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Tuesday, 13 January 2015

As Ukraine is defaulting Soros wants the EU to pay for his long-term investment

The lifelong Russia-enemy George Soros, and the Russian Government itself, are now openly fighting over which parts of the Ukrainian Government they'll be getting in the bankruptcy proceeding that's already unofficially starting.

Here's the necessary background, so that the battle now occurring on the part of Ukraine's creditors can be truthfully and honestly understood:


george_Soros

© Desconocido

The soulless vulture capitalist, who has made his money by causing untold misery to others. The people of Donbass and Russia have put a spanner in the works for him now and he is getting increasingly desperate. Psychopaths hate losing.



In December 2013 - just before the overthrow of the Russia-friendly Ukrainian Government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, by Soros's American President and major political-campaign investment, Barack Obama - Russia lent Ukraine $3 billion with a contract saying that if Ukraine's debt would rise above 60% of Ukraine's GDP, then Russia would be able to demand immediate repayment, and Ukraine agreed to the contract's condition that Ukraine wouldn't pay a cent to any other creditor before the entire due-balance on this $3 billion loan is returned to Russia.

Then, on 4 February 2014, Victoria Nuland of Obama's State Department selected Ukrainian banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the person to take control over Ukraine as soon as Obama's Ukrainian coup would occur, which turned out to be 18 days later, on February 22nd.


Soros's and Obama's plan was to privatize as much of the Ukrainian Government as possible in a fire-sale of its assets, such as the valuable gas-fields in the Yuzivska region in Ukraine's southeast (where the civil war now is), so that Soros and the other investors would be able to get their money back, with interest. Furthermore, inasmuch as only Soros and other insiders would be in on this fire-sale, those same people would also be the bidders; and thus Ukraine's assets would be sold to them at prices far lower than their actual worth as economic investments for the future. This would turn their prior Ukrainian bonds into super-discounted equity or stock in what now are Ukrainian Government-owned gas-fields, electrical power companies, factories, etc. Furthermore, Western agribusiness giants are now coming into Western Ukraine to buy up Ukrainian farmland, which is among the world's most-fertile.




The basic privatization-scheme that's being used here had originally been drawn up by the Harvard economist, and the then-World-Bank chief, Lawrence Summers, and by Harvard's Economics Department, in the 1990s, as being the way for American insider investors and the U.S.S.R.'s Communist Party insiders, to buy the U.S.S.R.'s assets dirt-cheap, and thereby profit from the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. Those economists oversaw the sell-offs of industrial and other assets throughout many of the 15 nations comprising the Soviet Union, one of which is Ukraine, where the fire-sales are now occurring.

With this as the background, the world's great newspaper, German Economic News, headlines, on January 10th (as translated by the present writer into English), "Putin v. Soros: Russia Grabs for EU-Billions to Ukraine," and reports that:



"Just a few days after Angela Merkel cleared the way for a 1.8 billion euro loan from the EU's tax-money for [Ukrainian Premier] Arseny 'Yaz' Yatsenyuk, Russia launched its interest in this money: Moscow is considering to mature a loan it had made to Kiev. Russia makes this move especially against the speculator George Soros.


Ukraine's 'Yaz' Yatsenyuk met with Chancellor Merkel, at the Chancellor's Office, on Thursday [Jan. 8]. No sooner was the Premier assured by the EU of receiving 1.8 billion euros, than Russia intervenes for the money - Moscow may trigger the state bankruptcy of Ukraine.


Russia could use the EU payments to Ukraine to mature a loan that is due at the end of January, and Kiev cannot use its own resources: Moscow could demand early repayment of a three-billion-dollar loan to Ukraine. Ukraine did not meet a number of conditions [of the loan-agreement], reported the Russian news agency RIA Novosti on Saturday [the 10th], citing government sources. Under these circumstances, Russia was forced to insist on the earlier payment."



Soros has been lobbying very intensively, after the coup (see all about it by clicking on that link), to persuade the EU, IMF and U.S., to donate enough of Western taxpayers' money, so as to enable Ukraine to buy enough weapons to win its war against the rebelling portion of Ukraine - the region which had voted 90% for the overthrown former President, Viktor Yanukovych - the region in Ukraine that's often called "Donbass," which is in Ukraine's far east, and which has declared its independence, and which includes much of the Yuzivska gas-field. That region has consistently rejected the Obama-coup-imposed Government; and consequently its gas cannot be used to repay Ukraine's debts unless Ukraine regains control over that land, where now, almost certainly, even more than 90% of the people reject that Government. (Click here in order to see the transcript of the EU officials' phone-conversation in which their Foreign-Affairs Minister Catherine Ashton was informed by her own investigator, on 25 February 2014, that Yanukovych had been overthrown in a violent coup, rather than himself perpetrated the bloodshed, and that Ukraine's current President, Petro Poroshenko, himself acknowledged to the EU's investigator at the time, that it was a coup - which Ashton hadn't known of until that moment.) This is the reason why the IMF informed the coup Government, on 1 May 2014, that unless it could regain control over the rebels' land, which means eliminate its residents (since they would never accept a Government that is set upon exterminating them), the IMF would stop lending (actually donating, since these 'loans' will come at the end of the long line in the bankruptcy proceeding that's now inevitable) Ukraine more of its Western taxpayers' money. Without those gas-fields and other assets, even the existing IMF loans to Ukraine wouldn't likely ever be able to be paid back. New IMF loans surely won't be.

On 6 January 2015, an aide to Poroshenko announced that, as the news-headline on this story the following day phrased it, "Ukraine Says $450 Million Was Stolen from Its Military in 2014." This report also noted that, "This amount happens to be precisely the same maximum amount of money that the U.S. Government, in legislation that was supported by more than 98% of U.S. Senators and Representatives and that was signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama on December 18th, will donate to Ukraine's military for this year, 2015." Both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly support Obama's ethnic-cleansing program to get rid of the people in that region of Ukraine and thus endorsed the $450 million donation by U.S. taxpayers. However, if the people we're hiring to do that job are stealing as much money as we're donating to them, then people like Soros could end up losing money on their bond-investments. This is the reason why Soros is pressing the European Union to donate lots more of their taxpayers' money to this war. In the 5 February issue of the New York Review of Books, he says, "all the consequences of helping Ukraine would be positive. By enabling Ukraine to defend itself, Europe would be indirectly also defending itself." He doesn't mention that Ukraine's Government resulted from a coup instead of from the anti-corruption demonstrators in the Maidan, and he portrays Russia's President Vladimir Putin as being the aggressor for accepting Crimea back into Russia (where it had been during 1783-1954), and not America's President Barack Obama as being the aggressor for perpetrating the coup and trying to oust Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Crimea. Soros says:



"Putin's ambition to recreate a Russian empire has unintentionally helped bring into being a new Ukraine that is opposed to Russia and seeks to become the opposite of the old Ukraine with its endemic corruption and ineffective government. The new Ukraine is led by the cream of civil society: young people, many of whom studied abroad and refused to join either government or business on their return because they found both of them repugnant. Many of them found their place in academic institutions, think tanks, and nongovernmental organizations. A widespread volunteer movement, of unprecedented scope and power unseen in other countries, has helped Ukraine to stand strong against Russian aggression."





Here is the type of people that Obama's team actually placed into control over the actually coup-Government. It's the opposite of "the cream of civil society." In fact, the very same person who is described there led the organization, called Right Sector, which perpetrated the massacre of the people inside the Trade Unions Building in Odessa on May 2nd, the day after the IMF had said that if the opponents to the new regime weren't eliminated, IMF loans to Ukraine would stop. And the main financier paying those Right Sector operatives to do that was this man, who recently hired two young people who are closely associated with the Obama White House.

The Russian novelist Zakhar Prilepin was quoted on 3 January 2015 in an interview by RIA Novosti Ukraine, after having travelled through Donbass and spoken with many people there, in order to understand why the separation from Ukraine had occurred. He said:


"I thoroughly questioned local guys what led them to battle, I think Ukraine should know the answers. One of the main points of reference was not even Maidan [the demonstrations, and the extreme violence there that produced the coup in February], which many looked upon with distaste, but suffered, and namely it [the start of the civil war] was the events in Odessa [the May 2nd massacre in Odessa] - and the reaction of thousands of Ukrainian bloggers on this obvious atrocity."


In other words: Until the massacre in Odessa, residents in Donbass were willing to have some kind of federation arrangement with the post-coup Government; but, after the massacre, they knew that this new Government wanted them dead . That massacre was thus the real start of Ukraine's civil war.


Soros's International Renaissance Foundation (or Fund) was one of the three top financial backers of Ukraine's Hromadske TV, which interviewed (and never criticized) a guest who said:



"Donbass, in general, is not simply a region in a very depressed condition, it has got a whole number of problems, the biggest of which is that it is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me I know perfectly well what I am saying. If we take, for example, just the Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of which are superfluous. That's what I mean: we don't need to [try to] 'understand' Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests. Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don't claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done - no matter how cruel it may sound - is that there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated."





The other main funders of Hromadske TV are the U.S. Government and the Netherlands Government.

Soros's NYRB article closes with a five-point analysis of where the tens of billions of dollars that will be required in order to exterminate those people should come from. He lists: Balance of Payments Assistance, European Financial Stability Mechanism, Macro-Financial Assistance Facility, European Union, IMF, Extended Fund Facility, European Investment Bank, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Paris Club.


He says that if they don't come up with the funds: "Europe will be left on its own to defend itself against Russian aggression, and Europe will have abandoned the values and principles on which the European Union was founded. That would be an irreparable loss."


On 1 January 2015, he headlined a Project Syndicate oped at Live Mint and other sites, "Europe at War: Supporting the New Ukraine in 2015 and Beyond Is the Most Cost-Effective Investment the EU Could Make," and he said:



By invading Ukraine in 2014, President Vladimir Putin's Russia has posed a fundamental challenge to the values and principles on which the European Union (EU) was founded. ...


Putin's regime is based on rule by force, manifested in repression at home and aggression abroad. ...


Russia annexed Crimea and established separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. ...


The West, sadly, has provided embattled Ukraine with only a façade of support. ...


All available resources should be put to work in the war effort, even if that requires running up budget deficits. Europe is fortunate that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has behaved as a true European with regard to the threat posed by Russia. ...


Helping Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression would have a stimulative effect on Ukraine and Europe. The EU's members are at war - and they need to start acting like it. ...


Ukraine needs an immediate cash injection of, say, $20 billion, with a promise of more when needed. ...


The "new Ukraine" is resolutely pro-European. ...


Supporting the new Ukraine in 2015 and beyond is the most cost-effective investment the EU could make.



His call here was a more detailed presentation of the argument that the Financial Times had made earlier, on 30 November 2014, under the headline, "The Economic Collapse of Ukraine Must Be Halted: The IMF and Western donors need to inject $15bn of emergency funding." Nobody mentions that those "Western donors" are taxpayers, and that the Ukrainian public aren't being bailed out but that the Western aristocracy is.

However, Arseniy Yatsenyuk himself said essentially this very thing, on 9 January 2015, under a Ukrainian site's headline (translated here) "IMF money will be used only for the payment of foreign debts - Yatseniuk," which presented this quotation from him:



"I would also like to note that the money that we get in the framework of international financial assistance, does not go to finance the state budget deficit, it does not go to the payment of pensions, does not go to the payment of wages. All of this is happening in the first place, to perform our external obligations."



Those "external obligations" were first stated, on 1 May 2014, by the IMF, when it demanded, basically, that the people in Donbass be exterminated. Western aristocrats want the land that's there, not the people who live on it. And Western taxpayers are supposed to foot the bill in order to get rid of the residents in Donbass.

This is the deal that's being proposed - and executed - in Western 'democracies.'


Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.


Recommended article: Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Monday, 12 January 2015

Charlie Hebdo attack has nothing to do with freedom of expression  -  It was about war


Most white people don't like to admit it, but those cartoons upheld their prejudice, their racism, their political supremacy, and cut it how you will - images like that upheld a political order built on discrimination.

In less than an hour of the dreadful shooting of 12 people at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the politicians had already started to lie to their own public.


John Kerry, US Secretary of State, declared that, "freedom of expression is not able to be killed by this kind of act of terror."


The media lapped it up - the attack was now spun as an attack on 'Freedom of Speech'. That cherished value that the West holds so dear.


The British Government was so in love with it, that they were passing laws that demanded nursery school teachers spy on Muslim toddlers because they had too much of it. Toddlers were 'free' to speak their mind as long as it agreed with UK Government policy.


Still at least it was not as draconian as Western Governments routine harassment of those they thought spoke a bit too freely. Ask Moazzam Beg, the freed Guantanamo Bay Detainee and human rights campaigner, who was falsely accused of terrorism and imprisoned for months, after flying back from Syria with damning evidence of Britain's complicity in torture in the Muslim world.





A ‘free speech’ machine. It looks for people who do not have enough free speech and then gives them some.



Or for that matter the Al-Jazeera journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye incarcerated in Yemen at the behest of the America for reporting the wrong type of facts.

They loved it so much, they kept spying on everyone , tapping their phones and arresting them for having the wrong sort of facts, or as Edward Snowden found out - having the right sort of facts!


Hypocritically even Charlie Hebdo, the magazine at the centre of the controversy, those 'champions of free speech',sacked a journalist in 2009 for making anti-Semitic comments but interestingly never took similar action for anti-Islamic comments, articles or cartoons.


The hypocrisy of French commentators took this absurd lie to new heights. The rapper Monsieur R was put on trial for 'insulting the French state '. Do you remember the Western world's outrage over that? - me neither. Attack the Prophet of the Muslims, OK - but the French state - NO!


But its not just the French State you cannot criticize, its their Allies! France that bastion of freedom, became the first country in the world to ban marching in support of those being ethnically cleansed in Palestine.


And as to those reading this and thinking 'yes but these journalists were killed, its different!' - let me remind you of Western complicity, in the murder of 17 journalists along with 2500 men, women and children in Gaza, by Israel, less than 12 months ago or the wilful murder of Al-Jazeera journalists in Iraq by American forces.


One rule for them and another for Muslims. That great overarching cherished Western principle that Muslims just didn't understand.


As usual there was no real depth in any of the analysis in the media. The public were left in shock and anger but without any real answers.


The elites' narrative was simple: a left-wing magazine, had produced 'satirical cartoons' about all religions and politicians, some of them about the Prophet of Islam - only Muslims took offence (subtext because their backward barbaric religion was alien and intolerant).


The argument sounded reasonable enough... if you lived in a bubble in the land of middle class white guy - sadly Muslims usually don't have that luxury.


Let me explain it from a different perspective, one that Muslims see all too clearly.





After all its only a joke! They make fun of white people as well!



In thirties America, when white people were burning black people on trees, whites could equally have used this argument. After all there were cartoons even about the president! However making insulting cartoons about white people who controlled the power structures was not the same as demonizing black people - a powerless underclass.

Imagery of black people being, dumb, violent, lazy, thieves who looked like monkeys - upheld a political reality, the very imagery re-enforced the prejudices of those in power and subjugated blacks.


The same with Jews in Nazi Germany - imagine today's spurious and conceited argument being used by the Nazis - could a German newspaper hide behind the claim it also made fun of white Germans? How unjustified that only the Jews complained so! After all Germans don't complain when they were made fun of -  those backward Jews and their greedy religion didn't understand free speech!


Most white people don't like to admit it, but those cartoons uphold their prejudice, their racism, their political supremacy , and cut it how you will - images like that upheld a political order built on discrimination.


Muslims today are a demonized underclass in France. A people vilified and attacked by the power structures. A poor people with little or no power and these vile cartoons not only uphold the narrative of power, but heighten racist prejudice against them.





After the Egyptian dictator seized power and started shooting Muslims who opposed him — the paper ran this headline “The Quran is sh*t it doesnt stop bullets” — Imagine if a Muslim paper did this about them now — still find it funny?



Even white liberals have acted in the most prejudiced way. It was as if white people had a right to offend Muslims and Muslims had no right to be offended? The difference was, when white people were offended, they have the state, white corporate media and the threat of a right wing mob to make their point - Muslims have nothing.

Cue some right wing media white dude (or some Zionist) to now accuse me of justifying the murder - After all, if you are Muslim, explaining things is justifying them right! ?


The truth is, this awful attack can not be explained in a vacuum, absent of the context around it. It has to be seen through the prism of events that are going on around the world. With eyes firmly fixed on the wars going on from Palestine to Pakistan.


A global view spreading across the Muslim world, is that the West is at war with them (propagandists say this is due to hate preachers  - nothing to do with more bombs being dropped on Iraq alone than were used in the whole of the first and second world war ).


This anger sweeping the Muslim world, is solidifying in the consciousness of millions, re-enforced by daily bombings, kidnappings and of course wars that the West has initiated and engaged in. These policies have lead to many Muslims abandoning the belief that they could bring any change peacefully - cue the rise of men taking up arms.


These images then, can be played down as just a 'bit of fun' as no doubt the least perceptive of you will try to argue, or it can be seen through the prism of the war on terror - just another front on the war against Islam that has claimed so many lives - and the demonology behind it.





Killing Muslim children doesnt make Muslims take up arms — its just they hate freedom of speech honest!



I argue, that we are creating extremists by the bucket load and have done so exponentially, since we declared this endless war of terror . Our policies are hardening views on all sides.

To justify its continuation, politicians have to keep lying to the public (via the pliant corporate media) saying Muslim violence is due to 'Islamists, Extremists, Hate Preachers - the evil Muslim fairy, or any other word that makes people think the problem is faith and not the real driver - War.




Palestine — a people erased due to Western policy



This false narrative is creating extremism in white communities too, because they now believe, that it is the Muslim religion that makes them act in this way, it is their backward pre-disposition to violence (note the rise of right wing neo-facists across Europe). And of course as the bombs fall like rain - it hardens opinions and creates extremists in the Muslim world. And both these people are expressing themselves in very ugly ways - and that's exactly what happened here.



The Orientalist racist stereotype of the Muslim humourless barbarian — in this image of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH — it says “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing!”



Twelve people are dead because the world we are creating is utterly polarised.

Our bombs don't leave much room for 'freedoms' and now neither do theirs.


Extremism leads to extremism - this is just another symptom of the world Bush and Blair gave us and our political classes are determined to keep it going. Read more on this here and here.


The two sides are set to clash unless we pull the foot off the accelerator - and our elites don't want to do that.


By the time the dust settles, there will more attacks against Muslims in the streets, mosques burned down, politicians introducing draconian laws against Muslims, media wall-to-wall demonization and France along with the rest of Europe will lurch right  - proving true the very thing these Muslims believe - that the West hates them - and they wouldn't be wholly wrong.


Someone, more powerful than you or I reader, in the political elites has to have the sense to change the mood music of war and hate, re-look at our policies and have the courage to say:


'Everyone chill out, put the guns down and lets talk'.


Even if I am wrong, one thing is for sure - to bring an end to this - we got to do something differently, because what we are doing now - isn't working.


I leave you with these short videos.


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To discuss you can find me on twitter at @AsgharBukhari

And Facebook on MPACUK (Muslim Public Affairs Committee)

Recommended article: Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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'Mossad is behind Paris attacks' says Ankara Mayor Gökçek


© DHA

Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek saying it like it is.



According to a report from Anadolu circulating in the Turkish media, Gökçek attended the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Gölbaşı youth branch fourth ordinary district congress on Sunday and mentioned the terrorist attacks in France. He said Israel was annoyed with the lower house of French parliament for voting for the recognition of a Palestinian state and with France's vote in favor of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for the same recognition.


"Israel certainly doesn't want this sentiment to expand in Europe. That's why it is certain that Mossad is behind these kinds of incidents. Mossad enflames Islamophobia by causing such incidents," Gökçek said.




He claimed that after the Paris attacks, around 50 mosques and some Muslim individuals had been targeted but such incidents were not reported on by the international media.

"Palestine being recognized as a state is why these [attacks] have taken place," he concluded.




The Paris attacks, in which journalists and policemen were among those killed, began with a shooting at the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper on Jan. 7, and ended with people being taken hostage at a kosher supermarket on Jan. 9. The four victims killed in the supermarket attack were all Jews.

Gökçek, known for his controversial remarks, also recently claimed that black ice on the roads of Ankara, which caused more than 100 traffic accidents last month, was the work of unidentified people who deliberately turned on garden sprinklers by the roadside to cause ice to form.

Last summer, Gökçek also tweeted that the Israeli consulate in Turkey should be closed. "We don't want a representative of murderers in Turkey," he said.


In 2013, he launched a Twitter campaign against BBC Turkish service journalist Selin Girit for her reporting on a meeting held by protesters at Yoğurtçu Park in İstanbul via social media, accusing Girit of being an "English agent" and of engaging in "treachery to her nation."


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Citizens of Stockton, CA enage in a new crowd-funded, direct action against police brutality

STOCKTON - Citizens in Stockton, California have taken a new approach to activism.

Rather than sticking to the traditional form of protest in which signs are held and slogans are chanted, these citizens have taken direct action and offered a grassroots, crowd-funded incentive structure to end police brutality in their community.


They have offered a $2,500 reward to anybody who submits information leading to the arrest or termination of cops who brutalize or kill people.


They were able to let people know about the offer by printing all the details on flyers and spreading them throughout their community.


The flyer specifically names 15 cops as a start, and includes pictures of at least 10 cops who have been involved in either the brutalization or killing of Americans.


The words "Know Your Killer Cops" are printed on the flyers, along with instructions to film any police brutality and a location where the footage can be submitted.


"Stockton police have been getting away with terrorizing our citizens for far too long," the flyer says.


"It is time to take back our streets."


There is also a Stockton Police Department Corruption Reporting page on facebook where citizens can submit the footage.


The flyers were given out at the local courthouse and seem to have motivated citizens even more to start scrutinizing the actions of police.


With a $2,500 reward and with so many Americans unemployed, it is not hard to imagine many spending all day in the streets monitoring cops and starting their own patrols to earn the money.


One wonders what would happen if such a reward system was increased, offered nationwide, crowd-funded online, or funded by wealthy anti-authoritarians.


Suppose a secure website were started where people donated in a currency such as Bitcoin, the donations would be anonymously pooled and verified, and the pool is offered to the first person who submits information leading to the termination or arrest of a specific officer.


Knowing that the funds are available, it is virtually guaranteed that citizens would take heightened measures to crack down on criminal cops. It would also empower communities to believe that with adequate training and resources, they can protect themselves rather than relying on a police state.


Police are deeply concerned about the idea, however. Stockton Police Chief Eric Jones said that the flyer "appears to invite retribution against our officers."


"I'm concerned that the flyer might be intended to put officers at risk, which would be reprehensible, and it is sad and disheartening to see a flyer like this with a $2,500 bounty," he added.


He then alluded to the recent assassination of two NYPD officers, and expressed disappointment that such a flyer would be created in the wake of growing anti-police sentiment.


It is difficult to see why this flyer would worry officers. The worries could be understood if there were a crowd-funded system that offered to anonymously deliver currency to the first person who, say, assassinates a specific officer, but that would be illegal and the flyer is doing no such thing. It is simply asking for video footage of and information about cops who break the law.


One of the activists who passed out the flyer replied:



The flyer is just informing the public that these people should be monitored and watched, and that it's your right and responsibility to film the police. If there's nothing that was done wrong, there's nothing to be afraid of. If you're calling a reward for accountability and wrongdoing a "bounty," then that implies that somebody did something wrong. If there's nothing to hide, they would laugh at it, but they know it's serious. Their golden image is tarnished. This type of activism is not good for them and their image. That's why they don't care for it.



Now that the idea is spreading, other communities are sure to implement similar incentive structures to curb police brutality - indeed, it wouldn't be surprising if a grassroots program like this is started nationwide.

What do you think about this kind of direct action activism? Would you monitor cops more closely if it meant earning $2,500? What about $20,000? How do you think the details of such a program would work? Do you think it's inevitable that something like this will start to become popular and end police brutality? Let us know know your opinion after the video.


Watch the video below to see an example of Stockton police brutality, where officers can be seen breaking a protester's arm and kicking him while he was restrained:


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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FLASHBACK: Flu shot? Forget about it.

kid picking nose

© unknown

Hand washing is important.



Tis' the "season" for the flu shot. It comes around every year - September turns into October and germs get the memo that your body is up for business, or maybe it's the government, CDC, and pharmaceutical companies that think your wallet is up for business and the organ you use for common sense and reasoning is on hiatus. I'm really not sure.

The only notice I get of "flu shot season" is a stack of masks my husband brings home for our family to decorate. We take great pleasure in searching "Google Images" for the year's latest fashions and we create the most eye-popping pieces so that people take notice, ask questions, and my physician husband gets the opportunity to inform others that he does not and will not get a flu vaccine. If you see someone selling insanely ingenious flu mask creations, know that it was my idea first.


You might think we're the only ones protecting our bodies from assault this flu season but truth be told, with the pressure from the government to improve the influenza vaccination rate, nurses, physicians, and parents at large are pushing back. Nobody wants this viral mystery concoction.


You might think it's no big deal. It's just a little flu shot right? And they make it look so fun when you can get incentives for shooting yourself up with viruses. You can even "drive by" and fill up with the flu on your way home from work. You want a side of mercury with that? You don't even have to have qualifications to jab your neighbor. You can increase their risk of Alzheimer's...for FREE.


Remember those police "check points" they had when we were growing up where they checked our cars for booze? The ones we all tried to drive 10 miles out of our way to avoid? Like the faithful friend who tipped you off and warned you to avoid that street (or chuck the booze altogether), I'm tipping you off about the flu shot.


The CDC asserts that a yearly flu vaccine for everyone 6 months of age and older is the first and most important step in protecting against this serious disease, but it's not.


Somebody needs to inform the CDC that germs only live in environments conducive to their growth. Have you ever seen a maggot or parasite hanging out in your clean house? No, you find them in trash cans where you'll also find dirt, poop, rotting food, and bugs. They are opportunistic scavengers by nature and cannot exist in a healthy body. Why do you think all infectious diseases are more prevalent in 3rd-world countries where conditions are unsanitary and nutrition is lacking? Same germ, different environment.


True disease prevention occurs by making the body so healthy that no germ can survive in it. Seriously, I suggest looking up the research from one of the world's greatest scientists of all time (Dr. Antoine Bechamp); instead, of pushing around a dead, partially plagiarized germ theory and using it as the foundation and justification for assaulting people with harmful and ineffective flu shots.


You might think you'll prevent the flu if you get the influenza vaccine, but you won't.


Just like we pretend immunization and vaccination are synonymous terms, everyone likes to pretend that the "flu" and "influenza" are the same thing. They're not. All influenza is the flu but not all flu (or flu-like sickness) is influenza. It's clever marketing not to distinguish the two so that every time you get sick you think it could have been prevented by a "flu shot." Truth be told you probably just had "the flu" from one of several hundred flu viruses for which the influenza vaccine does not "protect" against.


Influenza is not a serious disease unless...


you're pretending that all "flu-like" illnesses are influenza and you're using statistics from a hundred years ago. Currently influenza/pneumonia is the 8th leading cause of death. It's funny how they lump two "illnesses" in together like that to entice people to run out and get a flu shot. According to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics , 62,034 people died from "influenza and pneumonia" in 2001; yet only 257 people actually died from the "flu" and of those, only 18 cases were connected to the influenza virus. The other 61,777 people died from pneumonia.


Of course they use that as a justification to push the flu shot too because pneumonia is an influenza related complication right? Maybe, but pneumonia is a factor in all sorts of medical conditions entirely unrelated to "influenza" and can also be caused by any number of pathogens, flu-like sicknesses, antibiotics, over-use of antibiotics (which wipe out good bacteria your body needs to prevent disease), vaccinations, and...wait for it...the flu shot.


The truth is, more people die from unintentional injuries like taking the stairs two-at-a-time, falling out windows, tripping over cracks in the sidewalk, and aspirating on orange juice, than they do from influenza. More people die from chronic lower respiratory infections (a listed adverse reaction of the flu shot), Alzheimer's (which flu shots contribute to), and cancer, strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes, all conditions that could be prevented with a healthy diet. Hey, do you know what else can be prevented by a healthy diet? Influenza. If "the flu" is something to sneeze about, you should ditch the flu shot and up your broccoli intake.




You're told the influenza vaccine is effective .

It is, if effective means cars can run on Oreos instead of gas.


An "effective" flu vaccine is one that introduces an antigen that triggers an antibody response that increases one's titers against a particular flu strain. It all sounds great doesn't it? Except that "effectiveness" varies from year to year and scientists have to "predict" which strains are going to be prevalent each season and they rarely make the mark. Even if you get titers to a particular strain, that doesn't mean you won't get sick from it or the 200 other circulating flu strains, which means you put yourself through an increased risk of brain damage, Alzheimer's, and death for nothing.

Flu shots are safe ...


said nobody who ever read the package insert, the ingredient list, or looked at the horribly lacking (non-existent) safety studies. Flu shots aren't safe for you, me, our children, Grandma, or pregnant women. Here are just a few of the adverse reactions you're subjecting yourself to if you opt out of the almost non-existent chance you'll get the strain of flu contained in the flu shot:



Exacerbation of mitochondrial encephomyalopathy, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Bell's Palsy, meningitis, eosinophilic meningitis, vaccine-associated encephalitis, respiratory disorders, rash, fever, vomiting, chills, muscle aches, anaphylaxis, convulsions, myelitis, optic neuritis, pharyngitis, rhinitis, cough, wheezing, throat tightness, Steven-Johnson Syndrome, encephalomyelitis, asthma, respiratory distress, and death.



For the flu shot to be deemed effective and safe, a double-blind, saline placebo-controlled study (preferably before licensure) is required (by an unbiased source might be asking too much). Finding one of these jewels is like searching for King Tut's Tomb in an Iowa corn field.

You can get the flu from the flu shot.


The CDC says, "You cannot get the flu from a flu shot." The package inserts say you could experience a runny nose, congestion, chills, headaches, muscle aches, sore throat, respiratory issues, cough, and fever higher than 100 degrees. Is there another name for the "flu" we don't know about?


You could also increase your risk for other non-influenza illnesses like respiratory infections (which could lead to pneumonia), rhinovirus, and coxsackie/echovirus infections.


The flu shot isn't safe or effective for infants or toddlers.


Would you strap your baby into a car seat that had not been crash-tested approved? Would you allow your child to be the test subject of Monsanto's newest sweetener? Would you mash up a bunch of dead viruses, some egg, monkey or doggy cells, acid, and MSG and rub it into their skin? Of course not.


Cochrane found only one study regarding the most commonly given flu vaccine in children under two despite the current recommendations to vaccinate children from six months of age. There was no safety data. Zip. Zero. Nada.



If immunisation in children is to be recommended as a public health policy, large-scale studies assessing important outcomes, and directly comparing vaccine types are urgently required.



Cochrane also found that the trials were funded by the industry, manipulated, and were cited over independent and publicly done studies that were less favorable towards vaccines. Oh yeah, they also found that the flu shot was no more effective than the placebo but did cause narcolepsy and febrile convulsions. Yet the Center for Death Control (CDC) says, that "the most important thing is for all people 6 months and older to get a flu vaccine every year."

Hello? Anyone?


Pregnant women should not get the flu shot.


It makes zero sense to inject a pregnant woman who is already in a state of immune suppression with something that could trigger an immune response and cause spontaneous abortion. Flu shots have not been tested or proven safe for pregnant women. Rats don't count.


Elderly people should not get a flu shot.


There is no credible data to suggest that pushing flu vaccines on the elderly is safe or effective - unless you count that one trial that showed a 50% efficacy in healthy older adults. (Most adults over 65 are not healthy.) Although elderly people are more likely to get "influenza," they're far more likely to get Alzheimer's (linked to flu shots)...the sixth leading cause of death.


Physicians and nurses do not have to get the flu shot to "protect their patients."


To date, there is no accurate data on rates of laboratory-proven influenza in healthcare workers, and live flu vaccines shed and can infect the most at-risk populations including the elderly and immunocompromised. That aside, there's a reason why medical professionals are opting out of flu shots and nurses are suing hospitals implementing mandates - they are dangerous and they don't work. You know what does according to the data? Hand-washing, masks, early detection of influenza with nasal swabs, antivirals, quarantine, restricting visitors, and not coming to work if you feel sick.


If you have to get a flu shot, it's not because someone cares about your patient's health (or your rights), it's because "The Not So Affordable Healthcare Act" ties reimbursement to employee vaccination rates.


You're told flu shots don't shed, but some do.


Live vaccines including the FluMist nasal spray they want to mandate for your school-aged children shed. Vaccinated children can get sick from the influenza vaccine and unvaccinated children (and the majority of children whose flu shot didn't provide "protection") are at risk of getting sick from vaccine associated viral shedding. But we'll blame the increase in flu outbreaks on the unvaccinated, instead of the viral shedding vaccine itself. I can't make this stuff up. Read the inserts.


But it's just a "weaker" virus though right? I'm sorry...I don't want ANY virus. No flu for me please...not even a sort-of-kind-of less-than version. Aint' nobody got time for that.


Here's a brief synopsis of why you should forget the flu shot from the CDC: It's not possible to predict what this flu season will be like.



  • Flu viruses are constantly changing so it's not unusual for new flu viruses to appear each year.

  • [The] CDC received reports of some people who became ill and tested positive for the flu even though they had been vaccinated. This occurs every season.

  • And my personal favorite: "There is still a possibility you could get the flu even if you got vaccinated."


So we've got a widespread practice based on prediction, that hasn't been proven safe, doesn't meet the standards of evidenced-based medicine, doesn't work, involves repetitively assaulting people with harmful ingredients, and is founded upon a horribly lacking germ theory they believes you're defenseless against pathogens.

Speaking of Pasteur, the prized accolade of the germ theory upon which infectious disease medicine is founded upon said this on his deathbed:



"Le germe n'est rien, c'est le terrain qui est tout."


Translation: The microbe is nothing, the soil [or inner terrain] is everything.



While we are talking about famous quotes from dead people, how about this one from the father of cellular pathology, Dr. Rudolph Virchow,

"If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat - diseased tissues - rather than causing disease.



There you have it. If you want to prevent influenza (or the flu), it doesn't get more simple than this: Get some sunshine. Breathe fresh air. Eat good. Sleep well. Wash your hands. Flush your poop. Don't pick your nose and don't inject yourself with toxins and mysterious viral concoctions that are ineffective, not safe, can infect other people, and are founded upon a theory that is flawed at best.

Recommended article: Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Washington D.C.: L'Enfant plaza metro station fire leaves one woman dead and dozens hospitalized

L'enfant Plaza Metro

© unknown

L'Enfant Plaza Metro



One woman is dead and dozens of other people were hospitalized, two in critical condition, after the upper level of the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station in southeast D.C. filled with smoke Monday afternoon.

One Virginia-bound Yellow Line train was in the tunnel just south of the station when the smoke was reported about 3:20 p.m., according to Metro.


"There was a woman who was in distress on that train, and I'm sorry to say she's passed away," Metro General Manager and Chief Executive Officer Richard Sarles said.


The Metropolitan Police Department will take the lead in the death investigation, Sarles said.


Officials do not yet know the cause of the fire.


"It was just very smoky in there," said passenger Fitz Carter from aboard a Metro bus waiting to be taken to a hospital. "We couldn't see anything. The visibility was poor. Right now, there's a lot of burning in my throat and my chest. Everybody got as low as they possibly could to the ground because that's where the best possibility for oxygen was."


Another passenger described how the train went dark and then filled with smoke. The passengers were advised to keep the doors closed because it was smokier outside the train.


"People could barely breathe," passenger Denzel Hatch said. "They had to evacuate us through the tunnel and walk back through the front. No electricity, no visibility, nothing. Couldn't see anything at first."


They were trapped up to 40 minutes on the smoke-filled train.


Evacuations were completed before 5 p.m., according to Metro Transit Police.


A first aid bus and an evacuation bus were at the scene. Firefighters gained access to the tunnel at one of the evacuation points at Ninth Street and Maine Avenue SE. One firefighter was taken from that location in an ambulance.


According to D.C. Fire and EMS, 84 patients were taken to hospitals. Two went to George Washington University Hospital in critical condition. More than 200 people were evaluated.


D.C. Fire and EMS set up a decontamination center for its firefighters who went into the tunnel.


The FBI is assisting Metro Transit Police in determining a cause, which is standard procedure for incidents in the capital region.


The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, too.


Green Line service is suspended between Navy Yard and Gallery Place, and Yellow Line service is suspended between Pentagon City and Mt. Vernon Square. Green Line trains are turning back at Navy Yard and Mt. Vernon Square.


Orange, Silver and Blue line trains are bypassing the station through the lower level.


[embedded content]


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Remember when Paris Muslims helped Jews escape the Nazis?

mosque

© Alice Heartherb



Here's one they left out of the history textbooks. A recent French film, Free Men, brought to light the remarkable true history of how Muslims gave sanctuary to French Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris during Second World War. An untold "Oscar Schindler" story, the film is inspired by actual events and in this case, our 'Schindler' is Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris until 1954.

Underneath the fortress of mosaics and tranquil gardens occupying an entire city block in the Latin Quarter, it is revealed the mosque's underground caverns once served as a refuge for resistance fighters and French Jews, where they could be provided with certificates of Muslim identity. Meanwhile upstairs, Benghabrit, a wise Algerian-born religious and political leader, was giving tours of the mosque to Nazi officers and their wives, unaware of what was transpiring right under their feet.


Watch the trailer for below:


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A North African Jewish man named Albert Assouline, who had escaped from a German prison camp, wrote about his experience hiding in the mosque:

No fewer than 1,732 resistance fighters found refuge in its underground caverns. These included Muslim escapees but also Christians and Jews. The latter were by far the most numerous.



Giving sanctuary for Jews was largely impulsive and did not result in an organised movement by the mosque, which is perhaps why historical records remain so bleary. Some claim thousands of Jews were saved, others say it was in the dozens. In 2006, the current rector of the Paris Grand Mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, was interviewed by Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In Mr. Saltoff's book, Among the Righteous, Boubakeur confirms that 'up to 100 Jews' were likely given Muslim identity papers by the mosque and provides Saltoff with a copy of a typewritten 1940 Foreign Ministry document found in the French Archives, affirming the Nazi's suspicion of mosque personnel providing false Muslim identities to Jews.

The most notable case of the mosque refuge was Simon Hilali, a Sephardic Jew who survived the Holocaust by pretending to be an Arab named Salim with the assistance of Benghrabit and later went on to become the most popular Arab-language singer of the time. According to Hilali's obituary, Germans were so suspicious of the Jewish musician that Benghabrit had the name of Hilali's made-up Muslim grandfather carved on a headstone in a Parisian Muslim cemetery.


I missed the film in the cinemas when it came out last year because I never heard about its release, but what an important message to miss out on. The film's director is lobbying for it to be shown in schools. "It pays homage to the people of our history who have been invisible," he told the . "It shows another reality, that Muslims and Jews existed in peace. We have to remember that - with pride."


In case you're interested in learning about something your text books couldn't bring to your attention, the is available to download on iTunes here.


via The New York Times


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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