Entries Tagged 'World' ↓

I have been re-reading James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency” recently and I recommend you read it, if you haven’t already.  Kunstler is a big thinker and, unfortunately for his career, is not on board with the happy-face mood of our country.  His is not the message America wants to hear at this moment, but if you want to see around the next turn of fate to protect yourself and your assets, you need to get familiar with what he has to say.

For a prophet of doom, Kunstler is a lot of fun to read — a big improvement over the Old Testament prophets.  I think you could summarize his attitude to his writing with the phrase, “You’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.”  And he will make you laugh!

He writes somewhat like Hunter S. Thompson, but describes the real world with humorous insight rather than his personal hallucinations. Continue reading →

We are responsible for overthrowing Iran’s first democratic government. In 1951 Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq demanded a share of the profits from Iran’s vast oil reserves. For this affront to western moneyed interests, he was deposed by a CIA backed coup.

Operation Ajax was the codename for the CIA’s plan. The agency paid Islamic clerics, dis-affected army officers, and employed mobs as demonstrators to foment unrest and carry out the military coup. Mossadeq was removed from power, imprisoned, and later died under house arrest.

The CIA installed the Shah as the ruler of Iran, and for the next 26 years the United States supported and funded his government. This included supplying Iran’s military forces with modern weapons and training for the Shah’s dreaded secret police unit, SAVAK. The Shah’s corrupt dictatorship created the revolution that took over the country in 1979. Continue reading →

There is always some reason that they will try to convince you not to believe what you feel in your gut. They will try to bamboozle you
– Barack Obama

I admit I was swept up in the national euphoria of President Obama’s election. I really believed that something would be done about the economic crisis, our unjust “War on Terror”, and the creeping fascism these wars have engendered. But by now it should be clear that President Obama has no plans to change anything. Continue reading →

Featured Post for 05-/22-05/28:

“It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”

I recalled this statement while I was reading a very powerful look at the My Lai massacre that took place during the Vietnam War. The depravity of humanity gone mad is revealed in this account and one would think that we would never again commit such atrocities. But the powers that be convinced us that we should put it behind us and move on. And now it seems we have repeated the depravity again in Iraq.

Is it true that our future is shaped by what and how we react to events and realities of the present? Have we gone even deeper into depravity since My Lai? And if that is true, what did we not do that would have kept us from drifting into an open acceptance of torture and unjustified bloodletting today? If the future we get IS up to us, what failures of our past determine what we leave for our children today? Continue reading →

Around 4,000 Taliban militants are battling 15,000 Pakistani troops, just 60 miles from the Pakistani capital Islamabad. The Pakistani army is claiming success, with 1,000 militants killed within the last 48 hours. Neutral observers suspect this figure includes a disproportionate number of civilian casualties. If true, this will fuel the insurgency further. FULL ARTICLE

Writer-activist David Boyajian’s investigative articles and commentaries have appeared in Armenian media outlets in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Armenia and the Newton Tab and USA Armenian Life newspapers named him among their “Top 10 Newsmakers of 2007.” So, when Barack Obama paid a visit to Turkey last month, it seemed like a good time to ask Boyajian for his take on the new president’s approach to the issue of the Armenian genocide. Continue reading →

This week, based on indicators of improving Chinese manufacturing activity, commodity and stock markets surged in the Pacific Rim. It appears that China’s recession-fighting policies are being judged successful. The 41 percent rally in Chinese stocks in 2009 from the 2008 lows dwarfs the single digit rallies in the U.S. and Europe. With Western economies still sluggish, eyes are turning eastward for solutions to the global economic riddle. As such, recent hints at the direction of Chinese monetary policy should be closely regarded. FULL ARTICLE

After a closed-door trial, American journalist Roxana Saberi was found guilty in an Iranian court on charges of espionage. An Iranian-American, Saberi had been living in Iran and working as a reporter although the Iranian government claimed it had withdrawn her press credentials. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The harsh sentence handed down to this native of North Dakota has generated a global outcry. President Obama and other national leaders as well as a plethora of media outlets have called for the release of this lovely young woman, once a finalist in the Miss American contest. Continue reading →

The Iraqi war was brought against an innocent people who had nothing to do with 9/11, the war was unnecessary to effect regime change, it was ginned up by lies of those who sought a war to open a new profit line, and it is just one of the seven wars that was planned in the early ninety’s, to aid the American Neo-Con vision of Empire in the Middle East. FULL ARTICLE

Would you give up the ability to text ttyl to your BFF in order to save a species from going extinct? In 2009, it’s not an insane question.

The next time your cell phone rings, try focusing on these six simple words: The Democratic Republic of the Congo. I ask you to do this because one of the primary components of cell phone circuitry is a metallic ore called Columbite-Tantalite—or “coltan.” Continue reading →