Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Obama's Syria Tightrope Walk, The Reluctant Coalition Leader / Politics / Syria
By: STRATFOR
Last week began with certainty that an attack on Syria was inevitable and even imminent. It ended with the coalition supporting the attack somewhere between falling apart and not coming together, and with U.S. President Barack Obama making it clear that an attack was inevitable, maybe in a month or so, if Congress approves, after Sept. 9 when it reconvenes. This is a comedy in three parts: the reluctant warrior turning into the raging general and finding his followers drifting away, becoming the reluctant warrior again.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Obama Decides It's Safer To Buy Congress Than To Go To War Alone / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
While still claiming dictatorial powers to start a war on his own authority, Obama put his unilateral attack on Syria on hold when he received a letter from more than 160 members of the House of Representatives reminding him that to take the country to war without congressional approval is an impeachable offense and when he saw that no country that could serve as cover for a war crime, not even the puppet British government and the NATO puppet states, would support America’s announced military aggression against Syria.
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Labor Worth Celebrating / Politics / Employment
By: Investment_U
Andrew Snyder writes: It’s Labor Day. Time to fire up the grill, put a six-pack on ice and flip through the pages of the back-to-school sales fliers.
For most folks, it’s just another holiday – an excuse to head to the beach. They have no idea what the holiday is all about.
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Monday, September 02, 2013
Geopolitics And Islam In The MENA / Politics / Religion
By: Andrew_McKillop
ROOT CONFLICT OF IDEOLOGY
As I reported in a previous article ('Political Islam and the Next Oil War') political Islam and Pan Arab nationalism are either the uppermost fears or seen as lurking threats by the great powers, or so-called great powers, and by their regional imitators setting out to “redesign the landscape” in the Middle East and North Africa. Islamism or political Islam, like Pan Arab nationalism and Arab socialism in the 1950s and 1960s generate the fear of violent political movements sweeping away previous nations and frontiers, and with them the “liberal economy”. In fact these threats have more spin than substance and oppose each other. Conversely the real threats are ignored.
Monday, September 02, 2013
The Virus of Imperialism / Politics / US Politics
By: Thomas_J_DiLorenzo
In his famous 1898 essay, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain,” the great Yale University libertarian scholar William Graham Sumner argued that America had crossed the Rubicon, so to speak, and had become an imperialistic empire. It had become the Spanish empire. But Sumner was only half right. The conquest of Cuba was an imperialistic war, but so were all other American military adventures since the American Revolution. Apparently, even a man as brilliant and astute as Sumner was somewhat befogged by the endless and pervasive drumbeat of war propaganda.
Monday, September 02, 2013
Ron Paul - Will Congress Endorse Obama's War Plans? Does it Matter? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
President Obama announced this weekend that he has decided to use military force against Syria and would seek authorization from Congress when it returned from its August break. Every Member ought to vote against this reckless and immoral use of the US military. But even if every single Member and Senator votes for another war, it will not make this terrible idea any better because some sort of nod is given to the Constitution along the way.
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Sunday, September 01, 2013
China Model For The MENA – The Great Leap Backwards / Politics / China
By: Andrew_McKillop
FOOD IMPORTS AND POLITICAL CHANGE
Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward was comparable to Western claims that “surgical bombing” can fast-forward political change, but not to democracy, in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Mao's great leap was an ideology-driven jump into darkness, a criminal act that destroyed food production and dislocated the economy, depriving China of the means to pay for food imports and plunged the country into mass starvation. Estimates put the numbers of dead through the key years of 1958-1962 at far above 35 million, but the real figures will never be known.
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Sunday, September 01, 2013
First Obamacare, Next Obamaschool / Politics / Education
By: MISES
Hunter Lewis writes: The president gave a speech on August 22 in Buffalo outlining his proposal to “reform” the student loan program. He acknowledged that the program has some problems, but assured the audience they are easily fixed. Just take the principles behind Obamacare and apply them to education. The president personally “guaranteed” that his proposals would make college more affordable.
Sunday, September 01, 2013
The NSA and Its “Compliance Problems” / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: MISES
Ben O'Neill writes: One of the core principles of good governance in society is the idea that the authority of law ought to prevail over the brute power of people — i.e., that society should operate under the rule of law, not the rule of men. Aristotle wrote that “[t]he law ought to be supreme over all ...” and argued that ... where the laws are not supreme, there demagogues spring up.” The principle has many important ramifications for society, but the most important is the view that government agents and agencies must be bound by the same law as their subjects.
Sunday, September 01, 2013
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Radioactive Groundwater Crisis Worsens - Fully Unsolvable / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Submissions
Tracy Turner submits: LATEST: The coriums are still hot enough to volatilize all sorts of isotopes, more proof now confirms: Evidence that Ag110m is still being volatilized by corium. It's not just radioactive silver. Per our conclusion to Chapter 12, strontium, cesium and plutonium are still being vaporized fairly effectively. Quote: 'Note that the temperatures of the corium at several of the reactors at Fukushima are probably still high enough to continue volatilizing strontium, plutonium and dozens of other isotopes for years; this corium won't cool down, or be properly contained, for years or decades.'
Saturday, August 31, 2013
French Colonial Dreams Linger On In Syria / Politics / France
By: Andrew_McKillop
GREAT POWER PIPEDREAM
The simple question with a lot of answers is why did France boycott the 2003 Iraq war of the US and Britain, but remains heavily committed to a “punitive attack” with the US on Syria, following the shock of Cameron's defeat for his war plan in the British parliament, August 29 ? Syria was a French colony. Why have the British decided to take French leave from Obama's punishment mission? Syria was not a British colony but was the meat and bones of imperial dogfights between the British and French, during the interwar Mandate years. French political leaders, including President Hollande and major figures in his Parti Socialiste, August 30, despite massive public opinion opposition have multiplied their dogged and trenchant support for this “limited military action not designed to topple al Assad”, without the Brits and whether or not (we mean not) the attacks gets UN Security Council approval.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Obama - The War Criminal-in-Chief / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Obama, pushed by his Israeli and neocon masters, especially his National SecurityAdvisor, Susan Rice, who, in effect, functions as an Israeli agent, crawled far out on the limb, only to have it sawed off by the British Parliament.
In response, the “socialist” president of France, Hollande, who lacks French support forFrance’s participation in a US/Israeli orchestrated military attack on Syria, has crawledback off the limb, saying that, while everything is still on the table, he has to see some evidence first.
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Saturday, August 31, 2013
Remember Waco? U.S. Use of Gas To Kill Civilians / Politics / US Politics
By: lewrockwell
Mike Holmes writes: One point that needs to be made, but rarely if ever mentioned, is that in the supposed rationale for US attack on Syria to avenge/prevent claimed civilian deaths by government gas attacks, the US government itself has used similar weapons openly as recently as the FBI/ATF attack on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco Texas in the spring of 1993.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
France, America's New French Poodle, Who Used Chemical Weapons in Syria Attack? / Politics / US Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Most unexpectedly the British Poodle snapped at its Master's hand. It may have taken a decade of death, destruction and chaos that followed the doggy dossiers and bare faced lies that spewed from the mouths of Tony Bliar and George Bush as to why Iraq should be destroyed, and over 100,000 killed, all in the pursuit of non existant WMD stock piles that were said to target UK cities within 45 minutes from launch to strike. Virtually all Labour MP's and even some Tories were just not able to suffer the shame a second time of lying to the public in pursuit of an imperialist agenda.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
California’s Government Has Destroyed the State With High Taxes / Politics / Taxes
By: Jeff_Berwick
The mayor of Los Angeles has declared a “state of emergency”.
Hollywood’s movie industry is being ceded to other states and countries whose favorable tax “credits” are increasingly luring away movie and television production. As competition both in the US and abroad continues to grow, the state’s market share and longtime stronghold on production jobs and spending are fast evaporating.
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Friday, August 30, 2013
Will Nobel Peace Prizewinner Obama 'Go It Alone' In Attacking Syria ? / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
CAMERON FIGHTS DEMOCRACY
In a stunning setback for UK Prime Minister Cameron's hopes for a quick nod through vote by Parliament for his government's war plan against Syria, his march to “punitive limited military action”, opening the potential for wider war in the Middle East hit a brick wall. British MPs defeated the government motion by 285 against 272 votes, August 29, as some MP’s shouted ‘resign, resign’. The junior coalition Lib Dem party of Nick Clegg is almost totally against the military adventure redolent of T. E. Lawrence days when the US, France and the UK could play judge and jury in the Middle East, but veteran Lib Dem party grandee and former Kosovo administrator after the 1995 NATO war against Serbia, Paddy Ashdown, Tweeted on August 30: “In 50 years trying to serve my country I have never felt so depressed/ashamed. Britain's answer to the Syrian horrors? None of our business!”
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Syria and the U.S., UK and Israel Grand Plan / Politics / New World Order
By: Clive_Maund
To the casual observer, which includes most of humanity, what is going on the Mid-East and North Africa, specifically Egypt and Syria at this time, seems random and chaotic, but in reality this is not the case at all - events are unfolding according to a Grand Plan.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Warlordism In The Mena – The Slide Towards World War III / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
NO LONGER A FANTASY
For plenty of commentators like Michael Snyder of the Economic Collapse Blog, August 29, there are so many reasons to believe “punishing Syria” has the potential to spin out of control and spark a large scale international conflict, that we should be amazed TV anchorpeople in the so-called consumer democracies snigger to us about having to wait “just a little longer” for the missile or bombing fun. Before running the endless-brainless publicity or football talk.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
US False Flag - The Liefare Warfare State / Politics / US Politics
By: Thomas_J_DiLorenzo
In his famous essay, “War is the Health of the State,” Randolph Bourne made an important distinction between country and state. One’s country is “an inescapable group into which we re born.” As such, “there is no more feeling of rivalry with other peoples than there is in our feeling for our family.” Country is “a concept of peace, of tolerance, of living and letting live,” wrote Bourne.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Stay Away From Bankers - They’re Your Deadly Enemies / Politics / Banksters
By: Richard_Daughty
I’m back, and finally calmed down, from my disastrous trip to the bank. I’ve never been so angry and humiliated in my life, even including that embarrassing time in the seventh grade when the beautiful Jennifer, whom I deeply, deeply loved more than life itself, told Mary Sue, who told Marcie, who told her boyfriend Mark, who told Todd, who told Bob, who told me, and now everybody knew, that she thinks I’m icky.