Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Military Withdrawal / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
U.S. President Barack Obama announced June 22 that the long process of drawing down forces in Afghanistan would begin on schedule in July. Though the initial phase of the drawdown appears limited, minimizing the tactical and operational impact on the ground in the immediate future, the United States and its allies are now beginning the inevitable process of removing their forces from Afghanistan. This will entail the risk of greater Taliban battlefield successes.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Mainstream Media Blackout on Nuclear Incident at Fort Calhoun Nebraska? / Politics / Nuclear Power
By: Patrick_Henningsen
Since flooding began on June 6th, there has been a disturbingly low level of media attention given to the crisis at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Facility near Omaha, Nebraska. But evidence strongly suggests that something very serious may have happened there.
Unfortunately for members of the public, there is no shortage of proof that serious nuclear incidents and radiation releases have happened in America, and have been covered up each and every time. For this reason, it is paramount that the media and the public demand every bit of information available on this latest event.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
More Efficient Ways to Stimulate Economy than Using the Military as a Jobs Program / Politics / Employment
By: Ellen_Brown
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. . . . We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people." –Dwight David Eisenhower, "The Chance for Peace," speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Apr. 16, 1953
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
California is the Greece of America, Time to Cut Off the Money / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Bill_Bonner
Oh my, oh my…this is getting interesting…
“How zombie consumers menace the world economy,” is a headline from Yale Professor Stephen Roach. Mr. Roach is misusing the word “zombie,” but he’s coming closer to understanding what is really going on.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Economic Austerity Is Good for the Greeks / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: Gary_North
Have you noticed the media reports on the intolerable nature of austerity in Greece? Have you read anything that praises this austerity and calls for more? You're about to.
The austerity we read about is a code word for "government spending cutbacks." In a media world run by Keynesians, the thought of cutbacks in government spending is a nightmare scenario. Keynesians believe that government spending is the source of both stability and growth in an economy. Any suggestion that the government has been spending far too much money is regarded as heretical.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Chinese Government Buying Up the United States / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
John Rolls submits, Michael Synder writes: In 2011, America is for sale and the communist Chinese are eager buyers. The Chinese government is using sovereign wealth funds and Chinese state-owned enterprises to buy up economic assets and huge tracts of land all over the United States. Many of our politicians hail all of this "foreign investment" as something that is "good for America", while many others see something much more sinister going on here. In any event, this is a trend that is rapidly accelerating and that is causing great concern among patriotic Americans.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Fukushima, the Greatest Nuclear & Environmental Disaster in Human History / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Global_Research
Steven C. Jones writes: By way of comparison, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occured in 1986 in the Ukraine, Russia- heretofore the worst nuclear disaster on record- burned for 10 days and cumulatively killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide. The Fukushima, Japan nuclear disaster has 5 nuclear reactors burning, 2 in partial meltdown and 3 in full meltdown- and they've ALL been uncontrollably burning since March 11th. Its been over 3 months and this nuclear disaster remains completely out of control. In fact, some industry estimates cite the possibility that these meltdowns will be contained (optimistically) in 1-3 years, at the very earliest.
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Monday, June 20, 2011
Dizzying New Heights of Global Criminal Enterprise / Politics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: Midas_Letter
That the United States government, the U.S Federal Reserve, and a plethora of financial institutions, are in breach of numerous U.S. laws in regards to fraud and fiduciary duty to the American people, is held to be self-evident, by a growing minority of individuals around the world. That this breach of law and duty has resulted in the deterioration of the global marketplace, diminished opportunities for workers, and effected an acute decay in living standards for millions around the world, is without doubt.
Monday, June 20, 2011
What’s Really Wrong With the Thiel Fellowships / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
In case you missed it, the Thiel Foundation, founded by Peter Thiel of PayPal fame, just announced the first batch of winners for its “20 Under 20” fellowship program to pay students to drop out of college for two years to pursue entrepreneurial ideas.Any number of people have criticized this venture for encouraging kids to drop out of college. Personally, while I think it would be terrible thing if this sort of thing becomes too hip and causes deluded average kids who think the next Google is locked inside their heads to drop out and ruin their educations, it appears that the group chosen is sufficiently elite that a) they may well actually do something useful and b) will succeed no matter what.
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Sunday, June 19, 2011
U.S. Federal Debt on the Elevator to Hell / Politics / US Debt
By: Gary_North
If you think the Federal debt ceiling is anything but an elevator, I've got news for you.
Maybe you saw the story about the Air Force airlift of $12 billion in unmarked bills that landed in Iraq sometime between 2003 and 2004 – no one seems sure just when. The story was written by a Los Angeles Times reporter and published on January 13.
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Sunday, June 19, 2011
NATO Global War Template At Work in Libya / Politics / New World Order
By: Rick_Rozoff
As the West’s war against Libya has entered its fourth month and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has flown more than 11,000 missions, including 4,300 strike sorties, over the small nation, the world’s only military bloc is already integrating lessons learned from the conflict into its international model of military intervention based on earlier wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Atomic Annie Bites The Uranium Dust / Politics / Nuclear Power
By: Andrew_McKillop
Anne Lauvergeon, nicknamed 'Atomic Annie' and CEO of France's murky Areva nuclear corporation with activities ranging from uranium mining ventures - and adventures in Africa - to building the world's slowest and most expensive reactor, a French EPR in Finland, was officially ousted by Nicolas Sarkozy on June 16 and will quit Areva by June 29. The decision was in fact long-expected by nuclear business watchers, but the final trigger was her handling of the blow-back in France from the Japanese Fukushima disaster, adding to Areva's near-bankruptcy, its badly handled operations in Africa, USA, France, Japan and Germany, and intense wrangling inside France's ultra-secretive nuclear business with Areva always on the losing side.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Elite Know Something Big Is Coming, But What Exactly Is It? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Chris_Kitze
Barracuda writes: There are so many theories on what the Earth and Humanity will or could be facing between now and through the next few years to 2025. Depending on who you talk with or what website you look at may say that we are about to experience some kind of cosmic shift of density and consciousness or they may lean towards the whole Doomsday theory based on such ancient predictions from civilizations like the Mayans, Egyptians and Sumerians as well as ancient text like the I Ching.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Solution to Greece’s Sovereign Debt Crisis / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Stathis
In the very first issue of the Intelligent Investor (June 2009), I discussed problems in Europe that became a reality several months later.
“It is likely that America will end up on the hook for the majority of the bailout funds needed for Eastern Europe via the IMF…In the end, I feel the long-term fate of the European Union (EU) will be threatened; not so much for economic reasons as for the continued destruction of each nation’s sovereignty.
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Friday, June 17, 2011
Spains Tarir Square: A Revolution Struggles To Be Born / Politics / Spain
By: Danny_Schechter
Spain is justly proud of the Paella, a distinctive dish that mixes diverse vegetables or seafood into a tasty fusion of delectability.
They have now created a political version in the form of Tarir Square type encampment in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol where a diverse mix of activists---old, young, male-female, disabled, immigrant, activists from Western Sahara, have created a beachhead for what many say is the closest this country has come to a popular and distinctive revolutionary movement since the 1930’s.
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Friday, June 17, 2011
Why Libertarians are Wrong on Trade / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
I recently gave a podcast interview to Vox Day, a prominent Christian libertarian, explaining why free trade is bad for America. He followed it up with an article making many of the same points.Finally, a libertarian gets it.
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Friday, June 17, 2011
Social Security and Medicare Cuts, Hard to Take a Bone from a Dog / Politics / Government Spending
By: John_Browne
Most people, provided they have a minimum of experience, know that taking a bone from a dog is a risky proposition. In terms of political power, few dogs are bigger than the American voting public. Taking away, or even threatening to take away, the major entitlements to which they have become accustomed could expose politicians to a mauling at election time. As the American leadership begins to grapple with very large issues of entitlement reform in "sacred" programs such as Medicare and Social Security, many may recoil from the task once the fangs begin flashing.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Mainstream Media's Arteries Clogged Up with Theorists / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Fred_Sheehan
It was not difficult for an observer to understand Armageddon beckoned by 2006, as long as the observer listened to practitioners rather than theorists. The theorists: government bureaucrats and their sycophants, clog the media's arteries. Those who listened to practitioners were prepared in 2007.
Friday, June 17, 2011
U.S. Military Responsible for the Biggest Heist in History / Politics / US Politics
By: Money_Morning
Jason Simpkins writes:
For nearly a decade, U.S. military operations in the Middle East - Iraq in particular - have been criticized as a cumbersome and costly burden on the American taxpayer.
That accusation gained new credence this week when the Pentagon finally acknowledged that nearly $7 billion of Iraqi oil money might have been stolen.
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Friday, June 17, 2011
U.S. Life Expectancy Falling in Many Areas / Politics / Social Issues
By: Global_Research
Patrick Martin writes: Average life expectancy is falling in many parts of the United States and for many demographic groups, most notably women, according to a study being published Wednesday in the journal Population Health Metrics, and conducted by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle.