Dear Progressives....Why You Are Losing the People and What You Can Do About It

"[The task is to] covertly lower the standard of living, the whole social structure, of America so that we can be merged with all other nations." -- Rowan Gaither (1909-1961) Attorney, investment banker, President of the Ford Foundation (1953-1956).  The Ford Foundation is a rich and powerful progressive institution.

Headlines can be hilarious as was Alternet's It's a Rout: Democrats Lose Badly as GOP Extremists Consolidate Power In Congress and Across America.  The article then goes on to bitch and moan about America's discriminatory election.  Guess what?  Nobody stopped anybody from voting.  Even the suffering Democrat base couldn't even hold their noses and vote because they knew they had been screwed.  Life for them was no better under Obama and Gang than it was under Bush and Gang.

OKAY, progressives are in deep mourning over the 2014 elections.  I'm not gloating or rubbing it in because as a liberty activist who abhors the damn wars, the thieving banking system, corporate welfare, the militarized police state, the Patriot Act, the NSA and many other nasties that have rendered America nothing more than a totalitarian empire controlled by oligarchs, I do observe and understand the American people.

I have no skin in the game; I didn't vote this year although when I do vote I generally vote 3rd party and AGAINST the Republicans and Democrats.  The DNC and RNC machines are wholly owned subsidiaries of the banksters, defense contractors and corporate welfare queens.  Moreover, my contempt for the Republicans is just as great as my contempt for the Democrats.  In many ways, I despise the Republicans more, especially since the GOP was hijacked by neocons and theocons years ago.  While I was happy that a slew of Congress Critters were fired by the voters, I was anything but happy that they were replaced with Republicans.

Rest assured, the American people didn't actually vote for Republicans.  The people were just so pissed off that they wanted to fire somebody and this election cycle it was Dems who were most vulnerable.   Why are the American people so pissed off?  Why it's the economy of course.  If folks are lucky enough to have a decent paying job, taxes are eating them alive.  Those who don't have jobs are suffering and many who do have jobs have low wage jobs with no future.

America is a place where the middle class is vanishing and the poor are getting poorer.  The rich are definitely getting richer and at the expense of the poor and middle class.  The Dems love the poor which is why they function as plantation owners doling out subsistence level goodies to their devoted slaves.  Vote buying can only go so far until it bankrupts a nation under the weight of the entitlement state where everybody is entitled to substantial freebies as evidenced by the fact that over 92 million Americans don't even bother to work, here, and many live off the dole.

Yes, progressives, the Republicans and Democrats are all responsible for the demise of the American middle class and the future-less lives of the poor. How did it happen?  Well, it started back in 1913 when progressives passed the Federal Reserve Act that transferred all monetary power to Wall Street. That was the beginning of the death of the middle class because it resulted in a massive wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the rich.  But not to worry says progressive, we will pass welfare bills that throw you the picked bones of the steaks we eat because you don't need to build wealth and financial security, you must be dependent on US because we OWN you.

Things got far uglier in 1971 when Nixon de-tethered the dollar from gold and made the dollar a 100% fiat currency that totally destroyed the purchasing power of the dollar.

Yet, progressives pay scant attention to monetary policy and all they ever care about is throwing a few moldy crumbs at the dutifully compliant sheeple people who are definitely growing restless.

Besides collaborating with Wall Street to pass the Federal Reserve Act to destroy the purchasing power of the dollar, progressives were also instrumental in passing some job killing legislation and bankster protection bills over the years.

Although inflation, taxation, lower wages and massive job losses have been bleeding the middle class dry, the history of the loss of good paying manufacturing jobs is quite interesting. Even more interesting, it was actually planned! And while there are other components to the systematic sell-off of America, like our criminal Congress Critters passing bills that tax domestic corporate earnings at much higher rates if they produced and earned on US soil versus earning their dough offshore, another major component of our national misery is NAFTA and other horrifying trade agreements supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. The expediting of the real bleed of American jobs is fully attributable to Bill Clinton who enthusiastically supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Despite numerous warnings that NAFTA would be catastrophic to the American middle class and domestic manufacturing, the political class was more interested in filing its campaign coffers with special interest dough by selling multi-national corporatists legal protectionism.

NAFTA was a piece of legislation that was unprecedented in its scope and economic consequences as it conferred dictatorial powers of implementation upon the executive branch of government without any congressional oversight whatsoever. Moreover, NAFTA established secret working groups that are publicly funded, totally unaccountable to anyone and they operate off the radar of congressional and public scrutiny.

NAFTA passed in both houses of a Democratic controlled Congress in 1993. In the Senate, it passed with 61 yeas and 38 nays. In the House, it was much closer at 234 yeas to 200 nays. The Republicans in the House really came through for Clinton by providing 132 Yeas to counter 156 Democratic nays. Still, 40% of the Democrats in the House voted for NAFTA.

The vote itself is more than a bit intriguing. Many of NAFTA’s congressional supporters ended up as presidential candidates or secured congressional leadership positions. On the Senate side, the big name Democrats who voted for NAFTA includes Bill Bradley, Tom Daschle, Christopher Dodd, Ted Kennedy (deceased), Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Joe Biden, now Vice President. A lot of these Democrats had made various bids for the presidency or vice presidency of the United States. Interestingly, big name NAFTA supporting Republicans includes John McCain, Bob Dole (defeated by Clinton), Mitch McConnell (soon to be Senate Minority Leader post 2014 elections) and many others who were none too eager to assist Bill Clinton in the sellout of the American worker.

On the House side, NAFTA supporters included big name GOPers like Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, John Boehner and Ron Portman, all of whom rose to leadership positions in the House or the Bush Administration. Democrat Nancy Pelsoi, who voted yes on NAFTA, ended up Speaker of the House for her role in decimating U.S. manufacturing and jobs.

Clearly, these traitorous rogues were handsomely rewarded with greater political power for engineering the systematic dismantling of the world’s greatest manufacturing legend in all of human history.

Progressives handsomely rewarded Nancy Pelosi for her NAFTA vote by anointing her Speaker of the House.  Now that's truly ironic considering that progressives are chronically ranting about the injustice of rich Republicans, especially rich white Republicans, yet they rabidly endorse a rich white bitch and the 12th richest member of Congress, here.  LOL, Pelosi sold the poor and middle class down the river and was rewarded! For more information on NAFTA and its devastating economic consequences, see my blog post The Kleptocracy of Cannibal Crony Capitalism. Bill Clinton and his Republican NAFTA Baby Co-Conspirators.

As if playing a key role in the destruction of US manufacturing and middle class jobs with corporatist crony capitalist boondoggles like NAFTA isn't bad enough, progressive icon Bill Clinton paved the road in 1999 for Banksters Gone Wild that resulted in the 2008 financial crisis.

Photo Above: Bill Clinton signs into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, November 12, 1999

Who are the Architects of Economic Collapse? Global Research

This extraordinary Global Research article documents how the same folks that were behind the Financial Services Modernization Act ended up in top positions in the Obama Administration.

The simple truth is that Wall Street and its interests rule America and they also own both political parties.  It's even more interesting to note that liberal progressive icons were in fact part of the ruling elite cabal that's that been selling out the poor and middle class since 1913.

My issues with progressives are numerous and my most intense hatred of progressivism is their love of wars and interventions, although these days that mantle appears to have somewhat passed to the Republicans.  But let's look at the facts:  Who got us into WW I, WW II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Balkan Wars?  All liberal progressive Dems  - Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, LBJ and Clinton.  The body counts of those progressive wars exceed 100 million folks.  Yes, progressive hands are dripping in blood.

Where's the anti-war movement that was so awesome in the 1960's?  Well, it's somewhere between invisible and non-existent.

Where were progressives when Bush and the Republicans needed the Patriot Act passed?  They were voting with Bush and the Republicans and they continued with each successive Patriot Act renewal. Who in Congress is standing up to the NSA?  Not many, just a few Libertarian leaning Republicans like Rand Paul and Justin Amash, along with a few Dems.

Progressive don't stand for civil liberties and privacy.  In fact, they seem to be addicted to totalitarian government power.  Progressive policies are rooted in command and control economies where nobody is allowed to earn a living unless they grant permission and that permission comes with economy destroying bureaucratic dictates.

Although progressives have embraced marijuana legalization and decriminalization, they've botched it up in CO and WA with insane bureaucracies and taxes to the extent that underground marijuana markets continue to flourish because the taxed price is too damn high (vs. the free market price) and it's quite difficult to grow and sell pot if one seeks to be a an entrepreneur.  New York, the poster child for anti-business, anti-entrepreneurship progressive economic policies, may be the most absurd example of how progressives botch something as simple as growing and selling medical marijuana.

$20M to Start an MMJ Business in New York?

Medical marijuana in New York might prove to be a pretty wealthy club.

Startup costs to open a dispensary and grow could run over $20 million, according to a recent report by The New York Times. And it might take upwards of $1 million just to navigate through the application process, estimated one cannabis lobbyist quoted in The Times piece. These lofty costs would make it difficult for small businesses to get involved.

What the hell do progressives have against folks seeking to start small businesses?  Apparently, a lot!  Economically, progressives are like the mafia demanding tribute for the privilege of working and earning a living.  When it comes to folks who want to work and produce, progressives are like Shylock from the Merchant of Venice demanding a pound of flesh.

While the Nazified Police State is a draconian assault on natural rights and civil liberties that is at least tolerated if not encouraged by progressives, the Progressive Economic Police State against small businesses is just as destructive because it utterly denies folks the right to earn a living.

Perhaps it's long overdue for progressives to do some serious soul searching, starting with admitting their own roles in growing Police State USA, destroying small businesses by making it impossible for limited capital small business operators to even start a business.  And then there are the damn wars that never end.

America needs less laws, less regulation and more freedom.  On the criminal code, progressives should embrace the Libertarian approach:  No Victim, No Crime.  America has more folks in prison than any nation on the planet and many of these folks are imprisoned for victim-less crimes. Progressives should stop criminalizing every act that they personally disapprove of.

Progressives need a revolution within the Democrat party and they need to get rid of the old, fraudulent leadership that is owned by the same special interests that own the GOP.

Progressives need to fight to end the damn wars and yes they also need to give up their imperial aspirations of non-stop intervention that so devastated the world in WW I, WW II, Korean War, Vietnam and other murderous interventions.

Progressives need to support limited government,  business growth and lower taxes.  If anything, progressives are famous for being anti-business.   Progressives need to be more Libertarian and they must learn to stop controlling everything at the point of a gun.  Speaking of guns, progressives should absolutely support the 2nd amendment because the right to defend yourself from violence, sexual assault or death is an absolute natural right that no free citizen should ever be denied.

Libertarians and 'sane' progressives, well, at least the progressives that aren't Nazis, have a lot in common.

Ralph Nader gets it and his book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State lays out a solid argument on why liberals and Libertarians should unite to defeat the corporate state.  As a Libertarian, I find Nader to be honest and sane even if he is more statist than my Libertarian ideology but he's definitely on the right track.

Ralph Nader On Why Libertarians And Liberals Should Unite

Defeating the corporate state, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and the security industrial complex is a damn good place to start where we can demolish the absolute worst aspects of government power.

This isn't a Republican or Democrat issue; there is only one issue at stake here - namely the freedom and prosperity of the people.

Hello progressives?  Where art thou? Can you possibly resist the temptation to CONTROL every possible aspect of human existence and champion historical classical liberalism that embodied a high level of personal and economic freedom with minimal government interference?

The principles of voluntarism enshrine classical liberalism because it's based on the absence of state violence and coercion.  I never understood why progressives are so supportive of state violence and coercion and so oppose voluntary cooperation and transactions among people to deliver peace, harmony, goods, services and consent.

Finally, while progressives may toss a few crumbs at folks to achieve political power they utterly fail to understand that humans desperately seek personal sovereignty, independence and economic opportunity.  People don't want to be tethered to the impoverishment of the progressive plantation anymore than more than they would consent to be slaves.

If progressives truly advocated for progress rather than raw and absolute power, they could kick GOP ass.  However, progress will never come from state power.



Image: Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. "The composition is part of a pyramid whose base are the bodies that have fallen in the struggle against tyranny, corpses lit to emphasize its importance." http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_libertad_guiando_al_pueblo.png

What's the Empire to do? Iran, Iraq and a US-Iran alliance? Geo-politics makes the strangest of bedfellows!!

Invading Iraq, a nation with a 60-70% Shiite majority, was one of the most monumentally stupidest things the US ever did.  Saddam Hussein was a Sunni strongman and really no different than any of the other psychopaths in the region that the US eagerly endorsed, bribed, supported, funded and armed. However, Hussein was no Sunni Islamist, he feared them and he kept them out of Iraq.  It has been reported that Hussein enjoyed drinking western whiskey and watching Godfather movies, activities decidedly deemed un-Islamic.  I don't even know why the US invaded and occupied Iraq except that the Bush Crime Family and the military industrial complex was obsessed with flexing its military muscle by waging war on SOMEBODY. In any event, my best guess for invading Iraq is that the American crime syndicate that lords over the District of Crime in DC was absolutely obsessed with destroying Iran, a Shiite nation with a 90% plus Shia majority.

To begin to understand the situation one has to first understand the petro-dollar.  When Nixon made the unilateral decision to destroy the dollar and its purchasing power by de-tethering the dollar from gold in 1971 via an Executive Order that bypassed Congress, the dollar became a petro-dollar.   But for the dollar to become a petro-dollar and maintain its world reserve currency status, the world's oil supplies had to trade exclusively in dollars.  Once oil traded in any currency other than dollars, the dollar would become toast and America would become just another bankrupt banana boat republic.

The cost of maintaining the dollar as the world's reserve currency came with a whopper of a price tag, a real compact with Satan and that deal was cut with Saudi Arabia and other oil rich Sunni nations.  They agreed to forever trade oil in dollars in exchange for having the power of the US military at its fingertips to advance the most vile, the most intolerant and the most evil form of Islam ever to exist - Sunni Salafist Wahabbist Islam - and Sunni nations have reportedly dumped over $100 billion into radicalizing Muslims everywhere, including Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia and many other nations with significant Sunni populations.  On a side note, Bill Clinton was tight with his Sunni masters, as is the Bush Crime Family, and Bill Clinton advanced the cause of Sunni Salafist Wahhabism in the Balkan by invading, bombing and destroying Serbia and other Balkan nations.  In exchange for his loyalty to advancing radical Sunni Islam, Clinton was rewarded with millions from the Sunni Arab world for his presidential library.  Also, Saudi Arabia is reported to be one of the biggest financial contributors to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), here, which states "One of the Clinton Foundation’s largest donors is the kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

Back to Iraq.  It was impossible for the US not to know that invading Iraq and imposing a US styled 'democracy', complete with purple fingers no less, would result in Shiite majority rule.  Was the US and its neocon MIC so desperate to use Iraq as a forward base for invading Iran that it risked achieving the probable, namely pushing Shiite Iraq further towards its natural ally of Shiite Iran?  The whole thing makes no sense except in the context that the Sunni Muslim world fully expected the US to bomb and destroy Shiite Iran or even ordered the US to do it.  Bear in mind that those who control the world's reserve currency (the petro-dollar) also controls the world, US foreign policy, the Federal Reserve and the entire US government.

However, things began to unravel.  From the Sunni Salafist Wahhabist terror attacks on 911, the bombing of 2 US embassies in Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole, the London bombings, the Madrid bombings, the Mumbai bombings, the Moscow bombings, the Bali bombings and numerous other Saudi engineered Sunni terror attacks, the western world in general became horrified and experienced their WTF moment by implying "what have we done".

Iraq is in shambles and that's no surprise because it's been a fictitious nation ever since British aristocrat Gertrude Bell galloped through the region as the female Lawrence of Arabia and literally drew Iraq's borders with a pencil on a piece of paper and created for the British Empire modern day Iraq, complete with installing a British lackey on the throne.  Besides the perpetual Sunni-Shiite conflict, the Kurds are also victims in the never ending Shiite-Sunni-Kurd conflict.

Heck, even Joe Biden said in 2006 that Iraq should be divided into 3 separate regions, here.  But Biden's idea was insanely foolish because he still wanted centralized control in Baghdad and any centralized government in a nation torn by civil war and constant internal feuding is a guaranteed disaster.  And then there is Iraq's immense oil reserves so the fight isn't just about religious and ethnic differences, it's also a battle for control of Iraq's vast oil wealth.

The Sunni world is paranoid that the Shiite world, namely Iran and Iraq, will become the new kingpins of middle east oil and the Sunni world definitely wants control of that oil and will do anything to achieve that goal. Oil is wealth and wealth is power.  With the OPEC Sunni oil oligarchy already being challenged by Russia, now a major global oil and gas producer, OPEC and its Sunni chieftains are becoming unhinged as they rightfully perceive that their cozy cartel is threatened by significant oil discoveries in other nations as well as chronic Sunni-Shiite feuds in the middle east.

It's a good damn thing that 'bomb, bomb, bomb Iran' McCain never became president because, astounding, the unthinkable is being openly discussed - the possibility that the US might consider allying with Iran.  I know it's an utterly preposterous idea but the idea is surfacing.

Iran open to shared role with US in Iraq CNBC

US airstrikes to support Iranian Revolutionary Guard's offensive in Iraq? Russia Today

Exclusive: Alarmed by Iraq, Iran open to shared role with U.S. - Iran official Reuters

Iran Deploys Forces to Fight al Qaeda-Inspired Militants in Iraq WSJ

Now what?  Iran also supports Syria and Assad who the US and radical Sunnis have vowed to destroy.

Is it even likely that the US would consider ending military aid to Sunni Salafist Wahabbist terrorists simply because the fate of the dollar is at stake?

With Russia also emerging as a major oil-gas power, pissing off Russia by supporting the neo-Nazis regime in Kiev has driven Russia and a neurotic China to cut energy deals that will not be dollar dominated, a situation that directly threatens the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

As with any dying empire on life support, it grows more violent as its extinction is glaring them in the face. The US is accustomed to barking orders and having folks all over the planet just humbly genuflect before DC and comply.  But no more.  The barking dogs of the US Empire have resulted in absolute and raw hatred toward the US, its murderous wars, its bloody interventions, its foreign policy and its profound arrogance. Folks all over the planet are rising up and barking back and they are not content to just bark, they fully intend to bite the vermin that has been biting them for decades and sucking the life and liberty out of their people and nations.

For a recap of what is currently happening in Iraq, Drudge 6/13/14 headlines  provides just about everything you need to know about the current situation in Iraq.

BAGHDAD FALLING
Exodus from Iraq as chaos spreads...
UN: 800k refugees...
CHRISTIANS ON THE RUN...
Terrorists 'full-blown army'...
Medieval Sharia Law Imposed...
'Roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers'...
Iraqi government 'paralyzed'...
Army Collapses...
VIDEO: Thousands of soldiers captured by ISIS...
Iran Deploys Forces...
Americans evacuated...
USA Secretly Flying Drones...
ISIS terror leader released from U.S. custody in 2009...
Pentagon: Rebels may have captured military equipment...
PAPER: 'Worst case scenario'...
FLASHBACK: Biden: Iraq One of Obama's 'Great Achievements'...
Vets in Congress: 'What was point of all that?'...
Oil Soars...
OBAMA HINTS AT ACTION...

What is the Empire to do?  Ally with Al Qaeda and Sunni Salafist terrorists?  That's precisely what America has been doing for so long that it's ingrained as a foreign policy imperative, despite all the propaganda that America marched off to war to fight Al Qaeda and similar Sunni terrorist groups.  Americans are no longer buying into the War on Terror phony baloney talking points propagated by the government and its partner in crime, the US media.  Sane folks on the right and left fully comprehend that they were lied to and duped.

Geo-politics is profoundly complicated which why most folks avoid it because it involves an eternal quest for knowledge and truth, especially in  history and economics.  It's where history, resources, religions, cultures and empires have always collided. More information on these issues for those folks who do search for truth:

A Guide To Understanding the Middle East, Syria, The West and Oil

Why Sunni Islam is Crucial to World Peace and Crushing the NWO

Why Syria is Serious - It's Where Oil, Monetary Power and Religious Feuds Collide

The Making of the Modern Middle East

A Cruise Through History: Islam, the West and the Rest of the World

With Charity Toward None, A History of Israel

America's $2.3 Trillion Dollar Foreign Aid is Mostly a Defense Contractor Subsidy

The Cost of America's Wars - $3 Trillion, $4 Trillion, $5 Trillion, $7 Trillion, $8 Trillion, Going Once, Going Twice, SOLD

The Great Greek Yogurt Scam, Poisoning our Kids in Public Schools and the Geopolitics of Yogurt

Yogurt is not an issue that I typically follow.  However, I went to the grocery store to buy organic milk and it came with a coupon for a free 4 pack of Yoplait Greek yogurt.  What the heck, it's free so I selected the honey vanilla yogurt only to come home and upon reading the label I discovered that the ingredients contained neither honey nor vanilla.  The listed ingredients are: Pasteurized Grade A Nonfat Milk, Sugar, Milk Protein Concentrate, Corn Starch, Contains less than 1% of Kosher Gelatin, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Natural Flagor, Yogurt Cultures..."

Oh well, it's just another case of government approved food labeling where false advertising is the norm and the ingredients don't really have to be real.  I thought my unpleasant yogurt experience was over - until I caught a Drudge Headline about Michelle Obama and yogurt that linked to a an article from The Hill titled Feds add Greek yogurt to school lunches.  Then my email box had an update from the Future of Capitalism that contained another yogurt article, titled The Greek Yogurt Lobby:

The Department of Agriculture is adding Greek yogurt to the subsidized school lunch program after Chobani, a company that makes Greek yogurt, hired lobbyists to make its case for inclusion. The Hill newspaper has the story (which I saw thanks to the astute Walter Olson). The Hill puts the lobbying expenditure at $80,000 so far this year, but that understates the expenditure; Senate lobbying records show Chobani has been paying Cornerstone Government Affairs $40,000 a quarter for four consecutive quarters, for a total of $160,000. The Cornerstone team, in turn, includes former staffers of both the agriculture department and the House and Senate agriculture committees. 

A nice little case study of how Washington works.

 Now I'm really hooked as yogurt churns itself into a full blown yogurt-gate investigative project.  My Google fingers are blazing across the keyboard as I attempt to figure out what the hell is going on with yogurt and specifically Greek yogurt. So I started learning precisely what Greek yogurt is. I really didn't know except that I was aware that Greek yogurt was thicker than American yogurt but you can put American yogurt in cheesecloth, drain it and have thick yogurt, sometimes called yogurt cheese.  Is it the same as Greek yogurt? Apparently not.

A fitness club wrote about Greek yogurt in an article titled 5 Reasons to Eat Traditional Greek Yogurt vs. Chobani.  Chobani?  We'll get back to Chobani later because it's critically important to the story.  But here's what the fitness health blog wrote about yogurt.

What most people think of as “Greek” yogurt is actually just strained yogurt. The process of straining yogurt eliminates the excess water, liquid whey and lactose (sugar). This makes the yogurt creamier, less watery, contain more protein and very little sugar. With that said, here are five reasons why you should get actual plain and whole fat Greek strained yogurt and not the imposters like Chobani.

1. It’s Actually Greek (Strained)

Greek Strained yogurt goes through a triple straining process that by definition will not have much sugar in it, pack a protein punch, contain billions of cultured bacteria, and authentic Greek yogurt is actually plain; it is not conveniently added with “Blueberry flavoring” which is just high fructose corn syrup. “Greek Style” yogurts are mostly not strained more than once and contain thickening agents like locust bean gum to give them the appearance of real Greek yogurt.1 Sounds delicious doesn’t it?

2. Beneficial Fat Content

Whole plain Greek strained yogurt contains beneficial saturated fat in the form of butyric acid from the milk and cream, which improves the good gut bacteria in your large intestine for digestive health. This is very important for vitamin and mineral absorption, energy, and to prevent hypoglycemia two hours later. Zero percent fat yogurt cannot help with any of those things.....

Go for the real greek strained yogurt brands that sell whole fat versions like Fage, and Oikos. Zero percent fat yogurt means zero percent benefit for you. Don't even think of getting any yogurts with fruit flavoring; just buy some real fruit and throw it in there.

Apparently much has been written about Greek yogurt as well as the Greek yogurt frauds and imposters. Gawker devoted some cyberspace ink to the issue in a piece titled Most People Are Eating the Wrong Kind of Greek Yogurt that also recommended Fage as  real Greek yogurt.

Now let's get back to Chobani, the fraud Greek yogurt maker that has been lobbying heavily in the District of Crime to get the federal government to put Chobani bad/fake/unhealthy yogurt in America's schools and at taxpayer expense of course.

The Rabid Republican Blog really got to the bottom of Yogurt-gate, well almost but it did do a bang of up job in disclosing how America really operates, not that the Republicans are in any way free market advocates.  It's just that beating up on the Democrats for their corporatist, fascist and crony capitalists ventures is a very Republican activity.

Here's what the Rabid Republican Blog wrote about Chobani and Yogurt-gate in a piece titled Obama Cartel Pushes ‘Greek’ Yogurt.

The Obama Cartel will use your Tax $$ to make a rich immigrant – richer! They’ll be buying Chobani ‘Greek’ [actually Turkish] yogurt to feed school kids – in four pilot states, AZ, ID, NY, TN, – picked to see how long the yogurt lasts before going bad.

OK, maybe yogurt is good for kids, – healthy, low fat, high protein and all… But where in our Constitution is the Federal Government directed [or allowed] to use taxpayer money to feed certain selected kids?

Wouldn’t that be the job of the states [as last resort],…or their parents?

Chibani is a booming success story. Kurdish/Turkish immigrant Hamdi Ulukaya started the company in a old Kraft plant in 2005 – with funding from his ex-wife. By 2012 he was a Billionaire. [Today she's suing him for her 53%.]

Ulukaya knows his way around politicians. He cuddled up to NY State Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer, and just two weeks ago was meeting with Obama - ‘to advise him on immigration policy’.

POOF! Two weeks later the announcement from SecAG Tom Vilsack; – Billionaire Ulukaya [did he contribute his fair share?] – will add Dept of Agriculture $$ to his revenue stream.

Tom, was there ever even a competitive bid set out…?

Think of the marketing coup! Ulukaya gets to have kids in four (4) states [for now] eat his product every day at school…. “Mommy, Mommy, buy that one, – that’s the one we get in school!”

What the Rabid Republican Blog totally missed is the geopolitics of the deal.  The US is trying real hard to get Turkey to support its war on Syria but Turkey has its own enormous problems with non-stop protests against the Turkish Islamist regime that America loves and coddles, here, here and here.   Moreover, the Greeks and Turkey tend to hate each other ever since the Greeks managed to excise themselves and Greek real estate from the Muslim Ottoman Empire in a war of liberation that lasted from 1821 to 1832.  Things got uglier when the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany during WW I which resulted in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.  During WW II, the anti-Semitic Muslim world allied with Germany and the Nazis invaded Greece and all of this happened before the creation of Israel in 1948 by the United Nations.  But history is a story for another day, today is about yogurt.

Incredibly, it's amazing how a seemingly insignificant activity like going to the grocery store to buy organic milk can explode into into something very significant.complete with all the poison ingredients of statism - geopolitics, wars, cronyism etc., if you just do a bit of digging.  So I pissed away a half a day on Yogurt-gate.  It's not just a story, it's a non-stop never ending story on how America really operates.  It's just business as usual in The Empire.

One final warning: Don't eat the slop fictitiously labeled Greek yogurt, don't let your kids eat it, only eat real Greek yogurt if you can find it and learn to make your own yogurt.  That's what Google fingers are for!

As for the American taxpayers, they just got screwed again and will be subsidizing Chobani's yogurt empire.  So what else is new?

The NWO Reacts to Egypt

Bureaucrats, politicians, policy wonks and aspiring statist thugs of all stripes covet their NWO publications and the two biggest are Foreign Affairs, the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Foreign Policy, published by the Washington Post, the premier pimp-a-donna for NWO global tyranny.

I had previously blogged about what is happening in Egypt, here and here.

With the headline grabbing week of revolts in Egypt it's interesting to observe how Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs are viewing the situation.  After all, they supported and raised Morsi, a radical Sunni Salafist Wahhabist, to power.  Now the plan is blowing in their faces and the NWO strategists and planners are forced to address their big fail.

Foreign Policy actually plastered on its front page this image that links to an article titled Downfall in Cairo.

According to the wonks at Foreign Policy this wasn't supposed to happen.  With the US, Europe and Saudi Arabia leading the charge to guarantee that the world's Muslims forever remain consigned to the imprisonment of the most radical, anti-liberty and intolerant sect of Islam in human history, the Muslim rejection of theocratic tyranny was unexpected as well as shocking.  The policy wonks are further puzzled by what recently happened in Turkey as the Sunni Muslim Turks rose up against their Sunni Salafist Wahhabist Prime Minister.

Things are not going according to plan.  Over at Foreign Affairs, the tone was more subdued as long time CFR guru Richard Haass penned a piece titled Egypt's Second Chance.  Foreign Affairs is of course buzzing with many pieces on Egypt including a piece titled Redoing the Egyptian Revolution, How to Get the Transition Right This Time.

In NWO foreign policy speak, getting it 'right this time' translates to the foreign policy NWO gang finding somebody in Egypt that will support its totalitarian agenda who is sufficiently acceptable by the Egyptian people to be electable in a western rigged general election.  Western style 'democracy' has destroyed the West by concentrating wealth and power at the expense of the people.  Accordingly, the western policy wonks are convinced that the same policies that eradicated western liberty and prosperity will work anywhere because it's a time tested formula that has never failed.

If the Muslim world feels threatened and shackled by western aggression, bombings, invasions and interventions, it alone holds the power to alleviate that threat.  By bringing down the evil US Empire and its European and Saudi partners in crime, the Muslim world could birth a new dawn by demanding sound money and divorcing itself from western invented fiat central banks that bankroll the American military industrial complex and global tyranny.

Will the GOP Masturbate & Legitimately Rape Itself to Death?

It's bad enough that Republicans raised the 'legitimate rape' issue that cost the GOP 2 senate seats in 2012 when Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock lost elections because neither believed that a woman could possibly become pregnant from an act of rape.  According to Akin and Mourdock, a pregnancy is a gift from God and God wouldn't allow an act of violent rape to produce a child or gift from God.  Therefore, any woman who is impregnated as a result of rape is a liar and the sex must have been consensual.

The American people and voters were appalled.  Perhaps Republicans could use some remedial biology courses.

But it gets even worse.  Astoundingly, Texas Republican Mike Burgess took the abortion debate to an even higher level is insanity by asserting that late term abortion should be abolished because male fetuses pleasure themselves as early as 15 weeks.

Republican cites masturbating fetuses to support new abortion restrictions

Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX) on Monday asserted that he witnessed male fetuses pleasuring themselves as early as 15-weeks after conception, RH Reality Check reported. His comments came during a House Rules committee debate on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy. “This is a subject that I do know something about,” Burgess said, citing his experience as an OB/GYN. “There is no question in my mind that a baby at 20-weeks after conception can feel pain. The fact of the matter is, I argue with the chairman because I thought the date was far too late. We should be setting this at 15-weeks, 16-weeks.”

I personally oppose late term abortion but not for the reasons offered by Rep. Michael Burgess.  My own personal views on abortion are expressed here and yes I do support the right to an early abortion.  However, I absolutely oppose public funding of all abortions and I further believe that constitutionally the issue should should reside with the states, not the federal government.

In a 228-196 vote, the House passed a ban on abortion after 20 weeks knowing full well that it won't survive in the Democrat controlled Senate, not to mention a presidential veto.

The Republicans are once again pandering to their base.  Really, since when have the Republicans ever cared about human life?  Republicans have no problem using foreign policy to murder men, women and children who pose no threat whatsoever to the US.

Moreover, an alarming number of badly wounded veterans are returning from combat duty missing their 'junk'.

Alarming Rise in Sexually Mutilated US Troops in Afghanistan

How much is a penis worth? Actuarially speaking that is. More or less than a thumb or a toe? More or less than an arm or a leg? While these questions are not on the minds of most Americans, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been forced to confront them because of the changing nature of combat injuries in Afghanistan. And, more importantly, the impact of the traumatic psychological after-effects of devastating wounds to genitalia is very much on the minds of returning servicemen and women and their families.....

For veterans whose physical lives have been forever altered by combat injuries, there is all of the above plus an additional set of excruciatingly difficult challenges awaiting them involving the loss of limbs, and traumatic brain disorders. And, within this group are a subset of veterans forced to deal with the loss or mangling of an organ of their manhood; the penis.

"The signature physical wound of the war in Afghanistan begins when you step on a homemade bomb," Men's Health contributing editor Bob Drury wrote in the November 2011 edition of the magazine. Drury, who has covered both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, pointed out that, "Most of these are built with the fertilizer ammonium nitrate, an ingredient widely available throughout Afghanistan. The detonation, triggered either by a buried pressure plate or, less often, a command wire operated by a nearby enemy, instantly pulverizes the flesh, bone, tissue, and muscle of one or both of your lower limbs. In all likelihood the force of the explosion will sever the nerves in your leg or legs, and yet you will experience little pain. Surprisingly, as shock sets in and you lie in your pooling blood, you may not feel anything but a vague sense of pressure, as if a strong man were wrapping both hands around one of your calves and squeezing as hard as he could.

"In many cases, the force of the explosion also travels straight up into your genital and pelvic area, blasting tiny shards of rock and dirt into your torso between your front and rear Kevlar body-armor flaps," Drury continued. "If all or part of your 'package' is not blown off by the detonation itself, the flying debris from the blast often penetrates soft tissue, leaving you vulnerable to penile, scrotal, testicular, and rectal infections. If the damage is bad enough, it could even lead to a full or partial amputation of your genitals."

At the very least Rep. Burgess raises an important issue that is totally ignored, namely that we really should be very concerned about the fate of male 'junk'.  Furthermore, wars are very dangerous to male genitalia and a hit from a IED is very likely to guarantee the destruction of penises and testicles.

In utero or fully mature out of utero, Republicans definitely put a much higher value on the manhood of the unborn male than it does on a member of the military.  I guess soldier 'junk' is deemed expendable so long as it serves the goals of the Empire.

Oh well, the Republicans stepped into it again.  So what else is new?

While American voters are notoriously forgetful, their memories are indeed selective and when they go to vote they remember things like 'legitimate rape' and 'masturbating fetuses'.

The Republicans will never bring foreign policy out of the closet for debate and neither will the Dems for that matter.  But this old  broad is all for bringing penises out of the closet for a real debate.

Fetal pain should be a legitimate issue but so should the excruciating pain of soldiers whose penises and testicles went flying in neocon wars.

What is a man without his manhood?  

Memorial Day - Let's do War By the Numbers Because We Love to Kill

Memorial Day should be the saddest day of the year for Americans and a day of profound reflection.  The parades, honoring the war dead/wounded and cheering US wars is what Memorial Day is all about but does anybody ever stop to pause and ask "Why did they die or survive to come home with debilitating injuries?".   It's frequently been said that young men die for old men's wars. While young folks who voluntarily enlist in the military are indeed smitten with the belief that they are actually serving their country and that military service is the highest form of patriotism, the real tragedy is that they have been duped by a government and military industrial complex that does not value their life or humanity.  Soldiers are merely pawns on the geopolitical chessboard as wars are endlessly waged for resource control, defense contractor profits and the never ending game to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, Americans are addicted to the fantasy that war is noble, that murder is moral and that righteous people kill in the name of their flag.  Defending the homeland is the chronic battle cry.  Last I checked, America hadn’t been invaded by a foreign power since the War of 1812.   Yet, America has been involved in non-stop murderous wars for well over a century. Evergreen State College documented US wars and foreign interventions since 1890. It's a shocking documentation of the raw aggressiveness of American foreign policy and the waging of criminal wars against nations who did absolutely nothing to America nor threatened America in any way.

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO LIBYA: A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

While it would be extremely difficult and time consuming to do an actual body count of all the wars listed in the above link, we can do a body count on what has been documented for the major wars and we can also document other estimates of deaths resulting from US foreign policy.

WW I resulted in the deaths of 35,000,000 folks. Historian Martin Gilbert puts the military death toll (soldiers killed) at 8,626 million. “The destructiveness of the First World War, in terms of the number of soldiers killed, exceeded that of all other wars known to history.”. But as with most wars, it is the civilians who bear the brunt of the horrors of war.

What caused WW I? A Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip shoots and kills on June 28, 1914 Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, Bosnia (a component of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Within weeks, Europe breaks out into total war. Two murdered members of a European royal house triggered the deaths of 35 million folks.

How did America get involved? No Americans were killed and all the insanity of Europe’s ruling families and their long history of wars and empires was not an American problem. But was it? America own brand of royalty, Wall Street banking houses, gambled heavily on the outcome of the WW I by funding the governments involved, notably Britain and France. The Banksters were losing their bets and were about to lose all their money so they hatched a plan to get America involved. The horror of that Bankster Bailout is documented in the following blog post.

World War I, the Banksters, the Lusitania and Bailing Out America’s Wealthiest Families

World War II killed approximately 50 millions people and its documented that the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany were funded by US and British banksters. Behind every war, a bankster is lurking like a lascivious and carnivorous beast ready to drink the blood of its victims and devour its body. No one really knows for sure how many folks died during WW II but historian Martin Gilbert estimated that in excess of 46 million were killed and he only counted those nations that lost a million or more. The numbers are staggering; here’s a list of nations who lost a million or more:

Country                         Civilian Deaths           Military Deaths

Soviet Union                    7.0 million                   13.3 million
Germany                          3.6 million                    3.1 million
China                               6.0 million
Japan                               2.0 million                    1.0 million
Poland (3 million Jews)     6.0 million
Jews (non-Polish)             3.0 million
Yugoslavia (mostly Serbs) 1.5 million

Total                             29.2 million                  17.4 million

With WW I and WW II killing a minimum of 85,000,000 million folks, how many more folks have been killed since the end of WW II? It’s estimated that America and American foreign policy are directly responsible for another 20,000,000-30,000,000 kills since the end of WW II.

“US covert and overt criminal Wars of Aggression caused 20-30 million deaths of human beings since World War 2, according to the outstanding documentation of James Lucas of Countercurrents.org. The US use/support of armed attacks is documented in 37 countries..." Read the rest here.

Major post WW II deaths include the death tolls from the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Wikipedia estimates the deaths from the Korean War at 2,500,000 – 3,500,000 and the deaths from the Vietnam War at 2,500,000-6,000,000, here.

Ironically, the Republican Party is now being dubbed the War Party and righteously so because the GOP’s Evangelical base screams for non-stop war, murder and plunder. But America’s conservative Republican Christians were not always a gang of murderous psychopaths and the GOP at one time opposed foreign interventions. In fact, WW I, WW II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Balkan Wars were all initiated by liberal, progressive Democrats (Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton). Harry Truman also dropped two big atomic bombs on Japan, despite knowing that Japan would surrender, was unable to continue the war and was finished.

Let’s recap the war dead attributable to America, American foreign policy and American Banksters, all of which vastly enabled war by funding it while contributing to the massive death tolls.

WW I, 35,000,000 dead

WW II, At least 50,000,000 dead

Since the end of WW II, another 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 folks have died as a direct result of U.S. foreign interventionism. 

American politicians love to talk about American Exceptionalism and the flag waving voters eat it up. We are exceptional all right – exceptional in the art of war and murder.

What has our lust for blood cost us? It’s cost us ‘Shock and Awe’ economic destruction. We are now barely a shadow of our once free and prosperous republic and we’ve morphed into Nazi Germany.  America is now the Evil Empire that threatens life, peace and prosperity everywhere. 

When will the American blood lust be satiated? When Americans vote to fire the warmongers and replace them with constitutionalists who believe in the peaceful foreign policy of our founders.

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. James Madison

Memorial Day?  I'll pass on the celebrations and mourn what I know will be our fate.

The government propaganda and media complex can be counted on to leap into high gear with lies, deceptions, false flag attacks and a whole menu of psychological manipulations to con “we the people” into believing that war and murder are noble, just and patriotic.

But by far the worst manifestations of power transgress beyond the horrifying spectacle of the physical carnage of war because those same folks who deceptively internalized that war is noble also become its ultimate victims. Sooner or later the flag waving stops when folks realize that they have been systematically shorn of their own liberty and prosperity, and condemned to a miserable life under totalitarian tyranny. The film clips of euphorically happy flag waving Germans idolizing Hitler and his evil is a stark contrast to the starving, homeless and terrified Germans in bombed out and burned out German cities at the end of WW II. Worshiping the flag is most dangerous when folks fail to even realize precisely the flag stands for.

For Americans, they will eventually come to the frightening realization that they put their faith and trust in a government that betrayed them as they are forced to accept that they have been nothing more than pawns on the financial chessboard of empire wherein the wealth and power of the nation has been viciously concentrated into the hands of the ruling few – Banksters and their power brokers who delivered unto the people unemployment, economic misery, fiat currency, wars and grim futures.

At this point, what does the flag stand for? Nothing but the tens of trillions poured down the scary black hole of dark nothingness and militarism gone mad as they ponder the failures of an evil debt ridden empire that utterly bankrupted and destroyed a once great, glorious and prosperous nation.

Memorial Days should be about mourning the 100 million plus bodies that would never have been needlessly snuffed out had it not been for the evil US Empire, the military industrial complex and the banksters.  Memorial Day should be about deep soul searching and about how can the American people reject the insanity and reclaim their long lost moral compass.

President Andrew Jackson, a flawed and morally inconsistent man who opposed public debt and who also declared war on the national bank, was smart enough to understand human nature and its perennial quest for concentrated powers, whatever the cost.

“I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country.”

And what do we have today – a moneyed aristocracy with raw and absolute power and they have crushed the nation, destroyed the prosperity of the people and its evil military industrial security Bankster complex has decimated human beings all over the planet.

This is what U.S. foreign policy has delivered to America, yet we drink the poison because we lack the courage to think the unthinkable and to speak the unspeakable as we sellout out liberty with each election and march off into totalitarian statist hell.

Two time Medal of Honor winner Maj. General Smedley (USMC) spent over 3 decades fighting wars and concluded in 1933:

 War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. 

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. 

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

A Guide To Understanding the Middle East, Syria, The West and Oil

Americans tend to think that the Middle East is a basket case and fiery cauldron of evil because it's Muslim and that those Muslims are terrorists who want to kill us and rain terror upon us.  Is it true?  The answer is an emphatic NO.  However, to understand the Middle East, one has to first understand Islam, the dynamics of its feuding sects, the geo-politics attached thereto, oil and US/Western interventionism because they are all very significant.

The two major sects of Islam are Sunni and Shiite and Sunni Islam is far more dominant than Shiite Islam.  Roughly speaking, it's estimated that 75-90% of the world's Muslims are Sunni and 10-20% are Shiite.  The Shiites are largely concentrated in Iran and about 2/3 of Iraq is Shiite.  The Sunni and Shiite Muslims have been engaged in a Holy War with each other ever since the Arab Sunni invasion of Iran and Iraq that resulted in the Sunni-Shia rift that commenced around the 7th century.

Globe and Mail did an excellent analysis on the Sunni-Shiite rift.

The Clash Within Civilisations: How The Sunni-Shiite Divide Cleaves The Middle East

In the 18th century, a Sunni fanatical cleric name Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab teamed up with the House of Saud to violently deliver power to the House of Saud and forcibly impose a new, strict and draconian form of Islam upon the folks on the Arabian Peninsula - Sunni Salafist Wahhabism. It's this virulent strain of Sunni Salafist Wahhabism is is spawning Islamic terrorism today and the US and western leaders are in bed with them because of one thing - OIL.  For more on the the history of the modern Middle East and Islam see:

The Making of the Modern Middle East

A Cruise Through History: Islam, the West and the Rest of the World

Fast forward to today.  Oil wealth in Saudi Arabia has not only made the filthy and degenerate House of Saud hugely rich, the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia and other oil rich Arab nations with majority Sunni populations have facilitated the substantial radicalization of Sunni Muslims all over the planet.  Osama bin Laden and 16 of the 911 terrorists were Saudis; all were Wahhabists.  The US intervention in Egypt has resulted in the Sunni Salafist Wahhabist Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt.  Nuclear armed Pakistan is teeming with radical Wahhabists.  After oil, Saudi Arabia's greatest export is its religion and radical interpretation of Islam.

What's going on in Syria?  It's all part of the age old Sunni-Shiite rift.  Western and Sunni nations goaded Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who ruled over Iraq's Shiite majority, into a long and miserable war with Iran that lasted from 1980-1988 and was fought to a standstill.   Hussein borrowed heavily for the Iraq-Iran War, a war that bankrupted Iraq and ruined its economy.  Hussein demanded debt forgiveness which was refused.  The west and its cozy relationship with Sunni oil producers, notably the oil kingpin Saudi Arabia, deliberately overproduced and flooded the world markets with oil to hurt Iran.  Oil prices just kept falling and falling.  But it backfired (Iran wasn't defeated) and Iraq became a victim of plummeting oil prices.  Hussein was so furious that he invaded Kuwait, a nation that some have persuasively argued did in fact have a legitimate claim to Kuwait but that's an entirely separate issue.

Hussein did not invade Kuwait without US permission. The US Ambassador to Kuwait was April Glaspie.  Hussein consulted with her on several occasion because he FEARED a US intervention if he invaded Kuwait.  Glaspie was instructed by the George H.W. Walker regime to assure Hussein that the US would do nothing.  Based on what Hussein perceived as a US green light to invade Kuwait, he did.

Hussein, who was once a well respected middle eastern strongman and ruthless tyrant, became a pariah.  He failed to win the war against Iran and claim Iran's oil for his western and Sunni oil pals during a period when the global oil cartel (Sunni oil producers and western oil companies) suffered massive declines in oil revenue from a nearly 10 year glut of oil from overproduction to bankrupt Iran.  From hero to a failed bad buy, the world turned on Hussein.  Hussein was easy to manipulate; after all this was a dude who loved drinking western whiskey and watching the Godfather movies over and over.  Hussein was extremely easily to manipulate psychologically - a very easy mark.  So Bush lied, goaded Hussein into invading Kuwait and intervened after he assured Hussein that he would do no such thing.  Anti-war.com documents the Glaspie fiasco, here.

After 911, the US lied again and falsely accused Hussein of having WMD's which he did not.  We knew it and invaded Iraq anyway.  The 2nd US invasion of Iraq unleashed an even bigger nightmare that Arab Sunni leaders greatly feared - the takeover of Iraq and its oil by the Shiite majority, something the Sunni world clearly opposed.  With a Shiite majority now in power in Iraq, it's natural ally is Iran - they share religion, culture and a long history of fighting the Sunnis.

Besides being one of the most monumentally stupid things the US ever did, the 2nd invasion of Iraq was another US led big foreign policy fail.  Iraq is now an incredibly violent place that nearly constitutes a full blown civil war between the Shiites (southern Iraq) the Sunnis (central Iraq) and the Kurds (northern Iraq) who try to steer clear of the Sunni-Shiite feud.  Violence has escalated and bombings are chronic.

Saudi Arabia, other Sunni Arab nations and western nations driven by oil interests have all been conspiring for years (decades) to get their hands on Shiite oil in Iraq and Iran. It's not just a religious civil war, it's also a war for resources wherein Sunni leaders have conned the West into leading the Sunni fight against the oil rich Shiites.

Although many have speculated for years that Saudi Arabia is running out of oil, it's also true that its oil reserves have never been independently verified.  Saudi Arabia may be running dry, not in the near term but definitely in the long term.  CNBC listed top oil nations and their reported oil reserves, here.

1. Saudi Arabia - Proved oil reserves: 262.6 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 17.85%
2. Venezuela - Proved oil reserves: 211.2 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 14.35%
3. Canada - Proved oil reserves: 175.2 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 11.91%
4. Iran - Proved oil reserves: 137 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 9.31%
5. Iraq - Proved oil reserves: 115 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 7.82%
6. Kuwait - Proved oil reserves: 104 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 7.07%
7. United Arab Emirates - Proved oil reserves: 97.8 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 6.65%
8. Russia - Proved oil reserves: 60 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 4.08%
9. Libya - Proved oil reserves: 44.3 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 3.15%
10. Nigeria - Proved oil reserves: 37.2 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 2.53%
11. Kazakhstan - Proved oil reserves: 30 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 2.04%
12. Qatar - Proved oil reserves: 25.38 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 1.72%
13. United States - Proved oil reserves: 20.68 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 1.41%
14. China - Proved oil reserves: 14.8 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 1.01%
15. Brazil - Proved oil reserves: 12.86 billion barrels, Proportion of world total: 0.87%

So how does Syria come into play as the object of America's obsession with regime change?  Syria is ruled by the Assad family that is religiously Alewite, a minor Islamic sect that is closely aligned to Shiite Islam.  Hence, Iran and Syria have always had close ties and are natural allies.

Bahrain is ruthlessly ruled by Sunnis but has a Shiite majority at 65-75%.  Kuwait is ruled by Sunnis and has a substantial Shiite minority at 20-25%.  The Saudis sent troops into Bahrain to suppress Shiite uprisings against Sunni tyranny.  In Syria, the situation is reversed.  About 75% of Syrians are Sunnis but are ruled by the minority Assad, a member of the Alewite sect and ally of Iran.  Assad runs a fairly secular and tolerant government because of the delicate balance of Sunni-Shiite-Alewite.

Saudi Arabia wants Assad out of power because it considers him a non-Sunni Muslim apostate, an ally of its Shiite enemy Iran and Saudi Arabia can't bear the thought of an Alewite-Shiite ruling over Sunni Muslims, most of whom reject Saudi styled Sunni Salafist Wahhabism.  The US and Saudi Arabia are arming and funding Wahhabist radicals in Syria to secure Wahhabist control of the nation.  Why?  Because Saudi Arabia doesn't have the military power to do it, it likes to pretend that its on good terms with its Shiite neighbors and it prefers that the US do its dirty work.  This has been going on for years because the House of Saud happily jumped in bed with western Big Oil and when the House of Saud demands something, western nations jump to do Wahhabist bidding and ask 'how high'.

The entire Benghazi fiasco was nothing but a cover-up to funnel arms and money to Wahhabist jihadist in Syria.

Lies, Lies and More Lies: Benghazi is pure political theater as well as a cover-up.

Geopolitically speaking in the context of oil and Islam, Syria is just an expendable pawn in the war to feed the Sunni Wahhabist oil cartel and its western partners, and to expand dangerously violent Wahhabism in the Middle East.  Syria is also part of the plan to encircle Iran and the End Game is to invade, occupy, neutralize the Iranian Shiites and control Iranian oil.

On May 16, 2013, Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House, here.  The story went unnoticed except for the US Marines umbrella flap over the Marines holding umbrellas over the heads of Obama and Erdogan during the pouring rain.

The significance of the meeting was ignored.  Turkey is a most interesting player in the conflict.  Turkey became a sovereign nation after WW I dealt a death blow to the Ottoman Empire. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the first president of Turkey and he intended for Turkey to develop along the western secular model. It worked for a while but the Saudis and Wahhabism managed to infect Turkey and its Sunni majority; oil money buys a lot of mosque power and influence. Erdogan, who was always a devout Sunni Muslim and once imprisoned for his affiliation with a radical Islamist party, rose to elected power in Turkey in 2008. Many feel that the reforms of Erdogan are abolishing Turkey's tradition of secularism and strengthening Sunni styled Wahhabism.  Turkey is close to 100% Sunni Muslim and the potential for radicalization is quite high despite the fact that many in Turkey oppose the Islamist regime.

That Obama was meeting with Erdogan is not surprising, especially in light of the fact that Erdogan supports regime change in Syria and has been a Sunni US alley for many years.  Erdogan is also a very close ally of Saudi Arabia.  Undoubtedly, Obama and his Wahhabist Saudi masters along with Erdogan were planning for the Wahhabist Sunni takeover of Syria after a US led military intervention.

The folks in Turkey are not happy with Erdogan's support for a military intervention and regime change in Syria.  RT.com is reporting that Erdogan's support for the Syrian Sunni rebels, funded and armed by the US, is resulting in anger and protests.

'Turkey to see more bombings as Erdogan's support for Syrian rebels backfires' 

Terrorist attacks on Turkish soil won’t stop until the country’s Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, gives up on his support of rebel forces in Syria, British broadcaster, Neil Clark, told RT.

Turkish police have fired tear gas at protesters in a town near the Syrian border, which was the scene of a deadly double car bombing a week ago.

Demonstrators are angry over Ankara's support for the Syrian rebels, which they say is putting Turkey in the firing line.

It's entirely possible that Turkey could bust into civil war as its moderate Sunni Muslims collide with the Sunni Salafist Wahhabists.

Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to fund and arm the Syrian rebels and Rand Paul summarized it accurately.

Rand Paul: My colleagues just voted to arm the allies of al Qaeda

Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, which voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition in a bill co-sponsored by Sen.Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). "This is an important moment," Paul said, addressing his Senate colleagues. "You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It's an irony you cannot overcome."

The legislation, which would authorize the shipment of arms and military training to rebels "that have gone through a thorough vetting process," passed in a bipartisan 15-3 vote. Paul offered an amendment that would strike the bill's weapons provision, but it was rejected along with another Paul amendment ruling out the authorization of the use of military force in Syria. (Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy was the only senator to join Paul in support of the weapons amendment.)

Finally, the really big question should be:  Why are western nations conspiring to militarily force a significant swath of the human population behind the 21st century Iron Curtain of Sunni Salafist Wahabbist Islam, a religion that is perhaps the most cruel, oppressive and intolerant of any religion created by mankind and its gods?

More to the point, Western nations have been flooding their countries with radical Sunni Muslims, radical Sunni mosques, radical Sunni clerics and folks that simply are not assimilating into Western society.

Stockholm had entered its 5th straight day of violent Muslim rioting, here.

The world is aghast over a British Muslim publicly murdering and chopping off the head of a British soldier.  The Boston Bombing tragedy continues to unfold as the America National Security State or Nazified Police State has utterly failed.

Western governments are broke and the burden of entitlement dependent immigrants who have no use for their host country except for the generous welfare programs is stressing economies, budgets and taxpayers.

As the West continues to collapse into a smoldering heap of statism, endless wars and failed multiculturalism, all that is left of the once prosperous and free West is the distant memory of liberty, prosperity and civilized society.  Soon, that memory will also be vanquished.

The Muslim world is a crazy quilt ancient resentments, religious intolerance and an unwillingness to embrace liberty and natural rights.  It's ruled by oppressive dictators that are embraced by the West.  None of this is good for the West or the Muslim world that has its own challenges in figuring out how to survive in a world that is far beyond the 7th century.

How to End the Wars - It really is easy and it's been done before

Americans are somewhat aware that our current crop of wars not only never seem to end but they actually are expanding into other countries.  It's as if the US Military is a global militarized dictatorship that resembles a giant octopus that is enveloping and devouring everything in its deadly path.  The war in Afghanistan has expanded into Pakistan, courtesy of Obama.  Obama launched the war in Libya, engineered the takeover of Egypt by dangerous Sunni Salafist Wahhabist psychopaths and he's arming Sunni rebels in Syria as part of his regime change schemes to topple Assad, a man who has done absolutely nothing to America or threatened us in any way.  We've got the  "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" Republicans and Democrats who are lusting to bomb, nuke, invade and occupy a nation of 75 million folks.  America's foreign policy insanity is on steroids and  continues to multiply exponentially.

Will we ever have peace?  Only if we kill the military industrial complex that lords over us and is devouring our liberty and prosperity as well as reigning terror and death upon numerous foreign nations and innocent people.  American's won't admit it but America is really a military dictatorship.  Our local police forces have been transformed into para-military, federally funded militarized gestapos.

Here's the bitter truth that Americans cannot face:  We murder for defense contractor and Wall Street profits.  If that's not the epitome of a thoroughly debauched and degenerate nation, I don't know what is.

But here's another truth:  Americans have the power to end the wars and the military dictatorship that lords over us with a terrorizing iron fist.

The military industrial complex (MIC) and its enormous powers expanded greatly with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the US entry into WW I in 1914.  By WW II, the MIC had grown significantly more powerful and by the time the Vietnam War rolled around, America was in its infancy of a full fledged military dictatorship.  Today, we are bearing witness to the scourges of military power and its oppressive tyranny.

So how precisely do We the People end MIC power?  It's really quite simple because it's happened before.  As the Vietnam War raged in the 1960's and expanded into Laos and Cambodia, anti-war sentiments were building strongly in America.  The slaughter of millions of southeast Asians and a rising US military death toll was angering the people.    LBJ's war was such a disaster that his re-election was in jeopardy.  As the situation grew progressively worse for LBJ, he feared the humiliation of a general election or primary defeat so he decided NOT to run for re-election in 1968.  Nixon, a foreign policy hawk,  won the 1968 election.  The Vietnam War resulted in over 58,000 dead Americans but the hawks were determined to wage the Vietnam War for all eternity.

However, Nixon was soon smothered with anti-war Congress Critters who ferociously fought to end the Vietnam War. By 1973, Congress simply refused to fund it.  The American Prospect did an excellent analysis of the Vietnam War and how it ended.

How Congress Got Us Out of Vietnam

...in January 1973, the president knew that he only had a limited amount of time before Congress finally used the power of the purse to bring the war to an end -- regardless of what the administration wanted. Indeed, to make certain that the president could not reverse course, in June 1973 Congress passed legislation that included an amendment sponsored by Church and Case to prohibit the use of more funds in Southeast Asia after August 15. Sixty-four senators voted in favor. When the House assented, its vote marked the first time that chamber had agreed to cut off funds, too.

And that's precisely how the Vietnam War finally ended - it was defunded by Congress when Congress refused to appropriate anymore money for it.  

While presidential war making powers have expanded considerably since the Vietnam War era, what hasn't change is that the president can't wage wars or do much of anything unless Congress appropriates money to fund the wars.  It's Congress that controls the purse strings, not the president.

We the People elect Congress Critters and We the People have the power to fire the warmongers who vote to fund the wars.  With 100 Senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives, finding information is very easy in the Internet age because voting records and roll call votes are available online.  Moreover, organizations like opensecrets.org have huge databases of political campaign contributions and it's easy to identify the Congress Critters who are wholly owned subsidiaries of defense contractors.

If We the People want peace, it's within our power to achieve peace by not electing anymore warmongers to Congress.

It really is that simple.  It's been done before and we can do it again.  Slaying the military industrial complex is not only critical to world peace and peaceful co-existence, it's absolutely critical to our economy and fiscal stability.  Wars have consumed American prosperity, vastly contributed to our $16.8 trillion in unsustainable debt and are directly responsible for the miserable decline of the American middle class.

It's long over due to end the blood money that flows to Wall Street and defense contractors.  Americans who vote for warmongers definitely have blood on their hands and they are no different nor any less vile than the evil banksters and defense contractors.

Let's do it. No Excuses!

A Republican Autopsy and the Changing Conservative Media

If anything, the rise of the youthful Ron Paul movement that also includes many old Libertarians has decisively and justifiably harmed the Republican Party by delivering painful ballot box defeats. As one who abandoned the Republican Party after 2004 because I viewed the GOP as statist, interventionist, fascist and and anti-civil liberties, separating myself from the goons and loons comprising conservative mob was a most liberating experience.

Can the Republican Party ever get back to its conservative small government roots?  While the GOP's definition of conservatism has certainly become shamefully twisted over the years and decades, there really is nothing conservative or even constitutional about the Republican Party as it is presently constituted.  The Republican Party is a party that must change or die.  It really is that simple.

The conservative media is taking notice because, well, the painful medicine of GOP election losses has taken effect.  The Washington Examiner, a website I consider a cheerleader for all things statist Republican neocon, is suddenly changing its tune and actually raising the foreign policy issue.

Tim Carney, who has actually done excellent work on the issue of crony capitalism, directly confronted the Iraq War.

The mistake of Iraq and the education of the Right

Then Philip Klein let loose with a piece blaming Republican foreign policy for Obamacare.

Iraq War made Obamacare possible

Both Carney and Klein are right.  Foreign policy is killing the GOP and is directly responsible for back to back presidential election losses.  That said, the Republican Party does indeed have problems besides its non-stop interventionist wars.

Few folks even understand the conservative base, least of all Republicans and the RNC/GOP machine that engineered the disastrous defeat of the Republican Party.  Although liberals and Democrats do indeed plunge themselves into endless tirades on Republicans and the Republican Party, it took a well known liberal election pundit to nail it.  Stu Rothenberg penned an extraordinary piece.

The GOP: A Party Increasingly at Odds With Itself

The Republican Party continues to fracture more seriously than I expected following last year’s re-election of President Barack Obama.....

Earlier this week, the Republican National Committee entered the discussion with a lengthy report that dealt with everything from message to campaign mechanics and the presidential nominating process....

But while the report proposes a big tent strategy, others in the party — Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth, Sean Hannity, Tea Party Express and Jim DeMint — have a different agenda. Bliss did not have to deal with similar non-party groups 50 years ago, and their existence today undercuts the authority of the national party.

Allies of Ron Paul and “movement conservatives” have already criticized the RNC report, portraying it as little more than the establishment’s attempt to remake the party in the image of the Democratic Party.

Because the RNC cannot dictate message or mechanics the way it once could...

Since the GOP brand is damaged, it has little credibility with certain voters....

That the Republican brand is badly tarnished is no understatement.  In fact, it's a glaring and bitter truth.  Daniel McCarthy at The American Conservative also nailed it.

The GOP’s Vietnam

How Republican foreign policy lost the culture war—and a generation

America doesn’t really have a two-party system. It has a one-and-a-half-party system, where one party at a time tends to dominate the national agenda while the other becomes a half-party—one that might hold onto the House of Representatives and some state governments, but that isn’t trusted by voters to run the country.....

The root of the GOP’s problem now is the same as that of the Democrats in 1969: the party’s reputation has been ruined by a botched, unnecessary war—Vietnam in the case of the Democrats, Iraq for the GOP. This may sound implausible: every political scientist knows that Americans don’t care about foreign policy; certainly they don’t vote based on it. But foreign policy is not just about foreign policy: it’s also about culture.

The Vietnam War cost the Democrats dearly, just as it is costing the Republicans dearly.  The 'WAR PARTY' label doesn't win elections.  In fact, the 'WAR PARTY' label is a ballot box loser.

As for Republican styled fiscal conservatism, it's a total farce and a joke.

The Tea Party Republicans Spent More Than the Dems They Replaced.

The Republican Party has big problems because it doesn't stand for anything except endless wars, bigger government, more deficits and more debt.  The RNC's pathetic autopsy on itself was one whopper of an exercise in delusion and it's a delusion that can no longer be sold.

Meanwhile, the message of the rising Libertarian/Paulite elements within the GOP actually stand for something that does appeal to voters:  peace, liberty and prosperity.  Will Republicans drink the medicine that is the antidote to the poison they've been ingesting for decades?