The Power of Community

By Katherine Smith

In September 2006, the world experienced a paradigm shift when a strong lobbying effort by grassroots organizations effectively derailed an initiative: A move that was tantamount to a declaration of war on Iran.

U.S.: Iran Resolution Shelved in Rare Defeat for Israel Lobby

In a significant and highly unusual defeat for the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has decided to shelve a long-pending, albeit non-binding, resolution that called for President George W. Bush to launch what critics called a blockade against Iran.

But an unexpectedly strong lobbying effort by a number of grassroots Iranian-American, Jewish-American, peace, and church groups effectively derailed the initiative.

The decision by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman, to shelve HR 362 marked an unusual defeat for AIPAC, according to its critics who charged that the resolution was designed to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration or any successor administration to take military action against Iran.

Economy

(GunsNButter) – Audio: On the Destructive Nature of the Global Economic System – Bonnie Faulkner Interviews Michel Chossudovsky – Audio Link Here

(NYTimes) – NY Times’ Krugman: We Are Entering The Third Depression

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense. Read More Here

(CNN) – Video: Clinton – U.S. Budget Is Broken – View Video Here

(LondonTelegraph) – RBS tells clients to prepare for ‘monster’ money-printing by the Federal Reserve

As recovery starts to stall in the US and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve. Read More Here

(LewRockwell) – Suiting Up for a Post-Dollar World

The global financial crisis is playing out like a slow-moving, highly predicable stage play. In the current scene, Western governments are caught between the demands of entitled welfare beneficiaries and the anxiety of bondholders who fear they will be stuck with the bill. As the crisis reaches an apex, prime ministers and presidents are forced into a Sophie’s choice between social unrest and bankruptcy. But with the “Club Med” economies set to fall like dominoes, the US Treasury market is not yet acting the role we would have anticipated. Read More Here

(StarAdvertiser) – Huge tent city takes root

Homeless camps cover 50 acres, from Waipio Point, around Middle Loch to Pearl City Read More Here

REPOST – (WSWS) – Senate Democrats and Obama abandon the jobless

Senate Democrats gave up efforts to extend unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers after the third vote on overcoming a Republican filibuster failed. The final vote Thursday was 57 to 41, three votes short of the 60 necessary to cut off debate, with one Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, joining a unanimous Republican opposition. Read More Here

(Bloomberg) – Merkel Warns European Crisis is Far From Over, Wall Street Journal Reports – Read More Here

(GlobalResearch) – BOOK LAUNCH: The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century – Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall – Read More Here

(EurasiaReview) – Europe’s Fiscal Dystopia: The “New Austerity” Road – Michael Hudson

Europe is committing fiscal suicide – and will have little trouble finding allies at this weekend’s G-20 meetings in Toronto. Despite the deepening Great Recession threatening to bring on outright depression, European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet and prime ministers from Britain’s David Cameron to Greece’s George Papandreou (president of the Socialist International) and Canada’s host, Conservative Premier Stephen Harper, are calling for cutbacks in public spending. Read More Here

(BBC) – Romania plans big VAT rise to secure bail-out funds – Read More Here

(RegionalTimes) – IMF stops next tranche of loan to Pakistan till imposition of VAT Read More Here

Climategate

(LATimes) – Senate Democrats poised to start energy bill

With the gulf oil spill creating political opportunity, Senate Democrats will begin crafting a sweeping energy bill this week that could include a first-ever, though more modest, cap on global-warming pollution, believing they must act now despite differences within their ranks and political jitters in an election year.

(Guardian) – Gillard bids to revive Australia’s stalled carbon trading scheme

Australia’s new prime minister, Julia Gillard, today moved to revive a stalled carbon trading scheme, pledging more consultation with industry and voters to win support for an issue that has divided the nation. Read More Here

Video: Chossudovsky – Obama, not Osama, is threat No.1 to global security

(RussiaToday) – Barack Obama is masking the real issues over nuclear weapons by presenting the idea that nuclear terrorism is a major threat, says Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization.

World War

(AP) – White House adviser: World has united against Iran

A top White House adviser says the U.S. is making progress in its efforts to find allies to hold the line on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Read More Here

(YNet) – Discharged soldiers sue for millions over Anthrax experiment

Dozens of soldiers who took part in experiment in early 1990s aimed at determining efficacy of Anthrax vaccine demand $80,000 each in damages. ‘Physical harm was passed down to our children,’ plaintiff says Read More Here

(GlobalResearch) – The Pentagon is using Haiti as a Training Ground for Afghanistan – Michel Chossudovsky

A recent report in Stars and Stripes reveals the nature of the US military operation in Haiti. Combat units from Iraq and Afghanistan have been deployed in Haiti under the banner of a humanitarian operation. Conversely, Haiti is also being used as a military training ground for forces without in-theater combat experience. Read More Here

(NYTimes) – Imagining an Israeli Strike on Iran

In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, declaring it could not live with the chance the country would get a nuclear weapons capability. In 2007, it wiped out a North Korean-built reactor in Syria. And the next year, the Israelis secretly asked the Bush administration for the equipment and overflight rights they might need some day to strike Iran’s much better-hidden, better-defended nuclear sites. Read More Here

(EconomicPolicyJournal) – Advanced Conspiracy Theory: Where Are the War Protesters?

Every once and awhile, you will see a post at a blog lamenting that there aren’t any war protesters around the way there were during the Vietnam War. Read More Here

Video: Jesse Ventura – Afghanistan Is Vietnam II

Video: Is Catastrophe Ahead for US-China Relations? – Michel Chossudovsky

(RussiaToday) – United States-China relations are on the rocks recently, China says that they have been seriously disrupted. Essentially, China feels that it is being threatened by the United States and this has been mounting since 1999. The threats are coming in the form of diplomacy, however Michel Chossudovsky says that the United States also has missiles pointed at Chinese cities.

Video: Chossudovsky – US Will Start WW3 by Attacking Iran

(RussiaToday) – February 19, 2010 – A UN nuclear watchdog report suggests Iran could be developing a nuclear bomb, apparently confirming long-held suspicions in the West. But Tehran denies the claims, again insisting that its atomic intentions are peaceful. Michel Chossudovsky, who’s from an independent Canadian policy research group, believes that what Iran says hardly matters, because the U.S. is planning for war.

Yemen and The Militarization of Strategic Waterways – Michel Chossudovsky

“Whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene.” (US Navy Geostrategist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayus Mahan (1840-1914))
The Yemeni archipelago of Socotra in the Indian Ocean is located some 80 kilometres off the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres South of the Yemeni coastline. The islands of Socotra are a wildlife reserve recognized by (UNESCO), as a World Natural Heritage Site.

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The Destabilization of Haiti: Anatomy of a Military Coup d’Etat – Michel Chossudovsky

This article was written almost six years ago in the last days of February 2004. It was published on February 29th, 2004, on the same day as the US sponsored coup d’Etat, which led to the kidnapping and deportation of the country’s elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Was Envisaged by the US Military One Day Before the Earthquake

(MichelChossudovsky) – A Haiti disaster relief scenario had been envisaged at the headquarters of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami one day prior to the earthquake.

The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

(MichelChossudovsky) – Haiti has a longstanding history of US military intervention and occupation going back to the beginning of the 20th Century. US interventionism has contributed to the destruction of Haiti’s national economy and the impoverishment of its population.

Audio: The Invasion of Gaza – Interview with Michel Chossudovsky

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Guns and Butter – The Invasion of Gaza

“The Invasion of Gaza” with Michel Chossudovsky discussing Israel’s broader military-intelligence plan, “Operation Justified Vengeance” (Ariel Sharon 2001) of which “Operation Cast Lead” is part; the assassination of Yaser Arafat; the humanitarian crisis; strategic gas reserves offshore from Gaza; and Israel’s energy transport corridor along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean.  Encore broadcast to mark the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Gaza strip.
This program was originally broadcast on Jan 14, 2009.

Climate Change: The Global Media presents an Apocalyptic Scenario

(MichelChossudovsky) – The following text (in annex) was published simultaneously by major Newspapers around the World. It constitutes a Worldwide public relations initiative, intended to sway public opinion into unreservedly accepting the “Global Warming consensus”. The text of the editorial was prepared by The Guardian team.

Ten Years Ago: “Manufacturing Dissent” in Seattle – Michel Chossudovsky

Author’s Note: This article published under the title Seattle and Beyond: Disarming the New World Order was written ten years ago in relation to the Seattle Millenium Summit, which served to instate the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a global policy watch-dog, derogating the sovereign rights of national governments to decide on their economic and social policies.

Video: Obama’s H1N1 Emergency Declaration – Is Martial Law Unfolding?

Obama has declared a 2009 H1N1 swine flu a national emergency. It is not clear if this declaration falls under the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601–1651). The act is not mentioned in media reports.

Video: The great banking scam – Michel Chossudovsky

Who do the banks owe money to? Are those hedge funds affiliated with the very banks that were bailed out? Prof. Chossudovsky explains. He emphasizes the bailouts will not help the crisis, but will exacerbate it.

Audio: The Truth behind 9/11

GRNH, David Ray Griffin interviewed by Michel Chossudovsky

The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency

How reliable is this data. Does the data justify a Worldwide public health emergency, including a $40 billion dollar vaccination program which largely favors a handful of pharmaceutical companies? In the US alone, the costs of H1N1 preparedness are of the order of 7.5 billion dollars.( See Flu.gov: Vaccines, Vaccine Allocation and Vaccine Research)

Camps for Dissidents Readied

There exists an explosive hot-button issue that U.S. government officials don’t want revealed to the American public; namely, that internment camps have been established—and are at the ready to detain citizens if mass insurrections occur. Under FEMA’s National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09), potential trigger events could be economic collapse, widespread bank closures, massive social unrest (possibly due to proof that Barack Obama is not natural-born), or a flu pandemic.

H1N1 October surprise prevention

The core essence of “Greater Things” is that there is always a better way to do things — anything — whether it be religion, politics, science, academia — anything. To the extent that we get institutionalized and codified in a set belief system, is the extent that we inhibit the ability to grow and learn new and better ways. – Dr. Andrew Moulden. A growing number of doctors, other health professionals and citizens are attempting to prevent the humanitarian disaster planned for this October when the new H1N1 vaccine is to be deployed in a grand scale, military, war on terror manoeuvre .

H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Obama Revives Bush-Era Militarized Quarantine Regulations

While the American far-right rants against alleged “Obama death panels” and other Freddy Krueger-like scarecrows to frighten–and divert–the kiddies, our capitalist masters, as they are wont to do, gaze at the spectacle, laugh, and then tighten the screws.

Health care for all derailed? Mission accomplished!

Video: Maine TV Station Airs Report on National Guard and Flu Pandemic Riots

WMTW, a television station in Portland, Maine, owned by Hearst, has produced a slick propaganda piece as part of an emerging effort to stampede people into submitting to a toxic and cancer virus flu vaccine this autumn.

Preparing for Martial Law: International Swine Flu Conference to Be Held in Washington

On his show today, Alex Jones read an email sent by a listener. “I work at the National Institutes of Health and we received an email about the upcoming International Swine Flu Conference that will be occurring in Washington, D.C. Aug 19 – Aug 21, 2009,” the listener writes. “They’re talking about mass fatality management and continuity of government. They’re going to hit us with a massive biological false flag attack.”

H1N1 Pandemic: Pentagon Planning Deployment of Troops in Support of Nationwide Vaccination

According to CNN, the Pentagon is “to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.”

Video: Flu Pandemic – Mass Graves and Martial Law

On March 25, Shepard Ambellas, reporting for Infowars, documented preparation of mass graves at the Department of Veterans Affairs Cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona.

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries

Sunni terrorist groups armed, funded, and moved around the global chessboard to suit geopolitical agenda of Anglo-American establishment

FEMA, Israeli Defense Forces Home Front Command Partner for Martial Law

A press release buried on the FEMA website, dated June 30, 2009, announces a meeting between FEMA administrator Craig Fugate and Maj. Gen. Yair Golan of the Israeli Defense Forces Home Front Command.

Video: Taxpayers, Where Is Your Money Going?

The most drastic curtailment in public spending in American history

Audio: “America’s Fiscal Collapse – Obama’s Budget Will Impoverish America”

Radio Interview with Michel Chossudovsky

The Global Crisis: Food, Water and Fuel

Three Fundamental Necessities of Life in Jeopardy