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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSpanking? America's killed a million Iraqi kids over the last 24 years.
Newsflash that's missing from the News.
Maybe more. No one knows as no one in authority with any power for knowing has kept track.
Back when Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State, we'd already killed 500,000 because of economic sanctions, which included embargoes of medicine and infant formula.
Madame Sec. of State Albright said it was "worth it."
'We Think the Price Is Worth It'
Media uncurious about Iraq policy's effects--there or here
By Rahul Mahajan
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's quote, calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, has been much quoted in the Arabic press. It's also been cited in the United States in alternative commentary on the September 11 attacks (e.g., Alexander Cockburn, New York Press, 9/26/01).
But a Dow Jones search of mainstream news sources since September 11 turns up only one reference to the quote--in an op-ed in the Orange Country Register (9/16/01). This omission is striking, given the major role that Iraq sanctions play in the ideology of archenemy Osama bin Laden; his recruitment video features pictures of Iraqi babies wasting away from malnutrition and lack of medicine (New York Daily News, 9/28/01). The inference that Albright and the terrorists may have shared a common rationale--a belief that the deaths of thousands of innocents are a price worth paying to achieve one's political ends--does not seem to be one that can be made in U.S. mass media.
It's worth noting that on 60 Minutes, Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl--a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions. In general, the response from government officials about the sanctions toll has been rather different: a barrage of equivocations, denigration of U.N. sources and implications that questioners have some ideological axe to grind (Extra!, 3-4/00).
There has also been an attempt to seize on the lowest possible numbers. In early 1998, Columbia University's Richard Garfield published a dramatically lower estimate of 106,000 to 227,000 children under five dead due to sanctions, which was reported in many papers (e.g. New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2/15/98). Later, UNICEF came out with the first authoritative report (8/99), based on a survey of 24,000 households, suggesting that the total excess deaths of children under 5 was about 500,000.
CONTINUED...
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/we-think-the-price-is-worth-it/
I don't think the price was worth it.
Not diminishing DV in any way, but America's government has got a violence problem. We've tried voting it out, but it's still making war in Iraq.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)We don't have to ignore problem B, just because problem A is far larger.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)but "we" don't. The msm doesn't focus very much on the actual effects of war.
Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)Again, you win! I'm going to just start quoting you.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)lost in war does not give an open window for others to do harm. There are kids who are not receiving health care in the US because of the lack of health insurance but this does not excuse other abuses children suffer.
littlemissmartypants
(22,686 posts)The cycle of abuse rears it's everywhere angry head. The effects are often deadly when subjugation leads to disregard for life.
Thanks again.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)It seems that the loyalty of those with power is to those with money. These days, that's pretty much the same folk who've been making money off war since, at least, World War I. Their scion uttered, "Money trumps peace" and the press didn't even blink. And it was a press conference.
cali
(114,904 posts)DocMac
(1,628 posts)But, then again, I wasn't expecting much.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)"Fuck your concern about child abuse, we've got bigger, more important problems."
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)Besides, our ingrained violent tendencies are partially responsible for our warlike responses. Change one and the other might follow.
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)distraction.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Someone's made a killing.
http://firedoglake.com/2011/06/03/hillary-clinton-hosts-iraq-opportunities-party-for-war-profiteers/
leftstreet
(36,108 posts)Half a million dead kids
DURec
Octafish
(55,745 posts)WTF have we -- as in We the People's elected representatives -- done?
Same exact fascist crap as Germany and Japan in the 1930s. As long as they got what they wanted, they didn't care who they killed, either.
It's unbelievable, leftstreet. I did not vote for this crap 24 years ago and I did not vote for this crap 2 years ago or any other time in between (with the exception of one election going back to 1976). And to think I once wondered why people act like war without end is normal.
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)that's a violence problem we share with most of the world.
Coventina
(27,120 posts)I must have missed that.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)i thought the wtc attackers were saudis.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)I must have missed that.
Coventina
(27,120 posts)Because it seems to imply that we retaliated against Iraq for an attack on us.
I'm not the only one who understood it that way, as you can see.
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)Damn, that was quick, I thought we were supporting the Iraqi government against ISIS.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Um, no. The hijackers were Saudis.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)When before 2003?
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)When before 1941 did Japan attack the US? When before 1939 did Hitler invade Poland?
Are you actually saying that the world stopped in 2003, because the USA attacked Iraq?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)You said "Americans fight back when attacked" in a thread about the killing of Iraqis by the US in Iraq. The question is, when did Iraq attack the US?
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)Okay, we agree that Iraq never attacked the US, so the past 25 years of war and deaths we caused were wrong.
Now. Looking at this year and forward, when did IS attack the US?
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)because the US did something, sometime, to someone else.
By executing US citizens, ISIS attacked the US.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)They murdered two US citizens, which is not the same thing.
Al Qaeda attacked the US. Japan attacked the US. IS killed two people. The US has not been attacked not is the US under any threat from IS.
Just to repeat, Iraq never attacked the US.
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)it to be an attack?
How many people would we have to abandon to ISIS before we act?
I'm still trying to get this obsession with Iraq, Obama can't undo it, even people who voted for Bush can't undo it. You cannot really expect a nation to base all future decisions on acts of the past.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)I don't support war as a response to a few brutal murders.
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)was accomplished after a few months of bombing. Everything after that was pure, undiluted greed and violence.
Nothing good has come from these wars except for a small number of CEOs who profit from them.
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)you think that we went into Afghanistan solely for payback.
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)the region. They (Bush et al) knew there was less than a 1% likelihood that the investment of a trillion dollars and a 100,000 lives would create a more stable and western friendly region. That leaves only moral hubris as the only plausible motivation.
In the end, it was a trillion dollar investment that the rich happily paid for using other people's money. After all, right up until 9/11, US oil companies were actively negotiating a major pipeline project in Afghanistan. Perhaps, taking over the country was one way to get the job done.
Perhaps Cheney/Rice saw Iraq and Afghanistan as bookends of a policy to contain Iran. And it is possible that these two individuals were actually as stupid as this idea suggests they were.
Regardless, to win public support, they had to make the case for revenge. And Bush did exactly that, going as far as to call it a crusade. Big bad Bush was going to open up a Texas sized can of whoop ass on Afghanistan and the media went straight to work drumming up the blood lust.
The bottom line is a mountain of empirical data pointed to the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq as being a historically foolish pursuit. Indeed it was. We had foolish criminals in the White House. For their crimes, they should have been punished.
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)should not respond to attacks against them.
I certainly don't agree.
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)Justice was delivered in a few months of bombing. It should have ended at that point.
Invasion and occupation after the fact was a disaster for Bush. Just as the Afghanistan surge was was a disaster for Obama. Our intervention in these areas has only made things worse by inflaming resentment against the clumsy brutality of a foreign occupying force.
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)is how it affects Presidents.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)really?
Progressive dog
(6,904 posts)I didn't claim that (or anything faintly resembling that).
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)Initech
(100,079 posts)As Joseph Stalin said - "The death of one is a tragedy, the death of many is a statistic."
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Paraphrasing Fred Koch, patriarch, guy who got rich setting up Stalin and the USSR in the oil drilling and refining and transporting and services business. He went on to co-found the John Birch Society. Two of his sons are famous for co-founding the co-opting of Wall Street on the Potomac.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)who financed the Austrian Corporal...
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Now we've got combat operations on six continents, round-the-clock alert costing $2 billion a day. Meanwhile public education costs a fortune and people have to work around the clock to make enough to scrape by, let alone live.
I remember when politicians talked about "Peace and Prosperity." Now they don't talk about anything other than protecting us from Them, whoever Them is we are at war with at the moment. "Us," of course, is their campaign contributors.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)But why does America always seem to believe that violence is the answer to every conflict? Being from Canada we explored the differences in history between the 2 countries in my high school social studies class. The US's history is one of much more violence than Canada's. We theorized in class perhaps the more violence people see and witness, the more they perpetuate it. This was confirmed in my sociology and psych classes. Violence creates more violence. One could extrapolate that to how violence might stem from how children are raised in the American culture. If one grows up being hit, being taught might makes right and a good beating will make a 'good kid', watching violent tv, playing violent video games, shooting guns and believing in a violent and vengeful God, is it any wonder they choose a war to 'solve' problems?
TBF
(32,062 posts)This country has been in conflicts or full out war most of its existance. Obedient, compliant people will fight wars for you ... so you keep people compliant and obedient. Favorite method on the US is to keep order via the churches.
smiley
(1,432 posts)when both the candidates support war.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"Money trumps peace."
Otherwise, the Press would have raised a fuss when all the lies were coming down about aluminum tubes and when the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter posed as a Kuwaiti nurse testifying before Congress she saw Saddam's army pull babies from their incubators and leave them on the "cold hospital floor."
HOW PR SOLD THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF
Excerpted from Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, Chapter 10
"If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it."
--Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the United States and Canada
The Mother of All Clients
On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops led by dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the oil-producing nation of Kuwait. Like Noriega in Panama, Hussein had been a US ally for nearly a decade. From 1980 to 1988, he had killed about 150,000 Iranians, in addition to at least 13,000 of his own citizens. Despite complaints from international human rights group, however, the Reagan and Bush administrations had treated Hussein as a valuable ally in the US confrontation with Iran. As late as July 25 -- a week before the invasion of Kuwait -- US Ambassador April Glaspie commiserated with Hussein over a "cheap and unjust" profile by ABC's Diane Sawyer, and wished for an "appearance in the media, even for five minutes," by Hussein that "would help explain Iraq to the American people."69
Glaspie's ill-chosen comments may have helped convince the dictator that Washington would look the other way if he "annexed" a neighboring kingdom. The invasion of Kuwait, however, crossed a line that the Bush Administration could not tolerate. This time Hussein's crime was far more serious than simply gassing to death another brood of Kurdish refugees. This time, oil was at stake.
Viewed in strictly moral terms, Kuwait hardly looked like the sort of country that deserved defending, even from a monster like Hussein. The tiny but super-rich state had been an independent nation for just a quarter century when in 1986 the ruling al-Sabah family tightened its dictatorial grip over the "black gold" fiefdom by disbanding the token National Assembly and firmly establishing all power in the be-jeweled hands of the ruling Emir. Then, as now, Kuwait's ruling oligarchy brutally suppressed the country's small democracy movement, intimidated and censored journalists, and hired desperate foreigners to supply most of the nation's physical labor under conditions of indentured servitude and near-slavery. The wealthy young men of Kuwait's ruling class were known as spoiled party boys in university cities and national capitals from Cairo to Washington.70
Unlike Grenada and Panama, Iraq had a substantial army that could not be subdued in a mere weekend of fighting. Unlike the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Hussein was too far away from US soil, too rich with oil money, and too experienced in ruling through propaganda and terror to be dislodged through the psychological-warfare techniques of low-intensity conflict. Waging a war to push Iraq's invading army from Kuwait would cost billions of dollars and require an unprecedented, massive US military mobilization. The American public was notoriously reluctant to send its young into foreign battles on behalf of any cause. Selling war in the Middle East to the American people would not be easy. Bush would need to convince Americans that former ally Saddam Hussein now embodied evil, and that the oil fiefdom of Kuwait was a struggling young democracy. How could the Bush Administration build US support for "liberating" a country so fundamentally opposed to democratic values? How could the war appear noble and necessary rather than a crass grab to save cheap oil?
"If and when a shooting war starts, reporters will begin to wonder why American soldiers are dying for oil-rich sheiks," warned Hal Steward, a retired army PR official. "The US military had better get cracking to come up with a public relations plan that will supply the answers the public can accept."71
Steward needn't have worried. A PR plan was already in place, paid for almost entirely by the "oil-rich sheiks" themselves.
Packaging the Emir
US Congressman Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana -- a conservative Democrat who supported the Gulf War -- later estimated that the government of Kuwait funded as many as 20 PR, law and lobby firms in its campaign to mobilize US opinion and force against Hussein.72 Participating firms included the Rendon Group, which received a retainer of $100,000 per month for media work, and Neill & Co., which received $50,000 per month for lobbying Congress. Sam Zakhem, a former US ambassador to the oil-rich gulf state of Bahrain, funneled $7.7 million in advertising and lobbying dollars through two front groups, the "Coalition for Americans at Risk" and the "Freedom Task Force." The Coalition, which began in the 1980s as a front for the contras in Nicaragua, prepared and placed TV and newspaper ads, and kept a stable of fifty speakers available for pro-war rallies and publicity events.73
Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait," a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. Over the next six months, the Kuwaiti government channeled $11.9 million dollars to Citizens for a Free Kuwait, whose only other funding totalled $17,861 from 78 individuals. Virtually all of CFK's budget -- $10.8 million -- went to Hill & Knowlton in the form of fees.74
CONTINUED...
http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html
Which is too bad, for the People in a Democracy not deserve -- they have a RIGHT -- to the Truth.
smiley
(1,432 posts)what a novel concept. Too bad we don't have a media that investigates the truth. And yes, I do believe both parties subscribe to the same thing. It's become painfully obvious to me.
Thanks for the info Octafish. I've been reading and silently agreeing with your posts for many years
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Here's one thing I learned on DU:
The media are corrupt by design. Ignoring what really happened is SOP for our Presstitutes. Remember Florida?
Here's how much of the nation's press were magically transformed from watchdogs into lapdogs:
The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)
The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971
Introduction
In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powells nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powells legal objectivity. [font color="red"]Anderson cautioned that Powell might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice in behalf of business interests.[/font color]
Though Powells memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administrations hands-off business philosophy.
Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)
So did Powells political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. [font color="red"]Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment right for corporations to influence ballot questions.[/font color] On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.
CONTINUED...
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
This story continues through today, where we have Chief Justice John Roberts shepherding corporate friendly law through the court, let alone appointing nothing but BFEE-friendly pukes to the FISA Court, and the press working mightily to move on to the next shiny object. Of course, Congress and the Administration do their bit to advance the interests of Corporate America, Wall Street, and War Inc, unchecked by public awareness.
Iggo
(47,558 posts)That ain't "spanking."
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Papers and airwaves are full of it, which is great and important.
What doesn't get mentioned is that the United States has been making war, killing millions of innocent people -- including an uncounted number of children.
When was the last time you heard Iraqi civilian casualties -- innocent people injured and killed by the USA -- mentioned on television?
Rex
(65,616 posts)As a vet I must ask...when is mass death and dismemberment enough? 1/25 people in Iraq have been killed by US munitions. When do we stop?
And it sounds like we are gearing up for more war...yet you and I both know, America is ALWAYS at war somewhere on the planet Octa.
Sad, pathetic and wrong...but hey, defense contractors will always need a third yacht for their house in the Caimans.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Yet -- as made clear by 51 years of war -- it's not.
Remember, Rex, when Rove fired those US Attorneys who wouldn't "play ball"? One was Carol Lam.
She was wondering about corrupt Military Industrial Complex between the Pentagon and Congress and the Bush White House and all manner of stuff when given the ziggy by Karl Rove and his poodle Alberto Gonzalez.
Was Carol Lam Targeting The White House Prior To Her Firing
By Faiz Shakir on Mar 19, 2007 at 1:52 pm
lamReferring to the Bush administrations purge of former San Diego-based U.S. attorney Carol Lam, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned recently on the Senate floor whether she was let go because she was about to investigate other people who were politically powerful.
The media reports this morning that among Lams politically powerful targets were former CIA official Kyle Dusty Foggo and then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). But there is evidence to believe that the White House may also have been on Lams target list. Here are the connections:
Washington D.C. defense contractor Mitchell Wade pled guilty last February to paying then-California Rep. Randy Duke Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes.
Wades company MZM Inc. received its first federal contract from the White House. The contract, which ran from July 15 to August 15, 2002, stipulated that Wade be paid $140,000 to provide office furniture and computers for Vice President Dick Cheney.
Two weeks later, on August 30, 2002, Wade purchased a yacht for $140,000 for Duke Cunningham. The boats name was later changed to the Duke-Stir. Said one party to the sale: I knew then that somebody was going to go to jail for that Duke looked at the boat, and Wade bought it all in one day. Then they got on the boat and floated away.
According to Cunninghams sentencing memorandum, the purchase price of the boat had been negotiated through a third-party earlier that summer, around the same time the White House contract was signed.
CONTINUED w/LINKS...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/03/19/11209/carol-lam-white-house/
Things like the prosecution of traitors and warmongers are exactly what I look for in a prosecutor, judge, attorney general and president no matter what party. I don't expect the government to actually be in league with the warmongers.
Rex
(65,616 posts)and their Congress answers with, "gee can't do that, might not get voted back into office". Democracy? Not in this country, the plutocracy is here to stay and has it's own functioning department now - the DHS. We watched them plot against OWS protesters - which now makes you an instant enemy-non combatant (of course depending on which side of the political spectrum you fall on).
Blomberg's private army knows what I mean.
We are so fucked, but few realize it or care enough about it to make a comment.
Drones? Shit I can buy one on Ebay! What's the harm?
Future generations are fucked if we don't reign in the massive corruption and warmongering.
Mark my words.
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Such a smashing success at home!
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)Iraq is a mess we created and if our air power can help stave off ISIS and keep a clearly lesser evil in power, then I can get behind that.
Syria isn't something we're responsible for, nor is there a winning outcome for our involvement. You have two horrible sides in that war that have nothing in common except for the fact that they don't like the US. The absolute worst thing US can do is to insert itself into the middle of that.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)is the point here that anything short of death inflicted on a kid by its parents is OK because our country has killed so many children via war?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)No one on USA tee vee, anyway.
kcr
(15,317 posts)you think the teee veee people will start talking about the kids that are getting killed?
I don't think calling for the teeee veeee people to shut up about child abuse will get the results you think it will.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)The thing is: There is very little, if not zero, coverage of what America's 24-year war on Iraq has done to the Iraqi people -- in particular, children.
An ignorant people is a shame for liberty and a godsend to tyrants. When the press is willfully ignorant, that presents an even bigger danger to democracy.
As for results not being what I expected, yes, I did not expect government by Goldman Sachs -- where "Money trumps peace" -- to continue. Weren't for who owns and operates the tee vee networks, I'd say I was surprised it hasn't bothered more people.
kcr
(15,317 posts)I just think the problem with emphasizing the coverage of one as a symptom of the lack of coverage of the other gives the impression that one isn't as important as the other. Even if that isn't your intention, that is how it will be perceived, because that is really how it comes across.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)due to the numbers being too hard to internalize as opposed to just one that becomes more personal because we see the face, or know the story.
I know that after 9/11, I couldn't really connect with the true tragedy of it until the news outlets started interviewing friends and family members and we saw the photos and heard the stories of each individual person.
Then, instead of it being nearly 3,000 nameless, faceless victims, it became <name>, with a photo, etc. Easier to identify with.
treestar
(82,383 posts)the use of economic sanctions is not permitted either, as that kills children in the country sanctioned.
So in the end, Saddam or Putin or whoever should stay in power. At least they don't kill children.
The OP does not offer any solutions.
rock
(13,218 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Brendan James
TalkingPointsMemo, April 18, 2014
A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracynamely, that it no longer exists.
Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.
Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.
"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the governmentwhether Republican or Democraticmore often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.
CONTINUED...
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy
People are noticing the deck of cards is marked, Rock. Every time we pick one for change, we get more of the same: wars without end, and the rich keep getting richer.
rock
(13,218 posts)Notice the politician's love of shuffling.
JEB
(4,748 posts)such as spanking, child abuse, domestic abuse, marriage equality, Wilderness, etc. are bone that TPTB throw to us peons to distract, or appease us as the big game continues as rigged as ever. If that violence ever turns back on them, they will wish to hell they had done things differently.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Remember Mark E Fuller, the US District Judge in Alabama who helped railroad Gov. Don Siegelman, beat his wife and ex-wife and who knows who else. Imagine if there were video? He'd be toast. Instead, he's given taxpayer-provided treatment and professional pity.
http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=361
The big game is another thing. Going by their actions, those men and women clearly are psychotic. They use their positions of power to enrich themselves and their cronies. Who they kill in the process is of no concern.
Blood soaked fiends.
When it comes to making money, Columbia is wicked awesome!
Ask Richard Grasso (left, photo below), then-head of the New York Stock Exchange, as he gives a nice warm hug to Raul Reyes, (photo, right) then-living FARC #2.
The Real Deal: The Ultimate New Business Cold Call
NYSE's Richard Grasso and the Ultimate New Business "Cold Call"
Monday, 18 February 2002, 10:13 am
Column: Catherine Austin Fitts
Lest you think that my comment about the New York Stock Exchange is too strong, let's look at one event that occurred before our "war on drugs" went into high gear through Plan Colombia, banging heads over narco dollar market share in Latin America.
In late June 1999, numerous news services, including Associated Press, reported that Richard Grasso, Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange flew to Colombia to meet with a spokesperson for Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the supposed "narco terrorists" with whom we are now at war.
The purpose of the trip was "to bring a message of cooperation from U.S. financial services" and to discuss foreign investment and the future role of U.S. businesses in Colombia.
Some reading in between the lines said to me that Grasso's mission related to the continued circulation of cocaine capital through the US financial system. FARC, the Colombian rebels, were circulating their profits back into local development without the assistance of the American banking and investment system. Worse yet for the outlook for the US stock market's strength from $500 billion - $1 trillion in annual money laundering - FARC was calling for the decriminalization of cocaine.
To understand the threat of decriminalization of the drug trade, just go back to your Sam and Dave estimate and recalculate the numbers given what decriminalization does to drive BIG PERCENT back to SLIM PERCENT and what that means to Wall Street and Washington's cash flows. No narco dollars, no reinvestment into the stock markets, no campaign contributions.
It was only a few days after Grasso's trip that BBC News reported a General Accounting Office (GAO) report to Congress as saying: "Colombia's cocaine and heroin production is set to rise by as much as 50 percent as the U.S. backed drug war flounders, due largely to the growing strength of Marxist rebels"
CONTINUED...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0202/S00069.htm
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Congratulations, you finally just went straight up tasteless.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Some folks need monitoring.
The eagle soars at dawn.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Scary if it weren't zappaman.
Control, we have a breach.
Private communication intercept.
Pull the building.
Bay of Pigs level 5.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Hope you enjoyed yourself.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Maple syrup is out of the bottle.
REPEAT
Maple syrup is out of the bottle.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Here's the last thing I have to explain to you.
It's not about taste: Killing children is wrong.
AnalystInParadise
(1,832 posts)Include the Iraqi kids we vaccinated? Because contrary to certain opinions, vaccines don't kill people.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Untold number of children killed so Wall Street can print money. No one has accounted for how much of that, either.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)to vaccinate the children we didn't kill. Righteous!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)There's a reason it's not on tee vee: It interferes with the New Message, which, as the great DUer Will Pitt noted, is the same as the Old Message. Message Theory. On-Message Theory.
The Pitfalls of Peace
The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
Tyler Coswen
The New York Times, JUNE 13, 2014
The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas as possible culprits.
An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.
The world just hasnt had that much warfare lately, at least not by historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but todays casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.
Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nations longer-run prospects.
It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, not todays entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.
War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.
SNIP...
Living in a largely peaceful world with 2 percent G.D.P. growth has some big advantages that you dont get with 4 percent growth and many more war deaths. Economic stasis may not feel very impressive, but its something our ancestors never quite managed to pull off. The real questions are whether we can do any better, and whether the recent prevalence of peace is a mere temporary bubble just waiting to be burst.
Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?_r=0
Money Trumps Peace -- pretty much always the on-message 24/7/366.
Thank you for standing up against that scream, G_j!
librechik
(30,674 posts)anything to avoid thinking about the reality of the police state we live in. Quit whining, our cluelessness is keeping tanks out of our streets. More or less.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Just when I thought, maybe, we had reached bottom and were ready to bounce up -- I discovered there may be no bottom -- for me and the large part of the 99-percent.
Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has seen the future and it looks bleak for most of us. Thankfully, those at the top, though, are in for some more good times. He spoke about his findings with NPR's Steve Inskeep. I almost dropped my smartphone into my coffee while texting during rush hour, listening to the report this morning, I was so steamed.
Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse
by NPR STAFF
September 12, 2013 3:05 AM
Economist Tyler Cowen has some advice for what to do about America's income inequality: Get used to it. In his latest book, Average Is Over, Cowen lays out his prediction for where the U.S. economy is heading, like it or not:
"I think we'll see a thinning out of the middle class," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "We'll see a lot of individuals rising up to much greater wealth. And we'll also see more individuals clustering in a kind of lower-middle class existence."
It's a radical change from the America of 40 or 50 years ago. Cowen believes the wealthy will become more numerous, and even more powerful. The elderly will hold on to their benefits ... the young, not so much. Millions of people who might have expected a middle class existence may have to aspire to something else.
SNIP...
Some people, he predicts, may just have to find a new definition of happiness that costs less money. Cowen says this widening is the result of a shifting economy. Computers will play a larger role and people who can work with computers can make a lot. He also predicts that everyone will be ruthlessly graded every slice of their lives, monitored, tracked and recorded.
CONTINUED with link to the audio...
http://www.npr.org/2013/09/12/221425582/tired-of-inequality-one-economist-says-itll-only-get-worse
For some reason, the interview with Steve Inskeep didn't bring up the subject of the GOVERNMENT DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT LIKE IN THE NEW DEAL so I thought I'd bring it up. Older DUers may recall the Democratic Party once actually did do stuff for the average American, from school and work to housing and justice. But, we can't afford that now, obviously.
Oh, the good news is the 1-percent may swell to a 15-percent "upper middle class" while the rest of the middle class goes the other way. Gee. That sounds eerily familiar.
Money trumps peace, librechik! Thanks for doing the Democratic thing and opposing that fascist philosophy.
librechik
(30,674 posts)I was spanked as a kid, but have no felonies under my belt. The same can't be said for Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)PS: Thank you for the Rec, Norm Guy! A hearty welcome to DU!
"Rec," hmm? Okay, I'll use that from now on.
malaise
(269,022 posts)they don't count. Remember - they are the barbarians
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...As demonstrated by their actions, they do not consider the Other as human at all. Like sociopathic solipsists, they pretend the suffering of Others does not exist. It's not just war on Iraq. Look how they let the banks get away with kicking tens of millions of homeowners to the curb. Who got bonuses? Who got the tab?
Sacrificing the Vulnerable, From Gaza to America
By Chris Hedges
Global Research, September 17, 2014
Truthdig 14 September 2014
EXCERPT...
Pundits and news celebrities on the airwaves engage in fevered speculation about whether the wife of a former president will run for officeand this after the mediocre son of another president spent eight years in the White House. This is not politics. It is gossip. Opinion polls, the staple of what serves as political reporting, are not politics. They are forms of social control. The use of billions of dollars to fund election campaigns and pay lobbyists to author legislation is not politics. It is legalized bribery. The insistence that austerity and economic rationality, rather than the welfare of the citizenry, be the primary concerns of the government is not politics. It is the death of civic virtue. The governments system of wholesale surveillance and the militarization of police forces, along with the psychosis of permanent war and state-orchestrated fear of terrorism, are not politics. They are about eradicating civil liberties and justifying endless war and state violence. The chatter about death panels, abortion, gay rights, guns and undocumented children crossing the border is not politics. It is manipulation by the power elites of emotion, hate and fear to divert us from seeing our own powerlessness.
CONTINUED...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/sacrificing-the-vulnerable-from-gaza-to-america/5402424
Gee. No wonder Reagan and the neocons want to defund the Department of Education: An educated slave might figure things out.
malaise
(269,022 posts)johnnyreb
(915 posts)K&R.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)All that post -- actually just a screen shot -- had in it was the results of a GOOGLE search to find examples where that person had called a Bush an "asshat."
Not even one instance turned up.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)neither of them are unimportant, and discussing one doesn't prevent discussion of the other etc.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Perhaps Iraq should have complied with the UN security council?
The sanctions against Iraq were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 (after Saddam Hussein's being forced from power), and persisted in part, including reparations to Kuwait, through the present.
The original stated purposes of the sanctions were to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq
Octafish
(55,745 posts)http://fair.org/media-beat-column/nsa-spied-on-u-n-diplomats-in-push-for-invasion-of-iraq/
Remind me, please, when did Iraq attack the United States?
And there were no WMDs.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)The original stated purposes of the sanctions were to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction.
But they did attack Kuwait if you recall...
And they definitely DID have WMD's at some point...they gassed the Iranian Army and their own Kurds.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."
As for the gas from the Iran-Iraq war and genocide against the Kurdish people, here's who made sure the chemical contracts were all in order.
BTW: Saddam offered to withdraw Iraq's army from Kuwait. But it was too late, also per James Baker. The reason for all the killing: Poppy Bush and his cronies were going to have that war and all the ancillary profits thereof.
That was 24 years ago. Corporate McPravda still wonders "Where are those WMDs?" but doesn't ask why, when a majority of the nation votes for peace, we still have war. Petroleum. It's where the plastics come from. And the "extraction" industries are where the big money is.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)As to their chemical program you can thank the German companies who built the "pesticide" plants for them.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Nothing good could come from war and the lies needed to sell it. Courtesy of Hill & Knowlton:
The Kuwait ambassador's daughter, testifying to the US Congress she was a nurse at a Kuwaiti City hospital who saw the Iraqi soldiers take babies from their incubators and leave them on the cold, hard floor so they could take the incubators back to Baghdad.
"If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it." -- Kuwait Ambassador
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)Last edited Thu Sep 18, 2014, 02:27 PM - Edit history (1)
....and it wasn't all tickles and hugs either.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)If it had, I'd be sure to report for duty.
As it hasn't, I wanted to remind people that my government has done a lot of killing to keep the spigot flowing for EXXON Mobil, etc.
Remember what Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC (ret.), twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: "War is a Racket."
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....attacked a smaller country to absorb it, that's against UN policies, therefor a coalition of countries united to stop them, as they should.
LawDeeDah
(1,596 posts)I can't see any reason to blame Iraq and to protect the likes of the murdering and thieving Bush filth. I had pizza for lunch and I brought a little bit up in my mouth after reading your posts.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)You OK with countries invading and taking over their smaller neighbors?
Which Bush lie resulted in the Security Council passing Resolution 678 which gave Iraq until 15 January 1991 to withdraw from Kuwait and empowered states to use "all necessary means" to force Iraq out of Kuwait after the deadline?
LawDeeDah
(1,596 posts)You really think that Iraq was bombed and sanctioned since Poppy's time all the way to Dim Son's time, all because of Kuwait? I think there was a much bigger plan and Kuwait was the excuse. Btw, Kuwait was angle drilling for oil in Iraq territory, so it's not like there was no provocation and that Iraq was always wrong and Kuwait and the Bush Regime are always right.
I would advise you read up on April Glaspie and the false message she sent Saddam.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)....is not a green light for a invasion and annexation.
LawDeeDah
(1,596 posts)and selling him deathmakers for his war with Iran.
But I must be off, I tire of this defense of the indefensible. The Bush family and his friends are evil pond scum.
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Still, I guess, focusing on what we can control here by posting and in our media...is at least an outlet where we think we can make a difference. More and more our Foreign Policy just takes our money to kill...and we can't do anything about it.
So folks try to do what they can to fix the issues at home through the media...hoping to change behavior.
But...yes... it's sad what you say...and some of us feel that burden constantly... and try to point it out. Thank you for doing that with this post.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)I'd never thought it possible, but Corporate McPravda is changing for the worse, KoKo, perhaps a sign of times to come.
For details, please see Tyler Cowen's thinking in posts 65 and 66 above.
The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater. -- Frank Zappa
We are there. The foundations were laid in previous times, but the final brick was put in place Nov. 22, 1963. The Secret Government serves the wealthy elite, exclusively, through war and Empire. It is like Italy with Mussolini, where the State and Corporate Power are one. And today, "Money trumps peace" and no one can do a damn thing about it, not even Cindy Sheehan.
reddread
(6,896 posts)business as usual, taking care of business.
if you think sausage (or Haggis is gruesome,
think what those profits are made out of...
Octafish
(55,745 posts)That small nation with ENORMOUS oil reserves means the BFEE gets to split the take with fewer "locals" than they would if it stayed under Baghdad's control. Toss in a war or two in the region, along with the never-ending global war on terror, to keep oil prices jacked-up and they're set in Switzerland. Fast forward 24 years and they and their cronies are still at it.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)Spanking lowers IQ, is rule based on fear. No-anethestic circumcision creates sub-conscious fears of unknown origin. Seems like warrior training, follow orders and the enemy is trying to kill you.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)The way we are raised. The way we are.
They combine to create how we behave and act towards others.
Some of us are taught to appreciate the Other. Some to fear the Other.
Perhaps we can discover better ways of teaching children, so they grow to appreciate other human beings.
Time Flies, Kids.
For all of us are children still.
Every second we live is a new and unique moment for the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again.
And what do we teach children in school? We teach them that two and two make four and that Paris is the capital of France.
When will we also teach them: Do you know what you are?
You are a Marvel. You are Unique. In all the world there is no other child exactly like you.
In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you.
And look at your body what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move!
You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.
Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel?
You must cherish one another. You must work. We all must work to make this world worthy of children.
-- Pablo Casals
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)You just noticed now?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)I've written about the government's violence problem a lot on DU. From 10 years back:
Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection
Here's another one I'm particularly proud of from 10 years ago about something from then-40 years back:
BUSH connected to JFK Assassination
Two of the links have gone zit, but the Wayback Machine may have them archived. If not, let me know and I'll see what I can find.
Almost forgot: When did you notice American government's violence problem?
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)A couple of linkies for those that love the truth
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives
http://library.cshl.edu/special-collections/eugenics
War Against The Weak (Edwin Black website)
http://www.waragainsttheweak.com
on edit:corrected spelling
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Or a trillion dollars?
And they've stolen trillions and made trillions and received trillions, all legal-like.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)It's similar to how when we are hearing or reading about a child disappearance we often assume the subject to be the same as us, if we are white, we think white. The other side is how the media out of all the children that are kidnapped and go missing each year, including teens and adults like to focus on the attractive white females.
The more sinister explanation is that it does not assist the current agenda (it doesn't matter who's)to talk about those "other than white children" being killed and maimed by our bombs and missiles and ratfucking countries into anarchy and oblivion.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"Every second we live is a new and unique moment for the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again.
And what do we teach children in school? We teach them that two and two make four and that Paris is the capital of France.
When will we also teach them: Do you know what you are?
You are a Marvel. You are Unique. In all the world there is no other child exactly like you.
In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you.
And look at your body what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move!
You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.
Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel?
You must cherish one another. You must work. We all must work to make this world worthy of children."
-- Pablo Casals
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)I just had my first child and that is what I will endeavor to teach them. I have arrived at much of what was said here by Pablo Casals on my own personal journey but it took me 41 years. I have dabbled in too many "ism's" to mention, but one thing had always remained. I do not know where it came from but long ago I had this revelation.
One night lying in bed and thinking and dreaming as I always did and still do, I was around 19 at the time, I imagined all the universe was on a television screen. The television screen was that of the old tube TV's and in it I imagined all space and time, then, I turned it off, and slowly all that ever was shrank and faded to a small white blip in the center of the screen, then the small white blip faded out as well. This is how TV's looked when you turned them off.
In that instant, I gasped, losing my breath and for a brief moment in time felt the urgency of existence in all it's grandness but a opposing and urgent sadness that took the air from my lungs as all faded to black. It was like Merlin giving Arthur a glimpse of the Dragon, in which to see it all would consign one to oblivion. I try to build on that everyday, feeling out around me.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)I think that those of us who are like you and me, with our idealism intact, are too many to count.
And our numbers are growing every day. Through being on Facebook, I notice that a lot for instance a lot of people who used to believe that GW Bush was the better man for the Presidency as "it would be fun to sit and have a beer with him"
They realize now that they were sold out, just as those on our side realize we are being sold out.
At times, the sapping of our energies and the continual feeding of the Dragon by those who seemingly have the power means we do entertain the notion of giving up. But then something happens, like the miracle of having a child. And suddenly you get the energy amped up all over again.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Poppy said it in '88, talking about Jebthro's kids:
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-17/news/mn-655_1_pride
So, there is a major problem inside the minds and hearts of the wealthy and their protectors: They don't believe all people are created equal.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)fundamentally and it is beyond politics. Lately I have been thinking about an analogy of living in a Zoo. At least in modern western civilization, and even when we think our minds are broad we are kept safe and inoculated, shielded by a fake "reality" like Zoo animals. Raised in captivity, provided for to a degree, not needing to survive in the most basic sense, to really wonder if you will see tomorrow, a fair amount of abundance, enough so that we barely feel anything when we waste, food, water, medicine, books, paper. I know we have people in our own "world" who's lives are precarious and uncertain so what speak to is the safe and sound masses, the consumers, the ones the media won't trouble by showing bodies of children torn apart by war.
JEB
(4,748 posts)That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. Trust in your fellows. When you are an adult...then comes suspicion, hatred, and fear. If children ran the world, it would be a place of eternal bliss and cheer. Adults run the world; and there is war, and enmity, and destruction unending. Adults who take charge of things muck them up, and then produce a new generation of children and say, "The children are the hope of the future." And they are right. Children are the hope of the future. But adults are the damnation of the present, and children become adults as surely as adults become worm food.
Adults are the death of hope.
― Peter David, Tigerheart
Octafish
(55,745 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)Thanks for posting that. I found his idea that political language is interested not in truth but in power all too accurate. Even here on DU it seems some are more interested in power than in truth. Harold Pinter certainly laid out a whole lot of truth in that lecture. Thanks again.
JEB
(4,748 posts)The tree is here, still, in pure stone
XVI: From: Las Piedras del Cielo
The tree is here, still, in pure stone,
in deep evidence, in solid beauty,
layered, through a hundred million years.
Agate, cornelian, gemstone
transmuted the timber and sap
until damp corruptions
fissured the giants trunk
fusing a parallel being:
the living leaves
unmade themselves
and when the pillar was overthrown
fire in the forest, blaze of the dust-cloud,
celestial ashes mantled it round,
until time, and the lava, created
this gift, of translucent stone.
By Pablo Neruda
Translated by A. S. Kline