Prof. Peter Phillips & Kimberly Soeiro. Exposing the Ruling Class!

This study asks: Who are the world's One percent power elite? And to what extent do they operate in unison for their own private gains over benefits for the 99 percent? We examine a sample of the 1 percent: The extractor sector, whose companies are on the ground extracting material from the global commons, and using low cost labor to amass wealth. These companies include oil, gas, and various mineral extraction organizations, whereby the value of the material removed far exceeds the actual cost of removal. We also examine the investment sector of the global 1 percent: Companies whose primary activity is the massing and reinvesting of the global 1 percent: Companies whose primary activity is the amassing and reinvesting of capital. This sector includes global central banks, major investment money management firms, and other companies whose primary efforts are the concentration and expansion of money, such as insurance companies. Finally, we analyze how global networks of centralized power, the elite 1 percent, their companies, and various governments in their service plan manipulate and enforce policies that benefit their continued concentration of wealth and power. We demonstrate how the US/NATO military industrial media empire operates in service to the transnational capital in the world. The Occupy Movement has developed a mantra that addresses the great inequality of wealth and power between the world's wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of us, the other 99 percent. While the 99 percent undoubtedly serves as a motivational tool for open involvement, there is little understanding as to who comprises the 1 percent, and how they maintain power in the world.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky: Keep the Ball Rolling: Media Lies

Mainstream media fiction has reached new heights. Public opinion is duped into endorsing the repeal of civil liberties in the name of "national security" as well as the conduct of "humanitarian wars" with a view to promoting "democracy" and achieving a lasting "World peace". Without media disinformation and war propaganda, which offensively pervade the global news chain, the legitimacy of the US NATO military agenda would collapse like a deck of cards. Despite relentless efforts of the independent alternative media to convey unbiased analysis and honest news reporting, the outright lies and fabrications of the mainstream media continue to thrive. For almost eleven years, Global Research, together with partner alternative media organizations, has sought Truth in Media, with a view to eventually "disarming" the corporate media's disinformation crusade. To reverse the tide, we call upon our readers to participate in an important endeavor. Global Research has more than 50,000 "unique visitors" on the global-research.ca website and 30,055 "unique visitors" on the global research.ca website, and 30,055 subscribers to our newsletter. Our objective is to recruit one thousand committed "volunteers" among our 30,000 Newsletter subscribers to support the distribution of Global Research articles. Do not send us money. Under Plan A below, we call upon our readers to donate 5 minutes a day to Global Research. If, however, you are pressed for time in the course of a busy day, scroll down to Plan B. Establish an email list of some fifty friends and family, or use your existing email list. Forward the daily Global Research Newsletter and/or your favorite Global Research articles to this list on a daily basis, with a personal message to your friends.  

Julie Levesque: Freedom Fighters: The Foot Soldiers of America

Since the end of World War II, the Anglo-American Empire has covertly supported the deployment of foreign and domestic "foot soldiers", including terrorists and paramilitary brigades to bring about regime change and further its agenda of World domination. One of the earlier examples of such a modus operandi, still widely ignored, is Gladio, "NATO's European stay behind army", active during the Cold War. Controlled by the CIA and Britain's MI6, Gladio members orchestrated terrorist attacks in Western Europe, which were blamed on Communist entities. Gladio was falsely presented to key European state officials as a stand by secret army, ready to counter a possible communist take over. The ultimate goal of Gladio was to demonize the Communist and Socialist parties and encourage European citizens to endorse their governments' commitment to "National security". American citizens were not exempt from such scheming. As Prof. James F Tracy explains: "The string of still unresolved US political assassinations throughout the 1960's suggest how such practices were not restricted to foreign countries, nor were they solely the terrain of intelligence agencies. Along lines similar to Gladio, in the early 1960s the US Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed Operation Northwoods, where terrorist attacks would be initiated against US civilians in American cities, and the violence blamed on Cuban combatants to justify war against the island nation. The Kennedy administration rejected the proposal. While Northwoods exhibited the capacity for government to conceive and propose such plans, Gladio was demonstrably carried out against Western civilian populations in multiple locations over many years." The recruitment of paramilitary armies and death squads played a key role in the conduct of US foreign policy.  

Don Hazen: Paul Ryan for Veep is Smarter Than You Think!

When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tapped Paul Ryan, the 42 year old Wisconsin congressman to be his running mate, progressives went on a happy-thon. That Romney chose the House Budget Committee chairman known as the architect of draconian budgets that would make huge cuts in every aspect of the safety net, not to mention his quest to turn Medicare into a voucher program just seemed like a major blunder. My colleague, Joshua Holland, called it Romney's biggest mistake. Many were gleeful and shocked that Romney would seemingly play right into the Obama message on how the Romney agenda harms the middle class, but I wasn't so happy. The Romney decision signals several things about the future, and non of them good. Rather scary and ugly, as a matter of fact. My gut told me that, for the Republican vice presidential candidate, I would much rather have a non-entity like Portman or Pawlenty as the Republican than a right-wing rock star. Any day. Progressives are right when they say Ryan represents everything that shows how out of touch the Republicans are with the needs of the country, but they are not looking toward at Romney's Ryan decision for what it is, a hugely dangerous step toward getting the Koch brothers' hand picked star right to the verge of the presidency, which, if it should come to pass, could dramatically transform the nature of American politics for our lifetimes. Whether Romney wins or loses, the Ryan pick poses a threat to the well being of the nation. If Romney wins, then Ryan occupies the number two spot with a money base and huge constituency of his own, far more than any vice president has ever enjoyed.    

Richard Eskow: "President Ryan" Another Shrewd Move in the Corporate State!

Paul Ryan's looks are often compared to an actor's, and that's no accident: He is being groomed for the role of a lifetime. When Mitt Romney accidentally introduced Ryan Ryan as "the next President" he may have been displaying the same predilection for accidental honesty, for truth telling as political gaffe, that he showed when he praised Israel's socialized health system. And Romney may be right. The most likeable and electable extremist in the country just became the GOP's 2016 front runner. That's no accident either. All the signs suggest that the economy will struggle for years, unless progressive steps are taken. Worse, another steep decline into recession or depression could occur at any time. If Obama's re-elected and we're still suffering in 2016, as now seems likely, our "electable extremist" will be in the perfect position to become the next President. Heads we win, says Corporate America, and tails you lose. Even that doesn't tell the whole story. The Ryan choice reflects something much bigger than an election or two. Corporate America, and those who serve it have been playing a long game for political power, displaying formidable qualities yet to be seen in its electoral opponents, a clearly articulated vision, concrete goals, and the ability to plan and execute long range strategies. Under their ideal of Corporate Statism, the President is no longer "the Decider." He or she increasingly serves as Corporate America's employee, a hireling who serves as its sales rep, its celebrity spokesperson, as a flesh and blood avatar for faceless financial power. Who's better suited for that job than Paul Ryan? The game plan was laid out in the infamous Lewis Powell memo of 1970, which encouraged corporations to take control of all major Us institutions, and their game was already well underway when Powell sketched his strategy on the chalkboard. Far from being a blunder, the Ryan nomination can be seen as the next step in a decades long plan to capture this country's political institutions for the ideology of radical corporate statism.    

Ray McGovern: Israel Likely to Strike Iran Before November!

More Washington insiders are coming to the conclusion that Israel's leaders are planning to attack Iran before the US election in November in the expectation that American forces will be drawn in. There is widespread recognition that, without US military involvement, an Israeli attack would be highly risky and, at best, only marginally successful. At this point, to dissuade Israeli leaders from mounting such an attack might require a public statement by President Obama warning Israel not to count on US forces,, not even for the "clean-up." Though Obama has done pretty much everything short of making such a public statement, he clearly wants to avoid a confrontation with Israel in the weeks before the election. However, Obama's silence regarding a public warning speaks volumes to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu. The recent pilgrimages to Israel by very senior US officials, including Secretaries of State and Defense carrying identical "Please Don't Bomb Iran Just Yet" banners, has met stony faces and stone walls. Like the Guns of August in 1914, the dynamic for war appears inexorable. Senior US and Israeli officials focus publicly on a "window of opportunity," but different ones. On Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney emphasized the need to allow the "most stringent sanctions ever imposed on any country time to work." That, said Carney, is the "window of opportunity to persuade Iran to forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions." That same day, a National Security Council spokesman dismissed Israeli claims that US intelligence had received alarming new information about Iran's nuclear program. "We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon," the spokesman said. Still, Israel's window of opportunity, what it calls the "zone of immunity" for Iran building a nuclear bomb without Israel alone being able to prevent it, is ostensibly focused on Iran's continued burrowing under mountains, to render its nuclear facilities immune to Israeli air strikes, attacks that would seek to maintain Israel's regional nuclear weapons monopoly.    

Sally Kohn: Ryan Family Fortune Built on Public Works Projects!

When Paul Ryan took the stage in Mooresville North Carolina as Mitt Romney's running mate, he attacked President Obama's "you didn't build that" remark about the role of government in supporting private innovation, but while Republicans have been clamoring to make this election a false dichotomy between the private sector and the public sector, Paul Ryan, heir to a private fortune made by building public highways, is a gaping pothole in that plan. Paul Ryan is a living, breathing GOP example of how public infrastructure and private entrepreneurship work hand in hand. Paul Ryan's great grandfather started a construction company to build railroads and, eventually, highways. According to the Web site of "Ryan Incorporated Central" the company was founded in 1884 with a single team of mules building railroad embankments in Southern Wisconsin." And in the 1800's railroad construction was subsidized by the federal government. Mid century, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act into law, providing taxpayer dollars to fund the construction of a transcontinental railway. All railroads thereafter connected to, and benefited from that public investment. At the turn of the century, Ryan Inc turned to road building. A subsidiary family corporation, Ryan Incorporated Southern, states on its Web site, "The Ryan workload from 1910 until the rural interstate Highway System was completed 60 years later, and was mostly Highway construction." The $119 billion spent by the federal government on the Interstate Highway System was, by one account, "the largest public works program since the Pyramids." And, according to the Ryan Inc. Web site, the company completed some of the original work at what would become O'Hare Airport in Chicago. Originally, O'Hare Airport was a manufacturing base for World War II transport planes. It's likely that construction project was also paid for by tax dollars!