Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Ron Paul Never Wielded Any Power / Politics / US Politics

By: Gary_North

On Wednesday, November 14, Ron Paul delivered his final speech at the podium of the United States House of Representatives. It was covered by C-SPAN live, and was later posted on C-SPAN's site. It was soon posted on YouTube, and from there was posted on numerous sites.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Rumors on Israel, Hamas Gaza Cease-Fire / Politics / Israel

By: STRATFOR

Contradictory rumors regarding the outcome of cease-fire negotiations between Hamas and Israel have increased dramatically in recent hours. A Hamas spokesman told Al Jazeera that Israel and Hamas have agreed to 90 percent of the terms of a new cease-fire. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is reportedly meeting the evening of Nov. 18 with a delegation led by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and another delegation led by Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Abdullah Shallah. While Israeli officials have told news outlets that the government is in talks with Cairo on a cease-fire, Israeli officials are now denying reports that an Israeli envoy actually traveled to Cairo Nov. 18 for cease-fire talks. Meanwhile, Turkey appears to be trying to integrate itself into the cease-fire talks with reported plans for Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to travel to Gaza on Nov. 20.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

We are forbidden to say this - Gaza is a Concentration Camp / Politics / Israel

By: Submissions

Arthur Silber writes: THE MOST STRIKING and significant quality of our national conversation "is one of overwhelming, oppressive and suffocating unreality.

It is as if everyone knows, but will never acknowledge, that we may speak only in code, and that we may only utilize the safe, empty phrases that we have agreed are 'acceptable' -- phrases and language that are safe precisely because they have been drained of all correspondence to facts.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Gaza: Here we go again, A Terrorist Attack for an Terrorist Attack / Politics / Israel

By: Pravda

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a terrorist attack for a terrorist attack. Sit back ladies and gentlemen for the next round of hypocrisy as Israel plays the victim card, forgetting the fact that it has stolen Palestinian lands, that it continues to bulldoze Palestinian homes, expel people from their lands and loots Palestinian resources. If your home is taken, what do you do?

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Death of the West and Decline of the East / Politics / Global Economy

By: Pravda

We are used since a century to denounce and comment the so-called decline of the West; the great essay of Spengler, unfit for the public of today, was published during the WW1 and it has been quickly fulfilled, Western Europe becoming an American colony and a bureaucratic disaster, both economically and spiritually. Her ageing population is rapidly disappearing and it will be replaced during the next decennials. Nobody should lament this process since Solzhenitsyn observed that the westerners do not know if there are alive! Modern world is a bad dream, said once French philosopher Deleuze, a left-wing genius completely forgotten nowadays in what is left of France (pardon, Hollande...). Statesmen in Europe hate or fear Mr Putin for he is the last statesman with a brain and a soul. This is why there are each year more youngsters fond of him in Western Europe. We will see where this hope will get us to.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Israel Gaza War's for Control of Offshore Natural Gas Fields / Politics / Israel

By: Michel_Chossudovsky

The [December 2008] military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. 

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline. 

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Why We Should Not Fear the Fiscal Cliff / Politics / UK Politics

By: Kevin_Geary

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Optimism Bias: What Keeps Us Alive Today Will Kill Us Tomorrow / Politics / Social Issues

By: Raul_I_Meijer

Definition of a lie: any not entirely accurate representation of the world as we perceive it; what's not spoken can be as crucial as what is.

So yeah, people lie. They, we, all do. Some of us understand the extent to which this is true better than others, but that's probably just because we haven't all spent equal time wondering when it was we first started doing it. Let alone why. Interesting questions. After the fact, it's blindingly obvious why we would want to lie: accomplished liars get to mate faster and more often. Which still is the purpose of life, even though it may not be terribly fashionable to phrase it that way these days.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Targeting Civilians: Israel's Specialty / Politics / Israel

By: Stephen_Lendman

Bullies choose easy adversaries to pummel. Equal fights are shunned. It's the same in schoolyards or battlefields. 

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Israel Military Implements Gaza War, Phase1 of Iran Nuclear Attack Plan / Politics / Middle East

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It is no news that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been preparing the world for an attack against Iran all year, as illustrated by the PM's September visit and speech at the UN (Netanyahu Warns of Attack on Iran). In a continuation of the propaganda war, Channel 4 recently aired a fly on the wall documentary into the suggested thought processes that the Israeli Government, Military and Intelligence agencies were going through during September 2012 as they war gamed the consequences of a unilateral attack against Iran's air defence, missile and nuclear infrastructure, and how the aftermath could play out in terms of world reaction and Iranian military response.

Friday, November 16, 2012

What is the “fiscal cliff”? / Politics / Government Spending

By: Global_Research

Patrick Martin writes: The term “fiscal cliff,” first used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last February, refers to the simultaneous expiration of tax cuts and imposition of spending cuts on January 1, 2013.

The American media has seized on the term “fiscal cliff” and promoted it, in part, to suggest that measures which would otherwise be enormously popular—ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy or cutting military spending—are threatening, even dangerous.

Friday, November 16, 2012

What to Expect If We Go Over the Fiscal Cliff? / Politics / Taxes

By: Money_Morning

Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: I'm on the road this week in Las Vegas and Los Angeles and receiving lots of great questions as usual from your fellow Money Morning subscribers.

Here's a few that really caught my attention. Not surprisingly, one of the biggies deals with the fiscal cliff.

Friday, November 16, 2012

A United Europe? / Politics / US Politics

By: Jeff_Berwick

Alexander Jousse writes: Since the start of the European debt crisis, there has been some growing opposition to the idea of a united Europe. Well, this had to stop, so the best thing would be to label anyone against Europe as neo-Nazi holocaust denier. End of argument. Since the Nobel Mass Murderer Peace Prize was given to the EU, anyone who is against the EU is obviously against peace and the institutions that have worked so tirelessly to prevent the reincarnation of Hitler. If you are against peace in Europe, then you are obviously a pro-Hitler Nazi who loves war and gas chambers; then whatever you say can be comfortably ignored.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

China's New Leadership: Progressive, Not Conservative / Politics / China

By: Axel_Merk

Hu's defeat vs. Jiang's victory

We disagree with media reports that China's new Politburo Standing Committee is dominated by relatively conservative members. What we see is a complete defeat of current President Hu's CCLY clique and a victory of retired President Jiang's Shanghai clique. In recent days, Jiang's unusually frequent and high-profile public appearances suggest he is still highly influencing policy making and senior official appointments.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Do You Need Institutional 'Weapons' to Defend Against Wealthy Capitalists? / Politics / US Politics

By: Jeff_Berwick

Ed Bugos writes: The anarcho-capitalist movement appears to be tweaking the interest of the young leftist movement, which historically represents the radical side of the political spectrum. Maybe the time has come for "revolutionary politics." In his 1969 essay, "The Death of Politics", Karl Hess concluded that the world was not yet ready to realize that the social problem involved a choice not between different parties but rather politics and freedom:

"Radical and revolutionary movements seek not to revise but to revoke. The target of revocation should be obvious. The target is politics itself."

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Ron Paul's Farewell Speech to Congress / Politics / US Politics

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

This may well be the last time I speak on the House Floor. At the end of the year I’ll leave Congress after 23 years in office over a 36-year period. My goals in 1976 were the same as they are today: promote peace and prosperity by a strict adherence to the principles of individual liberty.

It was my opinion, that the course the U.S. embarked on in the latter part of the 20^th Century would bring us a major financial crisis and engulf us in a foreign policy that would overextend us and undermine our national security.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

U.S. States Secession Petitions: Good PR But Bad Politics / Politics / US Politics

By: Ron_Holland

Tens of thousands of Americans are now petitioning the White House wanting to withdraw from the union. Although peoples and regions around the world are in the process of withdrawing from debt laden, failed central governments including Scotland, Venice, Catalonia, Bavaria, Flanders and others, it won't be as easy here in the USA. While the US petitions generate great PR for the legal right of secession, this is not the way a state or people legally withdraw from the US union.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Why Government and Central Bank Regime of Financial Repression Will Fail / Politics / Central Banks

By: Ron_Hera

Excessive leverage and risk in the financial system, e.g., using customer funds to speculate, never ends well.  Stock market crashes, bank and investment firm failures or economic recessions are all potential consequences.  Following the failure of the United States to regulate over the counter (OTC) derivatives and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, U.S. banks became the largest financial business entities in history.  The U.S. real estate bubble, sub-prime lending and mortgage backed securities (MBS), along with unregulated OTC derivatives, then lead to bank insolvencies, a historic stock market crash and a near collapse of the global financial system.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Taxmageddon Holding Hands While Jumping Off the Fiscal Cliff / Politics / Taxes

By: BATR

The rapid approach of the Thelma & Louise bipartisan plunge into the financial abyss is upon us. It is simply unbelievable, that the prospects of rational tax salvation by the end of the year, measured by every statement coming out of the Washington political cabal, will materialize. Extending the current tax rates from automatic rescission on January 1, 2013, as a stopgap method for an enactment of a lasting political rapprochement, is the best that might occur. The net effect will be a perspicacious downturn in economic activity, a new round of layoffs, rising permanent unemployment and a plunge in consumer confidence. Wall Street will make hay by shorting the market while placing blame on the uncompromising hacks that refuse to cut a deal.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Should the Republican Party Be Saved? / Politics / US Politics

By: LewRockwell

Clyde Wilson writes: Since the election there has been much discussion of the future of the Republican party. Can it ever again win a national election, or is it doomed to permanent minority status? The most common response has been that the party must "reach out" (i.e., compete in the offer of bribes) to the exploding Hispanic population. Rather neatly and deceitfully avoiding the obvious fact that Republican sponsorship of mass immigration is the cause of their minority status.