FULL STORY OF NAZI ATTACK ON ODESSA

This documentary is a must watch because it answers many questions.

The first part gives us an inside look at the fascist forces being mobilized in western Ukraine.  You see them marching, chanting pro-Nazi slogans and calling for the death of Russians.

If you can only watch bits then I highly recommend the following:

* At 28 minutes you see the start of the recent Nazi attack on the union hall in Odessa.

* At 36 minutes you see the fascists thugs going inside the union hall to kill those who had ran into the building to escape the attack.  These people, who were calling for a national referendum to give rights to those opposing the US-NATO installed regime in Kiev, had a peaceful camp established outside of the union hall before they were attacked.

* At 40 minutes you see the famous fascist 'shooter' taking aim and firing at those inside the now burning union hall.

* Just after 50 minutes you hear testimony from someone who had been inside the building.

* At 52:34 minutes you see an interview with a severely injured man inside a hospital.

* At 1:01:17 you hear the detailed testimony of another man who was inside the building and was one of the few to survive the attack by the fascists.

The US-NATO spokespeople to this day still deny that the Nazi's were the killers of the people in Odessa.  Even some on the left seem to remain confused about this important event.

Many of these same Right Sector and Svoboda party fascists have now been bought into the Ukraine "National Guard" and are today, under the funding and direction of US-NATO, attacking their own fellow citizens in Eastern Ukraine because they have Russian blood.

This story must be shared and understood by the whole world.  To allow this kind of Nazi killing to go without legal action and international condemnation will ensure it will happen again and again.

REMEMBER LABOR HISTORY

NEW POWER BLOCS FORMING - BACK TO COLD WAR

US Secretary of Endless War Chuck Hagel meets with China's Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of the General Staff today in Singapore

This picture intrigues me.  The Chinese representative wears a military uniform.  The US representative of the Pentagon wears an expensive suit in order to perpetuate the myth that we have civilian control of our military.  The truth is that the corporate military industrial complex in the US controls the military and the Congress.  Hagel should have a uniform on as well.  The patch on his sleeve could be a photo of Mr. Big.

The US is heating up military pressure on China.  A resurging imperial Japan has been brought in alongside the US to confront Peking.  At the very moment that US-NATO are surrounding and provoking Russia the same thing is being done in the Asia-Pacific to China.  In the Asia-Pacific the US is creating an extension of NATO as they bring Japan, South Korea, Philippines and other countries in as junior partners in this military escalation.

The US and the global corporate capitalist empire are angry about the growing linkage between China, Russia and Iran.  Add to that Brasil, South Africa, India and others (part of BRICS) and you seen the clear challenge to the global corporate IMF and World Bank system.  They know that if left alone such a counter-alliance, multi-polar power sharing, is the beginning of the end of the road for the US-UK-EU new world order.

So the corporate pirates take out their long knives as they encircle Russia and China.  There is big trouble on the waters.

The Associated Press reports on today's meeting:

As he did in 2013, Hagel used his appearance at the Shangri-La conference to single out China for cyber spying against the U.S. While this has been a persistent complaint by the U.S., it was less than two weeks after the Obama administration charged five Chinese military officers with hacking into American companies to steal trade secrets.

The Chinese, in response, suspended participation in a U.S.-China Cyber Working Group, and released a report that said the U.S. is conducting unscrupulous cyber espionage and that China is a major target.

Reuters also reported:

... in the speech at Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia biggest security forum, Hagel said the United States took no position on the merits of rival territorial claims in the region, but added: “We firmly oppose any nation’s use of intimidation, coercion, or the threat of force to assert these claims.”

Hagel's speech provoked an angry reaction from the deputy chief of staff of the Chinese Army, Lieutenant-General Wang Guanzhong.

“I felt that Secretary Hagel’s speech is full of hegemonism, threat and intimidation,” he told reporters just after the speech.

Wang said the speech was aimed at causing trouble in the Asia-Pacific. 

JAPAN EXPANDS MILITARY MOBILIZATION

Japan's Prime-minister has pledged his country's support to South-East Asian nations in their disputes with China. Shinzo Abe said Japan will help the countries in the region control their borders - and keep their sea and air routes open.

Political blogger Ryan Dawson thinks Japan's involvement is not about working towards stability but rather about selling more arms.

Japan's expanding military will be integrated with the US - an example of NATO moving into Asia-Pacific.

CLEANSING THE HOMELESS KIDS BEFORE WORLD CUP

Danish documentary about the social and human price of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

JUST CALL IT TERRORISM

Just call them terrorists
or Somali pirates
call them separatists
or pro-Russian

call them anything
and just keep
shelling them

into submission
or civil war
or onto refugee camps
or bantustans
or reservations

Just make sure that
the oil-i-garchy
can grab the land
the resources
the riches
for exploitation

Just make sure NATO
can set up bases
with interceptor missiles
on the Bear's border

It won't be long
the Bear's lair
is next

just call them terrorists

THE 'CHRISTIAN' REWRITING OF INDIAN WARS

This week on his 'WallBuilders Live' radio show, debunked Christian historian David Barton compared Native Americans of the 1700s to modern day terrorists and explained why the U.S. had to commit genocide of Native Americans.

This same way of thinking can be seen in operation today as the "christian" US kills people all over the world that stand up against the resource extraction policies of the corporate controlled Pentagon.

This week on his 'WallBuilders Live' radio show, debunked Christian historian David Barton compared Native Americans of the 1700s to modern day terrorists and explained why the U.S. had to commit genocide of Native Americans (audio below). - See more at: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/christian-historian-david-barton-defends-us-genocide-american-indians-audio#sthash.OKI2Xosi.Zfr30oWB.dpuf

This week on his 'WallBuilders Live' radio show, debunked Christian historian David Barton compared Native Americans of the 1700s to modern day terrorists and explained why the U.S. had to commit genocide of Native Americans (audio below). - See more at: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/christian-historian-david-barton-defends-us-genocide-american-indians-audio#sthash.OKI2Xosi.Zfr30oWB.dpuf

This week on his 'WallBuilders Live' radio show, debunked Christian historian David Barton compared Native Americans of the 1700s to modern day terrorists and explained why the U.S. had to commit genocide of Native Americans (audio below). - See more at: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/christian-historian-david-barton-defends-us-genocide-american-indians-audio#sthash.OKI2Xosi.Zfr30oWB.dpuf

PENTAGON REVIEW OF ENTIRE 'MISSILE DEFENSE' PROGRAM

Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman James Alexander Winnefeld remarks at the Atlantic Council's Global Missile Defense Conference on May 28 in Washington.

Even though they try to sell the program as being needed to protect against Iran and North Korea, the facts are that the US is surrounding Russia and China with "missile defense" (MD) systems.

Winnefeld lies when he says that MD is not deployed against Russia.  He says that Russia has too many nuclear missiles that would overwhelm the US MD system.

But if you view the MD program as a key element in US first-strike attack planning (as Pentagon war games have revealed) the military would hit Russia or China first trying to take out as many of their nuclear missiles as possible.  Then the MD shield would be used to pick off any remaining retaliatory nuclear forces fired AFTER the US first strike.  It is that scenario that MD is being created for and Russia and China both clearly understand that.

The US pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia during the George W. Bush administration because the Pentagon wanted to develop this first-strike capability.  The whole reason the ABM Treaty was negotiated in the first place was because both sides recognized that MD systems are destabilizing and would give one side an advantage over the other.

The US is now pursuing that military advantage.  

SNOWDEN IN PERSON

After months of behind-the-scenes contact, "NBC Nightly News" anchor and managing editor Brian Williams sat down with Edward Snowden, a man wanted for espionage here at home, for his first American television interview. Nothing was off limits.

See the rest of the interview here

ANOTHER BIW PROTEST VIDEO

Just got this video from our protest at the "christening" of the Zumwalt "stealth" destroyer in Bath on April 12.

Thanks to Pete Sirois for this video.

LADY BUNNY SAYS....

HANGING ON BY THE GUN

• The disclosures that Glenn Greenwald will soon be releasing the names of activists across the US who are being spied on by the government should stir the pot a bit.  Can't wait to see those sparks fly.
• The Russia-China deal to build a natural gas pipeline, and to trade in some currency other than dollars, will only increase the oil-i-garchy's desire to take them both down.  That means we will see even more demonization (if that can be possible) of both countries in the corporate dominated media.  
• I was watching a CBS-TV interview with John Kerry this morning where he outrageously called on Edward Snowden to "man up" and come back to the US to face the music.  Kerry is such a rich prick.  Snowden's brave action to release NSA data is a great gift to the whole world.
• Now that Ukraine had their "election" the US will likely step up military weapons and training grants to the regime as they widen their attacks on eastern provinces.  Many innocent civilians in the east are already being killed by the US-NATO puppet government in Kiev.  If you ever wondered what Syria looked like at the start of their war you can see it happen first-hand in Ukraine.  All of this is being driven by the corporate oligarchs who want Russia broken into small pieces that can be controlled by Mr. Big.  Among those oligarchs is George Soros - the Democratic Party sugar daddy.
• A couple thousand coal miners went on strike today and marched into the city of Donetsk.  They vow to get other miners involved in their growing opposition to the US-NATO puppet regime in Kiev.  The new president of Ukraine calls these people terrorists and Somalia pirates. Imagine how that kind of talk from a billionaire is angering these workers.
• The Obama team is talking about more training and military assistance for the terrorists that the US-NATO are funding in Syria.  Without the support of the US-NATO this so-called civil war would have been over long ago.  
• Speaking today at the Army's West Point commencement speech, Obama declared that “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.”  The main thing we appear to be exceptional at is killing lots of people. 
• The only way the US can keep its offensive military machine humming around the world is to get "the allies" to pay more of the costs.  But the plan is for the US to still control all of it as they run everything through Pentagon high-tech space systems - what they call "interoperability".  
• The way to foil the corporate endless war machine is to cut the funding.  Now is the time for activists around the world to increase our common campaigns to cut military spending.  We need our national treasuries for human needs and dealing with the consequences of climate change.

JEJU CRACKDOWN

Coverage from Australian TV network:

South Korea's government is cracking down on protests against a controversial new naval base.

The base, being built on the environmentally sensitive Jeju Island, will serve as a key port for the Korean and US navies.

Protestors say the base puts their country at risk and they're prepared to go to jail rather than be silenced.

THE CHOMSKY FILE

BBC Interview with MIT Professor Noam Chomsky from 2003.

WHY NO AUDIT AT THE PENTAGON?

There are fresh calls in Washington for the Pentagon to come clean about how it has been spending trillions of taxpayer dollars. The Department of Defense has not audited a single budget in more than 20 years, despite demands from Congress.

Let some meager misappropriation happen in a social program anywhere in the US and the media and Congress go into a rip-snort and demand an immediate audit and even defunding of the agency.  But the saintly military industrial complex, by handing over large sums of campaign cash to politicians (money which largely comes from the taxpayer), is sheltered from such scrutiny.

Many years ago while organizing in Orlando, Florida I saw this very thing take place as local social service agencies that ran job training programs for the poor were watched with an eagle eye. One organization somewhere in the US could not account for $40,000 and it became a national scandal. Tiny incidents like that gave Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-FL), on the Senate Budget Committee in Washington, the fuel he needed to help destroy the CETA job training program.  The money was transferred to the Pentagon and the military budget grew from $150 billion a year to double that in no time at all.  It's then doubled again and again while social spending is now in tatters.

MY STOMACH CHURNS

My stomach churns
as I watch
the arrogant master
crack his whip

Once a slave owner
its hard to give up
the throne

The greed
and hunger
for dominance
is a sickness
that seeps
through the core
of the nation

Its ugly to watch
but living inside
the beast
can at times
be more than
any human
should have to
withstand

Some warn us to quiet down
they fear being associated
with those who try
to speak the truth
as best they can

Truth though
is not popular
in the corridors
of power
lined with
wood paneling
and elegant chairs
where only the
best drink
is taken

STIRRING WORDS

The Option of Saying No

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle

It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.

But it has one defect:

It needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful.

It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.

But it has one defect:

It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.

But he has one defect:

He can say, “No!"

- Bertolt Brecht

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
 

- Bertolt Brecht

SOMALI PIRATES?

Ukraine's president-elect, billionaire Petro Poroshenko, has promised to use full force until all separatists have been destroyed. He has now vowed to strengthen the military crackdown, making it faster and more efficient. Poroshenko is calling the people in eastern Ukraine "Somali pirates",

Political scientist Mateusz Piskorski from the European Center of Geopolitical Analysis joins RT to discuss this issue.

INSIDE THE MEMORIAL DAY PARADE

MB and I carrying our conversion banner just as the Memorial Day parade got going today from Topsham to Brunswick.  We were at the tail end of the peacenik delegation in the parade.

Before the parade started a photo with fellow VFP member George Goodwin

Today about 25 folks from Maine Veterans for Peace (VFP) and the Brunswick-area group PeaceWorks lined up in Topsham, Maine for the annual Memorial Day parade that ends in the next town of Brunswick.  Along the way thousands were on the sidewalks to watch the show.

Each year we dress in black, carry banners with the group names, and lots of the white VFP flags.  This year MB and I were at the tail end of our group carrying the new banner made by Maine artists that calls for conversion of the war economy.

VFP member Doug Rawlings wrote today about the parade, "Our presence was met with muted applause from some, enthusiastic applause from others, and some turned backs from others."

I saw two people turn away as we passed by and heard one woman say "Support the troops".  Other than that I heard no overt negative reactions against us.  Not everyone loved us - but we saw legions of people along the way reading the words on the conversion banner.   Some looked a bit stunned but many got the message and a good number of them gave us a thumbs up or a peace sign.

It was bit unusual to be carrying a banner calling for conversion of the war economy in this nationalistic parade but it is the kind of thing we need to do if we are ever going to successfully have a real dialogue across the nation about our addiction to military spending and war.

One woman in particular caught my attention as she sort of secretly flashed us a positive wave and a guarded smile.  She obviously wanted to show her approval but was also very concerned about being too demonstrative, not wanting to stand out in the crowd.  I believe that being in the parade helps open the door for others to feel safe to question the prevailing authority around the war and peace issue.

George Goodwin, in the photo above, was a career Navy man and is a long-time VFP member.  He carried one of the white flags today and walked in front of us.  At one point he turned to me and said, "We've got to stop doing these damn parades, but we've got to end war first."  He sure is right about that.

But how do we end war unless the peace community, and our many allies, talk more about jobs.  The military industrial complex has us all over the barrel because any threats to cut the Pentagon budget are met with fear and silence about the waste and immorality of war.... resulting in domestic political inaction.

My feelings about the largely working class crowd today is they are afraid.  They know that solar, wind, rail make more sense than endless war but they don't see how anything will ever change.  So they support the one government agency that gives their kids jobs - the military.  Sure they get killed and are deeply emotionally wounded by war trauma.  But what is anyone else offering them these days so they can feed their families and have some kind of a future?

UKRAINE OLIGARCH APPEARS WINNER

Ukrainian confectionary tycoon Petro Poroshenko is winning the presidential election in the first round of voting, having secured more than 50 percent of votes, several exit polls show.

WHO IS POROSHENKO?

Petro Poroshenko will likely be the US-NATO anointed president of Ukraine after today's election.  Poroshenko is a corporate oligarch and former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister of Trade and Economic Development. 

For me the bottom line is clear - the corporate oligarchs take full control of the government and have the far-right Right Sector and Svoboda to thank for busting down the doors to make it all possible.  Rewards will have to be paid to the right wing shock troops (brown shirts).

Those in eastern Ukraine understand the danger of this deadly connection between corporate capital and fascists.  This same kind of "coalition building" is happening around the world - Japan, Egypt, South Korea, India, Canada, Saudi Arabia, US, and many more.

Each time the oligarchy gets away with taking power, and holding onto it with their far right alliances, another nail is put into the coffin of the people of the planet and our Mother Earth.

We must see how what happens in Ukraine is part of a larger corporate plan for global domination.

ELECTION DAY IN UKRAINE

Ukrainians go to the polls to elect a new president, three months after the previous one was deposed in an armed coup.

People in eastern Ukraine are largely boycotting the national election.

LIBERATE HAWAI'I

Jon Olsen, Maine activist, on his new book called Liberate Hawai'i.  Jon lived in Hawaii for many years and has always held Hawai'i', and the people there, close to his heart.

SUNDAY SONG

RESIST CORPORATE DOMINATION OF FOOD

OUR PROGRAM IS HARMONY

I'm still smarting after the turn down I got when the Maine Army National Guard wouldn't allow me into the Arctic ice melting jamboree they had in Bangor earlier this week.  Mr. Big was gathering to say their devious blessings over "new gifts" from the very Earth they so despise.

I've often wondered if Mr. Big was from another galaxy and just landed here by accident, or had intentionally come here to mine the hell out of us.  We are all the worker bees.

But things got out-of-hand and now there are too many of us and the oli-i-garchy is trying to thin the herd.  Wars, plagues, famines ... they don't care.  Mr. Big has other fish to fry.

Extraction and mega industrial development - exploiting every damn speck of ground for whatever they can get out of it.  The people are left in the back wash.

Human liberation and ecological kinship are our goals.  Our best hope for survival is with the indigenous wisdom that understands how to live on the Earth.  The people of the north have always walked faithfully in their frozen world - only taking what was needed to survive.  A balance in nature.

Now Mr. Big is eager to grab the oil and natural gas under the shrinking Arctic ice and everything changes.  Imagine the oil spills, the military bases, and the warships competing for control.  You know how this works....

Those warships are getting more and more expensive as Obama rewards his oligarchic sponsors, the Crown family in Chicago, that hold majority stock in warship builder General Dynamics corporation.

All these things comeback to a core, a center.  The program of Mr. Big is to control everyone and everything on the planet.  The wedding of capital and government.

Our program is harmony.

Mr. Big ain't interested in harmony.  

A CLEAN CHIT?

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

THEM VETERANS ALWAYS GET THE SHAFT

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

MOYERS DENOUNCES OBAMA

Bill Moyers criticized President Barack Obama for his decision to seemingly leave the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the hands of the anti-net neutrality forces he opposed as a candidate.

“They believed he would keep his word, would see to it that when private interests set upon the Internet like sharks to blood in the water, its fate would be in the hands of honest brokers who would listen politely to the pleas of the greedy, and then show them the door,” Moyers said of the supporters Obama won when he promised to keep the internet free from corporate influence. “Unfortunately, it turned out to be the infamous revolving door.”

Moyers explained that Obama’s choice to head the commission, Tom Wheeler, not only “bundled” more than $500,000 for Obama’s successful re-election campaign, but also a “top gun” for the cable and telecommunications industries. What’s more, Wheeler has staffed the FCC’s legal team with a coterie of former telecom attorneys, some of whom had actually lobbied against net neutrality before joining its ranks.

WHAT WORKS FOR THE MEDIA

The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) has helped develop “Pressing Your Case: Nonviolent Movements and the Media,” an educational video series to explore ways that nonviolent campaigns and movements can better relate to world media. It features four sessions, hosted by internationally known news anchor Riz Khan.

See the rest of the episodes here

A THROWBACK

This documentary was made just prior to the start of Bush's "shock and awe" in 2003.  Randy Adkins owned a local video shop in Gainesville, Florida where he made copies and fixed equipment among other things.  People used to bring old film into his shop when their parents died and they cleaned out the attic.  That's where he got alot of the Nazi footage in Arsenal of Hypocrisy.

I was touring the country doing talks at the time with an overhead projector showing documents about the US Space Command's mission of  "full spectrum dominance".  While in State College, Pennsylvania I was hosted by Veterans for Peace member Peter Shaw who suggested I produce a video of the things I was sharing in my talk.  He even made the first sizeable donation to make it happen.

I went to Randy and asked him if he'd like to make a documentary.  He'd never done one before nor had I.  So on a very hot Florida day he set me up in his garage and turned on the lights.  I went through my overhead slides, but by then I had the talk nearly memorized, and did it in one take.  By the time we finished the one hour of filming I was burning up inside the steaming airless garage.

Next we began sticking images into the script and Randy added the footage that he had dug up.  It was a low budget operation and one of the things I am most proud of having done during my organizing career.

Arsenal of Hypocrisy got around the globe a time or two and helped a great deal to expand the discussion around these important issues.

I'M WORTH MORE

Adriana has worked at McDonald’s for 4 years. She has a 2 year-old boy at home. She wants him to have a better future than she had. And she has some things to say to McDonald’s. That’s why she was one of 101 McDonald’s workers to be arrested yesterday during the massive protest at their headquarters.

FROZEN OUT OF MELTING ICE CONFAB

  

I tried hard to get into the "Leadership in the High North: A Political, Military, Economic and Environmental Symposium of the Arctic Opening" conference held yesterday and today in Bangor, Maine and in the end was unsuccessful.  The event was co-sponsored by University of Maine School of Policy and International Affairs and the Maine Army National Guard.

My first try was to directly contact the organizers on May 1 to request a ticket for entry.  I was told the event was sold out.  I didn't believe it.  I wrote a blog post about the event and the bigger issues of melting ice in the arctic and the desire by Mr. Big to drill baby drill.  I also sent the blog piece to our local paper which printed it as an Op-Ed.

One of our Global Network board members created a fake identity and tried to register for the conference and was successful - all the way from England.  This was around May 14 - two weeks after I was told the joint was sold out.

My next step was to ask a professor friend at the University of Maine if he could intervene on my behalf to get me into the conference.  He tried but nothing came of it.  His contact at the university had to go begging to the military and the request was ignored.

A couple days ago I got a call from a local newspaper editor asking me if I still wanted to attend the event.  Yes I said....the editor said they would try to get me in as their reporter.  This did not work either.

For some reason (fairly obvious I guess) I was frozen out of this event.  It makes me damn angry to think that a public institution like the University of Maine can be part of an event that goes out of their way to exclude citizens who have a real interest and concern about the subject at hand.  It indicates to me that in this case the university was subservient to the Maine National Guard who obviously had final say on who got inside the conference and who did not.

Just in case you wondered, our Global Network board member got an email from the conference a couple days ago that said in part:

From: Lyon, Darryl W LTC USARMY (US) <darryl.w.lyon.mil@mail.mil>

Sent: May-16-14 4:58 PM
To: T Lorincz
Subject: Arctic Symposium (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

I have you listed for the symposium as a guest of the University of Maine's Strategic Policy and International Affairs department.

Here's the agenda.

Our conference will be held on Tuesday, May 20th and Wednesday, May 21st in Bangor, Maine at the Regional Training Institute. The address is Building 700, 289 Hildreth Street North, Bangor, ME 04401.

The purpose of this unclassified symposium is "to explore the challenges and emerging opportunities arising from the significant increases in Arctic activity due to the diminishment of sea ice and the emergence of the new Arctic environment."

PANDERING FOR POWER

V-P Biden was in Romania yesterday pitching for NATO expansion.  Note the way he says "Romania belongs to NATO". 

NATO has become the primary military tool of corporate capitalism to be used to take down any nation that hesitates being "absorbed" by Mr. Big.  Russia and China refuse to become full adjuncts of Wall Street and the financial district in London thus they are being surrounded by the cancerous NATO and their partners.

Back in 2000 Biden was running for president but his campaign went no where.  During the Democratic party convention in Los Angeles I watched a speech Biden  gave on "missile defense" (MD) that aired on C-SPAN.

During that speech I was blown away by Biden's depth of knowledge and understanding about the negative implications of MD.  The first half of his speech was clear about the expensive, destabilizing, provocative nature of the program.  But then he stopped, symbolically took off his white hat and replaced it with a black hat, and then went on to conclude that we needed MD because it would essentially help us control the world.

In that moment I could see that Biden had no core of decency, he was just another power hungry political hack that did the bidding of the corporations.  He knew the truth, he could spell it out as well as anyone, but in the end he took the dive into the dark world because that is where the pirate's treasure chest of power was buried.

The recent announcement that Biden's son was appointed to be top lawyer for the board of directors of Ukraine’s largest oil company came as no surprise.  This new job came just weeks after V-P Biden had gone to Kiev and declared unwavering support for the regime installed into power there in the US led coup d'etat. 

Even though he was denied power in 2000 Biden eventually found his way to the White House as part of the Obama team.  The Obama administration has increased the pace of MD deployments surrounding Russia, including land-based MD systems soon to go into Romania.  Biden knows its a bad idea to put these first-strike missile systems on the Russian border but he is willing to walk away from the truth in order to grab power.

These cats have no shame and obviously no real conscience.

SELLING THE SPACE PRODUCT IN COLORADO

Citizens for Peace In Space and other groups protest the opening banquet of the annual Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs on May 19, 2014.

The protest was to counter the message of the military industrial complex's annual celebration of greed and secrecy and this year highlighted America's favorite weapons system, the killer Drones.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, General Dynamics and Raytheon lead the way but a host of other smaller companies who feed at the pork barrel banquet were there.

Organizer Bill Sulzman [co-founder of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space] said:

This is the epitome of business as usual. These are the major players who lobby for and then get the lions share of the $800 billion Pentagon annual budget. There will be a lot of civilian space stuff on display also. It's the 'spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down'.  In this sense it is a rip off of bona fide space enthusiasts.

This event and others like it set the priorities for our future military policy. This is the continuation of a wrongheaded policy which is sending us off the cliff of overreach.

And all those Pentagon dollars coming our way will not lead to a better tax base for our local and state governments. Tax exemptions for local military bases take a big bite out of public revenue. This includes the thousands of "civilian" personnel who work in tax free government buildings at bases such as Peterson and Schriever in Colorado Springs.

The symposium bills itself as a look into a better future. It's just more of the same.

In 2009 a Brookings Institution study estimated that for every "militant" killed by these unmanned drones, there were 10 civilian casualties.  Each of them will have 10 grieving relatives who will become "militants", combatants or enemies.

The New America Foundation estimates between 261 and 305 civilians have been killed in Pakistan.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism says 475 - 891.

Last weekend a NATO air strike killed 20 people in eastern Afghanistan, including at least one woman and 10 children ages 1 to 12. The attacks came at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks of the entire US occupation, which began in 2001.

NATO claims 2 combatants were killed in the strike.

UK BEING DRAGGED IN

The U.S. is to plough more than 300 million dollars into upgrading a military base in the UK, used as a key part of the NSA's spy programme. RT's Polly Boiko reports.

Global Network board member Lindis Percy (Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases) in the UK is interviewed near the end of this video.

OPEN THE DOOR TO TRUTH

Not Forgotten: Street Art by School of the Americas Watch from Beth Geglia on Vimeo.

THE MAP IS WRONG?

WHO GOT THE CASH?

The appeals are coming from many organizations over the email asking us to write Congress in opposition to another round of military spending for fiscal year 2015.  The Pentagon is asking for $601 billion but those numbers will be supplemented by the secret military black budget; the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons development; militarized half of NASA's budget; and many more examples.  Add that all up and we top the $1 trillion mark.  We are a killer nation.

The appeals to contact Congress are helpful so that we know what is going on.  But those appeals are missing one very important ingredient.  They usually don't mention the fact that the Democrats and Republicans are on their bended knees begging for more Pentagon $$$ in their congressional districts.  How are we to really end military spending when both parties are slaves to endless war?

Our good local liberal Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is at the front of the line with hands extended on behalf of the military industrial complex.  When asked to talk seriously about converting the military machine she demurs.

All the soccer moms, and high school theatre club moms organizing bake sales, and sportsnik dads grilling burgers to raise $$$ for Little League are trying to create a good future for their kids.  But we are all sinking fast.  There is little articulation and truth coming from these quarters about the real needs and how we can best deal with them.  Can we really fund the schools with bake sales?  Folks are reluctant though to rock the boat.

But the big money ain't in bake sales and BBQ's.  The real cash money is inside the sanctified vaults of the weapons industry.  And they know they got a good thing going!

One can only hope that the public will begin to find more courage.  I'm going to Kansas next month to see my son who will be there from Taiwan where he coaches debate.   I'm going to try to see the Wizard of Oz and look for ways to get more courage. 

SPACE WEEK POSTERS AVAILABLE

Space week posters now available for order.  Can purchase them for $3 each or five for $12.  Artwork done by W. B. Park in Florida.

Send check to:  Global Network, PO Box 652, Brunswick, ME 04011 or pay online here

Just indicate in the comments section that you are ordering posters.

NUCLEAR GAME IN UKRAINE

Political turmoil and violence in Ukraine's east are not the only challenges facing the country right now. Energy supplies are a major concern, and Kiev has decided to use US nuclear fuel at its atomic plants which constitute a major part of the country's power grid. RT's Irina Galushko explains why many fear Kiev is jeopardizing safety for politics.

WHERE WE ARE HEADING?

I first heard Thomas Barnett (then an instructor at the Naval War College) do a version of this talk called Pentagon's New Map around 2002.  I watched the three hour version on CSPAN one evening.  He was on that occasion introduced as the "strategy guy" for Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld.

Barnett's arrogant presentation was ultimately about how the US's job under corporate globalization would be "security export".  We won't have jobs in the USA anymore because corporations have gone looking for cheaper labor.  So we will build weapons and wage war for declining resources on behalf of the corporate agenda.

Barnett says that we have to bring down those around the world in the "non integrating gap" with forces he calls "Leviathan".  But following shock and awe, Barnett suggests, we need to do the next step much better - what he calls "systems administration".  These troops will never come home, he likes to say, meaning they will essentially run a particular country that has been taken over by Mr. Big.

Some years back I saw that Lockheed Martin was getting contracts from the Pentagon to teach new generations of "systems administration" warriors.  Clearly we are talking about running the global empire for capitalism.

It's worth watching the video to have a clearer understanding.

COMMENTING ON THE UKRAINE MESS

The comments below are some that are following an impressive article called  The New Cold War’s Ukraine Gambit by Michael Hudson.  Hudson is research professor of economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City.

EoinW 

I find it hard to believe China will sit by and watch Russia fall. They have to be aware how isolated and vulnerable that would make them. The Chinese have gone along with the American game because it benefited them. The more reckless US leadership becomes the more that threat outweighs the benefits. Going after Russia has got to be as reckless as one can get.

Crazy Horse 

Just how is the American Imperial Military Assassin Drone Death Star strike force going to be used against an economic alliance between Russia and China? I think they might encounter a little more opposition than when they are used against tribal villages in Pakistan.

Si 

Quite a read!
What hits home for me is that the narrative provided in the article requires concentration in order to begin to understand the forces that are in play. The concept (in reality) of a demoralised population who bow down and look to their oppressors for favourable treatment is chilling.
The battlespace has always included a psychological dimension, but now I wonder if it has been brought to an art form. ‘To subdue an enemy without doing battle’ is one of the ultimate aims within the Sun Tzu.
And unfortunately the ‘enemy’ is us, anyone who is not one of the minority of powerful insiders.

digi_owl 

We humans like to think of ourselves as rational (just look at the crazy that is “rational expectations”). But as psychology, and its marketing bastard, has learned, we are pretty much slaves to emotions. What we think of as rational acts, are emotional acts that we rationalize in hindsight.
As such, politics to day had done a 180 on the days of FDR. Now it is all about hitting those emotions hard, fast, and often. Shock and awe is more than a US military doctrine.
In a sense modern political marketing has taken the post-roman religious message and filed off the religious symbolism. Now we don’t fear hell in the afterlife, we fear terrorists (and their “rogue state” backers) bringing hell to our doorstep. And only the valiant politicians (and their corporate supporters) stand in their way.

Tsigantes 

Writing from Greece, I can assure you that blaming the victim (in our case the Greek people) is a key demoralisation ploy. a propaganda tool, and means to create distraction for the austerity-imposing governments and EU/Troika [EU-IMF-ECB]. Germany has been the lead offender in ‘morality and blame politics’, precisely – I would suggest – because it stood to benefit most. Meanwhile, in Europe the morality spotlight is never turned on Germany itself.

Banger 

I tried to find something wrong or overdone in Hudson’s analysis and I could find nothing. His narrative about Ukraine and how it fits into U.S. Russia policy is spot-on. Most Americans don’t understand that the sort of Machiavellian maneuverings Hudson speaks of has become, essentially, U.S. policy. The split in Washington is between those who want to be more aggressive and use military force to spread neoliberal hegemony and those who prefer to let corruption take its course–but that’s another discussion. But all sides in Washington agree on the goal and that is a U.S. centered global Empire ruled by a permanent oligarchy. 

 

VietnamVet 

No matter what corporate media doesn’t say; democracy movement money was spent to bring Ukraine and its resources under Western control. At first I thought Russia would invade to protect the Eastern Russian speaking provinces; but even with a Civil War heating up there Russia hasn’t intervened yet. With right sector thugs marauding through the East, supported by the American government, killing civilians, the chaos will spread and expand.

SUNDAY SONG

Money & Corruption / I Am Your Man

Written by: Ray Davies (The Kinks)

We are sick and tired
Of being promised this and that.
We work all day, we sweat and slave
To keep the wealthy fat.
They fill our heads with promises
And bamboozle us with facts,
Then they put on false sincerity
Then they laugh behind our backs.

1st Chorus
Money and Corruption
Are ruining the land
Crooked politicians
Betray the working man,
Pocketing the profits
And treating us like sheep,
And we're tired of hearing promises
That we know they'll never keep.

Money and Corruption
(Etc. repeat 1st Chorus above)

Promises, promises, all we get are promises.
Show us a man who'll understand us, guide us and lead us.

We are sick and tired
Of having to ask them cap in hand
We crawl on the floor
We beg for more,
but still we are ignored.
We're tired of being herded
Like a mindless flock of sheep
And we're tired of hearing promises
That we know they'll never keep.

1st Chorus
Money and Corruption
Are ruining the land
Crooked politicians
Betray the working man,
Pocketing the profits
And treating us like sheep,
And we're tired of hearing promises
We know they'll never keep.

We've got to stand together
Every woman, every man,
Because money and corruption are ruining the land.
Show us a man who'll be our Saviour and will lead us.
Show us a man who'll understand us, guide us and lead us.
Show us a man.
Workers of the nation unite.
Workers of the nation unite.

(Mr. Black sings)

I visualise a day when people will be free
And we'll be living in a new society.
No class distinction, no slums or poverty
I have a vision of a new society.
And every home will have a stereo and TV,
a deep freeze, quadrasonic and a washing machine.
So workers of the nation unite.

I am your man
I'll work out a five-year plan
So vote for me brothers
And I will save this land
And we will nationalise the wealthy companies
And all the directors will be answerable to me,
There'll be no shirking of responsibilities
So people of the nation unite.

Union Man I'll work with you hand in hand
For we're all brothers to our Union Man.
I am your man,
Oh God how I love this land,
So join together save the Fatherland.

I visualize a day when people will be free
And we'll be living in a new society.
No class distinction, no slums or poverty,
So workers of the nation unite,
Workers of the nation unite,
People of the nation unite.