Tuesday, July 5, 2011

WikiLeaks Strikes Again: Asian Summer?, June 23 2011

The harbinger of foreign-funded sedition reveals itself in yet another nation.

Tony CartalucciPrisonplanet.com
When Reuters’ journalist Andrew Marshall isn’t piecing articles together citing paid lobbyists like Robert Amsterdam, he is sifting through Wikileaks cables looking for damning hearsay and gossip to malign Thailand’s revered monarchy just days before a highly contested national election. As in Tunisia and Egypt before the US-funded “Arab Spring” was lit ablaze, Wikileaks again seems to be the harbinger of foreign-funded unrest about to unfold in yet another nation.

To illustrate just how tenuous Marshall’s Wikileaks-based “work” is, consider the wording in the UK’s Independent article where phrases like “alleges,” “apparently,” and a video that emerged “which seemed to show,” punctuate nearly every sentence. This is because Wikileak cables are not verified facts, nor do they even constitute any form of real evidence. In fact, all they are, are alleged conversations, or alleged conversations about alleged conversations, sometimes as far as thrice removed from the supposed source. The only “credibility” these cables carry is as much credibility as the US diplomats that wrote them have – which admittedly isn’t much.

Marshall explains his reasons for quitting his job at Reuters to write what he is calling “Thai Story” in another piece published in the Independent explaining, “three months ago I gained access to the “Cablegate” database of confidential US cables believed to have been downloaded by US soldier Bradley Manning in Iraq. There are more than 3,000 cables on Thailand. Unlike almost all reporting on the country, the cables do not mince words when it comes to the [Thai] monarchy. As I read them I realised two things. They could revolutionise our understanding of Thailand. And there was no way I could write about them as a Reuters journalist.”

Just how Marshall believes the questionable word of US diplomats could “revolutionise” our understanding of Thailand, assuming we are objective people who base such an understanding on facts, not hearsay from less than credible sources, is not entirely understood. How it may serve as fodder for Thailand’s struggling foreign-funded opposition is quite obvious. Marshall continues by saying, “I just could not accept giving up and ignoring the truth about Thailand. Thai people deserve the right to be fully informed, to debate their future without fear. With great regret, I resigned from Reuters at the start of June to publish my article for anybody who wants to read it.” Again, how exactly the word of less than reputable US diplomats constitutes “the truth about Thailand” escapes rational explanation.

Marshall also claims, “Thailand is sliding backwards into authoritarianism and repression. And one stark indication of this is that just saying it is illegal.” He cites “Thai-British professor” Giles Ungpakorn, who he claims “is living in exile in London after fleeing Thailand following accusations he defamed the palace.”

Marshall conveniently omits that Ungpakorn was a leading member of billionaire globalist-stooge Thaksin Shinawatra’s “red shirt” movement, a confessed Marxist, and has on numerous occasions, along with fellow red-shirt leaders, suggested Thais take up arms to institute a Marxist socialist-welfare state. Either Marshall didn’t do his research, or he is intentionally lying to his audience to garner sympathy and invoke emotions, rather than provide credible objective information for the rational, “fully informed” debate he claims to be seeking.



“Professor” Ungpakorn is not hiding in the UK for insulting the palace, he is a co-leader in billionaire globalist Thaksin Shinawatra’s red-shirt movement and a confessed Marxist promoting the use of arms to institute a socialist welfare state. Giles Ungpakorn’s raving “Red Siam Manifesto” can be read here on Socialist Worker Online.
….
A conveniently timed Wikileaks exposé: Not the first time.



This surely isn’t the first time Wikileak cables have been conveniently and purposefully spotlighted by the corporate-owned media in order to provide fodder for struggling foreign-backed opposition groups. The US-trained activists in Tunisia and Egypt received similar “helping hands” from Wikileaks, where cables featuring the gossip of US diplomats were credited for “sparking” the revolutions. Business Insider declared, “This Is The Wikileak That Sparked The Tunisian Crisis,” referring to cables featuring US diplomats talking about the corruption of Tunisia’s regime – a regime the US had been funding and training activists to overthrow years in advance, along side activists from Egypt, Yemen, and Syria. Convenient indeed.

Wikileaks also has been busy post-revolution, bolstering the sinking ship of globalist-stooge Mohamed ElBaradei in Egypt who was pelted with rocks and called “an American agent” before cables “revealed” just how much disdain the US supposedly holds for the US International Crisis Group trustee. While the word of a US diplomat is fairly meaningless, and alone would be worth nothing, the Wikileaks phenomenon actually relies entirely on the corporate media’s meticulous grooming of Julian Assange’s credibility and the “threat” he poses to corrupt individuals. In reality, it is nothing more than a dressed up, crass stunt designed for the weakest, most impressionable of minds, and Reuters’ Andrew Marshall is just the latest incarnation of this tiring gambit.

Marshall is simply serving as a clearing house for a carefully timed corporate-media exposé featuring US diplomats and their irrelevant opinions regarding their particular analysis of Thailand. Considering that the Thai opposition’s leader, Thaksin Shinwatra, has been working directly with some of the largest, most influential lobbying firms in the US, including Amsterdam & Peroff (mentioned above as inspiration for an entire article by Marshall), Baker Botts, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Edelman, and Kobre & Kim since 2006, it would be safe to say these “diplomats” and their “cables” represents a United States government intent on regime change and the reinstatement of Thaksin as Thailand’s leader. These diplomats and the corporatocracy they represent have an invested interest in not only criticizing Thailand and its various institutions, but undermining and dividing Thailand’s long standing unity in order to overthrow and despoil the nation.

With the engineered “Arab Spring” turning into a regional war of aggression, instigated by the West via NATO, and the stated necessity of encircling and containing China, Thailand, Myanmar, and other Southeast Asian nations are next on the list for destabilization. Thailand in particular serves as a regional hub for the globalists’ seditious “civil society” networks, as well as a logistical and economic hub. It has also been suffering political chaos since Thaksin’s ouster in 2006 and is a logical starting point for a potential “Asian Summer.” Thailand’s elections are in July, expect Marshall’s collection of US diplomatic hearsay to be cited, just as Wikileaks was for Tunisia, as the rhetorical excuse for what the globalists have been engineering for years.

Ron Paul's New Effort to Legalize MJ, June 23 2011

Mike AdamsNatural News
Four decades of the so-called “War on Drugs” has led only to the suffering of millions of innocents, the crowding of our prisons with non-violent citizens, the utter waste of billions of dollars on law enforcement and the (in)justice system, and the enriching of underground drug gangs who thrive on violence. The outlawing of marijuana in America has been a disastrous political policy and an insane medical policy. It has labeled biochemical addicts “criminals” and thrown them in prisons to be treated like dogs.

The War on Drugs, through interdicting street supplies of drugs, has only made the drug gangs wealthier by driving up the value of the drugs that remain readily available. And it is now admitted that the ATF actually placed tens of thousands of weapons directly into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, giving rise to the very gang violence the agency claims to be preventing (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011…).

The U.S. government, it turns out, is actually contributing to the drug war violence!

Ron Paul, Barney Frank join forces to end the insanity

In an effort to end the insanity, Rep. Ron Paul has joined forces with Rep. Barney Frank to introduce legislation legalizing marijuana in America. President Obama, you may recall, promised voters on the campaign trail that he would do this, too, but it seems he’s been too busy bombing Libya and using the U.S. Constitution as a floor mat to bother keeping any actual promises. (GITMO is still open for business, too, in case you haven’t noticed…)

Of course, the War on Drugs is a very effective tool of tyranny to be used against the American people. It empowers the DEA and the federal government to conduct surprise searches of any home or business for any reason whatsoever (even without a warrant), it keeps the prison industry overflowing with endless cheap human labor, and it grants the big drug companies a monopoly over all those recreational drugs that are now sold as pharmaceuticals.

“Speed,” for example, is now sold as an ADHD treatment for children. Big Pharma is also going after THC chemicals in marijuana and hopes to sell them as prescription drugs. By keeping the War on Drugs in place, Big Pharma is assured a monopoly that even the drug lords haven’t been able to accomplish.

An issue that crosses political boundaries

One thing that’s especially interesting about the so-called War on Drugs is how the best-informed people on both the left and the right now see it all as a complete fraud. Perhaps that’s why Rep. Ron Paul (Republican) and Rep. Barney Frank (Democrat) are the perfect sponsors of this bill. Each has staked out positions on the opposite ends of the political spectrum for some issues, yet they both agree that it’s time to end the failed Nixon-era policies that have only brought this nation suffering and injustice.

Ending the failed War on Drugs is not a conservative idea nor a liberal idea; it’s a principle of liberty whose time has come in America.

Because in observing the War on Drugs, the prison crowding, the drug underground economy and all the other unintended consequence of marijuana prohibition, we must ask the question: Is society served in any way by criminalizing marijuana smokers? How does taking a medical addict and throwing them behind bars accomplish anything at all?

The prohibition against marijuana accomplishes nothing for society

For starters, it halts the contributions of a tax paying citizen. Most pot smokers actually have jobs and pay taxes. They are functioning citizens — lawyers, accountants, musicians, administrators and more. By throwing them in prison, you’re destroying their own ability to participate in the economy while actually placing a new cost burden on the rest of society.

Secondly, from a moral perspective, pot smokers need medical support, not criminal indictment. If someone is suffering from a substance addiction, how does throwing them in prison and surrounding them with other addicts and hardened criminals serve any positive purpose whatsoever? Today, U.S. prisons actually function more like criminal training camps where people come out as far more violent criminals than when they went in. So the justice system actually ends up capturing people who are relatively peaceful, tax-paying citizens and then turning them into hardened criminals who are eventually released onto the streets.

How insane is that?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to allow them to continue to function in society but help them with their drug addiction through a medical / health perspective? Addicts need support, not incarceration. And today’s justice system does absolutely nothing to rehabilitate prisoners. It only makes them far worse criminals.
And finally, from an economic perspective alone, can any U.S. state really afford to continue incarcerating people for non-violent crimes that have no victims? Who is harmed with a guy down the street lights up a joint? No one. There are no victims. There is no crime, either, other than the fictional crime the State fabricates to incarcerate people.

A “real” crime is a crime that has a victim: A rape, a burglary, a mugging, or a murder. Those crimes deserve proper consideration by the justice system, and people who commit such crimes are precisely the kind of people society can justifiably put behind bars. But carrying a few ounces of marijuana in your pocket — or even lighting up a smoke — violates no person or property. Nor does it violate any moral or ethical principle. It is, in every way, an act that is improperly and unjustifiably criminalized through legal fictions engineered by the state.

The solution to marijuana prohibition is finally at hand

It is time to end those legal fictions and end the War on Drugs in America. The solution is to:
#1) LEGALIZE marijuana across the country.
#2) REGULATE marijuana and allow it to be sold through licensed retailers.
#3) TAX marijuana sales and use the tax proceeds to fund addiction support programs for those small percentage of users who end up addicted.
The results of these actions will be:
#1) A COLLAPSE of the drug gangs. If marijuana is suddenly legal, who would bother buying it from a street dealer?
#2) A COLLAPSE of drug profits. If it’s legal, the price goes down. Suddenly there’s no more money in trafficking the drug, either, so the drug gangs are instantly out of business.
#3) A HUGE INCREASE in revenues to the states from collecting taxes on the legal sale of marijuana.
#4) A REDUCTION in young people trying the drug. What teenager wants to try something if it’s LEGAL? Legalizing pot takes all the “fun” out of it for many young people. It’s no longer cool. Kinda boring, actually. And it makes you cough.
#5) A SAVINGS of billions of dollars off all the money states are right now spending arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating people for possessing marijuana. This money could be used to build schools, roads, job re-education programs and more. And don’t court judges have better things to do than sentence pot smokers?
#6) AN END to prison overcrowding. End the sentences for those incarcerated merely for marijuana possession. Set them free and end the prison crowding. Save the prisons for the real criminals such as murderers, child molesters and Wall Street bankers.
#7) A FREER, more just society that respects human dignity. If you treat addicts like criminals, you take away their dignity, and your entire society suffers a net loss. By recognizing the humanity behind the addiction, we can restore human dignity to the entire process of how we deal with drug addicts in society today.

Action item: Call your Congressman to support this bill!

Here’s what you can do right now to help support this bill: Call your Congressman in Washington D.C. and tell them you want to support the bill to end the federal ban on marijuana.

The switchboard number is 202-224-3121.

If you live in the U.S. or are a U.S. citizen, call this number now, ask to be connected to your Congressperson, and verbally express your support for the bill to legalize marijuana across America.

It is time to end the failed War on Drugs, stop the useless incarceration of millions of innocent people, and halt the tyranny of the DEA and other federal agencies that waste billions of dollars every year stalking and assaulting people who merely want to smoke a weed.

I don’t smoke weed, by the way, but as a person who believes in the principles of freedom and liberty, I fully support the rights of others to smoke marijuana if they so choose. Similarly, I don’t drink alcohol, but I support the rights of other to drink alcohol if that’s their decision. As a nation, we tried prohibition with alcohol and it was a disaster. Now we’re living through the era of marijuana prohibition, and it is a disastrous failure as well. Isn’t it time we grew up as a nation and allowed people to take responsibility for their own actions as long as they aren’t harming anyone else in the process?

Smoke all you want, folks! I’m gonna have a superfood smoothie instead.

Sources for this story include:http://ca.news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-…

U.S. to Lose 2nd Place in World Trade, June 23 2011

Patrick AllenCNBC
In less than 40 years India will overtake the US as the world’s second-largest trading nation, pushing today’s superpower into third place and Europe in to the little leagues, according to a new report by Citi.

“According to our projections, world trade in goods and services will grow from $37 trillion in 2010 to $149 trillion in 2030 and $371 trillion in 2050,” Citigroup’s William Buiter and Ebrahim Rahbari wrote in a research note released on Thursday.

“But at least as interesting as the growth in world trade that we forecast are the changes in its composition that we expect over the course of the next four decades, with today’s emerging markets set to gain much more prominence in world trade relative to advanced economies,” they added.

The report predicts that trade between emerging markets will overtake that between advanced economies in just four years in a clear sign that the world’s major economies of Europe and North America are set to lose relative importance to the global economy.

Full story here.

Gaddafi: "Stop This Barbaric Attack", June 23 2011

Daily Mail
Muammar Gaddafi has called for the UN Security Council to investigate after a heavy air strike by Nato.

The Libyan leader accused Nato of murder in an audio address to the nation, days after the alliance acknowledged for the first time its bombs may have caused civilian casualties.

Five houses were hit in Surman, west of Tripoli, leaving 15 people dead, including three children, according to a government spokesman.

Gaddafi said: ‘You murderers… One day we will respond to you likewise and your homes will be legitimate targets.

‘The Security Council should hold an urgent meeting to discuss the matter and stop this barbaric attack.’

Full story here.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Sarkozy Says Food Price Surge is 'Plague', June 23 2011

Rudy Ruitenberg and Tony Dreibus
Bloomberg
World food prices that rose 37 percent in a year, driving 44 million more people into poverty, are a “plague” that need action from world leaders now, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

Group of 20 farm ministers are in Paris for the second day of a summit. France, which holds the G-20 presidency, wants a central database on crops, limits on export bans, international market regulation, emergency stockpiles and a plan to raise global output. The proposals to limit export curbs and start a database will be “especially sensitive,” French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said last week.

Wheat as much as doubled in the past year as Russia and Ukraine curbed exports after drought decimated crops, adding to record global food prices the World Bank says put 44 million more people into poverty since June. Nations will spend $1.29 trillion on food imports this year, the most ever and 21 percent more than in 2010, the United Nations estimates.

“Volatility is a plague on farmers and consumers,” Sarkozy said in a speech to the ministers yesterday. “It can plunge entire populations into famine and poverty.”

Full article here

Federal Reserve Shipped Billions to Iraq..then Stolen, June 23 2011

Washington’s Blog
CNBC reports today:
The New York Fed is refusing to tell investigators how many billions of dollars it shipped to Iraq during the early days of the US invasion there, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction told CNBC Tuesday.
The Fed’s lack of disclosure is making it difficult for the inspector general to follow the paper trail of billions of dollars that went missing in the chaotic rush to finance the Iraq occupation, and to determine how much of that money was stolen.
The New York Fed will not reveal details, the inspector general said, because the money initially came from an account at the Fed that was held on behalf of the people of Iraq and financed by cash from the Oil-for-Food program. Without authorization from the account holder, the Iraqi government itself, the inspector general’s office was told it can’t receive information about the account.
The problem is that critics of the Iraqi government believe highly placed officials there are among the people who may have made off with the money in the first place.
FULL STORY

856 Libyans Killed by Nato, June 23 2011

Trend
NATO airstrikes hit in the wee hours of Monday morning the house of El-Khweldi el-Hamedi, a member of the historic leadership in Sebrata city, some 80 km west of Tripoli, said a Libyan government spokesman.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told Xinhua that at least 13 people were killed in the NATO airstrike, including Hamedi’s spouse and son and another ten civilians, adding that Hamedi has survived the NATO missile strike.

NATO has recently been ratcheting up military pressure on the regime of embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to quit.

Libyan officials have continually charged that NATO airstrikes have damaged civilian facilities and killed hundreds of civilians.

The most recent figures from Libya’s health ministry show 856 civilians have been killed in NATO air raids since they began in March. The figure could not be independently confirmed.

Full article here