Steven Strauss: Is Our Republic Ending?

Eight Striking Parallels Between the Fall of Rome and our US. Lawrence Lessig's Republic Lost documents the corrosive effect of money on our political process. Lessig persuasively makes the case that we are witnessing the loss of our republican form of government, as politicians increasingly represent those who fund their campaigns, rather than our citizens. Anthony Everitt's Rise of Rome is fascinating history and a great read. It tells the story of ancient Rome, from its founding, circa 750 BCE to the fall of the Roman Republic, circa 45 BCE. When read together, striking parallels emerge, between our failings and the failings that destroyed the Roman Republic - circa 45 BCE. When read together, striking parallels emerge, between our failings, and the failings that destroyed the Roman Republic. As with Rome, just before the Republic's fall, America has seen: 1. Staggering Increase in the Cost of Elections, with Dubious Campaign Funding Sources: Our 2012 election reportedly cost $3 billion. All of it was raised from private sources, often creating the appearance, or the reality, that our leaders are beholden to special interest groups. During the late Roman Republic, elections became staggeringly expensive, with deplorable results. Caesar reportedly borrowed so heavily for one political campaign, he feared he would be ruined if not elected. Politics as the Road to Personal Wealth: During the late Roman Republic period, one of the main roads to wealth was holding public office, and exploiting such positions to accumulate personal wealth. As Lessig notes: Congressman, Senators and their staffs leverage their government service to move to private sector positions, that pay three to ten times their government compensation. Given this financial arrangement, "Their focus is therefore not so much on the people who sent them to Washington. Their focus is instead on those who will make them rich." Continuous War: A national state of security arises,, distracting attention from domestic challenges with foreign wars, Similar to the late Roman Republic, the US, for the past 100 years, has either been fighting a war, recovering from a war, or preparing for a new war: WWI, 1917-18, WWII 1941-1945, Cold War 1947-1991, Korean War 1950-1953, Vietnam 1953-1975, Gulf War 1990-1991, Afghanistan 2001 ongoing, and Iraq 2003-2011, and this list is far from complete.      

Alan Hart: Obama's Hagel Test!

By all accounts, President Obama wants to nominate Chuck Hagel, the former two term Republican senator from Nebraska to replace Leon Panetta at the Pentagon as Secretary of Defense, but a coalition led by the Zionist lobby is mounting a smear campaign against Hagel. Why? It hopes to persuade Obama that he would be foolish to nominate Hagel, because he is unlikely to be confirmed by a Senate, in which many members are content to do Zionism's bidding in order to protect their own backs. I'll get to what it is about Hegel's record that troubles and even frightens the Zionist lobby in a moment, but first can we, please, get the terminology right. Almost everyone who speaks and writes about the Israel Palestine conflict does not get it right, and that creates an obstacle to understanding. The monster that controls Congress, and ties any president's hands on policy for dealing with Israel Palestine is not the "Jewish lobby" and not the "Israel lobby." It is wrong to describe it as the Jewish lobby for two reasons. One is that such a description implies that it represents and speaks for all Jews. It most certainly does not. The other is that such a description implies that it's not only Jews who make up the lobby. Another key element of it is composed of the "Bring on Armageddon" Christian fundamentalists. It is wrong to describe it as the Israel lobby because such a description implies that it represents and speaks for all of Israel's Jews, and the nearly one quarter of its citizens who are Arabs. It most certainly does not. The most accurate long description of the Zionist lobby would be that it is composed of those of all faiths and none who give and demand unconditional support for the Zionist (not Jewish) state of Israel, right or wrong. In my view the most practical short form of that is the Zionist lobby, though some call it the "Likud lobby".  That was a case for doing so in the past, but today there are emerging fascist forces in Israel even further to the right than Likud, and the Zionist lobby speaks for them, too. Even the term "pro Israel" is an obstacle to understanding. When it is used without qualification, as it almost is, it can mean either pro Israel inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war, or pro an Israel in occupation of the West Bank (in defiance of international law) and laying siege to the Gaza Strip.      

James F Tracy: The Newtown School Tragedy!

More than one gunman? It is now beyond question that the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr all involved patsies, additional gunmen and perhaps mass media complicity to achieve their political ends. Along these lines, and in a fashion now characteristic of how such public executions are framed, the observations and analyses of citizen journalists and alternative media suggest how coverage of the Newtown Connecticut school shooting was substantially altered in the several hours and days following the event. After the 1995 Murrah Federal Building bombing, central elements that would help the citizenry make sense of the event, such as unexploded ordnance found in the structure and Timothy McVeigh's accomplice, were stricken from the official narrative. Along these lines at the probable behest of government authorities, a second gunman accompanying Jared Lee Loughner in 2011 was quickly tossed down the memory hole by news outlets covering the incident. Similar reportorial lapses took place at the Aurora Colorado massacre last July, where eyewitnesses attested to spotting James Holmes collaborators, or handlers inside the theater. When the news media act as willing partners in such acts, the public becomes an unwitting accessory in its own psychic imprisonment, lulled into the notion that fair play still exists, and public servants remain intent on service. One of the most important red flags of a staged shooting is a second gunman, health science and investigative writer Mike Adams observes, indicating the shooting was coordinated and planned. There are often mind control elements at work in many of these shootings. James Holmes, for example, was a graduate student actually working on mind control technologies funded by the US government. There were also chemical mind control elements linked to Jared Lee Loughner. Several independent researchers, and most recently Infowars.com reporter Rob Dew have over the past few days pointed to evidence strongly suggesting how two additional Sandy Hook shooting suspects were apprehended by police in the minutes following 9:35 AM, when officers were dispatched to the elementary school. Recordings of the 911 dispatcher and the first responders to the campus all but wholly corroborate initial reports of at least two persons attempting to flee from the scene, with audio evidence of law enforcement officers actually encountering the suspected assailants at around 9:40 AM. Excerpts were replayed on Fox News the evening of December 14.   

Wolfgang Peter May: By the way, when I was the Intelligence Operations Officer fo , you snivelling jew:

Officer under Colonel Akula, I was the first person to document the Israeli atrocities against the USS Liberty, which was being destroyed by Israeli aircraft and subsequently sunk, with all hands on board. When I gave the sad news to General Sherrer, he had only one comment: With friends like Israel, we have no need of enemies. The atrocities committed by Israel will continue to live in infamy!

Ira Chernus: Are the US and Israel Heading for a Showdown?

No one thinks so, but it just might happen! Here's the question no one is asking as 2012 ends, especially given the effusive public support the Obama administration offered Israel in its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza. Will 2013 be a year of confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem? It's on no one's agenda for the New Year, but it could happen anyway. It's true that the Israeli Palestinian peace process appears dead in the water. No matter how much Obama might have wanted that prize, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rebuffed him at every turn. The president appears to have taken it on the chin, offering more than the usual support for Israel, and in return getting nothing at all. However, the operative word here is "appears." In foreign affairs what you see, a show carefully scripted for political purposes often bears little relation to what you actually get. While the Obama administration has acceded to the imagery of knee jerk support for whatever Israel does, no matter how outrageous, behind the scenes its policies are beginning to look far less predictable. In fact, unlikely as it may seem, a showdown could be brewing between the two countries. If so, the outcome will depend on a complicated interplay between private diplomacy and public theater. The latest well masked US intervention came in the brief November war between Israel and Gaza. It began when Israel assassinated a top Hamas leader deeply involved in secret truce talks between the supposedly non communicating foes. Destructive as it was, the war proved brief indeed for one reason: the American president quickly stepped in. Publicly, he couldn't have sided more wholeheartedly with Israel. It felt as if Mitt Romney had won, not lost the election. In private though, as he pressured Egyptian President Morsi to force Hamas to a truce, he reportedly pushed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu just as hard. The truce agreement even had an Obama required twist. It forced Israel to continue negotiating seriously with Hamas about easing the blockade that, combined with repeated destructive Israeli strikes against the Palestinian infrastructure, has plunged Gaza so deep into poverty and misery. Talks on the blockade are reportedly proceeding, though wrapped in the deepest secrecy. It's hard to imagine Israel upholding the truce and entering into a real dialogue to ease the blockade without significant pressure from Washington.   

Jim W. Dean: Israel's deep cover agents inside the IAEA

Why the IAEA is an ongoing fraud, a tool to be used against some, or a free pass for others. Would Israel have a reason to penetrate the IAEA? Oh yes, I said it. And I will say it again. The IAEA is an ongoing fraud. Why? Because it has become totally politicized and I strongly suspect, an intelligence asset for someone. I will give you a homework assignment of figuring out who. In intelligence analysis you generally use a dual track approach of reviewing what can be seen, and then, what is often more revealing, what you don't see that you should. The IAEA's main qualification for the Nobel Prize fake international agency medal is its many years of secret service to the Israeli weapons of mass destruction programs. And what service is that, you ask? It is giving the Zios a free pass on any mention of their decades long programs, in effect putting their stamp of approval on offensive WMD proliferation. Excuse me if I have a little problem with this. I cannot think of another organization that has failed so miserably in its appointed purpose, but therein the plot begins to thicken. Why would the IAEA continue to be funded, while not being able to discover and report to the world about the Zionist weapons hoard that we all knew they had? After all, American intelligence, declassified and classified, has always concluded that Israel had had complete conventional military superiority over all of its neighbors. This left only one reason for its long running investment in all of these WMD programs, their offensive threat value. Now why would an organization like the IAEA not want to discover a threat like this? Could it be that it is working with a group that is selective about what threats are spotlighted, and which are not? After all, the Israeli WMD was an obvious incentive for surrounding nations to try to have some kind of a retaliatory deterrent. Would Israel have a reason to penetrate the IAEI? Oh yes, I said it. And I will say it again. The IAEA is an ongoing fraud. Why? Because it has become totally politicized, and I strongly suspect, an intelligence asset for someone. I will give you a homework assignment of figuring out who. In intelligence analysis you generally use a dual track approach of reviewing what you can be seen, and then, what is often more revealing, what you don't see that you should.  

Michel Chossudovsky: The Mayan 2012 Prophecy

Orwellian "End of the World" Doomsday is "Made in America". The 2012 Mayan Prophecy has been readily distorted and misunderstood. The End of the Mayan Calendar on December 21, 2012 has nothing to do with the "End of the World". In fact, the Mayan calendar does not end on December 21st. Rather, December 21 marks the beginning of a new "Long Cycle" in the Mayan calendar system. The End of the World concept is a falsehood and misinterpretation of Mayan thought. What is at stake is a renewal, the unfolding of a new era. For the Mayans, December 21 marks the beginning of a new long cycle. Meanwhile, "End of the World" stories and commentary are plastered on the news tabloids. While the Western media readily refutes the Mayan prophesy, the apocalypse narrative, when repeated ad nauseam, serves as a distraction and distortion. A Reuters Ispos poll conducted last May confirms that 10% of the World's population believe that. "The Mayan calendar, which some say ends in 2012, marks the end of the world". Ironically, in sharp contrast to the Mayan prophesy of "renewal, the real World we live in at the outset of the 21st Century is marked by a formidable economic and social crisis, which is impoverishing millions of people, literally destroying people's lives. In the figurative sense, we are in the midst of an unfolding "doomsday scenario"of a complex political, social and economic nature: it's man made, it's "Made in America", it is the consequence of the fracture of the judicial system, the evolving Homeland Security apparatus, the fraudulent deregulation of financial markets, the mismanagement of the real economy. These fundamental shifts in America's institutional and social fabric are coupled with a far reaching global military agenda, and a self serving US foreign policy. The latter under the helm of Secretary Hillary Clinton points towards a potential breakdown of the channels of international diplomacy. War and Economic Crisis are intimately related. While the global economy is in a state of chaos, marked by the collapse of productive systems, the US and its allies, including NATO and Israel, have embarked upon a military adventure, a long war under the disguise of a "global war on terrorism". The Pentagons global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously. Pentagon war games routinely focus on simulating World War III scenarios. This "End of the World" military agenda potentially threatens the future of humanity.