Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1320
September 14, 2015
George W. Bush to MSNBC’s Brian Williams: 9/11 “Was an Inside Job”
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I suspect this is satire. Rignt?
Originally posted on Real News, Right Now:
NEW YORK, Ny. – In an exclusive interview with former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, ex-president George W. Bush spoke at his ranch in Crawford, Texas this week about adjusting to life post-presidency and discussed a variety of topics including the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Cuba, Osama bin Laden, and his involvement in the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11th, 2001.
“You often hear people say ‘Bush did 9/11.’ That’s just not true,” the 43rd president told Williams. “I was only a pawn; a foot-soldier of sorts.” Bush, while downplaying his role in the tragedy, said the events in their entirety were orchestrated by the Illuminati. “These guys are involved in what they call a ‘multi-century power struggle’ with the Reptilians,” Bush said. “They want to achieve world-domination.”
On the night of September 10th, less than twelve hours before American Airlines Flight 11 struck…
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Syrians Unwelcome In Arab Lands, Just As Were the Palestinians Before Them
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The Syrian refugee crisis is shedding a new light on the historically hostile attitude of Arab countries towards Palestinian refugees.
Originally posted on ThereAreNoSunglasses:
“It is no surprise that refugees fleeing Syria have no ambitions to settle in any Arab country. They know that their fate in the Arab world will be no better than that of Palestinians living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries.”
Jordan: We Do Not Want Palestinians
“Improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees. Allow them to settle down. Give them citizenship so that they can live as human beings.” — Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar, an Oslo-based Palestinian academic, blasting Arab the world for its continued mistreatment of Palestinians.
The Arabs do not care about the Palestinians and want them to remain Israel’s problem. Countries such as Lebanon and Syria would rather see Palestinians living as “animals in the jungle” than grant them basic rights such as employment, education and citizenship.
A recent decision by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for…
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September 13, 2015
What They Won’t Tell US About China’s Economy
China Rises: Getting Rich
New York Times Documentary (2013)
Film Review
“How China Backs Its Enormous Economic Success”
China Rises purports to uncover the secret of China’s phenomenal economic success. It traces the massive migration of rural peasants into scores of newly fabricated cities and industrial centers. Of the thousands of new factories springing up over the last thirty years, half are privately owned and half are state owned enterprises. Most manufacture consumer goods (clothes, electronic gadgets, shoes, textiles, heavy appliances, household goods, toys, watches) for export.
The filmmakers attribute China’s economic miracle to their newfound openness to private enterprise and their ridiculously low wages. At the time the documentary was made, the average Chinese wage was 60 cents an hour for a 12 hour day. By the end of last year, this had increased to $1.69 an hour Rising Chinese Wages
Most of the film focuses on the lavish lifestyles of China’s most famous self-made millionaires. There are also several interviews with rural peasants who have migrated to China’s designer cities to work. Most are extremely grateful for the opportunity to earn money to lift their families out of extreme poverty. Women, however, tend to be sad about being separated from their children – their earnings aren’t sufficient to bring them to the city, so they are cared for by grandparents in the rural villages.
The film also features segments about China’s emerging middle class learning to pamper themselves and China’s rampant knock-off industry, specializing in counterfeit luxury items, fake birth control pills, fake antibiotics and even fake milk powder. The latter caused 54,000 Chinese babies to be hospitalized (six died) in 2008.
Ignoring the Real Reason for China’s Stellar Growth
What I find most significant about this video is what it leaves out. In fact, it totally ignores the main impetus for China’s phenomenal growth – namely a monetary policy that doesn’t rely on borrowing money from private banks.
As of February 2014, China had only borrowed a total of $US 823 billion from foreign banks – about 9% of GDP. In contrast, the debt the US owes to private banks is 101.5% of GDP.
Unlike most western economies, 90% of the loans used to finance businesses and government services originate from China’s government-run central bank.* Bloomberg’s refers to it as “Chinese-style” quantitative easing, ie the Chinese government is creating the money out of thin air, rather than borrowing it from private banks (and paying them interest to create it out of thin air).
This differs from US-style quantitative easing in that the Chinese government spends the money they create directly into the economy instead of handing it over to private banks.
Despite Obama’s recent attacks on China for “weakening their currency,” neither the President nor the corporate effort make any effort to explain exactly how the Chinese are doing this. The explanation is actually fairly simple: pumping more yuan/renminbi into the Chinese economy causes inflation and weakens the currency’s value in relation to other global currencies.
The corporate media glosses over these details because they don’t really want Americans to understand where US dollars come from – that 97% of the dollars in circulation are created by banks out of thin air and loaned to us at interest. Or that depending on private banks to create and control our money supply is a big reason for our current economic crisis. See Stripping Banks of Their Power to Issue Money
They especially don’t want us to realize there’s an alternative – government-issued currency by a government owned central bank – nor that it’s working miracles for the Chinese economy.
*Contrary to popular belief, the US central bank, aka the Federal Reserve, is a consortium of private banks overseen by a government appointed director (Janet Yellen).
September 12, 2015
BIG PHARMA: 7 Drugs Whose Dangerous Risks Emerged Only After Big Pharma Made Its Money
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What I find really scary is these drugs are really popular and most people over 50 have taken one or more at some point. I myself suffer from a chronic clostridium difficile infection after taking Nexium.
Originally posted on RIELPOLITIK:
Source – alternet.org, By Martha Rosenberg
– Have you ever noticed how warnings about dangerous prescription drugs always seem to surface after the drug is no longer marketed and its patent has run out? Whether it’s an FDA advisory or a trial lawyer solicitation about harm that may have been done to you, the warnings are always belated and useless. If a drug you took four years ago may have given you liver damage, why didn’t the FDA tell you then? Why didn’t the FDA recall the drug or better yet, not approve it in the first place?
The official answer from the FDA and Big Pharma is that problems with a drug are only seen after millions begin using it, which is why post-marketing surveillance is conducted. In other words—who knew? But in a startling number of cases revealed in court documents Pharma did “know” and clearly misled medical…
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September 10, 2015
A 1991 BBC Documentary About Donald Trump
Trump: What’s the Deal?
BBC (1991)
Film Review
Trump: What the Deal? is a 1991 documentary about Donald Trumps early life. It’s been suppressed for 24 years owing to his threats to sue the BBC
Even back in 1988, Trump was known as the “people’s billionaire.” According to the filmmakers, this was largely due to shrewd marketing by his press agent (all the rich had press agents during the 1980s – it was fashionable to be ostentatiously wealthy).
According to the documentary, Trump has an ugly history of classic sociopathy, which includes “truthful hyperbole” (his own term for bending the truth), collaborating with mobsters, known criminals and notorious Mafia attorney Roy Cohn to score questionable tax abatements from New York City officials, cheat contract workers out of payment, conceal asbestos contamination and illegally harass and evict tenants (even after the court ordered him not to).
The film debunks Trump’s claim of being a self-made billionaire. He inherited his wealth from his father. According to Forbes magazine he’s been in bankruptcy court five times (most recently in 2014). He’s notorious for using borrowed money (often in the form of junk bonds) to finance real estate developments and filing for bankruptcy protection when he can’t meet debt repayments.
HIGH SOCIETY: Henry Ford’s Suppressed Hemp Car
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The main reason marijuana was prohibited in the 20th century (by corporate interests seeking to promote oil demand and petroleum based plastics) was to suppress hemp fuel and fiber production. Both are inexpensive to make and naturally decentralized. Marijuana prohibition enabled small groups of people to profit from the capital intensive petrochemical alternatives that dominate our political process and economy today.
Originally posted on RIELPOLITIK:
Source – in5d.com
– We might think that our ethanol and biodiesel “flex-fuel” systems are all very cutting edge, but biofuel development is of course nothing new. Way back in the 1930’s, Henry Ford was hard at work in the alt-fuels sector, and in 1941 he constructed a hemp-fueled and hemp-bodied prototype car. The “plastic” body panels were composed of 70% cellulose fibers, including industrial hemp, mixed with a resin binder, and apparently they were pretty sturdy.
The reason marijuana was prohibited in the 20th century was to suppress hemp fuel and fiber production, which is inexpensive to make and naturally decentralized, so that small groups of people could profit from the capital intensive petrochemical alternatives that dominate our political process and economy today.
Hemp will decentralize our economic system and return wealth and control to the majority.
Hemp & marijuana both come from the same plant, cannabis sativa, which…
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September 9, 2015
Going Off the Grid
Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for more Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America
by Nick Rosen
Penguin Books (2010)
Book Review
Off the Grid is an exploration of the diverse permutations of the US off-the-grid movement. According to British journalist and documentary filmmaker Nick Rosen, living “off the grid” can have a variety of meanings. For some it means living self-sufficiently without the higher cost and carbon emissions of electric, gas, water and sewage connections. For others, it means living incommunicado without the daily intrusion of cellphones or email. In a few cases, involving political dissidents or those with criminal records, it means escaping the prying eyes of the surveillance society.
The movement includes liberal-leaning environmentalists, who Rosen describes as the “foot soldiers of the eco-revolution,” right wing civil libertarians and survivalists, the homeless and urban homesteaders who capture rainwater and produce their own electricity despite living within city limits.
In 2007, there were 300,000 off the grid households in the US. By 2010, the number had reached 520,000 and was growing by 10-15% annually.
Obama’s Smart Grid
Rosen is clearly a strong supporter – and part time practitioner – of off the grid living. He also strongly opposes Obama’s push to build a multibillion dollar “Smart Grid.” With the latter, power companies use Smart Meters to continuously monitor users’ electricity consumption. Power companies (and Obama) are bending the truth when they claim a government subsidized smart grid is essential to respond to big growth in future electricity demand. Electricity demand is decreasing, due to the economic downturn and big improvements in efficiency.
The real reason power companies want Obama to build them a Smart Grid is to facilitate long distance trading in wholesale electricity. This is where they make their big money (Anyone remember Enron?).
The History of the Grid
The most interesting section of the book explores the historical development of the electrical grid. According to Rosen, it part of a deliberate scheme by Edison and GE (the company he founded) to increase electricity consumption. Both GE and Westinghouse launched massive propaganda campaigns to get people to sign up for the grid and purchase more electrical appliances to increase their consumption.
Although far less profitable for power companies, there’s no question that smaller, decentralized energy supply networks would have been more efficient* and cheaper for consumers.
Intentional Community
The bulk of the book focuses on groups and individuals who have created off-the-grid communities to recapture the social engagement that has disappeared from modern society. People who join them make an intentional decision to rely on one another, rather than technology, to meet their needs.
One prominent example includes the Earthship community architect Mike Reynolds started in New Mexico. An Earthship is an ecologically sustainable home built out of used tires filled with earth or sand and other recycled items. Dennis Weaver’s documentary Garbage Warrior, celebrates Reynold’s creation of the Earthship concept. Another highlight is Rosen’s fascinating visit to an Amish old order Mennonite community in Kentucky.
Belittling 911 Truthers
One part of the book that really irritated me was the chapter belittling civil libertarians who decided to live off-the-grid after discovering the 9-11 attacks were an “inside job.” Rosen makes it appear as if people who reject the Bush administration version of the Twin Tower attacks (as I do) are mentally ill and deluded.
Support for the 9-11 truth movement is in no way limited to paranoid right wing libertarians, as Rosen suggests. Globally the movement has millions of adherents and they represent the entire political spectrum.
*Our current electrical power system operates at approximately http://www.epa.gov/chp/basic/efficiency.html efficiency.
September 8, 2015
Streep’s Call for Gender Equality Ignored
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In her campaign to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment to end discrimination against women, Meryl Streep sent copies of Jessica Neuwirth’s book Equal Means Equal to all 100 Senators and all 435 Congress persons. She received 5 responses.
Originally posted on Political Film Blog:
Streep’s equal opportunities plea virtually ignored by Congress
The existence of Streep’s letter was first revealed in June. “I am writing to ask you to stand up for equality – for your mother, your daughter, your sister, your wife or yourself – by actively supporting the equal rights amendment,” she wrote.
September 7, 2015
Reclaim the Commons: Take Back the Grid
On average, Germany obtained 27.8% of their electrical power from renewable sources in 2014, up from 6.2% in 2000. This contrasts with 13.2% renewably produced electricity in the US and 18% in the UK.
Writing in the October 22, 2014 Guardian , Kate Henderson, Chief Executive of the Town and Country Planning Association, attributes much of Germany’s success in greening their power supply to a growing grassroots movement to re-muncipalize power production. Since 2007, 170 German municipalities have bought back their grid from private power companies. This is in addition to 650 energy cooperatives owned by private individuals and cooperatives. Due to the innate inefficiency of power grids,* numerous communities have abandoned large regional grids for local distributed energy projects.
As Nick Rosen writes in Off the Grid, there’s no question that smaller, decentralized energy supply networks are cheaper and more efficient for consumers. Grids only developed because they’re more profitable for power companies.
I totally agree with Henderson’s premise: citizens need to quite relying on dishonest politicians and sociopathic corporations to help them reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. It makes much more sense to take back power generation into local community control.
What I find especially exciting is that it’s already happening.
Taking Back the Grid
In late 2013, the citizens of Hamburg (Germany’s second largest city) voted to buy back their electrical power grid. Two other major cities, Frankfurt and Munich, resisted privatization in the 1990s and retained their electrical supply in public hands. In 2013, Berlin voters also passed a referendum to re-muncipalize their power supply, but the voter turnout was too low for it to take effect.
Several US cities have hosted similar re-municipalization movements. In 2011 owing to Xcel Energy’s reluctance to pursue solar energy alternatives, Boulder Colorado passed two ballot initiatives empowering the city council to buy back the power grid. The process has been stalled fighting Xcel lawsuits challenging the city’s right to buy the energy grid.
The Privatization of US Energy Utilities
Until about the 1980s, most US cities had public utilities. However, the lingering effects of the 1970s energy crisis and the privatization and deregulation frenzy of the Reagan and Clinton years led many cities to sell their power plants and distribution grids in the eighties and nineties. Since that time, large energy conglomerates, most of which are hooked on coal-fired power or fracked gas, have controlled most of America’s energy production.
Santa Fe and Minneapolis are also considering initiatives to buy back their electricity supply.
Sacramento, Austin and Seattle, which never gave theirs up, are far ahead of the rest of the country in their reliance on renewable power generation.
Sacramento derives 38% of its electricity from renewable resources, Austin 20% and Seattle 93.8%.
*According to the EPA. Our current electrical power system operates at approximately 33% efficiency.
photo credit: wikimedia commons
September 6, 2015
FBI pays informant $41,000 to radicalize Minneapolis Somalis into joining ISIS
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Yet another example of made in the USA terrorism, bought and paid for by the FBI.
Originally posted on YOUR PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY:
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(MINNEAPOLIS) There is now a trial date forseven Minnesota men accused of plotting to join ISIS.
Supporters and family members packed a court hearing Wednesday and the judge once again ruled that, at least for now, none of the seven would be released from jail to halfway houses.
The trial for the seven men, who range in age from 19 to 21, will begin next February.
The informant in this case is a friend of the seven men who prosecutors admit was part of the plot before becoming an FBI informant.
So far, the informant has been paid $41,000 by the FBI, a fact that has outraged the defendants’ family and friends.
The confidential informant was a close friend of the seven men, but they did not know was he was secretly recording their conversations for the FBI.
MORE: http://govtslaves.info/fbi-pays-informant-41000-to-radicalize-minneapolis-somalis-into-joining-isis/
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