Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1212
February 11, 2017
CIA’s Illegal Drug Trade Essential to Geopolitics
The illegal drug trade is an essential component of global politics, playing a central role in the proliferation of arms used to destabilize countries and unseat unfavorable regimes in the geopolitical quest to create favorable conditions for oil ventures while bolstering the banking industry.
Peter Dale Scott, a Canadian born scholar, poet and former diplomat, the world’s foremost researcher into the inner workings of government conspiracy (conspiracy meaning organized plans and programs). He has for decades been exposing the shadow elements operating under the cover of government, deep politics and big oil.
This underworld of influence is described in detail in Scott’s latest book, The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on U.S. Democracy (War and Peace Library).
“He marshals convincing evidence that the deep state is partly institutionalized in non-accountable intelligence agencies like the CIA and NSA, but it also includes private corporations like Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC, to which 70 percent of intelligence budgets are outsourced. Behind these public and private institutions is the traditional influence of Wall Street bankers and lawyers, allied with international oil companies beyond the reach of domestic law.” [Source]
Thus, Scott makes the case that these institutions operate outside of the law, and in a 2010 interview with James Corbett of the Corbett Report he makes the connection the global illegal drug trade is a primary factor in the funding and operation of government agencies which operate without legitimate legal franchise.
The connections between drug money, the deep state, and Wall Street are now well-defined.
“It’s clear that drug trafficking is a major factor in world scheme, and some people put it up as maybe number three, after oil being number one, and then arms number two, and then drugs number three. Actually there’s a certain amount of interaction between those because very often where you’re having illicit trafficking of arms, the planes that take arms in one direction, the arms are paid for with drugs and the planes come back with drugs.” ~Peter Dale Scott
Scott also discusses statements made in 2009 by the head of the UN Office of Drugs and report revealing the critical role drug money played in keeping several of the world’s largest banks afloat during the financial crisis of 2008.
“Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.” [Source]
Read more . . .
via Illegal Drug Trade Essential to Geopolitics, Says Former Diplomat —
Big Macs And Other Fast Food Is Wrapped In Dangerous Chemicals That Will Kill You
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New study regarding dangerous chemicals in fast food packaging.
YOUR PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY
Published on Feb 11, 2017
Could your Big Mac kill you? According to a new study published in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, the answer is yes – but not for the reason you might think: Harmful chemicals called PFCs, which have been linked to cancer and other illnesses. Graham Peaslee, professor of experimental nuclear physics at Notre Dame, joins RT America’s Anya Parampil to explain why PFCs are so widely used and the dangers they pose to consumers.
The CIA and the Drug Trade*
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James Corbett’s eye opening documentary about the CIA’s major role in illegal drug trafficking.
The CIA and the Drug Trade*
Just as the British Empire was in part financed by their control of the opium trade through the British East India Company, so too has the CIA been found time after time to be at the heart of the modern international drug trade. From its very inception, the CIA has been embroiled in the murky underworld of drug trafficking.
There are billions of dollars per year to be made in keeping the drug trade going, and it has long been established that Wall Street and the major American banks rely on drug money as a ready source of liquid capital. With those kinds of funds at stake, it is unsurprising to see a media-government-banking nexus develop around the status quo of a never-ending war on drugs – aided, abetted and facilitated by the modern-day British East India Company, the CIA.
This is our EyeOpener…
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February 10, 2017
Falling cost of renewables will challenge Trump’s plan for coal jobs
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If clean energy becomes cheaper than dirty energy, surely a Republican president looking for a good deal can’t argue with that.
The Political Economy of Development
This short interview from the Real News Network illustrates the progress of clean energy generation in the US, compared with dirtier sources. The argument is that the cost of renewables is falling fast, such that they are becoming cheaper than coal-fired generation, which Mr Trump has promised to support. Cleaner sources also have positive spillover effects on health, known in economics as a positive externality.
The logic of market forces has probably been helped along by industrial policies, from Obama’s Clean Power Plan to the Chinese government, which has promoted the development of its solar panel industry. But if clean energy becomes cheaper than dirty energy, surely a Republican president looking for a good deal can’t argue with that.
Fuck Work
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A subject very dear to my heart – in my experience paid work is the absolute best way to destroy human potential – unless you’re a CEO.
Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?
By James Livingston
Source: aeon
Work means everything to us Americans. For centuries – since, say, 1650 – we’ve believed that it builds character (punctuality, initiative, honesty, self-discipline, and so forth). We’ve also believed that the market in labour, where we go to find work, has been relatively efficient in allocating opportunities and incomes. And we’ve believed that, even if it sucks, a job gives meaning, purpose and structure to our everyday lives – at any rate, we’re pretty sure that it gets us out of bed, pays the bills, makes us feel responsible, and keeps us away from daytime TV.
These beliefs are no longer plausible. In fact, they’ve become ridiculous, because there’s not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won’t pay the bills –…
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The Importance of Fascism in End Stage Capitalism
The Coming Struggle for Power
by John Strachey
Victor Golancz Limited (1932)
Free download link: The Coming Struggle for Power
Book Review
In The Coming Struggle for Power, British historian makes the prediction (writing in 1932) that capitalism is in its death throes and will end by 1950. He was wrong, obviously. Strachey had no way of predicting the tremendous boost monopoly capitalism would receive from Cold War military spending, nor the “financialization” (the shift from selling products to selling financial instruments) that would happen in the 1970s.
The book is largely historical, tracing the transition all global economies underwent from feudalism to mercantilism (large scale international trade) and from mercantilism to capitalism. In Europe both transformations were violent. Strachey points to the Rebellion of 1640 (during which Charles I was beheaded) and the Revolution of 1688 (in which James II was overthrown) during the feudal-mercantilist transition. The Enclosure Acts of the 18th century marked the mercantilist-capitalist transition. During this period British troops drove tens of thousands of families off lands they had farmed communally for more than 1,000 years – with most ending up in prisons and work houses.
Strachey also stresses that neither the French Revolution nor the American Revolution was really about political freedom or equality. The real purpose of both wars was to end old feudal relationships that interfered with the right of the new capitalist class to freely produce, buy and sell goods at a profit
The Inevitable Decay of Monopoly Capitalism
Strachey takes the Great Depression of the 1930s as evidence that capitalism has reached its final stage of monopoly capitalism. Quoting Lenin, he lists the three telltale signs that monopolistic capitalism has begun to decay:
1. The monopolistic corporations that control finance capital (ie banks) essentially merge with the monopolistic corporations that control production.
2. There’s growing focus on exporting capital (ie moving factories overseas).
3. National governments, which are essentially controlled by their monopolies, are in constant conflict with one another over who will control the resources, markets and cheap labor of the Third World.
Gee, this sounds familiar. The parallels with 2017 are uncanny.
The Inevitable Rise of Fascism
Strachey also writes about the important role of fascism in end stage capitalism. The declining profits and growth (ie stagnation) associated with end stage capitalism inevitably lead to reduced wages, poorer working conditions and a claw back of social welfare benefits enacted during more productive periods. This, in turn, leads to more conflict between workers and capitalists. Ensuring that production continues during a period of heavy stagnation necessitates the rise of fascism, in which the capitalists themselves organize workers into right wing populist movements which enact laws unfavorable to working people.
How Capitalism Stifles Intellectual Life
For me, the most interesting section of The Coming Struggle for Power concerns the stifling effect of corporate capitalism on intellectual life. Emphasizing the narrow ideological framework capitalism imposes on intellectuals, he devotes one chapter each to religion, philosophy and science and two to literature.
Because “capitalist” theologians and philosophers are limited to value systems that support profit taking and wealth accumulation, humankind has made absolutely no progress in 200 years in leading more moral and ethical lives. This stifling effect is also obvious in the areas of renewable energy technology (people forget Carter had a solar panel on the White House in 1979) and health science. At present, the profit motive has distorted health care to the point that many medical interventions actually make people sicker.
February 9, 2017
Bannon to Name Leading Group Fighting ISIS as “Terrorists”
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Concerns were raised recently by defense and intelligence officials at the highest levels, according to the Washington Post, citing unnamed sources in the administration.
http://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Top military officials have cautioned the White House against designating Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist group, arguing the move would endanger American troops in Iraq, where the Corps is also fighting Islamic State, US media revealed. The concerns were raised recently by defense and intelligence officials at the highest levels, according to [?]
Vía Veterans Today http://ift.tt/2lsd0gU
2017 HAZ ALREADY SEEN SEVERAL PRISON REBELLIONZ
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Although the nationwide prison strike has fallen from headlines in recent months, incarcerated individuals continue to resist abuse and mistreatment while supporters on the outside rally to their defense.
Graffiti from a solidarity action in Oakland, California (Photo by @lrsphm)Although the nationwide prison strike has fallen from headlines in recent months, incarcerated individuals continue to resist abuse and mistreatment while supporters on the outside rally to their defense.
Prisoners in Delaware made international headlines when they took hostages and held Building C at the Vaughn Correctional Center for nearly 24 hours. They demanded access to rehabilitation and education services, and spoke out against “improper sentencing orders, status sheets being wrong, [and] oppression towards the inmates.”
They also said their protest was against President Donald Trump, “everything that he did” and “all the things that he’s doing now.”
“We know that the institution is going to change for the worse,” a spokesperson for the prisoners told a journalist.
The uprising ended when police used a back hoe to break through a barricade made of footlockers and entered the building. Some…
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Prominent Republicans Pitch Carbon-Tax Plan to Top Trump Aides
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Source: Bloomberg
A group of prominent Republicans and business leaders pitched a tax on carbon dioxide to top White House aides Wednesday, selling the plan as an economic win that could drive job growth and yield environmental dividends too.
Former Secretary of State James Baker and other members of the new “Climate Leadership Council” pressed the case in a 45-minute meeting in the Roosevelt Room that included President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior aide Kellyanne Conway.
“The signs were very encouraging,” Ted Halstead, who founded the council, said after the meeting. “Two weeks into this new administration, we have positioned our solution as the most promising climate solution — if they want to go there.”
Baker also met briefly with Vice President Mike Pence, as the old-guard Republicans try to persuade the Trump administration that a carbon tax imposed in exchange for abolishing a slew of environmental regulations is an insurance policy against the risks of climate change.
“We know we have an uphill slog to get Republicans interested in this,” Baker said before the White House meeting. But “a conservative, free-market approach is a very Republican way of approaching the problem.”
White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to comment on the idea.
Source: Prominent Republicans Pitch Carbon-Tax Plan to Top Trump Aides
Cannabis Exerts Powerful Neuroprotective Effects And May Soon Be Used In Stroke and Cardiac Emergencies
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Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of over 100 active cannabinoids in cannabis. It accounts for 40 percent of the plant’s extract and widely considered to be one of it’s most powerful constituents that heals cells. Emergency teams in cardiac and stroke units may one day use CBD’s neuroprotective effects to prevent the onset of debilitating symptoms developing from stroke and cardiac arrest.
by Marco Torres, PreventDisease.com
Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of over 100 active cannabinoids in cannabis. It accounts for 40 percent of the plant’s extract and widely considered to be one of it’s most powerful constituents that heals cells. Emergency teams in cardiac and stroke units may one day use CBD’s neuroprotective effects to prevent the onset of debilitating symptoms developing from stroke and cardiac arrest.
The reason cannabis is so effective medicinally is directly related to its ability to interact with receptors in the body which inhibit inflammation and prevent disease. Cannabis does this so well, that few drugs can compete with its level of potency which come essentially with no side effects.
The new study from China documents”for the first time” how CBD can exert a potentially neuroprotective effect against brain ischemia/reperfusion injury.
Brain ischemia is a common clinical condition, and is involved in many serious diseases…
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