Saturday, September 27, 2008

Press TV: breaking the Neocon version of reality

Recently I happened to see an amazing interview with Afshin Rattansi of Press TV and journalist Max Kieser. In this broadcast (see below) Kieser compares the Wall Street bailout with the "controlled demolition" of World Trade Center Building 7 and the twin towers on 9/11.



Although the commentary by Keiser was brilliant and provocative, what truly amazed me was not so much what he said, but the very fact that it was said at all on television.

This led me to read up on Press TV. I wanted to know who they are and why would they allow such incendiary commentary on their broadcast, and, where were the O'Reillys and Becks to beat Max to a pulp with verbal threats for even daring to mention the fraud of 9/11? What could explain this free, unfettered commentary when our Western media -- both mainstream and alternative -- are so controlled?

Here's what I found out about Press TV from Wikipedia:
"Press TV is an English language international television news channel which is funded by the Iranian government, based in Tehran and broadcasts in English on a round-the-clock schedule. With 26 international correspondents and more than 400 staff around the world, its stated mission is to offer a different view of the world events.

Press TV has stated its intention to cover world news differently from the Anglophone channels BBC World News, and CNN International. Press TV states that it is not beholden to any commercial or governmental entity, nor internally constrained to deviate from its editorial independence. Press TV seeks to compete, inter alia, with the past-launched Al Jazeera English and France 24 in 2006 and Russia Today in December 2005.

Press TV has three mission statements; to break the global media stranglehold of western outlets; to bridge cultural divisions pragmatically; and to highlight the versatility and vitality of political and cultural differences, making up the human condition."
Okay, Press TV is state sponsored by Iran, so undoubtedly we are going to get some pro-Iranian, anti-Western propaganda. That's a given. However, by allowing commentary by the likes of Max Keiser, George Galloway and Gore Vidal -- major Western critics of the "War on Terror" and the government conspiracy theory of 9/11, the channel is willing to portray a side of the debate most Americans will never get to see on Western media channel.

Kudos to them. I hope they succeed.

Monday, September 22, 2008

The Alchemists of Money

Once again the alchemists at the Federal Reserve and Treasury are busily in the process of creating gold from lead (the American taxpayer). And, while they work feverously in their gold-shrouded labs mixing up fanciful financial formulas and solvency solutions for black holes on balance sheets, the spineless Gollums in Congress, driven by their own fear and greed, are selling the American people and their children's children's children on the futures market for perpetuity. Does it get anymore depraved that this?

And, if you thought the looting over the last few years by the war profiteers in the fraudulent "War on Terror"™ was bad enough, the audacity and vulgarity of this new megalithic looting leaves one totally breathless and searching for impossible answers to questions of why Uncle Sam has gone to the insane asylum.

One thing I have learned is that if you are attempting to make sense of this madness, whatever you do, absolutely, unambiguously DO NOT listen to ex- Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson or Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, or any other of the high priests of finance explain the problem as you will go insane with the inanities of their obtuse, convoluted language called "Financese" -- a lexicon in which only the Druids of Mammon understand and which they deftly used to hypnotize the rest of us. If you do fall in the trap of trying to understand them, beware that you can spend hours upon hours attempting to figure out a logic that is only designed to confuse and to incapacitate mere mortals. As Alan Greenspan once said, "I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.”

Not only do these wizards take pride in their ability to confound and mesmerize, but as magicians they also create illusions that are as convincing and awe inspiring as any Chris Angel trick on the Vegas strip; and like Angel only they know how the dollar bill got suspended in the glass pane after being thrown to the wind, and only they know who to get it back out again -- or so they want us to believe.

However, though language can also be used for deceit and deception, it can also be used for truth and clarity, and professor Michel Chossudovsky enunciates one of the best explanations as to why we are in this economic Hades floating down the river of Shit. In his latest article "Global Financial Meltdown," we read about the destruction of laws that were designed to protect "we the people" from such predatory, criminal behavior -- behavior our politicians, the media and economists have vigorously been promoting over the last few years by touting free trade policies, deficit spending and deregulation of the financial markets.

For instance, in 1999 the Clinton administration effectively repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a law was put in place to protect the American people from rampant corruption, financial manipulation and "insider trading" that resulted in more that 5,000 bank failures following the 1929 Wall Street crash. With Clinton and congress signing the Financial Services Modernization Act (Gramm-Leach Bliley Act) a new era of rampant looting the American people could began in earnest.

Chossudovsky also connects the dots by connecting the War on Terror to what is happening to our markets today. To quote:

"powerful financial groups which routinely manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war. The financial crisis is related to the structure of US public investment in the war economy versus the funding, through tax dollars, of civilian social programs. "More broadly, this also raises the issue of the role of the US Treasury and the US monetary system, in relentlessly financing the military industrial complex and the Middle East war at the expense of most sectors of civilian economic activity." (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Democrats endorse the "Global War on Terrorism": Obama "goes after" Osama, Global Research, August 29, 2008)."

So, while the Democrats get all misty-eyed over a Obama victory, Obama is urging the Congress to bail out the banksters and allow our children to be wage slaves for the filthy rich private owners of the Fed. He is also a supporter of the phony War on Terror™ which is nothing more than globalization by violence by these same elites who want to control everybody and everything everywhere around the world.

Ironically, Democrats and Obama will accuse McCain of supporting the policies that have gotten us in this economic mess. Maybe Democrats should reflect back a few years to when President Clinton actually signed the Financial Services Modernization Act and realize that both the Democrats and the Republi-cons have no problem using your children as a hedge fund instruments for the ultra wealthy elite and fodder for their illegal wars.

Bush is threatening that Congress must act immediately to bailout Wall Street by signing the administration's new legislation to allow the Treasury to buy "suspect" U.S. mortgage loans from U.S. and foreign-owned banks, at a possible cost of as much a $700 billion (all backed by U.S. Taxpayer dollars of course.) Expect the Gulloms of congress to cower even further then their twisted backbone would normally allow, mumbling out "precious...precious" over and over again while kissing the banking elites' ring.

The upshot of this is that Congress and the owners of the Fed believe you are too stupid to figure out that they have been robbing you blind for years and purposely enslaving you to the Fed's debt/interest-based economic system. By deregulating the financial markets, creating massive deficit spending and now fully transferring over the keys of the financial system to the foxes in the Fed house, you and your kids are certain to end up on the dinner plate of the black hats with the red coats.

A lesson can be learned from this debacle. Not only has the fascist state firmly embedded itself in government but the only way to extract ourselves from this evil system is, to quote a republican, is to "just say no."

Time to wean ourselves off of the grid.

(If you still think Congress listens to you, here's an e-letter that you can send to your Gollum (I mean representative) requesting that they vote no on the bailout. www.votenobailout.org. )

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Max Keiser on the situation: