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[A version of this essay appeared on the Texas Observer website at http://www.texasobserver.org/thewholestar/item/16898-glenn-becks-redemption-song.]

About halfway through Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” rally on the DC mall, I realized that I was starting to like Glenn Beck.

Before any friends of mine initiate involuntary commitment proceedings, let me explain. It’s not that I really liked Beck, but more that I experienced his likeability. Whether or not he’s sincere, I came to admire his ability to project sincerity and to create coherence out of his incoherent rambling about religion, race, and redemption.

As a result, I’m more afraid for our political future than ever.

By Linn Washington

Victor Grossman, an expatriate American journalist now in his 80’s and living in Berlin, sees ominous parallels between America’s anti-Communist outrages during the 1950’s and the conservative ‘Blame-The-Other’ assaults rampant today in America, and in many European countries, including Germany.

Grossman ought to know. It was the Red-bating of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s that drove this Harvard grad to make a life-altering decision and leave America behind.

“It’s the same old trick everywhere and it works so often!” the Ivy Leaguer said, warning “It is also a main concentration point of the fascist element.”

A prime driver of the racial/religious intolerance roiling in America today is the FOX News cable network that employs two luminaries in the Blame-The-Other game: Glenn Beck, the broadcast agitator and Sarah Palin, the political hustler/presidential aspirant.

By David Swanson

As news stories are leading those still aware of the war on Iraq to believe it's over, it was encouraging to see Busboys and Poets restaurant in Washington, D.C., packed Sunday evening for a four-hour forum on actions needed to actually end that war, make reparations, and deter future wars of aggression. The event was advertised with the following description:

"Is the U.S. military really leaving Iraq or just rebranding? What is the toll of seven years of occupation on Iraqis, U.S. soldiers and our economies? What is the status of Iraqi refugees around the world? Is it still possible to hold accountable those who dragged us into the war or committed crimes such as torture? What role did Congress and the media play in facilitating the invasion/occupation? We'll also look at the role of the peace movement -- its strengths and weaknesses -- and draw key lessons to make our work for peace, including in Afghanistan, more effective."

Michael Collins

The Associated Press ran an article Sunday that focused on the wasted funds during the US reconstruction efforts in Iraq.  There were stories of an unused children's hospital, a prison for 3,600 that will never open, and the diversion of reconstruction funds to pay off Sunni fighters to turn on al Qaeda.

29 August 2010 - A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets

As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

Remind the beckers and hockey puck herds, Today, what they want to go back to is the Total Incompetence of the previous administration and the repub congresses then and before which brought the Example of Katrina's Devastation, in this Country, to the people of the Gulf!!

That they were blaming everyone else as they Supported that Incompetence, not only as to that but the emptying of our treasury, two wars and occupations of choice, tearing apart the constitutional rights of this country, the destruction of the economy {though that was coming with the con of trickle down capitalism anyway, the affore mentioned just hastened it and made it worse} and Oh So Much More.........................................!!

Yale University's Pro-Israeli, Anti-Islamic Conference - by Stephen Lendman

On August 25, Yale University ended a three day global anti-Semitism "crisis" conference promoting the notion that Israeli criticism is "anti-Semitic," no matter how justified.

Boola boola, for shame, mighty Yale displaying the same type anti-Islamic hatred virulent throughout America, raging daily in headlines over the proposed New York City Islamic cultural center, falsely called a mosque, but does it matter?

What matters is racism, hate-mongering, and persecuting Muslims for political advantage - on display at Yale for a three day propaganda hate fest. Imagine what's taught in its classrooms.

The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA)

By David Swanson

Pretending to end a war and occupation, while stationing 50,000 soldiers, 18,000 mercenaries, and 84,000 support contractors in massive and permanent military bases in Iraq is a far cry from what candidate Barack Obama described as ending "the mind-set that got us into war in the first place." It fits better with Nobel Peace laureate Obama's description of war as "not only necessary but morally justified."

By Frances Dinkelspiel

Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist, and dozens of protesters from Code Pink, The World Can’t Wait, the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture and other groups marched through Berkeley Law School today to protest John Yoo’s position as a member of the faculty.
After holding a brief press conference outside the law school, the group marched through the halls and into an outdoor plaza where many students had gathered to have lunch. The protesters were wearing latex gloves dipped in red paint and they yelled “Torture is a war crime,” and “What do we want for John Yoo? Arrest! Indictment! Imprisonment!”

FOR MORE : http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/home-mainmenu-289/6591-protests-g...

CHECK OUT VIDEO OF PROTEST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoNTVXvTPh4

On August 22, I was in Manhattan for the counter-protest to support the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. My friend Elaine Brower gave an impassioned speech, talking about the “gentlemen’s" club by the site, and a huge Century 21 clothing store (shop, shop, shop), emphasizing the Constitutional right to freedom of religion and reminding the gathering that 15 of the hijackers who used planes as missiles on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, that the US continues to conduct business with that country, that we buy oil from Saudi Arabia, and that bikers, who roared in, joining the bigots to protest the Islamic center, most probably, filled their tanks with gas from Saudi Arabia.

August 27, 2010 - WikiLeaks, an organization dedicated to anonymously publishing classified documents, has recently come under fire for publishing more than 90,000 Afghanistan war logs — logs that meticulously chronicle a long, secretive history of brutality, deception and corruption at the behest of American intervention.

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has since been routinely harassed with a variety of threats, among these a false rape allegation purportedly initiated by the Pentagon to root out Assange during a stay in Sweden.

Therein lies the question: if the folks at the Pentagon are so afraid of Assange and his tiny donation-funded organization that they would start a smear campaign of death threats and baseless accusations, just how much are they hiding?

Karen Spears Zacharias is author of "After the Flag Has Been Folded" and "Will Jesus Buy Me a Doublewide?"

August 27, 2010 - In war, one family's story echoes the pain of another. I was reminded of that while watching Larry King interview Pat Tillman's parents last week.

Spc. Pat Tillman, who forfeited a multimillion-dollar football contract to serve his country, died in Afghanistan in 2004.

Big business dominates politics and government, but the people have an opportunity to regain control

By Charlie Cooper

4:50 PM EDT, August 26, 2010

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself." — FDR

The corporate stranglehold on media, elections and congressional bill-drafting has locked our economy into obsolete and unproductive channels. Corporate influence has even led the Supreme Court to rule this year that corporations are "persons" with "rights." The court's bizarre logic shows just how precarious our democracy and our economy have become.

Some dead bodies were unidentified and buried in mass graves

27 August, 2010 - The Independent research organisation Iraq Body Count has called for a full judicial enquiry in Britain into the number of people killed and wounded in the Iraq War.

{read more}

Ramsey Muniz - Guilty of Being Latino and Activist in America - by Stephen Lendman

An earlier article explained America's longstanding political repression agenda, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/political-prisoners-in-america.html

Ramiro (Ramsey) Muniz is one of the victims, imprisoned for life without parole on a bogus drug charge. Now age 67, he's been incarcerated nearly 17 years, earlier at Leavenworth, KS federal prison, the country's largest maximum security one, more recently at the US Medical Center, Springfield, MO recovering from life threatening complications from surgery.

In September 2009, he was transferred to the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution, Beaumont, TX.

Friends and supporters can write him there as follows:

Ramiro "Ramsey" Muniz
Prison No. 40288-115
FCI Medium Beaumont
PO Box 26040
Beaumont, TX 77705

Michael Collins

Wikileaks offered its first release since the controversial distribution of documents related to the United States effort in Afghanistan.

The current leak was posted to their web site on August 25. It is titled CIA Red Cell Memorandum on United States "exporting terrorism", 2 Feb 2010.

The leak describes Red Cell as a CIA unit created by the Director to develop "out-of-the-box" analysis offering "alternative viewpoints" on key intelligence issues.

This document doesn't disappoint in being out-of-the-box.

CIA Perception Management - How the World Sees the United States

By Ben Pleasants

Can a song played at rush hour over the Islands of Hawaii cause car crashes? Can a song make you suddenly sob and shake and weep and completely lose control of your automobile while you are driving from Honoka’a to Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii? Can a song be banned from the radio on the mainland because it is too powerful, too moving, too compelling? Perhaps. I’m not sure. I’m still trying to find out the facts.

Let me begin at Sam’s Hideway in Kona. It’s a little karaoke place where working people go after their day’s over. My friend Charles Colman took me there on a Friday night. It’s in the Kona Marketplace just off 75 – 5725 Ali’I Drive, down the block from Uncle Billy’s Kona Inn. Charles said we had to go on Friday night, when Kimberly sings. I’ll give you the number, so you can check the next time you’re in Kona. It’s 808 326 7267.

McClatchy journalist Pentagon banned gets First Amendment Award

Carol Rosenberg, The Miami Herald reporter banned by the Pentagon earlier this year from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been awarded the Society of Professional Journalists' First Amendment Award for her efforts to cover the detention center there despite "consistent hostility in covering her beat."

Rosenberg will receive the honor Oct. 5 at the organization's annual awards banquet during its convention in Las Vegas. {read more}

America Facing Depression and Bankruptcy - by Stephen Lendman

Long-time economic, political and market analyst Bob Chapman publishes the International Forecaster, offering incisive analysis absent through mainstream sources, especially important now given America's deepening economic crisis getting harder to conceal as evidence mounts.

His August 25 issue says the following:

"Twenty countries (including America) are headed into bankruptcy and more will follow. That brings up the subject of state debt in the US. America has been in an inflationary depression for 18 months. States have been cutting back for two years," but still face huge budget gaps required to be closed....2011 will be a terrible year (with) 80% of states expect(ing) deficits of more than $200 billion. 2012 looks even worse." Most worrisome, "there is no recovery and there never has been....the US economy and financial system is comatose." The worst is yet to come and will hit hard on arrival.

Obama Boxed In by Generals on Afghanistan
By Ray McGovern

Just back from Afghanistan, Marine Commandant, Gen. James Conway held a news conference Tuesday to add his voice to the Pentagon campaign to disparage the July 2011 date President Barack Obama set for U.S. troops to begin leaving Afghanistan.
Conway claimed that intelligence intercepts suggest that this deadline has strengthened the conviction of those resisting the U.S.-led occupation that it is just a matter of time before most foreign forces leave.
Thus, Conway:
“In some ways … it’s probably giving our enemy sustenance. … We think he may be saying to himself … ‘Hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long.’”
Conway, however, was quick to reassure supporters of the war in Afghanistan that Taliban morale is likely to drop when, “come the fall [of 2011] we’re still there hammering them like we have been.”

Yes or so it seems. But the Real Message is to Bring Them Home, all the troops, or if the Country wants these Wars of Choice then more need to join or restart the draft, Immediately, and No Deferments!

This story originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

Dear Carrie,

You are a kind lady so I hope you will take the time to read what I have written here. Israel deserves your support but not the kind you are used to giving.

Thursday 19 August 2010

by Ellen Brown, t r u t h o u t

Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut breaks the chain of title, voiding foreclosure. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure proof.

In a Newsweek article a year ago called "Too Big to Jail: Why Prosecutors Won't Hit Wall Street Hard in the Subprime Scandal," Michael Hirsch wrote that we were unlikely to see trials and convictions like those in the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, because fraud and blame have been so widespread that there is no one to single out and jail. Said Hirsch:

Morphed with the help of the Neo-Cons in this Country, the U.S., and their supporters hate rhetoric which not only continues but has ramped up in condemnation still of a whole peoples as well as their religious beliefs, made by those who are no different then the extremists they should be condemning!

August 26, 2010 - THE likely independent MP Andrew Wilkie said the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, had apologised for the Howard government's vilification of him over his opposition to the Iraq War.

Snip

This week Mr Wilkie called for Australia to separate its Afghanistan war policy from the United States and get out.

The Israeli Lobby: Declassified Documents Expose Its Influence - by Stephen Lendman

James Petras' powerful 2006 book titled, "The Power of Israel in the United States" explained the enormous Jewish Lobby influence on US Middle East policies. Often harming American interests, they're pursued anyway because of its grassroots and high-level control over government, the business community, academia, the clergy and mass media since at least the 1960s.

Intolerant of opposing views, they're suppressed for its own agenda, funded by PR propaganda domestically and overseas, America's top publications paid off to go along, now revealed by a secret document subpoenaed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (FRC) investigation into the American Zionist Council (AZC), AIPAC's parent lobbying arm.

Yale now has two war criminals on it's faculty. Just recently it hired Retired General Stanley McChrystal to teach a graduate level seminar on leadership. War Criminal John Dimitri Negroponte has been teaching at Yale since 2009.

SEE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/the-culpable/36-the-culprits/78-j...

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/the-culpable/36-the-culprits/257-...