. This column deals with the outlook for liberty. The next will deal with the economic outlook.
The outlook for liberty is dismal. Those writers who are critical of Washington’s illegal wars and overthrow of the US Constitution could find themselves in indefinite detainment, because criticism of Washington’s policies can be alleged to be aiding Washington’s enemies, which might include charities that provide aid to bombed Palestinian children and flotillas that attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/us-israel-usa-flotilla-idUSTRE75N4A620110624
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Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Ron Paul: Debt Burden Threatens American Families / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week, as most Americans were celebrating the holidays with family and friends, the Obama Administration announced plans to seek yet another debt ceiling increase in the New Year. While some fiscal conservatives will try to block this increase, their efforts are designed to fail thanks to the procedure set up by the last debt ceiling negotiations. Congress would have to pass a joint resolution opposing the increase, which the president could simply veto. Thus, an additional $1.2 trillion on top of our already unsustainable debt is a foregone conclusion. Our Gross Domestic Product continues to contract and now stands at $14.5 trillion. The debt already far exceeds that and will soon hit the new ceiling of $16.39 trillion.
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Monday, January 02, 2012
Britain Sleepwalking into Fascism / Politics / UK Politics
By: William_Bowles
"[W]hen dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era - force, pre-emptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in the nineteenth century world of every state for itself. Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle." -- The new liberal imperialism by Robert Cooper (Cooper by the way was a former civil service adviser to Tony Blair)[1]
Monday, January 02, 2012
Public Service Has Mutated Into Public Disservice / Politics / US Politics
By: Barry_Elias
I would consider running for Congress, because I do not want to be a career politician.
Public service should be analogous to the charitable tithing principle: a portion of one’s income and/or time is dedicated toward others that are less fortunate (e.g., 10 percent).
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Sunday, January 01, 2012
Ron Paul's Political Platform for America: A Critical Assessment / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Lendman
Compared to a rogue's gallery of Republican aspirants, supporters claim Paul looks good by comparison. Look again and think carefully about America in his hands.
True enough, he wants the Federal Reserve abolished. He calls it "dishonest, immoral, unconstitutional," and America's "great(est) threat to....security and prosperity."
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Sunday, January 01, 2012
Ron Paul and the Killing Machine / Politics / US Politics
By: Mike_Whitney
Ron Paul is the only antiwar candidate who has a (microscopic) chance of winning in 2012. He’s also the only candidate who will make an effort to restore the Bill of Rights and reverse Congress’s decision to allow the president to “indefinitely” imprison American citizens without due process. For these reasons alone, Paul should garner the support of leftists, liberals, and progressives. But he won’t, because liberals are convinced that Paul will try to dismantle the social programs upon which the elderly, the infirm, and the vulnerable depend.
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Coming of the Violent Global Revolutions / Politics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
Dr. Raju M. Mathew writes:
The seeds of the present Islamic Terrorism, Global Economic Crisis, the Arab Springs and the Occupy Movement had been sown in Information Technology Revolutions, Petro-Dollars, Globalization, Consumerism and Corporate Culture of Greed. They had been programmed within IT, Globalization and Trade-in Services, though nobody was aware of it, even their greatest proponents. All states or religions or their development strategies have been built up within the mindset of the quarreling primitive tribal chiefs or warriors for the last several centuries.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Rothschild, U.S. Fed, Admit Nothing. Explain Nothing / Politics / Central Banks
By: Richard_Mills
Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild, founder of the International Banking House of Rothschild said:
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
The Rothschild brothers, already laying the foundation for the Federal Reserve Act, wrote the following to New York associates in 1863:
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Marking the First Signs of an Indian Spring / Politics / India
By: Submissions
John Pilger writes: When the early morning fog rises and drifting skeins from wood fires carry the sweet smell of India, the joggers arrive in Lodi Gardens. Past the tomb of Mohammed Shah, the 15th century Munghal ruler, across a landscape manicured in the 1930s by Lady Willingdon, wife of the governor-general, recently acquired trainers stride out from ample figures in smart saris and white cotton dhotis. In Delhi, the middle classes do as they do everywhere, though here there is no middle. By mid-morning, children descend like starlings. They wear pressed blazers, like those of an English prep school. There are games and art and botany classes. When shepherded out through Lady Willingdon's elegant stone gateway, they pass a reed-thin boy, prostrate beside the traffic and his pile of peanuts, coins clenched in his hand.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Iran, Another False Enemy? / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Merrill
Is Iran truly a country so bent on murdering innocent Americans it embraces its own nuclear annihilation, unlike any other nation now or previously, utter, complete defeat at war?
This is the claim made by the pro-warfare wing of the Republicrat Party, seven out of eight candidates seeking the Republican nomination for President. It is a given within this frightened circle that Iranians are willing to commit mass suicide as a people just to make a negative point about the freedoms enjoyed in the United States.