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The Impersonal Society
by Walter Brasch
Some of my favorite people are the ladies at my credit union. Over the past couple of decades they put up with a lot from me, with hardly an audible sigh, although I am sure there was a lot of cheering when my wife took over balancing the checkbook a few years ago.
The Credit Union ladies know my account numbers and status better than I do, and have bailed me out of numerous problems.
Even when they’ve had a tiring day, the ladies smile, joke, and ask questions about how I and my family are doing. The only thing they get from my “small potatoes” accounts is the satisfaction they’re doing a good job and an occasional box of candy or a green plant, which doesn’t even begin to add up to the personal attention they provide to keep my financial affairs in order.
After several years of trying to convince me to use the push-button telephone, a computer, or an iPhone to log onto a central computer where a digitized voice will tell me the status on my accounts, transfer funds from one account to another, and even pay bills, they have given up.
Gun Control Forges A Head
By Melanie Lamport
Starbucks has found itself in the crosshairs of Moms who Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (Moms). The “Moms” formed their gun control advocacy group in response to the Newtown mass shooting by Adam Lanza, who died the day before he allegedly shot twenty children at the Sandy Hook Elementary school---with the rifle still in the trunk of his car. The “Moms” are creating a lot of negative energy by protesting the company's policy of allowing customers to bring guns into restaurants in “open carry” states, where residents are allowed to carry firearms in public.
The latest assault on our Right to go Hunting with an Assault Rifle began in 2012, when Jared Lee Loughner (why are these lone-nut assassins all known by three names?) shot Gabriel Gifford point-blank in the head with a Glock 19 pistol.
Gabby, as unbelievable as it sounds, is leading her own gun control advocacy group in this fight over who can go to Starbucks carrying a firearm.
Why am I surprised that Gabby is leading the Americans for Responsible Solutions in this fight over the 2nd Amendment?
Obama’s Syria War Plans & His Slimy ‘Progressive’ Collaborators
By Larry Pinkney
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal…” –Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]
Whether or not the legitimate rage and strong opposition on the part of just plain everyday ordinary people, to Barack Obama’s ongoing saber rattling and war plans against the sovereign nation of Syria will actually permanently thwart his military madness, in this instance — remains to be seen.
What is clear however, is that the outright collaboration, betrayal, and/or complicity of silence demonstrated by certain so-called ‘progressives’ and ‘leftists’ in the U.S., with Barack Obama’s war plans, was and remains, a stinging indictment which points directly to their political hypocrisy, untrustworthy method of operation, and their utter lack of principles. May we ordinary everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people remember, and remember well, who these would-be ‘progressives,’ are – be they elected politicians, ‘intellectuals,’ or so-called ‘community activists/organizers.’
No Change in Obama's War Plans
by Stephen Lendman
Obama's Tuesday night address didn't surprise. It featured demagogic boilerplate. Defending the indefensible took center stage.
Bombast assured business as usual. More on his speech below.
War plans remain on track. They're delayed. They're not deterred. They're prioritized. Obama wants another country ravaged and destroyed.
He hides behind a shield of humanitarian intervention. He does so through cruise missile diplomacy.
He's no peace president. He's hell bent for war. He's waging one after another. He's done so since day one in office. Ahead of his Tuesday night address, Francis Boyle said:
Reports suggest he'll "argue that his threat of war has produced this offer by Syria to eliminate chemical, and therefore he needs a resolution to authorize war in order to promote diplomacy."
Undermining Russian/Syrian Peace Deal
by Stephen Lendman
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposed the following:
● "putting (Syrian) chemical weapons storages under international control;"
● Syria agreeing to destroy them;
● signing the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC); and
● joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
By evening, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem responded positively, saying:
Monday "we held a round of very fruitful negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and he put forward an initiative regarding chemical weapons."
"Already in the evening we accepted Russia’s initiative." It's designed to "pull the rug from under the feet of American aggression." Moallem said Assad agrees with Moscow. He accepts its proposal. He'll do everything possible to avert war.
Testimonies Prove Israel Tortures Palestinian Children
by Stephen Lendman
On August 22, B'Tselem headlined "Abuse and torture in interrogations of dozens of Palestinian minors in the Israel Police Etzion Facility."
More on that below. Previous articles discussed torturing, abusing, and otherwise mistreating Palestinian children young as 10. Sometimes younger. In July, Israel arrested and terrorized a five-year old boy.
Family members are threatened not to intervene. They're beaten if they try. Children are violently abused.
They're blindfolded, shackled and beaten. They're threatened with much worse. Sexual threats and abuse are common. So are electro-shocks and much more.
Nothing's too outrageous to employ. Children are interrogated without counsel. They're treated like adults. They face wrongful charges. It doesn't matter.
Obama's War on Syria Delayed, Not Deterred
by Stephen Lendman
John Kerry's stumble delayed Obama's war. It's not averted. He intends to wage it. He'll do it later, not now.
In London, Kerry said Assad "could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that."
"But he isn't about to do it, and it can't be done, obviously," he added.
A previous article said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Kerry's bluff. He's going all out to prevent war. So are Syrian officials.
From Moscow, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem welcomed Russia's proposal. It calls for placing Syria's chemical weapons under international control, agreeing to their destruction, and signing the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Obama's Rage for War on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Obama's hell bent for war. He intends lawless aggression. A separate article called his plans delayed. They're not deterred.
Syria deplores war. It wants peaceful conflict resolution. So do important world leaders.
Overwhelming public sentiment at home and abroad wants peace. People everywhere know they're being lied to.
Syria threatens no one. No evidence links it to chemical weapons use any time throughout months of conflict.
Insurgents used them multiple times. More on that below. Don't expect US officials or media scoundrels to explain.
The Shortest Path to Peace in Syria
By Nicola Nasser*
Because “defensive alliances which have fixed and limited objectives are often more durable,” the “Syria-Iran alliance has survived” more than three decades of unwavering and insistent US – led military, economic, diplomatic and media campaign to dismantle it, but it is still enduring “because it has been primarily defensive in nature” and “aimed largely at neutralizing … Israeli capabilities and preventing American encroachment in the Middle East.”
This was the conclusion of the professor of International Relations at Webster University Geneva, Switzerland, Jubin M. Goodarzi, in his 2006 book, “Syria and Iran: Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East.”
Professor Goodarzi’s conclusion is worth highlighting amid the thick smoke screen of “chemical weapons,” “civil war,” “responsibility to protect” and the “dictatorship – democracy” rhetoric of the US – Israeli propaganda, which is now misleading the world public opinion away from the core fact that the current Syrian conflict is the inevitable outcome of the 45 - year old Israeli occupation of the Syrian Arab Golan Heights in 1967.
Israel, protected by what President Barak Obama repeatedly describe as the “unshakable” support of the United States, is still maintaining its military occupation of the Golan as a “bargaining chip” to enforce upon Syria, irrespective of the regime and who is ruling in Damascus, the fait accompli which was created forcefully by the creation of the State of Israel in Palestine in 1948.
The US support to dictating the resulting fait accompli to Syria manifested itself first by empowering Israel by US arms and tax payer money to gain the “bargaining chip” of the Golan Heights, then by protecting the ongoing Israeli occupation of this Syrian territory.
EPA okays BPA, disses public’s right-to-know
By Rady Ananda
Among several “chemicals of concern” recently removed from a list of proposed regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency, Bisphenol A, a neurotoxin and endocrine disruptor that also damages DNA, has been banned in several other nations and in eleven US states.
BPA is used in making plastics from bottles to food packaging, and in thermal receipt paper. It’s found on paper money, and in epoxy resin used in food cans and textiles. Though BPA penetrates nearly half of all food stuffs, several more toxic bisphenols, like BPS, reports GreenMedInfo, also invade the food supply.
BPA has been linked to Type II diabetes, premenopausal breast cancer, abnormal heart rhythm, and lowered thyroid hormones in boys. Not only is BPA linked to obesity, but prenatal exposure tends to feminize boys and masculinize girls. Truly, the list goes on.
Belgium, Austria, Denmark and France currently restrict BPA in foodstuffs and/or infant products, as does Turkey, Japan, China and the UAE. Canada, meanwhile, has reversed itself twice. In 2008, Health Canada didn’t see a problem with BPA; in 2010 it did, and then in 2012 it decided BPA is okay after all.
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