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kpete

kpete's Journal
kpete's Journal
May 16, 2013

Chris Hedges on Talk Of The Nation: "We've undergone a kind of corporate coup d'etat in slow-motion"

Looking Ahead: Chris Hedges On Poverty, Politics, U.S. Culture

(This is just a snippet

I think we have powerful proto-fascist movements in this country, and I look at the Tea Party, the militia, the Christian right, where they celebrate the language of violence, they celebrate the gun culture. And they channel what I would describe as a very legitimate rage and a legitimate sense of betrayal towards the vulnerable, towards Muslims, towards undocumented workers, towards homosexuals, intellectuals, feminists, liberals. They have a long list of people they don't like. And I think that is a very - remains a very frightening and powerful undercurrent within American society.

...................

And what you get when you enter that kind of ideological belief system is you no longer deal with reality. You believe that - you believe in magic. You believe that Jesus will intervene to protect you and promote you, and then it becomes impossible to have a kind of rational discussion, for instance with people who believe that, you know, everything - the Earth was created 6,000 years ago, and there were dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden.

................................

I think it's important that, you know - and Sheldon Wolin writes about this in "Democracy Incorporated" - that we have the facade of the democratic state, and yet what we've undergone is a kind of corporate coup d'etat in slow-motion...



http://www.npr.org/2013/05/15/184232470/looking-ahead-chris-hedges-on-poverty-politics-u-s-culture
May 16, 2013

Do you know who’s laughing hardest about the IRS microscandal? Exxon. Apple. Microsoft. Monsanto.

Guns to your gay mother
by mark morford

...............

Do you know who’s laughing hardest about the current IRS microscandal? Exxon. Apple. Microsoft. Monsanto. Genentech. All those giants of industry that escape billions in taxes by way of various loopholes, exemptions, armies of expensive tax attorneys. Carry on, rich people – go get richer. It’s OK, no one’s looking.

The worst part of this little IRS scandal? Nope, not that Obama is having another Worst Week Ever. It’s that the Tea Party is suddenly back in the national spotlight, all righteous and spittle-flecked, full of its usual inbred nonsense, when it was all but dead a week ago. Worse still: If the GOP has its way, we’ll be hearing the Tea Party’s nasally shriek through the 2016 elections. Thanks, IRS.


the rest (really good one):
http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/05/14/guns-to-your-gay-mother/
May 16, 2013

Remember that time Occupy was examined by The Government & No One Gave A Shit?



Hundreds of pages of documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests show that the Department of Homeland Security monitored, investigated and possibly infiltrated various Occupy movements across the country since the first Occupy Wall Street protests began.

http://www.naderlibrary.com/occupy.fbidocsrevealsecretmon.htm
http://www.alternet.org/occupy-wall-street/government-waste-dhs-documents-reveal-widespread-surveillance-occupy-movement
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/05/fbi-occupy-wall-street_n_2410783.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/homeland-security-occupy-wall-street_n_3002445.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/20/uc-davis-pepper-spray-video
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/occupy-wall-street-pepper-spray-video-sparks-outrage-151466

THU MAY 16, 2013 AT 09:50 AM PDT
Remember that time Occupy was examined by the IRS?
by Kuntawpwnsyou

Oh wait... that was the FBI who infiltrated Occupy. Wasn't it DHS who was coordinating local police for maximum supression of peaceful protest?

Occupy groups throughout the nation were actively infiltrated by the FBI in direct coordination with JPMorgan Chase and no one gave a shit. Phones were tapped. People were monitored. Local law enforcement was actively used and coordinated through DHS to suppress peaceful protest. One of these issues is clearly FAR more important than the other in terms of constitutionality. This leads me to believe all of the people on the far right beating the drum over this are not doing so for reasons of legality but for reasons of politics. Ergo, I'm failing to get excited in the face of a clear lack of principals. Can you imagine the reaction from the corporate right if the above happened to to the corporately sponsored tea party?

Just Sayin.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/16/1209559/-Remember-that-time-Occupy-was-examined-by-the-IRS
May 16, 2013

If Americans were just more like Viktor Belenko, we’d have a little less trouble

Purina. It’s What’s For Dinner:

First of all American super-market, my first visit was under CIA supervision, and I thought it was set-up; I did not believe super-market was real one. I thought well I was unusual guest; they probably kicked everyone out. It’s such a nice, big place with incredible amount of produce, and no long lines! You’re accustomed to long lines in Russia. But later, when I discovered super-market was real one, I had real fun exploring new products. I would buy, everyday, a new thing and try to figure out its function. In Russia at that time (and even today) it’s hard to find canned food, good one. But everyday I would buy new cans with different food. Once I bought a can which said “dinner.” I cooked it with potatoes, onions, and garlic-it was delicious. Next morning my friends ask me, “Viktor, did you buy a cat?” It was a can of chicken-based cat food. But it was delicious! It was better than canned food for people in Russia today. And I did test it. Last year I brought four people from Russia for commercial project, and I set them up. I bought nibble sized human food. I installed a pâté, and it was cat food. I put it on crackers. And they did consume it, and they liked it. So the taste has not changed. By the way, for those who are not familiar with American cat food. It’s very safe; it’s delicious, and sometimes it’s better than human food, because of the Humane Society.


If Americans were just more like Viktor Belenko, we’d have a little less trouble

http://www.videofact.com/english/defectors2_4en.html
May 16, 2013

New definition of "investigative reporting:"



New definition of "investigative reporting:"

Carefully investigate the contents of the manila envelope to make sure it contains the agreed-upon amount of cash before you report a political operative's propaganda as if it were news.


Stephen F. Hayes-1st Journalist To Print Doctored E-Mail As Fact=Official Biographer For Dick Cheney
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022843392
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/16/1209526/-Congratulations-to-ABC-s-Jon-Karl#comments
May 16, 2013

US Guilty of Genocide in Guatemala - Should be Real Headline

Published on Thursday, May 16, 2013 by Black Agenda Report
US Guilty of Genocide in Guatemala Should be Real Headline
Now that former Guatemalan president Efrain Rios Montt has been convicted of genocide, it’s time for the “hegemonic puppeteer,” the United States, to be put on trial


by Ajamu Baraka
“If Efrain Rios Montt, and by extension the Guatemalan military, are guilty of the crime of genocide, the U.S. government and its officials are just as guilty.”

“President Ronald Reagan called Rios Montt ‘a man of great personal integrity and commitment.’”



“There is no doubt that U.S. support, encouragement and guidance made it culpable in the genocidal policies of its’ client State during that 17-month period.”


The story of Rio Montt and the U.S. government was uncovered in the bloodstained, declassified U.S. government documents that graphically detail how U.S. officials were fully aware of the pogrom against the Ixil people in the mountains of Guatemala at the very moment that the U.S. government was involved in training and arming the Guatemalan military, passing intelligence to its clandestine services, and providing political and diplomatic support to the government. President Ronald Reagan called Rios Montt “a man of great personal integrity and commitment” even as he was receiving reports from his intelligence agencies documenting the scorched- earth policies of the Guatemalan military in its’ campaign against the Ixil.

As horrible as that 17 month period during the Reagan administration was for the indigenous people of Guatemala it was only a brief moment of horror in the macabre drama of U.S.-Guatemala relations. For many in the world there is no doubt that U.S. support, encouragement and guidance made it culpable in the genocidal policies of its’ client State during that 17-month period. The history of U.S. and Guatemalan relations since the U.S. inspired coup of 1954 that overthrew Guatemala’s reformist President Jacobo Arbenz has been a sordid history of criminal collusion against the people of Guatemala.

From the moment the U.S. Ambassador met with the military leaders of the coup to give them their instructions and deliver a list of radical opponents to be eliminated, the country’s future would be marked by systematic brutality. Thousands were arrested in those early days with many tortured and killed and a period of bloodshed ushered in that would define everyday life in the country over the next decades.

.......................

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/16-1
May 16, 2013

Franklin Graham: IRS cracked down on my gay-bashing!

Franklin Graham: IRS cracked down on my gay-bashing!

.................

“I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence — or justifiable,” Franklin Graham wrote. “I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical — indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’”

Franklin Graham said his Boone, N.C.-based charity Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which is based in Charlotte, received IRS notices last September that their 2010 activities would be reviewed.

In the letter to Obama and Biden, Graham noted that the evangelistic association named for his father waded into a North Carolina election by running full-page newspaper advertisements urging support for a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Both Franklin Graham and the 94-year-old Billy Graham supported Republican nominee Mitt Romney in last year’s presidential election. Billy Graham also appeared in national newspaper ads and newspaper ads in Ohio urging voters to back candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles, oppose gay marriage and abortion, and defend religious freedoms.

After the November election, Franklin Graham said, the two organizations received official notices that they continued to qualify for exemption from federal income taxes.


...................


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/evangelical-christian-group-pro-israel-jewish-group-say-they-were-targeted-by-irs.php?ref=fpbl

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