Paul Craig Roberts

Does The West Have A Future?

Living in America is becoming very difficult for anyone with a moral conscience, a sense of justice, or a lick of intelligence. Consider:

We have had a second fake underwear bomb plot, a much more fantastic one than the first hoax. The second underwear bomber was a CIA operative or informant allegedly recruited by al-Qaeda, an organization that US authorities have recently claimed to be defeated, in disarray, and no longer significant.

This defeated and insignificant organization, which lacks any science and technology labs, has invented an “invisible bomb” that is not detected by the porno-scanners. A “senior law enforcement source” told the New York Times that “the scary part” is that “if they buil[t] one, they probably built more.”

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Sepp Hasslberger

Interviewing Joe Justice from Team Wikispeed on the Future of Manufacturing (and Consumption)

Joe Justice is the ideator of Team Wikspeed: a team of volunteers distributed around the world who recently created a prototype car that is open source, modular and ultra-efficient in just three mo… …YES, in just three months compared with the years it takes traditional car manufacturers to bring out a new model.

See Also:

This is an extremely interesting interview with Joe Justice … it gives the gist of where the manufacturing revolution is going.

The interview is in both English and Italian.

Full interview with photos and video.

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VIDEO:

Phi Beta Iota:  Achieving an Open Source Everything world is a three part process:

1.  Creation of Open Source Alternatives.

2.  Creation of Integrated infrastructure–pieces need to intersect.

3.  Abolishment of political parties and governments that try to micro-impose safety standards (e.g. air bags) and other onorous measures whose sole real purpose is to make competition unaffordable for the Open Source Everything movement, while blackmailing commerce into contributing to Political Action Campaigns.

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See Also:

The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth & Trust

Chuck Spinney

Interview with Mullah Omar, Arnaud de Borchgrave (June 2001)  – Very important and rare interview with Mullah Omar the head of the Taliban almost three months before 9-11 on the front page of the Washington Times (June 18).  Omar suggested Osama bin Ladin was a problem he wanted to resolve.  Bush Administration showed no interest in pursuing this lead.  The information in de Borchgrave’s 2001 report is consistent with that in an important report issued in February 2011 by theCenter on International Cooperation at New York University, which is summarized by Gareth Porter in Counterpunch here.

Chuck Spinney
The Blaster

Phi Beta Iota:  There are other reports of the Taliban approaching the US Department of State (including one approach to a CIA officer under cover).  After 9/11 the Taliban resurfaced these offers, but asking only that Bin Laden receive a public trial.  In every instance before and after 9/11 the US refused to consider the Taliban offers to turn over Bin Laden.  One can only surmise that between them the CIA and the White House were quite content with the role Bin Laden was playing in AF, and that removing him would actually interfere with US plans for which Bin Laden was, like Lee Harvey Oswald, a “patsy” in the not-so-great game.

300 Million Talons...

Activist Post

DefDog

Double agent infiltrated AQAP bomb plot?

This whole thing leaves me believing that something rotten is going on in Langley…..from my work I know the following:

AQ did not conduct operations based on historical dates.  Infiltrating AQ was the hardest task we faced. In fact, the CIA and other IC elements always preached that it was almost impossible to insert a double into the mix, it just required too much on our part. Now we have a success by a double agent?

Not sure, but to me it just doesn’t add up..

Associated Press: CIA foils another Al Qaeda underwear bomb plot

The Central Intelligence Agency successfully thwarted an Al Qaeda plot to use a sophisticated underwear bomb to bring down a U.S. airliner around the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

. . . . . . .

According to the AP report, the Yemen-based suicide bomber had not selected a target or purchased purchase plane tickets when U.S. intelligence officials seized the device. It is unclear what happened to the would-be suicide bomber.

. . . . . . .

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the President was aware of the plot since early April and “at no time were Americans in danger as a result of this.”

Read full article.

Al-Qaeda underwear bomber ‘was US double agent’

Reports from the US say the would-be suicide attacker in a foiled “underwear bomb” plot was in fact a double agent.

US officials are quoted as saying that the person dispatched by Yemen-based al-Qaeda to attack a US-bound plane had infiltrated the group.

In an apparent intelligence coup, the agent left Yemen with the device and delivered it to the CIA.

Read rest of article.

See Also:

Journal: National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Goes from Dumb to Dumber

Journal: Underpants Bomber Shines Light on Naked USG–Without Four Reforms, USA Locked in Place

Mini-Me: Every Terrrorist Either a CIA / FBI Patsy or Israeli False Flag? (Except Khost) + RECAP

WIkipedia / Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

POGO Source Page, May 8, 2012

Wasteful Spending in the Department of Defense Budget
Wasteful Spending on Nuclear Weapons Programs
Service Contracts
Conclusion
Endnotes

Americans are tightening their belts, and it’s time for the U.S. government to do the same. In light of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the subsequent failure of the “Super Committee,” Congress is still desperately seeking ways to reduce spending. To this end, the Project On Government Oversight and Taxpayers for Common Sense have closely examined the proposed national security budget[1] and found plenty of wasteful spending. Adjusted for inflation, U.S. national security spending is higher than at any point during the Cold War and accounts for more than half of all discretionary spending.[2] However, the U.S. faces no existential threats as it did then, and U.S. defense needs are changing as the military draws down its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, military spending at the Department of Defense (DoD) has increased by an astounding 95 percent from FY 2001 to the FY 2013 estimate, adjusted for inflation.[3] Nuclear weapons spending at the Department of Energy (DOE) is projected to grow by billions of dollars over the next decade.[4] And the federal government’s reliance on contractors, most of whom work on national security-related work and cost on average nearly twice as much as the federal workers who do the same job, is also driving budgets through the roof.[5] It’s clear that any serious proposal to shrink the U.S. deficit must include cuts to the national security budget.

The following list updates our recommendations from 2011[6] and details nearly $700 billion in savings over the next ten years, including cuts to wasteful weapons systems as well as limits on out-of-control contract spending. We found programs for which there are cheaper yet equally effective alternatives, and programs that can be cancelled or delayed without putting America’s security at risk.

The Project On Government Oversight is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms. POGO’s investigations into corruption, misconduct, and conflicts of interest achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.

Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan budget watchdog serving as an independent voice for American taxpayers. Its mission is to achieve a government that spends taxpayer dollars responsibly and operates within its means. TCS works with individuals, policymakers, and the media to increase transparency, expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare, and hold decision makers accountable.

Wasteful Spending in the Department of Defense Budget

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300 Million Talons...

Police Withhold Witness Statements That May Find Officers Among Killers

By Mike Harris

Veterans Today, 7 May 2012

While news around the world was told that sheriff candidate J.T. Ready, leader of the controversial US Border Guard, had killed his family and himself, they had always been holding an eyewitness, the 17 year old daughter of Ready’s girl friend, who, from moment one, had given them descriptions of those who killed Ready and the rest of her family.

Yet, the Gilbert police, the Pinal County Sheriff, both suspected of being on “cartel” payrolls, nor even the FBI, conflicted by jurisdictional disputes, has yet to release the truth, begin an investigation or start looking for suspects.

. . . . . . . .

Only one small problem, the Gilbert Police spokesman made the statement knowing it was false, and incomplete. The Gilbert Police Department had witness 17 year old  Brittany Modero in protective custody. The Gilbert PD also had statements from neighbors who saw 2 other cars at the house, which fled the scene before the police arrived at the shooting.

This is more than simple obstruction of justice, the Gilbert PD and every corporate owned and controlled News outlet in Arizona especially the local outlet for Village Voice Media, the “New Times” reporter Stephen Lemons. Since it has now been disclosed that there were other people in the house at the time of the shooting, why didn’t Gilbert PD or Media outlet issue an apology or a retraction. Nothing but silence from corporate media, I guess the truth does not fit their pre-planned agenda to destroy the character of Mr. Ready and cast him as a crazed white supremacist, Neo-Nazi.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  There is evidently strong evidence that Mr. Ready was an FBI informant, which means that local law enforcement personnel, corrupted by the cartels, may have murdered not just a citizen, but a federal informant as well.  The FBI does not appear too eager to get to the bottom of this….just as they were not at all interested in leads to the 9/11 atrocity received before the event.

Josh Kilbourn

Two Charts Exposing America’s Record Shadow Welfare State

Here was a little mentioned tangent to last Friday’s very disappointing NFP print of +115,000 (driven by a surge in temp jobs offsetting a collapse in full time positions): as David Rosenberg notes, the jobs number was about half of another far more important number – that of Americans applying for disability, which in April was +225,000. He continues: “this is the new stealth stimulus program – so far in 2011, nearly one million Americans have applied for disability and year-to-date, 333k have actually enrolled (covering 539k family members). In total, more than five million people have been added to disability coverage since President Obama took over three years ago.”

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The punchline will make all those who adore (insolvent) welfare states shake with giddy delight: “So look – either safety standards at work have eroded dramatically or the “99%” have found a creative way to milk the system and turn the economy into a quasi welfare state“…. Yup. What he said. Because remember: the BLS assumes that any amount up to the total 53 million people, is not in the labor force as they have other “wefare” based forms of government handouts and see no need at all to look for a job. Is there any wonder why US unemployment is realistically 20% if not much higher? As for the other chart, food stamps, we know that story all too well.

See Also:

Paul Craig Roberts: December Net Jobs a 12,000 LOSS – Actual Unemployment 2.6 Times Official Rate or 22.4%

Tom Atlee

Wholesome capitalism?

What would wholesome capitalism look like?

“Wholesome” means healthy, in the sense of something that promotes physical and moral well-being. Wholesome capitalism would take into account the wholeness of people and the social and natural world we live in, and it would enhance that wholeness.

Some people think capitalism already does this. They note how good it has been at generating wealth. The word wealth, meaning abundance, derives from roots meaning well-being and wholeness. Many of capitalism’s advocates feel it should be freed from constraints so it can generate more wealth.

Others note that capitalism – while generating wealth for some – many or few, depending on its form in a particular time and place – nevertheless generates much suffering and destruction in the process. It reduces everything to money and maximizes financial return even if it has to degrade and destroy human and natural life to do it. Many of capitalism’s critics feel it should be undermined or overthrown.

Still others note both the blessings and problems with capitalism. They think we can have the wealth without so much suffering and destruction. Most of these people promote freeing capitalism’s creativity and productivity while restraining its rapaciousness in various ways – using everything from laws, regulations and taxes to moral suasion and consumer-shareholder activism.

In this article I advocate all three positions – odd as that may sound – but only after reframing “capital” and “wealth” to better reflect wholeness.

THE PRIMARY DYNAMIC OF CAPITALISM

The special gift of capitalism is its ability to create MORE – more products and services, more self-organized economic activity, more wealth. In systems science, this tendency to create more-ness is called a positive or reinforcing feedback dynamic.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Disinformation On Every Front

Some readers have come to the erroneous conclusion that the Matrix consists of Republican Party disinformation as if there is no disinformation from the left. Others think that propaganda is the business of Obama and the Democrats. In fact, propaganda from the right, the left and the middle are all part of the disinformation fed to americans.

If I may give some examples: The other day Chuck Colson, one of the Nixon officials imprisoned for Watergate crimes, died. This gave NPR the opportunity to relive the Nixon horror.

What precisely was the Nixon horror? Essentially, there was no such thing. Watergate was about President Nixon lying about when he learned about the Watergate burglary.
When Nixon learned about the burglary, he did not act on it prior to his reelection, because he reasoned, rightly, that the Washington Post would blame him for the burglary, although he had nothing to do with it, in the hopes of preventing his reelection.

By going along with a cover-up, Nixon enabled the Washington Post to make an issue of the precise date on which Nixon learned of the burglary. White House tapes indicated that Nixon had learned of the burglary before he said he learned of it. So Nixon had permitted a cover-up and had to go, but what was the real reason?

What was the Watergate burglary? We don’t really know. A group of men including former CIA operatives were hired by the Committee to Re-elect the President to break into a Democratic campaign office in the Watergate complex. We don’t know the purpose of the burglary. Some claim it was to wire-tap the telephones in the belief that the Democratic Party was getting re-election money from communists in Cuba or elsewhere. Others claim that the burglars were looking for a list of call girls, that compromised a White House official, as his fiancee was allegedly one of the call girls.

Looking back from our time during which Bush and Obama have deep-sixed the US Constitution, violated numerous US and international laws, and behaved as if they were caesars unconstrained by any law or any morality, Nixon’s “crimes” appear so trivial as to be unremarkable. Yet, Nixon was driven from office and is regarded as a criminal.

What was Watergate really about?

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