Corruption
Government corruption
Chelsea Manning, the US army soldier serving a 35-year military prison sentence for leaking official secrets, has been threatened with indefinite solitary confinement for having an expired tube of toothpaste in her cell and being found in possession of the Caitlyn Jenner Vanity Fair issue, according to her lawyers and supporters.
Here we are, 70 years after the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki & not one step closer to a moral reckoning with our status as the world’s only country to use atomic weapons to slaughter human beings. Will an American president ever offer a formal apology and will we as citizens stop rationalizing that somehow lives were saved by ultimately killing at least a 1/4 of a million people? Since then, we have had massive military build up, a cold war,
Given the last seven decades of perpetual militarization and nuclear “modernization” in this country, the answer may seem like an obvious no. Still, as a historian, I’ve been trying to dig a little deeper into our lack of national contrition. As I have, Real love often requires the strength to apologize and make amends.
“There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.” Noam Chomsky
On Thursday, 275 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of H.R. 1599, the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act. By voting for the DARK Act, these politicians voted against truth and transparency, against science, against the more than century-old right of states to legislate on matters relating to food safety and labeling. They voted against the 90-percent of Americans who are in favor of mandatory labeling of GMOs. They voted against the producers of non-GMO foods. They voted against you.
Despite strong opposition, on June 24 the US Senate passed the Fast Track bill 1,2 (known as Trade Promotion Authority or TPA) that gives the President carte blanche to negotiate and finalize free trade deals in complete secrecy, which brings us one step closer to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP, which appears to be nothing short of a corporate takeover of global powers, has the legal ability to thwart all future attempts at protecting the public from genetically engineered (GE) foods. For this and many other reasons, the TPP must be stopped.
Make no mistake about it. The tide has turned on the global elite and there will be no going back. A new day is rising for humanity as those who have planned for complete control are now being exposed, cornered and investigated from many different angles. There is no need to buy into the fear-based propaganda the major media and even several alternative media outlets dispense.
Very good things are happening and even better things are coming. Let’s take a look at some of the major stories that have occurred in the last 8 weeks alone. Piecing the puzzle together, we see that the jig is up and the events surrounding it are growing in size and speed.
I received an Email on July 6, 2015 about the Trans-Pacific Partnership from the largest federation of unions in the U.S. I have received previous Emails from them regarding this subject and they have been a vocal opponent of the TPP for years. What I found curious about this communication is how it has shifted its goal – from seeking the defeat of the bill to asking the president for revisions that will be good for labor. Now, keep in mind that many individuals and groups have stated that this is an awful trade bill. I have characterized the bill in a previous article as “trash” and attempted to make the point that, no matter how you try to dress it up or make it seem more palatable, trash is still trash.
Drugs to transform individuals…and even, by implication, society. Drug research going far beyond the usual brief descriptions of MKULTRA. The intention is there, in the record. A CIA document was included in the transcript of the 1977 US Senate Hearings on MKULTRA, the CIA’s mind-control program. The document is found in Appendix C, starting on page 166. It’s simply labeled “Draft,” dated 5 May 1955. It begins: “A portion of the Research and Development Program of [CIA’s] TSS/Chemical Division is devoted to the discovery of the following materials and methods:” What followed was a list of hoped-for drugs and their uses.
Walmart has used foreign tax havens to shelter $76 billion in assets avoiding having to pay $3.5 billion in income tax over the last six years according to a Americans for Tax Fairness report. The report —”The Wal-Mart Web: How the World’s Biggest Corporation Secretly Uses Tax Havens to Dodge Taxes” – shows the company used a “network of 78 subsidiaries and branches in 15 overseas tax havens, which may be used to minimize foreign taxes where it has retail operations and to avoid U.S. tax on those foreign earnings.”
Nothing would prevent the Congress from voting the TPP down, especially and because the contents of the Treaty are secret. The public isn’t informed of the details. Any US legislator with a trace of courage would do just that—vote it down.
The legislators themselves have been allowed to enter a sealed room and read some of the content. But there is no guarantee that what they’re reading is in the final draft of the Treaty. The legislators may takes notes in the sealed room, but they can’t keep their notes. They can’t make copies. They can’t discuss what they’ve read with the press or the public.
Again, on that basis alone, any legislator with a shred of honor would vote no on the Treaty. And no on secrecy.
If a member of Congress did break omertà and reveal to the public what he read in the sealed room, he would be violating Executive Branch regulations on classified data (“national security”), and he could be arrested.
Well, that is exactly what a Senator or Representative who, with courage and honor, opposes the TPP, should welcome. An arrest? He should celebrate it.
The Greek PM has announced a national referendum on July 5 on the conditions of the debt deal with international creditors. It’s up to the Greek people, Tsipras said, to make a fateful decision on the country’s sovereignty, independence and future. “These proposals, which clearly violate the European rules and the basic rights to work, equality and dignity show that the purpose of some of the partners and institutions was not a viable agreement for all parties, but possibly the humiliation of an entire people,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address to the nation, as cited by Reuters.
Crisisactors.org, the website established to represent the collaboration between the Visionbox professional actors studio and FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute has been dormant since August 2014…This is according to information obtained from Internet Archive on June 15, 2015. Producers Jennifer McCray Rincon and John Simmons formed the group to demonstrate emerging security technologies, help first responders visualize life-saving procedures, and assist trainers in delivering superior hands-on crisis response training…The actors can play the part of the shooters, mall employees, shoppers in the mall, shoppers who continue to arrive at the mall, media reporters and others rushing to the mall, and persons in motor vehicles around the mall.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras launched a scathing attack on the International Monetary Fund for rejecting Greek reform proposals ahead of talks in Brussels Wednesday, denting hopes of a final debt deal to prevent Athens from defaulting and leaving the euro. The leftist leader hit out at the “strange position” just minutes before going into an eleventh-hour meeting with key lenders including Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, and the European Union.
As Congressional Democrats on Wednesday took a sharp U-turn from their previous opposition to President Barack Obama’s corporate-friendly trade agenda, presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.) reiterated his disdain for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and demanded that the era of “corporate greed must end.”
In a win for multinational corporations and the global one percent, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday narrowly advanced Fast Track, or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) —ensuring for all practical purposes the continued rubber-stamping of clandestine trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
