Re: US strike options on TSP

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Feb 2014 03:37

ramana wrote:I had the same feeling when we visited San Francisco after a long time. Its a dying city.

Guardian chimes in:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/f ... g-its-soul

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 25 Feb 2014 05:33

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 28 Feb 2014 11:17

Twilight in the Box: The suicide statistics, the squalor and the recidivism haven’t ended solitary confinement. Maybe the brain studies will

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 02 Mar 2014 04:00

The Scholar Who Shaped History

Book Review:

The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation
by David Brion Davis
Knopf, 422 pp., $30.00

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 03 Mar 2014 10:26

Joe Biden in Winter

Manish_Sharma · Post by **Manish_Sharma** » 07 Mar 2014 22:28

http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/02/11 ... d-youtube/

The Edward Snowden Interview that was Blacked-Out by the U.S. Media and Banned by YouTube
| Posted on February 11, 2014 by Tim Brown |

The video got a wide viewing in Europe and it is not only an important interview when it comes to the vast surveillance state that is currently constructed, but is also still future.

Snowden explained to German television (oh the irony here is rich) how tyrannical surveillance programs erode human rights and individual liberty and freedom.

According to Snowden, his “breaking point” was “seeing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress” with his denial of the existence of a domestic spying programs in March 2013.

Snowden continued, “The public had a right to know about these programs. The public had a right to know that which the government is doing in its name, and that which the government is doing against the public.”

One has to wonder about the complicity of the media in blacking out vital information that exposes the criminal activity of the federal government. While many debate whether or not Edward Snowden is a hero or a traitor, Snowden decided to answer for himself.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 09 Mar 2014 05:46

Back in 1959, Allen Drury published a novel "Advise and Consent", which apparently was quite a hit in America. Some critics have called him "Allen Dreary". You can find out more about the book on Wikipedia. Here, I just want to reproduce a passage; I assume it represents some attitudes from that era, that may continue to this day.

Krishna Khaleel or K.K., is the Indian Ambassador and Lord Claude Maudulayne is the British Ambassador; and they are conversing at a party in Washington, D.C.

"Ah," Krishna Khaleel said knowingly, "I might have guessed. Our dear old Bob never rests. He has a job to do, to get this man confirmed, and he will not rest until it is accomplished. Admirable, is it not, Mr. Ambassador?"

This form of address, which always surprised Claude Maudulayne a little considering the number of times he and his Commonwealth colleague had conferred on matters of mutual interest, almost provoked him to say something which he knew would be a very serious mistake.

He almost suggested that K.K. relax; but he knew with a calm certainty that in his presence K.K. would never relax, that in the presence of the British, it would be generations before any educated Indian could really relax, that there would always be this self-conscious, faintly hostile, faintly cringing relationship, and in spite of himself he felt a mild but satisfied contempt. Yes, he thought, you're top dogs now, aren't you, but there's one thing you'll never really have no matter how desperately you want it, and you know it, and that's our respect. And because he knew that K.K. knew pretty much what he was thinking he threw his arm around the Indian Ambassador's bony shoulders with an extra cordiality and informed him jovially, "Actually, we've been settling the problems of the world, K.K., and we need your help......"

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 09 Mar 2014 11:01

First generation American of Indian origin describing what could be an encounter with Wendy Dongdinger

This is how I feel about all arguments about cultural appropriation.

Person of Color, Etc. says: Hey look, you are borrowing some stuff from my culture and using it in ways that make me feel like you don't respect me or my culture. It would be super cool if you could stop doing that and it would make me feel better. Thanks.

White Person: WHY YOU GOTTA GET SO OFFENDED? YOU CAN'T MAKE ME DO ANYTHING! STOP POLICING ME! I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT!

Person of Color, Etc. : I mean obviously you can do whatever you want... I'm not the police, I don't know why you're using that word. I'm not gonna come to your house and hurt you or be mean to your children if you say no. I'm just asking you to stop what you're doing because it's hurting my feelings. And I do feel offended! Don't I have the right to voice my opinion and my feelings?

White Person: NO! IF YOU'RE OFFENDED, THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM! I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU OR YOUR FEELINGS! AS LONG AS I THINK WHAT I'M DOING IS RIGHT, THEN YOU SHOULDN'T BE OFFENDED! STOP FEELING OFFENDED BY THIS AND TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD BECAUSE I DON'T!

Person of Color, Etc: I know you don't have to listen to my feelings... you can go anytime. Wait, I don't have the right to be offended?

White Person: NO.

Person of Color, Etc: Okay, maybe you should just go then...

White Person: NO. YOU NEED TO STOP BEING OFFENDED FIRST.

Person of Color, Etc: *facepalm*.

wig · Post by **wig** » 10 Mar 2014 02:53

this is from an article published in 2000 in the pakistan magazine, 'the Friday times' on the career of one Daud Rahbar. it seems that in order to combat communism the US and NATO did all they could to bring Islamism to turkey

In 1956, the government decid-ed to appoint Daud Rahbar to the chair of Urdu and Pakistan Studies at Ankara University. Daud noted that this appointment was owed to America’s NATO programme of bringing a secular Turkey close to an Islamic Pakistan.
He remained at this post from 1956 to 1959
Daud’s memories of Ankara have been recorded by him in his typical style, mixing irony with scholarly insight. At the Department of Islamics of the Ankara University, Prof Annemarie Schimmel had also begun teaching Islamic Fine Arts the same year. Pakistan’s ambassador Mian Bashir Ahmad, Known for his editorship of the Lahore journal Humayun, had been sent back to Pakistan at Turkey’s protest against his visiting the Muslim religious shrines in Turkey. Turkey’s secularism was anti-religious. The mosques were locked up and no one was allowed to be seen with the Quran. Daud’s own expertise of the Quran had to be kept under the bushel to save him and his friends from government action. Daud says the Americans were fearful that the gap of religion in Turkey might be filled by communism, thus weakening the NATO’s Turkey stronghold. against the Soviet Union. Daud Rehbar, faced with restrictions on religious discussion, was unable to talk about Pakistan without referring to the great spiritual founders of its polity: Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, Shah Waliullah, Syed Ahmad Barelvi, Abut Kalam Azad and Allama Muhammad Iqbal, and often wondered why he was sent to Ankara at all. -

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/track ... ud-rahbar/

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 10 Mar 2014 08:09

The Dark Power of Fraternities

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Mar 2014 00:19

Last night, Sanjay Gupta on CNN was promoting weed.

THink about this. US is bieng turned into a drug addict nation just as China was turned into an opium smoking country by British.
Currently 35% of all high school children are on that drug i.e one third of an entire generation are on drugs.
In ten -twenty years they will be the influencers.

Bill Clintonand Omababa being re-elected despite their confessed partaking sets the tone.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Mar 2014 01:01

Peter lanza needs to get some therapy. A child is God's gift that life must go on.

Knowing the poor child's medical condition the parents should not have had all those guns in the house.
Calling the child Adam Lanza evil is not correct. The parents should not have had those guns at home.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 11 Mar 2014 05:41

Clinton never "confessed" confessed. He prevaricated just like the definition of "is". He said he dud not inhale. Nobody could have been sitting in his throat to catch him if he inhaled or not and could have produced the proof.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 11 Mar 2014 10:04

The genetics of that crowd of 16000 that cheered the torture of a young black boy have seeded this country. This is what is within

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiyQFG6uHgg

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 11 Mar 2014 11:14

https://plus.google.com/photos/+Alphade ... 3346691601

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 11 Mar 2014 17:55

Over on Rajiv Malhotra's egroup, someone had a great find.
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t690954/

White Nationalists claim Wendy Doniger as one of their own! This is from 2010, well before the current controversy.

GreatViking, 03-17,2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by jorrdannn View Post
I go to a school which is heavily diverse and liberal, (dont worry im leaving for texas in 4 months). I expressed my beliefs particularly on asians and recieved many 'dont hate' speeches and was called a joke. How do I get my point across standing alone?
Use references by Professors who have written about Asians. Not sure which group of Asian you are talking about (Middle Eastern, Indian, Far Eastern), but Prof. Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago has written a lot about Indians and Hindus that annoy them. She is a true White Nationalist soldier which is why Microsoft Encarta targeted her and once removed her article from their encyclopedia.

Check her out though -- http://divinity.uchicago.edu/faculty/doniger.shtml

I should also add that she is one of the WNs who is from the left (there is another thread which deals with the subject of whether one can be a White Nationalist and a Communist). Her method is primarily to point out the negative influence that Hindus have had on the world in general, but this does not mean that she does not highlight White pride. She does that too in her books when she gets the chance.

If you were talking of Middle Eastern Asians, you should be able to use he works of any number of scholars. If it is the far-eastern Asians you speak about, then it is a little more difficult to find scholarly stuff on them.

Using authoritative works by Professors always convinces most students. That is what you should do.

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 11 Mar 2014 18:30

svinayak wrote:

https://plus.google.com/photos/+Alphade ... 3346691601

That is funny. Here's what was going around when I first landed in the US. World according to Reagan.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Mar 2014 19:35

Ombaba is being compared to Jimmy Carter vis a vis foreign policy mishaps. Quite a low blow.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 12 Mar 2014 19:57

Are these people normal -Just see the record of mob lynchings - people actually took photographs of burnt and mutilated corpses as souveniers. This seems like a group of mass sociopaths.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-lynching10.html

A member of the lynching party described the lynching in great detail:

“After taking the nigger to the woods about four miles from Greenwood, they cut off his penis. He was made to eat it. Then they cut off his testicles and made him eat them and say he liked it. Then they sliced his sides and stomach with knives and every now and then somebody would cut off a finger or toe. Red hot irons were used on the nigger to burn him from top to bottom.” From time to time during the torture a rope would be tied around Neal’s neck and he was pulled up over a limb and held there until he almost choked to death when he would be let down and the torture begin all over again. After several hours of this unspeakable torture, “they decided just to kill him.”

The drama of these horrible spectacles seemed to increase over time with the lynch leader often dressed in a garish costume, and bandying about numerous objects, such as lynch ropes, the American flag, guns, and gasoline, in or to create an atmosphere of even higher excitement. Further, the sadistic nature of the crowds also increased. Such was the case when James Irwin was lynched on January 31, 1930. Accused of the murder of a white girl in Ocilla, Georgia, Irwin was taken by a rampaging mob and as people cheered and children played during the festivities, his fingers and toes were cut off, his teeth pulled out by pliers and then he was castrated. He was then burned alive in front of hundreds of onlookers. Afterwards, onlookers fired rifles and handguns hundreds of time into the corpse and pieces of the body were taken as souvenirs of the event. No one was ever punished for this barbaric killing.

After her husband’s murder, Mary, who was eight months pregnant, vowed to avenge those who killed her husband. For her remarks, a mob of several hundred white men and women determined they would “teach her a lesson.” Turner's ankles were tied together and she was hanged upside down from a tree, doused with gasoline and and burned. After her clothes burned off and while she was still alive, a man sliced open her abdomen with a hog splitting knife. Her unborn infant fell from her womb, gave two screams, then had its head crushed by mob members who stomped on it.

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 12 Mar 2014 20:24

You should look at the site
http://withoutsanctuary.org

The white man has dehumanized every other race on planet earth. The first step to treating people like the above is to dehumanize them.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 13 Mar 2014 01:09

^^^ I think it is important to understand the factors that have driven such behaviors. Nature or nurture? What is in the upbringing of the Anglo Saxons that drives them to such sociopathic behavior.
This needs to be studied and not judged from an anthropological point of view.
Something like a paper on "Socio-psycological roots of the anglo saxon community - lynching as a social event"

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 13 Mar 2014 09:03

My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Poor

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 13 Mar 2014 20:11

Lynching? They thought they were uplifting the negro.

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 13 Mar 2014 23:26

LokeshC wrote:You should look at the site
http://withoutsanctuary.org

The white man has dehumanized every other race on planet earth. The first step to treating people like the above is to dehumanize them.

The anglo whitey is probably the worst scum that human race can ever produce. As long as they exist they will never allow others respect and dignity.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 13 Mar 2014 23:56

[/color]

sanjaykumar wrote:Lynching? They thought they were uplifting the negro.

Of course, in fact it was their decision to be slaves in the first place. Or be in an inconvenient situation.

That Universal declaration of human rights was adopted by UN in 1948 was the greatest achievement symbolic of how the downtrodden and enslaved and abused were able to stand up on their own feet only after hundreds of years, aided by the same civilized people who enslaved others for hundreds of years. Moral keepers were actually doing all this actively for exactly the same.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 14 Mar 2014 05:32

In fact uplifting the negro was used as a bitter pun mocking the tormentors.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 15 Mar 2014 09:43

The King of the Foxes

The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News—and Divided a Country
by Gabriel Sherman
Random House, 538 pp., $28.00

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 17 Mar 2014 05:56

Missed Alarms and 40 Million Stolen Credit Card Numbers: How Target Blew It

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 18 Mar 2014 09:06

Israel’s War on American Universities

By Chris Hedges

March 17, 2014 - The banning of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Northeastern University in Boston on March 7, along with a university threat of disciplinary measures against some of its members, replicates sanctions being imposed against numerous student Palestinian rights groups across the country. The attacks, and the disturbingly similar forms of punishment, appear to be part of a coordinated effort by the Israeli government and the Israel lobby to blacklist all student groups that challenge the official Israeli narrative.
Northeastern banned the SJP chapter after it posted on campus replicas of eviction notices that are routinely put up on Palestinian homes set for Israeli demolition. The university notice of suspension says that if the SJP petitions for reinstatement next year, “No current member of the Students for Justice in Palestine executive board may serve on the inaugural board of the new organization” and that representatives from the organization must attend university-sanctioned “trainings.”

In 2011 in California, 10 students who had disrupted a speech at UC Irvine by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren were found guilty, put on informal probation and sentenced to perform community service. Oren, an Israeli citizen who has since been hired by CNN as a contributor, has called on Congress to blacklist supporters of the campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and to prosecute those who protest at appearances by Israeli officials. Some activists at Florida Atlantic University were stripped of student leadership positions after they walked out of a talk by an Israeli army officer and were ordered by school administrators to attend re-education seminars designed by the Anti-Defamation League. Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (CSJP) was abruptly placed on suspension in the spring of 2011 and barred from reserving rooms and hosting events on campus. The university administration, before the ban, had a practice of notifying the campus Hillel in advance of any CSJP event. The suspension was eventually lifted after a protest led by attorneys for the CSJP.

Max Geller, a law student and a SJP member at Northeastern whom I reached by phone in Boston, accused the university of responding “to outside pressures,” including that of alumnus Robert Shillman, who is the CEO of Cognex Corp., and hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman, both supporters of right-wing Israeli causes.

“To prohibit students from holding leadership roles and student groups simply because they engaged in a peaceful political protest is antithetical to the university’s mission to educate students,” he said. “It erases any pedagogical value disciplinary process might seek.”

“In the last year,” Geller went on, “I have received death threats, been publicly and unfairly maligned, and have been threatened with disciplinary measures. This has made engaging in speech about an issue about which I care deeply, both as a Jew and an American, a fear- and anxiety-causing prospect.”

Israel’s heavy-handed reaction to these campus organizations is symptomatic of its increasing isolation and concern about waning American support. The decades-long occupation and seizure of Palestinian land and the massive military assaults against a defenseless population in Gaza that has left hundreds dead, along with growing malnutrition among Palestinian children and enforced poverty, have alienated traditional supporters of Israel, including many young American Jews. Israel, at the same time, has turned into a pariah in the global community. If it were to become devoid of American support, which it largely buys with political campaign contributions funneled through groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel would be adrift. There are a growing number of banks and other companies, especially in the European Union, joining the boycott movement, which refuses to do business with Israeli concerns in the occupied territories. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking before AIPAC on March 4, surprisingly devoted much of his talk to attacking the nascent BDS movement, which he said stood for “Bigotry, Dishonesty and Shame.” He called for BDS supporters to “be treated exactly as we treat any anti-Semite or bigot.” He warned that “naive and ignorant” people are being recruited as “gullible fellow travelers” in an anti-Semitic campaign.

Israeli officials are also apparently attempting to infiltrate the BDS movement and are using subterfuge to link it to Islamic extremism, according to The Times of London. The Israeli government in addition is pushing censorious, anti-democratic bills in the state legislatures of New York, Maryland and Illinois that would impose financial sanctions on academic organizations that boycott Israeli institutions. Meanwhile, the United States and others enthusiastically impose sanctions on Russia for an occupation that is much less draconian than Israel’s long defiance of international law.

The ADL-designed indoctrination classes for university activists are, according to those who have been required to take them, shabby attempts to equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

“Myself and two other members of SJP were forced to attend the ADL-sponsored ‘diversity training’ course or we would have violated the terms of our probation and in turn we would be suspended and/or expelled,” said Nadine Aly, a Florida Atlantic student activist who with other activists walked out of a lecture given at the university by an Israeli army officer, Col. Bentzi Gruber, who had helped devise the rules of engagement for Operation Cast Lead, the horrific attack on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. I reached her by phone at the Florida campus. “The very idea that the administration is implying that it is racist to criticize Israeli policy is ludicrous. We were put on ‘indefinite probation,’ banning us from holding leadership positions in any recognized student organizations, including student government, at the university until our graduation. I was stripped of my position as president of SJP as well as a student senator, and the former vice president of the SJP lost her position as a Student House representative. It is a shame that this university, like most universities, bows to the pressure of the Zionist lobby and wealthy Zionist donors, when they should be protecting the rights of their students.”

The persecution of scholars such as Joseph Massad and Norman Finkelstein who challenge the official Israeli narrative has long been a feature of Israeli intervention in American academic life. And the eagerness of university presidents to denounce the American Studies Association call for an academic boycott of Israel is a window into the insatiable hunger for money that seems to govern university policy. The current effort to shut down student groups, however, raises traditional Israeli censorship and interference to a new level. Israel seeks now to openly silence free speech on American college campuses—all of these student groups have steadfastly engaged in nonviolent protests—and has enlisted our bankrupt liberal elites and college administrators as thought police.

The failure among academics to stand up for the right of these student groups to express dissenting views and engage in political activism is a sad commentary on how irrelevant most academics have become. Where, in this fight, are the constitutional law professors defending the right to free speech? Where are the professors of ethics, religion and philosophy reminding students about the right of all to a dignified life free of oppression? Where are the Middle Eastern studies professors explaining the historical consequences of Israel’s violent seizure of Palestinian land? Where are the journalism professors defending the right of dissidents and victims to a fair hearing in the press? Where are the professors of queer and gender studies, African-American studies, Native American studies or Chicano studies acting to protect the voices and dignity of the marginalized and oppressed?

This assault will not end with groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine. The refusal to hear the cries of the Palestinian people, especially those 1.5 million—60 percent of them children—who are trapped by the Israeli military in Gaza, is part of the wider campaign by right-wing operatives like Lynne Cheney and billionaires such as the Koch brothers to stamp out all programs and academic disciplines that give voice to the marginalized, especially those who are not privileged and white. Latinos, African-Americans, feminists, those in queer and gender studies also feel this pressure. Under a bill signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, books by leading Chicano authors have been banned from public schools in Tucson and elsewhere in Arizona on the ground that such ethnic studies promote “resentment toward a race or people.” It is language similar to what Ambassador Oren has used to justify his call for criminal prosecutions of BDS activists—that they are advancing “bigotry.” The neoconservatism that grips Israel has its toxic counterpart within American culture. And if other marginalized groups within the university remain silent while Palestine solidarity activists are persecuted on campuses, there will be fewer allies when these right-wing forces come for them. And come they will.

Those of us who denounce the suffering caused by Israel and its war crimes against the Palestinians and who support the BDS movement are accustomed to sleazy Israeli smear campaigns. I have been repeatedly branded as an anti-Semite by the Israeli lobby, including for my book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.” That some of these dissident voices, such as Max Blumenthal, who wrote “Goliath: Fear and Loathing in Greater Israel,” one of the best accounts of contemporary Israel, are Jewish does not seem to perturb right-wing Israeli propagandists who see any deviation from the Israeli government line as a form of religious heresy.

“I have been on tour discussing my book, ‘Goliath,’ since October 2013,” said Blumenthal, with whom I spoke by phone. “And on numerous occasions, Israel lobby groups and pro-Israel activists have attempted to pressure organizations into canceling my events before they took place. I have been slandered by teenage pro-Israel students, prominent magazine columnists and even Alan Dershowitz as an anti-Semite, and my family has been attacked in right-wing media simply for hosting a book party for me. The absurd lengths pro-Israel activists have gone to stop my journalism and analysis from reaching a wide audience perfectly illustrate their intellectual exhaustion and moral poverty. All they have left is loads of money to buy off politicians and the unlimited will to defend the only nuclearized apartheid state in the Middle East. As young Arabs and Muslims assert their presence on campuses across the country and Jewish Americans reel in disgust at Netanyahu’s Israel, we are witnessing pro-Israel forces wage a fighting retreat. The question is not whether they will win or lose, but how much damage they can do to free-speech rights on their way towards a reckoning with justice.”

“It would be heartening if prominent liberal intellectuals would agree with all of my conclusions, or would accept the legitimacy of BDS,” Blumenthal went on. “But the only reasonable expectation we can hold for them is that they speak up in defense of those whose free-speech rights and rights to organize are being crushed by powerful forces. Unfortunately, when those forces are arrayed in defense of Israel, too many liberal intellectuals are silent or, as in the case of Michael Kazin, Eric Alterman, Cary Nelson and a who’s who of major university presidents, they actively collaborate with fellow elites determined to crush Palestine solidarity activism through anti-democratic means.”

Hillel chapters, sadly, often function as little more than Israeli government and AIPAC campus outposts. This is true at Northeastern as well as at schools such as Barnard College and Columbia. And university presidents such as Barnard’s Debora Spar see nothing wrong with accepting Israel-lobby tours of Israel while Palestinian students must risk imprisonment and even death to study in the United States. The launching of campuswide defamation campaigns from supposedly religious houses is a sacrilege to the Jewish religion. In seminary I read enough of the great Hebrew prophets, whose singular concern was for the oppressed and the poor, to know that they would not be found today in Hillel centers but would instead be protesting with SJP activists.

The campus Hillel centers, with lavish budgets and gleaming buildings on campuses often situated in centers of urban blight, offer running events, lectures and programs to promote official Israeli policy. They arrange free trips to Israel for Jewish students as part of the “Taglit Birthright” program, functioning as an Israeli government travel agency. While Jewish students, often with no familial connection to Israel, are escorted in these well-choreographed propaganda tours of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who remain trapped in squalid refugee camps cannot go home although their families may have lived for centuries on what is now Israeli land.

Israel has for decades been able to frame the discussion about the Palestinians. But its control of the narrative is coming to an end. As Israel loses ground it will viciously and irrationally attack all truth tellers, even if they are American students, and especially if they are Jews. There will come a day, and that day will come sooner than Israel and its paid lackeys expect, when the whole edifice will crumble, when even students at Hillel will no longer have the stomach to defend the continuous dispossession and random murder of Palestinians. Israel, by ruthlessly silencing others, now risks silencing itself.

Chris Hedges will deliver a lecture sponsored by the Northeastern University Political Economy Forum at 6 p.m. March 25 at West Village F, 20, 460 Parker St. in Boston.

Chris spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 18 Mar 2014 20:57

Can anyone why the Saudis are sso intergral to US, they go to any lengths to make sure they are protected inspite of having the worst human rights record and clearly supporting terrorists and breaking uS laws. Thier Eastern wing/slave is equally supported.

Someone once told me America sees itself as an empire and not as a country.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 18 Mar 2014 23:51

Aditya_V wrote:Can anyone why the Saudis are sso intergral to US, they go to any lengths to make sure they are protected inspite of having the worst human rights record and clearly supporting terrorists and breaking uS laws. Thier Eastern wing/slave is equally supported.

Someone once told me America sees itself as an empire and not as a country.

gold disks for oil payment

The coins were struck in Philadelphia by the United States Mint in 1945 and 1947 to satisfy the obligations of the Arabian American Oil Company, or Aramco, which had been set up in Saudi Arabia by four American oil companies. The company was obliged to pay the Saudi Government $3 million a year in oil royalties and its contract specified that the payment be made in gold.

The United States dollar at the time was governed by a gold standard that, at least officially, made the dollar worth one thirty-fifth of an ounce of gold. But the price of gold on the open market had skyrocketed during World War II.

For a time the Saudis accepted payment in United States currency, but by 1945 they were insisting that the payments in gold be resumed. Aramco sought help from the United States Government. Faced with the prospect of either a cutoff of substantial amounts of Middle Eastern oil or a huge increase in the price of Saudi crude, the Government minted 91,120 large gold disks adorned with the American eagle and the words “U.S. Mint — Philadelphia.”

Aramco paid for the minting and the bullion. The coins were shipped off to Saudi Arabia.

These bullion coins weighed 493.1 grains, slightly more than a troy ounce, and were 91 2/3 percent gold and 8 1/3 percent copper. The fineness was that of the British sterling system then current in the Middle East. The United States standard was only 90 percent gold.

In 1971 when US went off gold standard, this is what happened.

50 years ago, five oil-producing nations of the world met in Baghdad for a conference which led to the creation of OPEC. Five decades later, the 12 nation group is sitting on around three quarters of the world’s proven reserves. They learnt from the Texas railroad Commission and screwed the Halliburton types. No wonder the Halliburton types are so close to the Saudis including bin ladens.

Sheikh Zaki Yamani, former Saudi oil minister was made famous by being the face of the 1973 oil embargo and was also taken hostage by Carlos the Jackal. In a CNN’s Marketplace Middle East’s John Defterios interview with the architect of Saudi Arabia’s energy policy discussed OPEC and its past 50 years.

Excerpts of the transcript of this interview-

John Defterios: 1973, the Arab oil embargo, you were a key player during that process. The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said it was political blackmail what Saudi Arabia and OPEC were doing to the rest of the world. In retrospect how did you see it?

Sheikh Yamani: Well that’s a very long story, and the reaction of America for what happened is not a one reaction. They decided to raise the price of oil 400%. They needed to help the oil companies to invest outside OPEC. In Mexico, in North Sea and so on. And this will not happen without a high price of oil.

--------
Sheikh Yamani: Yes and there was an agreement between the Shah of Iran and between Dr.Henry Kissinger to raise the price of oil… I really highly respect Henry Kissinger. He is really a planner and strategically he is a man to be respected.

When gold stopped flowing to Middle East, it culminated in oil embargoes leading to second then third oil crisis in Amirkhan. Oil price rising in US is political suicide.

When we say Saudi Arabia accepts USD for oil, you have to remember behind the scene- it was x USD+ y gold. It is perhaps still the same only from 1st oil crisis to second it went from xxUSD + yy gold; from second oil crisis to the third it was xxx USD+ yyy gold. The USD component has remained more or less stable, but the hidden background was the massive amount of gold. It's quite foolish to assume that Saudis would accept paper for a diminishing amount of under the ground oil.

This is just one darshana. But looking through this darshana we can see all actions of USG and Saudi counterparts fits like hand to a glove.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 19 Mar 2014 23:33

Franklin Graham Is The Latest American Social Conservative To Praise Putin

Politicians !! House Divided

Vladimir Putin is getting all sorts of love from America. Republican hawks have been impressed with the Russian autocrat's machismo, while social conservatives can't help but tip their hat to his anti-gay policies.The latter category welcomed the evangelist Franklin Graham to its ranks this month
Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, praised Putin for signing a law that bars “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors." “In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues,” Graham wrote in the latest issue of Decision magazine, as quoted by the Raleigh News & Observer. “Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.As Graham sees it, Putin compares favorably to President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and many members of Congress, all of whom he says "have turned their backs on God and His standards."Graham echoes conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, who commended Putin's "moral clarity" in December."President Reagan once called the old Soviet Empire 'the focus of evil in the modern world.' President Putin is implying that Barack Obama's America may deserve the title in the 21st century," Buchanan wrote. "Nor is he without an argument when we reflect on America's embrace of abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, *****, promiscuity, and the whole panoply of Hollywood values."The American Conservative's Rod Dreher followed that column by saying he didn't necessarily agree with all of Buchanan's argument, but agreed that Putin was "on to something."
A few days before Buchanan's piece was published, Matt Barber at WND, a bastion of fringe right-wing thought, wrote that Putin "feels emboldened to claim for Russia the mantle of world moral leader." But the evangelist Bryan Fischer was saluting Putin before all of them. In October, Fischer called Putin a "lion of Christianity."“The contrast between [Putin] and our president could not possibly be more striking,” Fischer lamented. “Just a bizarre day. To ever think we would get to the day that Russia would be more advanced spiritually than the United States. I mean, it’s just staggering to see what is happening to this country.”

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 19 Mar 2014 23:58

Jhujar, Common thread of these folks praising Putin is Bible thumping far-right. These people bemoan the Reformation but for which they would never have set foot on America!!!
Joke is these folks want to put Orthodox Putin above their own leaders.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 20 Mar 2014 00:20

ramana wrote:Jhujar, Common thread of these folks praising Putin is Bible thumping far-right. These people bemoan the Reformation but for which they would never have set foot on America!!!
Joke is these folks want to put Orthodox Putin above their own leaders.

A clear sign that they are fast loosing their relevance in the society thus lashing on their own. Must have been bitten badly by Pres BO winning the second term. Pentecostal Praising Putin
The Orthodox probably made Pope spill Popcorn in V Plaza. Regardless, a religious angle is inserted in debate and an international issue and bound to make the issue ugly and divide the people further on this line.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 21 Mar 2014 17:22

A New York Times editorial:

The Republican Party has spent years stigmatizing the food stamp program while trying to cut benefits or make them harder to get. In last month’s farm bill, conservative lawmakers thought they had imposed an $8 billion cut in the program. In the last few weeks, though, it has become clear that that cut isn’t going to materialize, thanks to a few states more generous than Congress. And this has infuriated a party that doesn’t believe that poor families should get public assistance in buying groceries.

The cut involved the so-called heat-and-eat program, in which food stamp benefits are increased for those who qualify for a small amount of state heating assistance so that they do not have to choose between heat and food. Several states were providing only a token amount of fuel aid, as little as $1 a year, to prompt the extra benefits of $90 or so a month, and many lawmakers saw that as gaming the system.

So negotiators on the farm bill agreed that states would have to pay a minimum of $20 a year in fuel aid to prompt the benefits. Republicans thought this would save more than $8 billion over a decade, because they assumed the states wouldn’t want to pay $20. Democrats went along because it was better than the original Republican plan to cut $40 billion from food stamps.

But to the shock of Republicans, at least eight states decided to do the right thing and raise their heating-aid payments to $20. New York and Connecticut were first, followed by Rhode Island, Oregon, Massachusetts, Vermont and Montana. Even Gov. Tom Corbett, Republican of Pennsylvania, agreed to go along.

This provoked an outburst from the House speaker, John Boehner. “Since the passage of the farm bill, states have found ways to cheat once again on signing up people for food stamps,” he said last week. “And so I would hope that the House would act to try to stop this cheating and this fraud from continuing.”

Cheating? The states are doing exactly what the farm bill — which Mr. Boehner supported — encouraged them to do: pay more to some of the poorest families in America so they neither freeze nor starve during a brutal winter. Mr. Boehner seems unaware of it, but millions of families have never recovered from the recession, and his chamber has not only refused to help them by stimulating the economy but is trying to push them through the safety net.

In a letter to Mr. Boehner, Gov. Dannel Malloy of Connecticut said it was “shameful” to describe the states’ efforts as cheating. “Your demonization of states that have elected to provide this benefit impugns the children, the elderly, the disabled, the low-wage workers and veterans who receive such aid by implying that they are a party to something criminal,” he wrote. “To the contrary, I think most would argue that denying residents of my state $112 a month in nutrition assistance is morally wrong.”

If Mr. Boehner really wants to crack down on cheating, he might look to the carried-interest tax loophole, which allows hedge fund managers to mischaracterize their income as capital gains and costs the Treasury $11 billion a year — far more than extra dollars for food stamps. In his world, fraud occurs only when the government helps those who need it the most.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 22 Mar 2014 07:11

It cost some labor to put these musings of mine together because I am not a scholar on Russian history or the Cold War, but an obsessive reader who turns to books to try and figure out what is happening in certain areas of the world. And it seems to me that the suspicious superiority with which we greet Russian pretensions today is not new, unique or surprising.

John Dewey once said that “habits are conditions of intellectual efficiency,” but when reactions to something new is habitual, we are in a lot of trouble. There have been many warnings by distinguished historians who claim that failures in international diplomacy are chiefly due to a certain national willfulness in pushing ahead idealistic conceptions to save the universe, combined with an inability to see events from another’s point of view. We see this today in the Ukraine crisis. We Americans don’t see other countries for what they truly are, because when a conflict comes, we look for similarities where we should be looking for differences. When we don’t find similarities, we become bitter. We Americans believe that if other nations had made more strenuous efforts to adopt our priceless values, our structures, and worshipped our innovation and hard work, their countries would have turned out to be more like ours -- not good to be equal to us, but sufficient enough for history. There is only way to salvation in the world, we have taken it.

What lies at the base of many of our attitudes of judgment is national conceit. We don’t see others as being different from us. We don’t attempt to see events of another’s history objectively, but through the narrow lens that idolizes our national self image, an image that has never truly existed, but which never gets repudiated by U.S. public opinion because it is so flattering to us and to our pretensions of virtue. In our eyes, the events of our history seem just another testimony of our unique success in the world.

More at
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semp ... -sale.html

member_28352 · Post by **member_28352** » 22 Mar 2014 07:57

Isn't Franklin Graham the dharmaguru of the new evangelist UkBapzi president?

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 22 Mar 2014 17:16

abhishek_sharma wrote:My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Poor

Two years ago, I was a political reporter at Politico, and I spent my days covering the back-and-forth of presidential politics. I had access to the White House because of my reporting beat, and I was a regular commentator on MSNBC. My career had been on an upward trajectory for 30 years, and at age 50 I still anticipated a long career.

the unspoken tragedy here is - a man after a 30 yr career and a good number of years at a high paying job - has not saved enough to be 'not poor' at sudden loss of job.

amirkhans are so severely short sighted and have a 'things will continue as is' attitude and just don't have the fear of being poor that many of us, certainly me, have experienced while growing.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 22 Mar 2014 20:42

^^ USG has $5832 Bn in Treasury Bonds sold to other countries with China at the top and Japan second. Together they own abt 40% of it.
That is the debt USG has.

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center ... ts/mfh.txt

TSJones · Post by **TSJones** » 22 Mar 2014 21:41

Gus wrote:
abhishek_sharma wrote:My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Poor

Two years ago, I was a political reporter at Politico, and I spent my days covering the back-and-forth of presidential politics. I had access to the White House because of my reporting beat, and I was a regular commentator on MSNBC. My career had been on an upward trajectory for 30 years, and at age 50 I still anticipated a long career.
the unspoken tragedy here is - a man after a 30 yr career and a good number of years at a high paying job - has not saved enough to be 'not poor' at sudden loss of job.

amirkhans are so severely short sighted and have a 'things will continue as is' attitude and just don't have the fear of being poor that many of us, certainly me, have experienced while growing.

It was his stupidity of making a crude joke about Romney, a president candidate running for office when he was a public persona and reporter. And he did it on the social media, Twitter. That is no different than William May's wife wiriting trash about India on Facebook or whutever. Her job was to reprsent the best face of America and she didn't. The sword cuts both ways. A reporter can criticise a political candidate but he must be professional. A reporter can state an opinion but it should be labeled as that and not news. There are professional *standards*. His comment about Romney being comfortable with white folks was borderline but not fireable. His crude Twitter joke however, about the verry person he was reporting on was fireable. I think he learned a lesson and it cost him dearly. But obviously he found another good job after suffering for a while. Lessons can be very expensive in the School of Hard Knocks.