daily dose ...

 .. of propaganda

Subtitle: Cui bono?

-=*=-

As usual, via RN/Breakfast, a report (this time from the BBC, as opposed to the more usual CNN), blaming 'Islamic militants' for the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

I ask you to ask yourself Q: Cui bono?

A1: Some scruffy band of Islamic militants OR

A2: The 'ruling' kleptocracy and their evil rip-offs.

-=*=-

Not much changes, without our situation getting worse. Yeah, we in Aus have recently had a small (but nevertheless significant) 'win,' with the metaphorical death of our very own wicked old witch, JWHoward(&Co). But Rudd&Co have already flagged that they (meaning we, the sheople®) are staying in Afghanistan 'for the long haul.' In other words, 'Western' interference (illegal invasion, brutal occupation) aka the rape of Afghanistan will continue. As for Afghanistan (murder for oil pipeline), so (worse) for Iraq: murder for whole lakes of oil. And worst of all, the 60-year cancer on the planet that is Israel (murdering for land, water) will become ever more malignant.

All this is known - by the few such as we netizens who can and do look, but not by the many, i.e. those served by the (venal!) MSM - which includes big bits'a the AusBC & SBS (boo! Hiss!) Since '9/11' things have gone even more haywire, with Israel now employing the full spectrum of the US-weapons wizardry to carry out their foul murders.

The real terrorists are the cold-blooded murdering thieves who always benefit: the fat-cat rich getting ever more obscenely richer. One need think only of Cheney's pre-9/11 oil-maps of Iraq.

The pirate regimes of the US and Israel (with poodle UK, hardly less daggy Aus); the puppet regimes of Pakistan, Iraq & Afghanistan (and almost wherever else there are resources for the stealing) will all continue their criminal murdering for spoil.

I ask you to ask yourself again, Q: Cui bono?

Who is getting the biggest benefit, from the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto say, or 'the biggie,' 9/11 itself?

blog closed until Feb'08 or until after greedastrophe ...

.. which ever comes 1st.

Update: see below*.

SBS 18dec'07 22:00 Crude Impact 23:45

Crude Impact exposes our deep-rooted dependency on the availability of fossil fuel energy and examines the future implications of peak oil, i.e. the point in time when the amount of petroleum available worldwide begins a steady, inexorable decline. It looks at the role of the media in keeping the people in developed countries unaware of the climate changes affecting the world today. Thanks to mankind's rapid growth, fuelled by fossil fuels and other minerals, we are warming the earth. As heat increases, the energy in the atmosphere increases causing more storms, hurricanes, droughts and other severe weather conditions. (From Australia, in English) (Documentary Series) (Rpt) PG (A) CC

In plain text: get sustainable, or get dead.

*Update: the descriptor "From Australia" is probably an error; see this website.

I watched the film "Crude Impact" after a 'tip-off' from a friend; it was preceded by another so-called documentary "Energy War." In my opinion the earlier piece is utter garbage, containing as it does almost unbelievable levels of filthy, pro-US propaganda. Boo! Hiss! If SBS is gunna broadcast such bilge, it could at least do so with a proper warning.

eat it!

 Subtitle: moral bankruptcy[1,2].

-=*=-

«Attention liberals. Waterboarding stopped terrorist attacks, maybe dozens. That's what the CIA agent said. The case is closed. We will continue to waterboard. Eat it.»

[posted 11:23 am on 12/12/2007 by thacher]

-=*=-

Illegally invading Palestine or any other neighbouring land outside the original 1947 UN remit, following up with a brutal occupation in order to steal land and water was and remains toadally® justifiable.

Eliot Ramsey: "Eat it!"

-=*=-

Illegally invading Iraq, following up with a brutal occupation in order to steal oil for our 4WDs & SUVs was and remains toadally justifiable.

Ian MacDougall: "Eat it!"

Paul Morrella: "Eat it!"

«Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. [As for Asia, read "world"] In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

... We should dispense with the aspiration to "be liked" or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and—for the Far East—unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.»

[February 28, 1948, Declassified June 17, 1974]

For "power concepts" read USrael m/i-plex; murder for spoil.

USrael: "Eat it!"

«Over the next two and a half decades, U.S.-funded and trained Central American security forces would disappear tens of thousands of citizens and execute hundreds of thousands more. When supporters of the "War on Terror" advocated the exercise of the "Salvador Option," it was this slaughter they were talking about.»

[Bob Wall/Tomgram: Greg Grandin, On the Torturable and the Untorturable]

USrael: "Eat it!"

Perhaps that's why these two are:

«...that happy couple, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, the new White House poodles now Tony Blair has gone.»

[Bob Wall/Uri Avnery/How They Stole the Bomb From Us]

And speaking of bombs, the US drops'em all'a time. Like the A-bombings of roughly 140,000 plus 74,000 Japanese ... the overwhelming majority of the deaths were those of civilians:

"Eat it!"

Perhaps that explains the obesity epidemic.

-=*end*=-

PS It's not only the visible military extremes of murder for spoil, there's the Chicago School ideology they push everywhere, the World Bank / IMF fiddles à la Perkins' "Economic Hit Man" and Klein's "Disaster Capitalism." Not to forget the US$ fiat currency / PetroDollar / M3 swindles, and the resource-rent rip-offs in the mineral sectors. Finally, there's the threatening greenhouse catastrophe that the US mostly creates then ignores.

Oh, well; I report, you decide.

PPS Resistance and Hope
By Charles Sullivan
12/12/07

«If we Americans [plus hangers-on] are nothing more than hopelessly addicted consumers who think of ourselves as an exceptional people with special entitlements; if we see ourselves as god’s morally superior chosen people; if we are selfish and greedy beyond redemption—then we are complicit in all of the horrible crimes that government commits in our name.»

[ICH]

Ref(s):

[1] moral —adj. 1 a concerned with goodness or badness of human character or behaviour, or with the distinction between right and wrong. b concerned with accepted rules and standards of human behaviour. 2 a virtuous in general conduct. b capable of moral action. 3 (of rights or duties etc.) founded on moral not actual law. 4 associated with the psychological rather than the physical (moral courage; moral support). —n. 1 moral lesson of a fable, story, event, etc. 2 (in pl.) moral behaviour, e.g. in sexual conduct.  morally adv. [Latin mos mor- custom]

[2] bankrupt —adj. 1 legally declared insolvent. 2 (often foll. by of) exhausted or drained (of emotion etc.). —n. insolvent person, esp. one whose assets are used to repay creditors. —v. make bankrupt.  bankruptcy n. (pl. -ies). [Italian banca rotta broken bench: related to *bank2]

treason and traitors, agenda monkeys;

 Subtitle: hypocritical liars, anything else?

-=*=-

G'day again Daniel,

I see the URL title of your piece differs from your headline; let's talk about hypocrisy[1]. 'Say one thing and do another' would be an accurate paraphrasing of hypocrisy vis-à-vis Howard&Co, 'How does he get away with it?' Latham's plaintive cry; your suggestion involves a lack of education in the sheople® and although I tend to agree, I'd say it's worse than that.

I only started to hear "All politicians lie!" after it became obvious that Howard was, still is and will be known for evermore as an inveterate liar, but despite being *known* to be such a filthy liar, he was multiply re-elected; why that? The sheople were convinced, via but not only, with an active assist from the (venal!) MSM, that under Howard, they never had it so good(?!)

But instead of an honest polity whereby our so-called leaders worked openly to improve our lot (or at least trying do the least damage), we had Howard&Co lying, threatening and fear (terror! War!) mongering. Work (Chump! - No) Choices might'a been the final straw, but the rot truly was endemic.

Even so it all worked for a while, but only so long as the sheople went along; we thank our lucky stars that - however briefly - the sheople woke up.

A properly functioning democracy requires at least these attributes, a) an involved and aware electorate, b) a fair and varied choice of honest(!) candidates, and c) a full and fair reporting of the situation. This last requires an honest(!) MSM; that we just don't have. There is a vile nest of traitors, right there in our (venal!) MSM. Worst of course are the public broadcasters AusBC and SBS, that they retail some'a the same lies as the 'private' MSM is a true scandal: SHAME!

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] hypocrisy n. (pl. -ies) 1 false claim to virtue; insincerity, pretence. 2 instance of this. [Greek, = acting, feigning] [POD]

hypocrite n. person given to hypocrisy.  hypocritical adj. hypocritically adv. [ibid.]

[Cross posted]

the art of the innocent snub

 Subtitle: down with all warmongering liars!

-=*=-

Hands-up, all those who think that GWBush is a knight in shining armour, bringing truth and justice to Iraq, say?

Hmmm, not too many. Then, hands-up, all those who think the (oxymoronic!)IDF is doing the same to (ex-)Palestine?

It's called 'transparency;' in fact, the lack thereof. The 'jig' is up, boys (and ladies; Clinton & Pelosi, say): we see what you are doing, USrael, and we DO NOT APPROVE.

-=*=-

Part of the propaganda-BS that the kleptocrats'[1] corrupt politicians, Madison Ave, Hollywood and M-W's "Israel Lobby" (plus their insidious apologists) all push via the supine/venal MSM is that the US and Israeli 'democracies' take precedence, and that Israel is the only democracy in the middle-East. Well, I put quotes around 'democracies' since there appear to be at least three prerequisites missing; a properly educated and engaged constituency, full and free information flows, and a valid choice of policies/candidates.

Hands-up, all those who think that anything major would change, if the current US and Israeli regimes were replaced by those run by their nearest opposition parties?

See? To spell it out, these two self-proclaimed democracies just ain't (not properly functioning democracies, that is, although they're not alone in this), so any alleged 'precedence' on democratic grounds evaporates. What about "The Rule of Law?" Also moot tending to nonsensical; the establishment of Israel can be viewed with extreme suspicion (as a misuse of the UN), and the fact that Israel ignores/violates so many UN resolutions forms the contradiction: one simply cannot claim UN authority when one continuously flies in the face of it. Then Iraq; the US (plus UK, Aus) illegal invasion morphed into brutal occupation thereof, rendition, torture, Abu Ghraib etc. As if that all wasn't enough, consider the illegal wire-taps in the US - too much to list here, but all pointing in one direction: the Rule of Law is breaking/has broken down.

-=*=-

Well, so what? Simply this: they won't stop unless stopped. Since we can't match their physical force ("Might is neither right nor wrong; it just works mate...") we need a different way to curb these filthy swine. Yelling "Shame!" won't do it either (but we must); we've got to hit them where it really hurts: in their wallets (US 'pocketbooks;' spit!) Sooo, boycott. Cut them off - in the shops, no more US brands; otherwise known as the art of the innocent snub.

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] kleptocrats

«A kleptocracy (sometimes cleptocracy) (root: klepto+kratein = rule by thieves) is a government that extends the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) at the expense of the population. A kleptocratic government often goes beyond merely awarding the prime contracts and civil service posts to friends (A common feature of corrupt governments). They also create projects and programs at a policy level which serve the primary purpose of funnelling money out of the treasury and into the pockets of the executive with little if any regard for the logic, viability or necessity of those projects.»

[wiki]

a very hopeful sign

 Subtitle: MAD if y'do...

-=*=-

We know all about last straws, and camels' backs - or, we ort'a.

What if the wicked and illegal invasion of Iraq, now morphed into brutal occupation, each more criminally murdering than the other, is such a straw?

What we do know fur sure is that the US first, then with Israel and the M-W lobby fused into USrael has been nukular-blackmailing the world.

What we don't know is why the world acquiesced (the threats must'a been truly horrendous), but with the exposing of the NIE, we might have crossed a real turning-point. The 'intelligence' establishment has, in words of one syllable or less, called GWBush a liar. But worse, is the sort'a lies he's been telling, as he Oh, so openly threatened Iran with "all options." (And note that it's not 'just' Bush&Co, the Dummocrats almost to a wo/man, too. Idiots.)

Consider another 'data-point,' the remarks of Fallon (paraphrased perhaps): "Not on my watch."

On the one hand, the 'responsible' military officer saying he'll disobey any order to attack Iran and on the other, the spies yelling "Liar, liar! Pants on fire!"

-=*=-

Until now, USrael has brutalised the world, doing just about whatever they wanted to do, in plain words mass-murdering for spoil (US for resources, culminating in murder for oil in Iraq, and Israel murdering for land and water in the pursuit of Greater Israel) - but all of a sudden, the most visible warmongers are being told in no uncertain terms "Why'n'cha just shuddup?!"

You have to ask Q: "Why?" - and the A: must be because someone has worked out that the game is over, they (USrael) are most likely not to get away with their threatened action (in this ball-breaking case: striking at Iran.)

Then Q: "Why not?" - and the A: must be because someone has made a bigger return threat. Nothing else makes sense; (cowardly!) thugs only ever cave-in to bigger thugs.

Something like this, perhaps?

«The Sea Dreamer: ...
Correction: 'massive deterrence' should read 'massive retaliation'; 'false-flag asymmetric nuclear warfare' might perhaps be better described as 'no-flag'; and of course the doctrine of asymmetric nuclear warfare has neither yet been fully articulated, nor demonstrated.
December 06, 2007
Votes: +0»

(In the comments to:
More War is Job One: Torturing the Truth on Iran
Written by Chris Floyd)
[chris-floyd ... Torturing_the_Truth_on_Iran]

no further comment ...

 .. for the moment, that is.

-=*=-

I just had occasion to 'visit' WD.

I'd like to pay tribute to three people's posts, namely those from Angela Ryan, Bob Wall & Daniel Smythe; their posts run together here, interspersed by a post from a known troll CP/ER.

There is no proper 'answer' to filthy trolls such as CP/ER, but as an indication of my utter contempt for such, I quote two passages (the last one was linked-to in a previous post on the same thread):

«In discourse analysis it’s known as the false dilemma. You can’t argue with somebody, particularly a leader, who insists that he was doing what was right because, implicitly, you invite yourself to be seen as arguing for what is morally wrong. And that’s why conviction politicians are so successful and can get away with murder. Literally. (It’s analogous to the assertion that "God promised us the land." The only sane response to that, if ones dares, is "You’re mad.")»

[ICH/Alan Hart/A Manifestation of Evil or Just Plain Madness?]

Note that the beginning of the Hart quote mentions "doing what was right" and was 'aimed' at Blair, but no person in their right mind could possibly believe that B, B & H's illegally invading Iraq (now morphed into a brutal occupation) with the intention of stealing its oil was ever "doing what was right." Further, I re-aim the end of the Hart quote not just at all of B, B & H, their accessories and apologists but also squarely at M-W's equally filthy 'lobby.'

«What then, in the end, do our leaders - present and future, Republican and Democrat - stand for? What is the most apt emblem for the ultimate value they embody and most assiduously serve?

A child dying in her own shit and blood, in a land ripped to pieces by a criminal war.
***»

[Chris Floyd/Eating Iraq: Corruption Rules and Cholera Rises While Insurgents Surf the Surge]