Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, September 06, 2013
The Stockman Doctrine On US Imperialism / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
NOT JUST THE ECONOMY, STUPID
David Stockman wades in to the attack on what he calls the “American Imperium”. Published by Lewrockwell.com, he claims that if Congress votes against Obama's war plans against Syria, this can “trigger the end of the American Imperium”. What imperium?
One thing is sure. The downsized US “imperium” certainly has imperial-sized debt, and Stockman knows a lot about how it happened – he was there as Ronald Reagan's OMB budget director in 1981-1985. As we also know, previous and past empires always crippled themselves by taking on real debt and fake wealth in the shape of colonies that weren't filled with gold or oil - but the US never had many formal colonies – Puerto Rico and Guam, for example, are not impressive for a would-be empire.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 06, 2013
An Obituary for the American Middle Class / Politics / Social Issues
By: Profit_Confidential
Michael Lombardi writes:
It’s the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about…
The middle class in the U.S. economy is on the verge of collapse. Yes, I said collapse. That social class that once helped the U.S. economy grow and prosper is coming apart. Will the U.S. economy ever be the same without it or is this the new norm?
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Syria War - Wall Street’s Secret “Economic Endgame”: Making the World Safe for Banksters / Politics / Banksters
By: Ellen_Brown
Iraq and Libya have been taken out, and Iran has been heavily boycotted. Syria is now in the cross-hairs. Why? Here is one overlooked scenario . . .
In an August 2013 article titled “Larry Summers and the Secret ‘End-game’ Memo,” Greg Palast posted evidence of a secret late-1990s plan devised by Wall Street and U.S. Treasury officials to open banking to the lucrative derivatives business. To pull this off required the relaxation of banking regulations not just in the US but globally. The vehicle to be used was the Financial Services Agreement of the World Trade Organization.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Putin Calls out Obama: G-20 Conference: East vs. West / Politics / New Cold War
By: Stephen_Merrill
The Russia Times news channel (RT.com) has become a thorn in the side of US journalism with its steady, Kremlin-written, anti-US, anti-Obama stories and editorials.
The Edward Snowden affair seemed to whip RT’s writings into a full-throated debate with the fading US superpower. That situation proved not much though when compared to the voice the Syrian civil war affair is bringing to the RT editorial staff.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Syria and Second Passports / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno, Editor, International Man
All of us by now have seen the latest sales pitch from the Obama administration for yet another so-called "humanitarian intervention" in the Middle East. It is not hard to see that the case for war is a bunch of rubbish and will likely end in disaster for both Syria and the US.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Iran Managing U.S. Military Action in Syria / Politics / Middle East
By: STRATFOR
Conventional wisdom says that a weakened Syria would undermine Iran's regional influence, but a U.S. military intervention in the country could actually benefit Tehran. The government there has devised a sophisticated strategy for responding to a U.S. attack. Of course, Tehran would activate its militant proxies in the region, including Hezbollah, in the event that the United States launches an attack, but it would also exploit Washington's visceral opposition to Sunni jihadist and Islamist groups to gain concessions elsewhere.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
US Congress Lines Up Behind Drive for War Against Syria / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Andre Damon writes: Leading members of the US Congress have moved quickly to declare their support for President Barack Obama’s proposed resolution enabling the use of force against Syria.
The move to get a congressional authorization is aimed at providing a fig-leaf of legitimacy to a unpopular war that is based on lies. In this way it is similar to the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force, which became the rationale for sweeping military attacks and domestic repression.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
A War on Syria Prelude to a World War III Scenario? / Politics / Middle East
By: Michel_Chossudovsky
In order to facilitate the action of liberative (sic) forces, …a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals. …[to] be accomplished early in the course of the uprising and intervention, …
Once a political decision has been reached to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria, CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main (sic) incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals. …Incidents should not be concentrated in Damascus …
Further : a “necessary degree of fear .. frontier incidents and (staged) border clashes”, would “provide a pretext for intervention… the CIA and SIS [MI6] should use … capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.”(Joint US-UK leaked Intelligence Document, London and Washington, 1957)
Syria occupies a strategic location in the Middle East. The war on Syria is part of a roadmap of military undertakings. It is an integral part of a broader US-NATO-Israel military agenda directed not only against Iran, but also against Russia and China. Moreover, it is part of an extended military agenda which consists in establishing control over Middle East-Central Asian oil reserves as well as strategic oil and gas pipelines.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
China Rejects The US-Saudi-Israeli Plan For The Middle East / Politics / Middle East
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE YINON PLAN LIVES ON
Named after Israel's minister of foreign affairs at the time of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and occupation of Beirut, with about 25 000 dead, this divide-and-rule geostrategy plan for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) lives on.
Already victims of this strategy since 2011 – operated by Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia – we have the divided and weakened states of Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Egypt and even Tunisia can also possibly be added to the list. Others can be identified as likely short-term target victim countries.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Yes, Obamacare Created Jobs. But Guess Who Got Them... / Politics / US Politics
By: Money_Morning
Garrett Baldwin writes: One of the real Obamacare facts we've shared with you is how the Affordable Care Act will influence private employers to cut hours and jobs across the nation.
There is one group of workers, however, that is still raking in new job opportunities at a stunning rate, thanks to Obamacare.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Chinese Banks Quasi Government Institutions / Politics / Banksters
By: BATR
When is a bank an appendage of state? In China, the incorporation of commercial banking under the auspice of governmental policy is virtually indistinguishable. Philosophically, any government should have control of their currency and structure the precepts of banking and lending system. Capitalist banking would command a greater pragmatic function if competition among banks was based upon free enterprise. However, under the central banking scheme governments regulate banks, but are creatures of fractional reserve debt money issued by central bank parentage. The Chinese way has included a touch of mystery when analyzed within the context of western international banking.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Syria: Another Zionist War for Suckers / Politics / Middle East
By: BATR
Just like a broken clock, it tells correct time twice a day. Barack Hussein Obama’s promise to have Congress vote upon his Syria’s strike force plans is a first since the historic constitutional betrayal in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Even the feeble attempt in The War Powers Act of 1973, to place accountability on Imperial Presidents, routinely ignored by other POTUS, struck new heights of arrogance and abuses under this infamous Nobel Peace Prize President.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Obama's Syria Tightrope Walk, The Reluctant Coalition Leader / Politics / Syria
By: STRATFOR
Last week began with certainty that an attack on Syria was inevitable and even imminent. It ended with the coalition supporting the attack somewhere between falling apart and not coming together, and with U.S. President Barack Obama making it clear that an attack was inevitable, maybe in a month or so, if Congress approves, after Sept. 9 when it reconvenes. This is a comedy in three parts: the reluctant warrior turning into the raging general and finding his followers drifting away, becoming the reluctant warrior again.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Obama Decides It's Safer To Buy Congress Than To Go To War Alone / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
While still claiming dictatorial powers to start a war on his own authority, Obama put his unilateral attack on Syria on hold when he received a letter from more than 160 members of the House of Representatives reminding him that to take the country to war without congressional approval is an impeachable offense and when he saw that no country that could serve as cover for a war crime, not even the puppet British government and the NATO puppet states, would support America’s announced military aggression against Syria.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Labor Worth Celebrating / Politics / Employment
By: Investment_U
Andrew Snyder writes: It’s Labor Day. Time to fire up the grill, put a six-pack on ice and flip through the pages of the back-to-school sales fliers.
For most folks, it’s just another holiday – an excuse to head to the beach. They have no idea what the holiday is all about.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 02, 2013
Geopolitics And Islam In The MENA / Politics / Religion
By: Andrew_McKillop
ROOT CONFLICT OF IDEOLOGY
As I reported in a previous article ('Political Islam and the Next Oil War') political Islam and Pan Arab nationalism are either the uppermost fears or seen as lurking threats by the great powers, or so-called great powers, and by their regional imitators setting out to “redesign the landscape” in the Middle East and North Africa. Islamism or political Islam, like Pan Arab nationalism and Arab socialism in the 1950s and 1960s generate the fear of violent political movements sweeping away previous nations and frontiers, and with them the “liberal economy”. In fact these threats have more spin than substance and oppose each other. Conversely the real threats are ignored.
Monday, September 02, 2013
The Virus of Imperialism / Politics / US Politics
By: Thomas_J_DiLorenzo
In his famous 1898 essay, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain,” the great Yale University libertarian scholar William Graham Sumner argued that America had crossed the Rubicon, so to speak, and had become an imperialistic empire. It had become the Spanish empire. But Sumner was only half right. The conquest of Cuba was an imperialistic war, but so were all other American military adventures since the American Revolution. Apparently, even a man as brilliant and astute as Sumner was somewhat befogged by the endless and pervasive drumbeat of war propaganda.
Monday, September 02, 2013
Ron Paul - Will Congress Endorse Obama's War Plans? Does it Matter? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
President Obama announced this weekend that he has decided to use military force against Syria and would seek authorization from Congress when it returned from its August break. Every Member ought to vote against this reckless and immoral use of the US military. But even if every single Member and Senator votes for another war, it will not make this terrible idea any better because some sort of nod is given to the Constitution along the way.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, September 01, 2013
China Model For The MENA – The Great Leap Backwards / Politics / China
By: Andrew_McKillop
FOOD IMPORTS AND POLITICAL CHANGE
Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward was comparable to Western claims that “surgical bombing” can fast-forward political change, but not to democracy, in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Mao's great leap was an ideology-driven jump into darkness, a criminal act that destroyed food production and dislocated the economy, depriving China of the means to pay for food imports and plunged the country into mass starvation. Estimates put the numbers of dead through the key years of 1958-1962 at far above 35 million, but the real figures will never be known.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, September 01, 2013
First Obamacare, Next Obamaschool / Politics / Education
By: MISES
Hunter Lewis writes: The president gave a speech on August 22 in Buffalo outlining his proposal to “reform” the student loan program. He acknowledged that the program has some problems, but assured the audience they are easily fixed. Just take the principles behind Obamacare and apply them to education. The president personally “guaranteed” that his proposals would make college more affordable.