Somehow it seems appropriate to start an open thread just before Ground Hog Day: certainly many of the themes likely to turn up here
have something of the quality of the myth of the eternal return.
For example, this is an ever popular theme, while this from the "new Debka site" is a bit more interesting, at least if one does the
necessary "reading between the lines". For the latter activity, there is probably no site on the Internet that provides better practice.

Hannah,

After reading the 'new Debka" site I just want to know where I can go and wash the slime off?

And thanks again for your work keeping the drinks flowing in the bar. Also the comments on your first link were interesting... though I must admit I find guys who are worried about america becoming a mexi-black nation are rather silly. The propagandist-that-be have done a great job keeping the peons separated into various micro-sized and easily managed sub groups.

The monied elites are laughing at the world, laughing at how stupid and gullible people are... A pack of feral dogs have more sense then any group of humans, but are probably not as vicious.

DaveS

Congratulations Mr. President, as per your instructions, your fleet of assassins is butchering people all over the place. You are a terrorist extraordinaire, with your big white smile. May the gods dealing with the spirits of the dead reward you with something real special upon your arrival.

Via Iraq Today

This is the sort of thing I've been expecting. What do you think?

From http://www.rense.com/general89/tax.htm

Amazing and heartfelt.

Sorry I can't join the strike or withdraw money from U.S. banks. If I had had any money there OFAC (The Treasury) would already have seized it, as they have already seized the accounts of any Iranian-Americans who travelled to Tehran and unwittingly checked their accounts online through an Iranian ISP. (Now that's what I call fair, labelling anyone who visits Iran to see family a 'terrorist').

Anyway, good luck, all you protesting citizens. Even if it is only partly successful it could lead to greater things.

Wish me luck too on February 11th, about which I shall revert if still alive afterwards.

This story from Lousiana may well remain "just a small cloud on the horizon", but it could also turn into a major political tempest. Discussion of the obvious implications and entailments of this little caper seems to be, by a gentlemen's agreement, destined to quickly die out, since, after all, nobody wants another Watergate scandal, least of all the Democrats who already have their hands full in covering up earlier GOP felonies while committing their own. See also this link for more detail, or this one for related squalor.
Nevertheless, the Landrieu bugging does raise an obvious (but unmentionable) question, to wit, "To what extent are there rogue elements within the deeper bowels of the security and defense agencies acting at cross purposes to (ostensibly) official U.S. policy?"
One need only think back to such "illegal" activities as U.S. intervention in Cambodia or Nicaragua (with the associated drug dealing pitting the DEA against the CIA), or to the reasonably well documented plotting against Carter during the run up to the 1980 election, or the "fortuitous" arrival of the Lewinsky affair against Clinton to recall that such internecine battles are by no means exceptional in recent American history.
This also applices, of course, to Obama himself who must be only too well aware of the tight limits on his liberty of maneuver posed rather more by the invisible goverment of irresistible lobbies than by constitutional checks and balances. While I share the disappointment of those who hoped for a "clean break" with the disastrous and criminal policies of the Bush administration, I can't help wondering how much of Obama's appartent enthusiasm for a sanguinary foreign policy is, rather, the fruit of a cold calculation that gives more weight to his chances of survival in office and "relative" success than to the lives of Pakistanis or Afghanis with the misfortune to be on the wrong side of the ledger after a calculation based on the DoD's risk matrix and criteria for Predatory elimination. Certainly, it is astonishing that despite Obama's conversion to Bushism, he remains a leftist demon in the eyes of the irretrievable American right.

well, well, well, looks that Ankara has some plans of her own.
and my guess is that Turkey (and Greece) deserve a close eye in their next moves.

strike:
any news of the unions supporting it?
i wish is not far when an international strike is called, a Global Strike, damn it!

Parviz,
Boa Sorte, fellow citizen!

Rudolf-

I second your global strike... let all the evil, greedy, small minded human scum know that the rest of us are fed-up with their collective crap. Time for peace, time for this war madness to end!

There is no us and them, just humans and a lot of cold empty space out beyond our little egg.

DaveS

I was over at WRH and again noticed this story about a failed missile test:
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=117644&sectionid=351020104
I'd seen the news before, kind of just glanced at it meaning to read more. I used to photograph missile and rocket launches from Vandenburg AFB for the santa maria times, back when the star wars defense project was all the rage. Most of those test failed for some reason or another. Mostly it seemed they had a hard time keeping their missiles headed in the right direction. I imagine it probably was due to how moist and salty the air is at the base or how thick the fog can get... most of the test silos are less than a mile from the pacific. Sometimes there were interesting sunsets or sunrises after a one of these mistakes. Kind of a cool, multimillion dollar firework.

But when I reread the story it struck me as odd – this was supposedly a project designed to test our missile defense against an Iranian attack...

Something stinks. Announcing a 'failed test' against an 'Iranian threat' reeks of the worst sort of propaganda; This must be to make people worried that 'america' might have a weak hole the Iranian politicians may try and exploit. Better kill those fuckers before they nuke Kansas City back to the stone age (might not be a bad idea). This smells of anthrax like before the most recent version of the gulf war.

Now we better go git'um before they git us... trust me, we haven't heard the last of this missile test.

DaveS

I have a bit of a problem caring too much about a clutch (or is it a murder) of creepy neocon grads tapping Senator Landrieu's phone since that senator did vote yea to the FISA Amendments Act of 2007, which gave the 'security services' the right to intercept anyone's phone they believed 'creepy'.
Theree is something else here though as Alex Cockburn pointed out last week.
The bloke in the car/van outside Stan Dai is a graduate of Trinity Washington University’s spook school,. funded by the “Intelligence Community”. In 2008, Dai served as associate director of ICCAE at Trinity Washington.
ICCAE, pronounced “Icky” The CIA, has successfully implanted spy schools on 22 university campuses across the country, many of them labeled “Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence” or ICCAE.

I hadn't heard of ICCAE (for similar reasons that makes me totally unfamiliar with Landrieu, I no longer bother to stay up with the arcane workings of amerika's poltical and intelligence elites. Doing so is counter productive. There are no 'good' senators or congresspersons, just as there is no acceptable face to the CIA.) so after deciding this story was funny (haha and peculiar) enough to make all the participants look like drongos, I checked out the ICCAE and discovered that Stan Dai was still listed as the contact at Trinity Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (ICCAE) ICCAE Scholars Program applications www.trinitydc.edu/programs/intel_center/Documents/Application_Form_-_Intelligence_Scholars.pdf
Which kinda begs the question. Has the neo-con military and intelligence arm of government become so entwined with neo liberal conservative economic activism, that young hoons are paid by the intelligence services to subvert pols that are believed to be corrupting neoliberal shibboleths such as 100% privatised health services?
After all Landrieu votes conservatively on matters of empire, even if she does make the odd patronising economically populist gesture to the citizens when she needs to secure 'her base'.

Here is a taste of a killer speech by Tim Wise on White Privilege:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc&feature=player_embedded

He nails the problem, but I doubt many really notice or even care enough to notice.

Racism sucks... it might be one of the worst of the 'isms' , none of which are worth a damn.

I must say someone did find a funny clip from the video to pimp it on the WHR website (where I originally found this) might be worth a look and a giggle:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/tim-wise-creation-whiteness

Yeah, we get the joke.

DaveS

Debs comments regarding the Landrieu bugging are well taken: it almost looks like some sort of amateurish free-lancing within a neo-con spookish setting. As often the case, Jusing Raimondo has some trenchant comments on another strange case: the terrifying underpants bomber and his mysterious friends.
In the same vein one has these comments
from Tom Burghart:

I'm surprised nobody commented on the extraordinary revelation this week at Britain's Iraq Inquiry:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/02/clare-short-warned-tony-blair

War Crimes Tribunal, anyone?

William Sidis, who was estimated to have an IQ of over 250, was an atheist as well as a socialist. I'm sure that intelligence is strongly correlated with atheism. But I'm not so sure intelligence is also strongly correlated with leftist thinking. Even if it was, many on the Right would simply blame this on Asperger's getting the better of him.

But I do think that if Sidis were alive today he'd probably be palling around with brainy computer geeks, instead of with leading-edge leftist intellectuals. But I'm not so sure that keeping his nose to the digital grindstone would have kept him out of jail any more than speaking his mind about social injustice did decades ago.:^(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis

thanks for the interesting speculation on the underwear bomber incident, hkol. it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this was indeed theater.

you may recall a little over one year ago the reports of a threat to obama's inauguration from somalia's harakat al-shabaab mujahideen, which was later revealed to be a hoax (attributed to an unknown party) after it served its purpose. my take on that episode was that it was manufactured to serve as a drill for the outgoing & incoming administrations. i'll back this assertion up w/ an article in the presidential quarterly earlier this year (The 2008-2009 presidential transition through the voices of its participants) that says as much when you read between the lines,

The recurring theme of the new year seems to be mendacity as a
style of government. In addition to the "underpants bomber", the "yemeni threat to Obama's inaugurations", the by now pretty convincingly documented scandal of the "asymmetric warfare suicide"
hoax and cover-up at Guantanamo, and last but by no economic means least, the "incredible recovering U.S. economy". Paul Craig Roberts makes some
fairly standard observations in his Counterpunch article "The Crisis
is Not Over". They are interesting because their author is anything but a leftist ideologue.

The chief problem with attempting to apply any sort of critical thinking to so called 'Islamic Terror' is that one quickly ends up in a corner trading irrelevancies with Alex Jones and his mob of concrete loons.
But, given that stricture I shall attempt to apply a bit of rational analysis to what we do know about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and this 'terrorist act' that was doomed to failure long before young Umar climbed aboard at Schipol.
Doomed to failure because not only was the 'bomb' the proverbial damp squib, Umar was unlucky enough to have a slew of passengers in the seats around him who without a second thought leapt up and restrained him while extinguishing the fire in his y-fronts. Contemporaneous reports of the incident such as this from PBS 28th December09infer several adjacent passengers stepped up to prevent an explosion.
Maybe he was just unlucky but humans haven't displayed a real good record in this regard, sure the 'official' account of united flight 93 on sept 11 01 has passengers leaping up to confront hijackers - after a time in a huddle developing a strategy, but wrestling with a hijacker enmasse is very different from trying to defuse a bomb whose fuse is spraying out flames. Bombs are used by terrorists precisely because any human's natural response to a bomb is fear, and the paralysis caused by fear. Yet we are told that in the case of the undiebomber, several 'ordinary citizens' spontaneously, without any previuous experience or training in either counter terrorism or bomb disposal, elected to individually confront Umar and his flaming boxers. I'm sorry it just doesn't ring true. Justin Raimondo made some valid points about the weird tales attached to Abdulmutallab's being allowed on the plane in the first place, points which some of us have also previously raised when considering the xmas 'bomb' but this weirdness goes far beyond Abdulmutallab's presence on a plane without a passport.

Those acquaintances I have who spend time in the ME among 'newsources' who opposed to USuk imperialism, tell me that by the mid noughties all the larger players such as the Saudi, Palestinian and Lebanese nationalists, that hadn't already forsworn attacks on western civilians in the 80's and 90's, had finally done so. Not out of any sort of spirit of fraternity towards the enablers of oppression, but because they had all recognised how counter-productive it was. They recognise the double standard which makes it perfectly OK for zionists to steal Palestine from its indigenous owners by using barbaric acts of terror including slaughtering brits sleeping in their beds, but not ok if Palestinians respond in kind towards their occupier. In that case they were considered 'racists' and 'war criminals'. This has been accepted, albeit with a bitter shrug, by ME nationalist leaders.
The few acts since, just about all of which have been abject failures were the work of 'angry amateurs', usually young men born in the west to families from the ME. And even they have mostly been 'rolled up' now. All of which has made life pretty tough for politicians who want to campaign on protecting a scared constituency, rather than campaigning on improvements to health or education services to that constituency.

Indeed the Burghardt article which HKOL links to points out Abdulmutallab was already known to english security services because he was an associate of one of these young 'local' english born resistance fighters who got rounded up during the MI5 war on islamic activists of all stripes. The fellow arrested is alleged to have been part of a bomb plot.

Now the world of Islamic terrorists is far from huge, most groups have a fair idea of who's up who and who is paying the rent in their game, so given that, isn't it rather odd that such a major resistance organisation as that which Al Qaeda is portrayed as being, wouldn't know Abdulmutallab's cover had been blown in London? And if they did know that he had been blown, isn't it odd that he was confidently expected to be able to board a flight to amerika with no passport or luggage other than an explosive bulge in the crotch area?

Young lefty hotheads used to be told that if they really felt it imperative to take some sort of action the only way they could be sure that any such action had any chance to turn out they way they hoped was if they and a tiny group of others they had known all their lives planned and implemented it amongst themselves. Cynical old fucks from all points the power spectrum love preying on young flesh. The only thing you can be reasonably certain of is that the wily old fucks with the plan and 'the contacts', won't be of the philosophy they claim to be, in fact they will be anything other than what they claim to be. After all why go risking the life/future of someone you agree with, when there are so many willing and ready to go whose views you don't share? This is advice Abdulmutallab should have kept in mind if he was capable of rational thought (although given the counterproductive results that recent attacks on whitefella civilians have wrought, if he was rational it is difficult to conceive him wanting to go through with an action at all).
I'm sure that Abdulmutallab thought he was a soldier committing a revolutionary act, but the odds of this act having been planned by AQ or any other large nationalist groupings are surely as slim as Abdulmutallab himself.

Of course there is a chance that some breakaway or renegade Yemeni group planned the whole fiasco, but if they did how the fuck did any Mickey Mouse outfit like that get him on the plane? If they were smart enough to get him aboard why did they stuff up the easiest bit, making a working explosive? This kid hardly seems 16 let alone the ripe old age of 22 he is alleged to be, apparently he has kangaroos loose in the top paddock, why would he be trusted with something so important?

If he was kosher his father's warnings to Homeland Security would surely have brought him down. The sturdy and valiant passengers would have had to have just been there by chance. The bomb failing to explode must have been another piece of good luck for all passengers.
Does anyone else think this chain of dumb luck intermingled with happy coincidence is just too incredible?

Especially when you consider it played right into the hands of USuk plans to up the violence in the Yemen. Before this "xmas day bombing" G Brown in particular would have had to tread very carefully around sending troops or advisors to the Yemen, this is an election year in england and Brown's mob are in enough trouble as it is, being caught out warmongering without a cause, would surely seal his fate.
Now he can wrap the thread-bare cloak of a claim that "we warned em but they didn't listen" round his porcine frame while he passes further laws to impinge on english liberties.
Oblamblam has gotten fair mileage outta Abdulmutallab's cock up as well.
In fact given that he is being tried in the ordinary legal system, isn't it rather odd the 'evil unsleeping tentacles of al qaeda' have not reached out to Abdulmutallab either in the slammer or via his 'legal team'?
Now we are told that Abdulmutallab got so lonely it only took a coupla visits from his family to get him singing like a canary!
Does that sound like an operation planned and implemented by the omnipotent and ubiquitous forces of islamofascism? /sarcasm.

Yeah I know it is all circumstantial but by the same token USuk intelligence/counter terror can't have it both ways, either AQ is a dangerous and powerful opponent, but if so how could they put a fuck up like this together? Or AQ is a spent force, in which case why is USuk tapping our phones, monitoring all citizens 'loyalty' while blowing the shit outta Abdul Mohammeds from aden to islamabad?

The US gives Israel a slush pile of money every year. A large part is Military aid. Over time, I have read, the portion of military aid has increased, with other aid decreasing to... zero. (Without expert knowledge one can’t say much.) Wiki gives the figure of 3 billion in military aid in 07. Others say 5 billion today. Not counting ‘loans’ and other ‘supplements.’ Ok, we all know that. Israel and the US have a free trade agreement, and the US is Isr.’s largest trading partner.

Israel then buys military stuff from the US. Israel is one of the best US customers. The US also simply gives hardware to Isr., such as ammunitions and grenade launchers. I suppose that is a bit like my ‘coop’ points that garner me free champagne and fruit cake at Xmas.

Israel and the US collaborate on developing, producing arms. Israel is very active in ‘Homeland Security.’ Multiple bi-lateral agreements, joint projects, in ‘security’ and ‘development’ exist.

Israel makes arms itself. It then goes on to export arms.

No official US or Isr. sites (CIA factbook, Isr. Ministry of Foreign affairs, etc.) mention Isr. arms exports, it is all buried in other categories, and they sometimes downplay the diamond trade, or put it first, who knows why. The numbers are all so divergent they are clearly made up.

In short, it is a brisk trade, with Isr. occupying a position somewhat like a franchise. One wonders, what is the volume.

Occasionally there is a flap - Isr. sells something to China or Venezuela and the US objects. (to Iran!, in the past, iirc)

The spying is a symptom of trade agreements and deals that are negotiated with ups and downs in function of particular circumstances.

It is natural that the weaker, dependent partner, ‘zpyz’ more; it can use obscure or secret information....it flaunts its gumption, exploits its sneaky power, with control of individual nodes, personal influence, foreknowledge, secrets held up the sleeve, the manipulation of ‘leaks’, etc. The weaker needs information; the stronger holds it by definition. The stronger party tolerates the spying, it is part of the network.

Add in that Israel has the reputation of loving spying, or more generally, understanding social and business environments and using personal contacts, whereas the US has the exact opposite image.

Here, we laugh at the CIA because they always stay in the same hotel, refuse drinks without ice, and carry ...umbrellas. Urban myth, perhaps; I’m talking cred and rep, not reality. ...Israeli spies are, well, different. (Female, speaks 5 languages. Works a day job.)

In any case, it is a symbiotic, co-dependent, dance. One driver is commercial interest. On that, they are welded at the hip.

Isr. is an equal opportunity dealer and seller, anything goes; the US has vague shifting, foreign policy guidelines, interests, and moral stances.

Meanwhile a strategy of tension is mandatory, threats must be brandished, attacks must be made, otherwise nobody would buy.

I hate to be so pessimistic. It pains my heart, makes me feel ill.

A general strike for a day or a few, works, when:

a) It is general enough to seriously disrupts the country’s (state’s, locality, institution’s, etc.) activity

b) involves several different sectors at the heart of daily life (farmers and lawyers can strike and no-one will notice, which is why they throw milk about or chain themselves to gates and so on)

c) it also impacts those who have no interest in the strike, on the day(s) (e.g. transport, patients in the hospital)

d) is accompanied by some kind of stance, demand, position. this can be cacophonous, it need not be crystal clear

e) is accompanied by credible and serious threats of more of the same.

Remember the protests against invading Iraq? Millions of ppl? What happened? Nothing. The PTB clearly read that protestors would feel good about their action, pat themselves on the back, and would go home to eat BBQ and slouch in front of the blue screen. Those were protests, not strikes, of course.

Americans are so isolated, so politically dumbed down, so indoctrinated with an ideology of individualism, competition, authoritarianism (a need to bow down or strong-arm and threaten to stay on top), and by now so apathetic, misinformed, drugged, despairing, that I can’t see it happening.

Would a nurse strike because a cleaner is paid below minimum wage? (In her hospital it has been the case for decades, say.) An airplane pilot because there are homeless and hungry children in his home town? - Huh? He might be a good guy and give to charity. Hungry children are not news, they are all in Afreeka anyway. No need to lengthen the list.

Would ppl strike in rage at the only issue I can think of that might just possibly gather some overall support - against the Banks/Wall street and the Bush-Obama Bail outs?

When for 15 years - human memory - they have put up with usury, debt, bank penalties, credit scores, bankruptcy, homelessness, foreclosures, student debt that can’t be got rid of, stupid business failures because of no loans, medical costs that can’t ever be paid, and the resulting ruined lives?

Blackie-

You're right to be pessimistic... regardless of the personal health risk.

The way power is brought down is not thru the actions of us small folks as much as from jealousies and pettiness at the top. The masses are used by the powerful as a blunt weapon against each other.

I'll admit my posts are doing nothing more than pissing in the wind; But as long as I keep my eyes shut, I can pretend it's the warm salt spray coming off the bow of a sailboat crossing an equatorial sea.

DaveS

I found this thread at Pat Lang's SST to be quite worthwhile. That blog is, by vocation, much less prone to the kind of free-wheeling conjecture that makes this place so lovable (to me), but, as seems to be happening ever more frequently, the "feet firmly on the ground reasonable righties" are arriving at conclusions not very dissimilar from those of the "loony leftists". In particular, the notion of "IO fratricide" is an interesting one, and would seem to merit further discussion. More generally, the interplay between the various organs of elite dominance also seems like a fertile row to plow. That the handling of the "underpants bomber" is becoming a political football seems to confirm some sort of intra-elite factionalism, but a full understanding of what's going on is probably a long way off.
Since this thread began with a reference to "eternally returning" themes, this psychedelic "blast from the past" fits right in. I don't think anyone still denies CIA malfeasance in regard to Frank Olson's death, but this allegation raises the ante considerably.

A well deserved spanking:

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/obamatoon-an-unexpected-visit-from-malcolm-x/

DaveS

thank you hannah for the deep politics link. though it's taken half a century, the cia involvement in chemical mind-fuckery is continuing to ooze into the public's awareness. maybe it's because spook culture is moving from the covert shadows into the overt light of gloves-off control.

anyway, here's a few rhymes i tapped out this morning to keep them at arms length for another day:


sorrow is the marrow of this brittle-boned disaster
where a dark occult design is pushing us all faster

pushing over edges sacred earth has set in place
they map out all the lines in the network of her face

and redirect the energies from channels dug in stone
sorrow is the marrow of men who kill their home