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calimary

(81,440 posts)
1. One of the few times he ever told the truth.
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 07:17 PM
Nov 2012

That was the time he gave away the store. But few people realized it. And the mainstream media certainly stayed asleep.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
2. It was a shock, calimary. The press failed to follow up with even a single question.
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 07:25 PM
Nov 2012

Cindy Sheehan caught it. She expalins why the statement is so troubling:



Money Trumps Peace...Sometimes

by Cindy Sheehan
CommonDreams.org Thursday, February 15, 2007 by

It is always painful to watch George stumble his way through press conferences. He can’t get through a sentence without at least two-three “uhs,” his eye lids flutter up and down in what my daughter, Carly, calls the “liar’s blink” and just because it is painful that a human like that is ostensibly the leader of the free world. There is always a plethora of things that he says, does, or screws up on to write about but this time what caught my attention happened during the Q & A. George was asked if he thought the economic sanctions on Iran would work because so many European nations trade with that country.

He stopped to collect his thoughts with what he thought must’ve looked like a studied and careful demeanor, but more like someone with a sour tummy, and said: “well, let’s put it this way: money trumps peace, sometimes. In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests throughout the world," (I added the italics). It is always interesting with people who frequently play fast and loose with the truth, such as the liars in BushCo, once in awhile, if they talk long enough they tell a truth.

“Money trumps peace” is the fundamental reason for the invasions and subsequent gory and violent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Richard Behan’s excellent article: From Iraq to Afghanistan - Connecting the Dots with Oil, he brilliantly follows the history of the oil-money trail in these countries that are one, rich in oil, and two, well placed for the transportation and delivery of oil. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, or their leaders or governments had anything to do with 9-11, but they were in the way of oil and other industries that profit from oil, so they had to go. Money trumped peace in those countries and they are destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis and Americans have been slaughtered because they were blocking American imperialistic profiteering.

“Money trumps peace” is the underlying reason for all wars as two time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and highly decorated Major General Smedley D. Butler wrote in his reflective, yet prophetic, work War is a Racket:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0215-29.htm



When Smirko McCokespoon uttered the remark, the Press Corpse was precisely that. So, with no one making a fuss in print nor the airwaves, the monkey was free to kill again and again and again, all the while collecting money.

calimary

(81,440 posts)
3. The press was a wholly-owned subsidiary. Wasn't just Pox Noise.
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 08:54 PM
Nov 2012

Everybody was too chicken to call it what it was. Lies. Sin. Murder. Torture. Theft. War crimes. TREASON. NOBODY called it what it was. Lest some CONservative call you un-American or an Osama-lover. We were OBSCENELY poorly-served. And as a retired journalist myself, I consider all those on mic, on camera, and in print - collaborators, enablers, and traitors. Guilty of treason-level malpractice. Gave a black eye and a bloody nose to what had once been an honored profession. One that I was proud to be in. I got in, inspired by Woodward and Bernstein. And look what we've been given since then.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
4. Thanks for defending the First Amendment, calimary.
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 09:08 PM
Nov 2012

The Founders understood for democracy (or republic) to work, the People would need honest information and the news. That's why the free press is the only business mentioned by name in the entire constitution. To fulfill their duties, Journalists must have integrity.

I, too, am an ex-reporter. My claim to fame was covering the Jack Kevorkian story and a crooked S&L that cost the U.S. taxpayer about $92 million. Back in the day, our publishers would find the resources to investigate a story and pursue it wherever the chips would fall. Things have changed.

Remember how the press looked like zombies as the United States attacked and destroyed an innocent country? Real journalists would never have gone along with the sham.

calimary

(81,440 posts)
9. My claim to fame was the Zsa Zsa Gabor cop-slapping trial! ROFL!!!!!
Sun Nov 4, 2012, 07:58 PM
Nov 2012

And why Julia Roberts and Keifer Sutherland broke up on the way to the altar. And the Michael Jackson molestation case. You know, the really important stuff!

It was truly embarrassing to see what became of the profession of which I was so proud to be a part. Watching the likes of david gregory and tim russert turn, and britt hume go so blatant, and watch so many people I'd previously respected turn complete toady. SO sad and disgraceful and embarrassing! The nation was SO poorly served! There was so little objective reporting. SO much swallowing the propaganda whole, willingly, and without question. It was AWFUL! We haven't really recovered yet. The White House Press Corpse has improved a little, since bush/cheney/rove departed and vermin like "Talon News" and that phony-ass pretender-plant jeff gannon, and the whole vicious circle of feeding judith miller the unfettered shit they got stove-piped and unvetted by experienced CIA experts so she'd put it in the Sunday New York Times and then cheney and friends would make the rounds of the Sunday talk shows saying - "SEE???? It's in the New York Times forcryingoutloud!" They just SHAT all over respectable journalism. Deconstructed it and left it in broken pieces with whatever credibility it had enjoyed and earned - TRASHED.

GOD I despise those assholes!!!!!! They ruined our business, Octafish. And in their voracious greed, they merged and acquired and consolidated and laid off like gangbusters, and a lot of my friends lost their jobs and really good careers. Often those jobs paid well because of many years of award-winning and highly-respectable work. Too expensive for the almighty bottom line.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
8. Thanks for reminding me, Wilms! As in the Mob, everybody's gotta kick a piece of their action up...
Sun Nov 4, 2012, 01:59 PM
Nov 2012

...the ladder -- payola, grease, nut, take, vigorish, etc. Remember when an honest prosecutor got too close to putting the Big Boys connected to Duke Cunningham and Dusty Foggo on the front page, Rove and the Bush White House crooks had her canned.

WikiLeaks' Stratfor Dump Lifts Lid on Intelligence-Industrial Complex

WikiLeaks' latest release, of hacked emails from Stratfor, shines light on the murky world of private intelligence-gathering

by Pratap Chatterjee
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 by The Guardian/UK

What price bad intelligence? Some 5m internal emails from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based company that brands itself as a "global intelligence" provider, were recently obtained by Anonymous, the hacker collective, and are being released in batches by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, starting Monday.

The most striking revelation from the latest disclosure is not simply the military-industrial complex that conspires to spy on citizens, activists and trouble-causers, but the extremely low quality of the information available to the highest bidder. Clients of the company include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, as well as US government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Marines.

SNIP...

Assange notes that Stratfor is also seeking to profit directly from this information by partnering in an apparent hedge-fund venture with Shea Morenz, a former Goldman Sachs managing director. He points to an August 2011 document, marked "DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS", from Stratfor CEO George Friedman, which says:

"What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-10?print

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