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Ordinary citizens: the silent victims of anti-Iranian sanctions
Kourosh Ziabari
While the United States and European Union are vehemently competing with each other in the seemingly endless race of imposing sanctions on Iran, the ordinary Iranian citizens are experiencing the most breathtaking, agonizing impacts of the crippling embargoes.
On July 31, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) sent a letter to all members of the U.S. Congress, demanding a concerted action to approve The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act which imposes a new set of sanctions on Iran's energy and transportation sector.
On August 1, the media reported that the Congress has ratified the bill and it's waiting to be signed by the president.
The Austerity Hoax
by Stephen Lendman
Since 2008, Western nations have force-fed their people austerity poison. Decline replaces prosperity. Millions suffer. Living standards deteriorate. Societies become no longer fit to live in.
Neoliberal and imperial priorities let essential public needs go begging. How much more people will take before erupting remains to be seen.
The longer fiscal pain continues, the closer an ultimate day of reckoning approaches. It'll arrive disruptively. Perhaps people will recognize that throwing out bums for new ones accomplishes nothing.
Remembering Gore Vidal
by Stephen Lendman
Many labels characterize him: distinguished author, essayist, playwright, historian, acerbic sociopolitical/cultural critic, freethinker, intellectual, and humanist.
In 2009, the American Humanist Association (AHA) named him honorary president.
On July 31, Gore Vidal died from complications of pneumonia at his Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles home.
He was 86. He'll be missed. Los Angeles Times writer Elaine Woo called him a "gadfly on the national conscience" and "literary juggernaut." He was that and much more.
New York Times writer Charles McGrath said he was "an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right. Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their talent."
He’s blind to the “bleedin’ obvious” economic consequence of military occupation, Is Romney just a pretty face then?
Stuart Littlewood
Mitt Romney is listed among People magazine's 50 “most beautiful” of 2002. He was up there with Nicole Kidman, Britney Spears and Julia Roberts. But how pretty does he look in 2012?
This US presidential hopeful from AIPAC’s Republican wing came here to England and put his foot in it by questioning Britain‘s readiness to host the Olympics. We were already on the case, thank-you Mr Romney. But please remember that it’s largely America’s misbehaviour around the world that puts such a colossal strain on Olympic security and makes other nations’ teams so nervous.
His remarks drew some sharp responses, and thus began a series of “mis-steps” that characterized the presidential candidate’s misadventure into the wider world and culminated in an unforgettable “kiss my ass” invitation by one of his campaign aides. Mis-steps is a curiously polite US word that seems to be gaining currency here. It conjures up the erratic progress of a stumblebum.
No surprise that while in London he met with the Quartet’s zio-stooge Tony Blair to have his mind further poisoned and confused.
Mr. President, Focus here, not over there
By Michael Collins
The United States of America is struggling with economic problems that leading economists call a depression. When you count all of those without jobs seeking one, unemployment is 22%. That figure defines a serious crisis. While we wait for the Obama administration to do something for the people, we can be comforted to know that the president is wasting his time meddling in Syria by supporting rebels who count al Qaeda among their comrades. This was all a secret until Reuters told us about it yesterday. (Image)
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.
This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government. Reuters, August 1 (Alternate link)
The term intelligence finding used to describe Obama's action on Syria is a neologism. The more accurate term is stupidity finding. Why?
Capitalism Failed
by Stephen Lendman
Economic/financial systems dependent on wars and predation eventually self-destruct. Western capitalism is no exception.
Money power runs things. War profiteering is policy. Ordinary people have no say. Exploiting them for profit is prioritized. Divisions between rich and poor grow. By some measures they're unprecedented.
Money power in private hands and democracy can't co-exist. Banking giants transformed Western societies into vehicles for wealth extraction. Corrupt politicians facilitate their criminality. In return, they're rewarded handsomely.
Paul Craig Roberts wrote about "The Collapsing US Economy and the End of the World." Can societies survive Washington's hubris, he asked?
Major Media Admit Presence of Foreign Militants in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Syria's conflict isn't an uprising, revolution or civil war. It's lawless Western aggression. It targets an independent government and its people. Doing so violates fundamental international law.
Washington planned it years ago. It wants puppet leaders installed. It's Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya 2.0. America destroys nations to control and plunder them.
War on humanity is waged for unchallenged global dominance. Syria is ground zero. Other targeted states come later. Proxy death squads are used. They're heavily armed, trained and directed. They reign terror on Syrian civilians. They've murdered thousands of noncombatant men, women and children.
NBC Invents War-o-tainment
By David Swanson
If you've watched the Olympics on NBC you've probably seen ads promoting a war-o-tainment reality show cohosted by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, co-starring Todd Palin, and with no apparent role for reality.
The ads brag about the use of real bullets in a way that promoters of the new Batman movie probably wouldn't try. But the chances that any of the celebrities engaged in "war competition" on NBC's "Stars Earn Stripes" will be shot and killed is essentially what it was for John Wayne, as he promoted war while dodging it (even if nuclear weapons testing got him in the end).
RootsAction.org and Just Foreign Policy have set up a website at StarsEarnStripes.org to push NBC to show the real cost of war, and to help get them started.
Survival tips for the urbanite: Part 1 – Nuclear Radiation
By Rady Ananda
Activist Post
Though many survivalists like to prepare for TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it), joblessness and homelessness have led me to the end of the world as I know it. With coffee in hand, I opened the warehouse door of my temporary digs to greet the dawn. Only, it’s noon, there’s a downpour, and the smell of rubber from a pile of decomposing tires greets me. This marks Month 4 in New Orleans and two years since I was laid off.
In this vein, I finally started reading Mat Stein’s two survival books, When Technology Fails (2008) and When Disaster Strikes (2011). I also headed over to Jim Rawles’ Survival Blog and Mat’s website, whentechfails.com.
Instead of a lone-wolf, Mad Max world which plays well on film, Stein reasonably argues that individual survival relies on a community of like-minded folks. So plan your survival migration or shelter with room for your core group. The essential wisdom from both books and most survival websites is to plan a strategically sound survival budget, taking into account the climate of where you expect to be after you hit the road.
Permanent War: Official US Policy
by Stephen Lendman
Nations don’t wage permanent wars and survive. Imagine one calling itself a democracy trying.
Washington spends more on militarism and imperial wars than the rest of the world combined. At the same time, vital domestic needs go begging.
America lives by the sword. One day it'll perish by it. Perhaps so will humanity.
The more wars it wages and longer they continue, the faster homeland and international support erodes.
What can't go on forever won't. Since 9/11 alone, Paul Craig Roberts says "11 years of failure" hasn't deterred America's rage to fight.
"(T)he same Washington con artists who have produced a decade of bloodshed and destruction to no worthwhile effect are now preparing more wars doomed to failure." "More ambitious than ever, Washington, now arrayed against Iran, is lining up against Russia and China as well."
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