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The American Spring

Saturday April 12, 2014

Cold War Interception

Many years after the end of the Cold War, when the United States government brings to power a neo-Nazi leader in Ukraine in order to hurt both Moscow and Europe, the world finds itself on the brink of nuclear war once again. This may sound like an oversimplified distillation of current headlines, but it is in fact a plot point in Norman Spinrad’s science-fiction novel "Russian Spring", published in 1991.

Written as the Cold War came to an end, Spinrad’s novel envisioned the USSR not falling apart, but embracing market capitalism and joining with "Common Europe" to develop a civilian space program. Meanwhile, the U.S. retreated across the Atlantic to play hegemon in Latin America and build the "Battlestar America" missile shield – until opportunity arose to destroy the USSR by sponsoring a foaming-at-the-mouth Ukrainian separatist.

In actual history, Washington first encouraged the breakup of the USSR, then used the Balkan Wars to reassert dominance in Europe, ensuring the EU would remain a toothless hanger-on. Rather than carving out an empire in Latin America, the US claimed the world. The US space program did devolve to a purely military one, but never got the fabled "missile shield" to actually work. Meanwhile, those who want to go to the International Space Station must use the Soviet-designed Soyuz, the only orbital spacecraft still in
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Kucinich: NATO ‘Anachronistic Nightmare’ and Should Be Disbanded

Thursday April 10, 2014

In an interview with RIA Novosti, veteran US politician Dennis John Kucinich – who twice ran for president and served in the US Congress for 16 years – shared his vision of the role that NATO and its member states play in political crises of global significance, including the ongoing unrest in Ukraine and the civil war in Syria.

First of all I'd suggest discussing recent events in eastern Ukraine. Crowds of pro-Russian demonstrators stormed government buildings Sunday in two major cities of the region. Is it fair to say that this is the people's reaction to the coup in Kiev?

First of all everyone knows the junta in Kiev was installed by a coup and that you have nationalists, neo-Nazis who came to power as a result of that coup. One of the first things that happened was linguistic rights were attacked. And the population which had used the Russian language was suddenly aware the Russian language was under attack. And this of course created a backlash.


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Is the US or the World Coming to an End?

Thursday April 10, 2014

Fallout

2014 is shaping up as a year of reckoning for the United States.

Two pressures are building on the US dollar. One pressure comes from the Federal Reserve’s declining ability to rig the price of gold as Western gold supplies shrivel and market knowledge of the Fed’s illegal price rigging spreads. The evidence of massive amounts of naked shorts being dumped into the paper gold futures market at times of day when trading is thin is unequivocal. It has become obvious that the price of gold is being rigged in the futures market in order to protect the dollar’s value from QE.

The other pressure arises from the Obama regime’s foolish threats of sanctions on Russia. Other countries are no longer willing to tolerate Washington’s abuse of the world dollar standard. Washington uses the dollar-based international payments system to inflict damage on the economies of countries that resist Washington’s political hegemony.


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Hayden: Feinstein Too 'Emotional' To Discuss The Torture Program

Wednesday April 9, 2014

Michael Hayden

Former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden has long been the face and voice of the growing security state within the United States. While many of his representations have been challenged, he continues (like Dick Cheney) to create his own reality to justify powers viewed as authoritarian and unlawful. Now, with the approaching release of a comprehensive report on the torture program, Hayden is out in the press denying the findings of the report that torture did not result in any meaningful new intelligence and that the CIA tortured people who were already cooperating with conventional (and legal) interrogations. Hayden took to the airways to champion torture by attacking the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Cal.) and said that she was just being “emotional” and should not be involved in such a serious debate.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Hayden cited comments Feinstein made last month that the report would “ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.” That was just Feinstein being “emotional” Hayden insisted: “That sentence — that motivation for the report — may show deep, emotional feeling on the part of the senator, but I don’t think it leads you to an objective report.”
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Ron Paul Blasts US Ukraine Policy

Tuesday April 8, 2014

Speaking with RT's Sophie Shevardnadze, RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul presents a masterful, in-depth critique of the US government’s actions related to Ukraine. Among many matters discussed, Paul addresses the US government’s foolhardy imposition of sanctions as part of its Ukraine policy.
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Why Are Americans Paying to Be Searched, Spied On, Shot At and Robbed Blind by the Government?

Monday April 7, 2014

Duck

The State Department wants $400,000 to purchase a fiberglass sculpture of a camel looking at a needle for its new embassy in Pakistan. They’ve already spent their allotted $630,000 to increase the number of “likes” and fans on their Facebook and Twitter pages. The NATO ambassador for the U.S. needs $700,000 for landscaping and gardening, the National Science Foundation would like $700,000 to put on a theatrical production about climate change, and the Senate staffers need $1.9 million for lifestyle coaching. Also, Yale University researchers could really use $384,000 so they can study the odd cork-screw shape of a duck’s penis.

I promise this is no belated April Fools’ joke. These are actual line items paid for by American taxpayers, whose tax dollars continue to be wasted on extravagant, unnecessary items that serve no greater purpose than to fatten the wallets of corporations and feed political graft (such as the $1 million bus stop, complete with heated benches and sidewalks which can only shelter 15 people and provides little protection from rain, snow, or the sun).

Case in point: despite the fact that we have 46 million Americans living at or below the poverty line, 16 million children living in households without adequate access to food, and at least 900,000 veterans relying on food stamps, enormous sums continue to be doled out for presidential vacations ($16 million for trips to Africa and Hawaii), overtime fraud at the Department of Homeland Security (nearly $9 million in improper overtime claims, and that’s just in six of the DHS’ many offices), and Hollywood movie productions ($10 million was spent by the Army National Guard on Superman movie tie-ins aimed at increasing awareness about the National Guard).
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Can the West Get Out of Its (Self-Made) Cul-de-Sac in Syria?

Sunday April 6, 2014

Obamakillingsyrian

In recent years, the limits on America’s ability to shape important outcomes in the Middle East unilaterally—or even with a few European partners—have been dramatically underscored by strategically failed interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Last year, President Obama’s inability to act on his declared intention to attack Syria after chemical weapons were used there in August made clear that Washington can no longer credibly threaten the effective use of force in the region.

Still, American and other Western elites persist in thinking they can dictate the Middle East’s future by helping armed insurgents overthrow Syria’s recognized government. If Western powers don’t drop their insistence that President Bashar al-Assad leave power—even though he retains the support of a majority of Syrians and is winning his fight against opposition forces—and get serious about facilitating a political settlement between Assad and parts of the opposition, they will do further damage to their own already distressed position in the Middle East.

Since protests broke out in parts of Syria in March 2011, Western policy has focused on destabilizing President Assad and his government.  American, British, and French decision-makers calculated that, by undermining Assad, they could inflict a damaging blow to Iran’s regional position. They also reckoned that targeting Assad would help coopt the Arab Awakening that had emerged in the months preceding the start of unrest in Syria.
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Ft. Hood: An Avoidable Tragedy

Sunday April 6, 2014

Last week we saw yet another tragedy at Ft. Hood, Texas, as a distraught Iraq war veteran killed three of his fellow soldiers before killing himself. It is nearly five years after the last Ft. Hood shooting, where 13 people were killed. These tragedies are heartbreaking and we certainly feel much sympathy for the families of the victims.

While there is much focus on the mental illness that appears to have driven many of these men to murder, what is left unsaid is the cause of the tragedy. Government officials and the media only talk about the symptoms that lead to these tragic events. They will tell us that there are people who get post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and kill themselves and others. They will all call for more government intervention into the lives of those in the military to root out and “treat” mental illness.
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US Government's Regime Change Obsession Rears Its Ugly Head Again

Saturday April 5, 2014

CUBAUSAID

The US government’s 116-year-old obsession with controlling Cuba has suddenly manifested itself again. Yesterday, the Associated Press, based on secret records that it obtained, reported that USAID, the federal agency that distributes billions of dollars in US-taxpayer funded foreign aid and which has long served as a front organization for the CIA, has been engaged in a super-secret, covert operation to effect regime change in Cuba.

The USAID scheme involved illegally securing the cell phone numbers of tens of thousands of Cubans, most of whom were presumed to be young people. Then, using a series of several private front companies, which is a classic CIA modus, they established a twitter-type service that enabled U.S. officials to feed messages to the recipients. The plan called for feeding messages that would incite young people to rise up with mass spontaneous protests against the Cuban communist regime.

Now, one might ask: What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with the U.S. government’s helping the Cuban people achieve their freedom?

Well, for one, the freedom of the Cuban people is the furthest thing from the minds of US officials. Their objective has always been — and continues to be — control over Cuba. They couldn’t give a whit over whether the Cuban people are free or not, any more than they gave a whit over whether the Chilean, Guatemalan, and Iranian people were free after the CIA instigated regime change in those countries.
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For America, Perhaps Now is The Time For Neutrality

Saturday April 5, 2014

Among the most striking aspects of the current debate over U.S. foreign policy is the almost complete lack of perception among Americans about their country’s actual economic and military capabilities and its international influence. Whether it is Ukraine and Russia, the intensifying Islamist offensive on several continents, or the blatantly Potemkin Middle East peace talks, U.S. political leaders, academics, pundits, and most of the media speak as if today’s America is the America of 1945, 1984, or 1991, times when the United States was a nation of almost unlimited military and economic power and telling international influence.

Today, we are barely a shadow of that powerful nation. Indeed, while Washington under either party speaks as if it is the world’s voice of power and all-knowing authority, we are really the very picture of an overused, late-middle age Madam who eagerly displays her sagging wares but doesn’t seem to realize that she has lost her looks, allure, and persuasiveness, and is much more laughed at than lusted over.
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