So now Russia has once again been made a target for war.  Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it, if one needs to feed the Defense Monster.  And I’m no fan of Russia, let’s make that clear, but they are not the super power they once were.  Neither are we, in the sense that our jobs in the private sector have been disappeared, thanks to Clinton, Bush, and NAFTA.

When Russia was still the Soviet Union, its leaders had made the statement that capitalism only worked –that America only flourished– because of the middle class.  They accurately predicted that if the middle class disappeared, so would fairness in capitalism.  We can thank the overwhelming Defense budget and Wall St. raiders like Michael Milken, Martin Siegel, Dennis Levine, Ivan Boesky, et al, for the destruction of small businesses/small corporations that were pillars of the thriving middle class.

Greece has been a beacon in a dark time for their middle finger to the banksters and what used to be corporate raiders who are now country raiders, trying to destroy Greece’s democracy by destroying the economy to privatize public services with American corporations’ buyouts.  Good for them for seeing this for what it was and taking a very, very brave stance against it.  It means sacrifice on their part.

A little known fact is that this is exactly what they did to Iraq.  Most folks here are unaware of the thriving culture of Iraq before we invaded — the literacy rate was astounding — some where around 90%, if I recall correctly.  When we invaded, bombed their businesses, homes, utilities, etc., it was American corporations that went in and made huge amounts “rebuilding” Iraq.  They shut out Iraqi businesses from rebuilding their own country. Disaster capitalism.  And there were many corporate defense contractors involved.  The revolving door applies to the Defense dept., as well, as many who were generals and such have been hired by private contractors bidding on huge contracts for “rebuilding” countries after we bomb the hell out of them.

So now Russia is the next target, with China also on the horizon.  And don’t forget about our under the radar assistance in bombing the hell out of Yemen.  We have no business being there.

A couple of news reports on this:

The video below has awful acoustics, so you might need to listen a couple of times to hear what he’s saying.

Yep.

This war criminal who lied to get us into a war we had no business being, who put these soldiers in harms way and is directly responsible for their war injuries, including PTSD…charged them for the glory of his appearance.

And Jeb Bush thinks folks need to work longer hours.  Hello?  American workers have never been more productive

Now Jeb is saying that he meant part timers need to work full time hours.  Note that he does not say that people need to be paid a living wage.  He probably meant that folks need to work full time hours and be paid like they’re working part time in order to make the 1% even richer, er I mean, “make the economy grow”.  Pfft.

Oliver uses humor on this somber subject.  It’s another Libertarian/Ayn Rand/Milton Friedman scenario where people just keep paying and paying and paying.  And as always, it’s the ones who cannot afford high priced attorneys — the poor — who cannot get any relief.  Oliver states that even though debtors prisons were outlawed in the U.S., that is essentially what is happening here.

The major problem I have with this piece, as with other reports on racism, is that there is this collective blindness to the poor whites who are also put through this. I experienced this myself with a judge in the town I grew up in garnishing my wages.  All $200 of them.  If I earned $300 a month, it was a good one.  This was usury in every sense of the word.  And this judge had a good chunk of testimony off the record.

It’s not about race, but about the poor and criminalizing the poor.

The poor being one of the targets of the eugenics crowd, in the false belief that getting rid of the poor will eliminate poverty.   I mean, just typing that sentence makes me want to crack up laughing.  Seriously?  Getting rid of the poor will eliminate poverty?  Who will they force to work for below livable wages to make the stuff to sell? It’s stuff and nonsense that it is due to faulty genes and purely made-up hypothesis that does not pan out.

Here’s the video.  Warning! There are a graphic words at the end:

Press TV News has a long piece on the austerity measures in the UK.  I was thinking about this last night…and the first thought was, and I know this will sound incredibly stupid…boy, I’m glad that’s not happened here.  I know, I know, not thinking that through…with credit default swaps with millions of Americans losing their homes, no matter how much equity they had put into them; wages now deflating; and all the rest.  I think that is more stunning is how the Brits are coming out against it and remaining strong.  We’ve lost our will to stand up against this, I think.  As I posted in the prior blog on using spirituality as a Trojan Horse to usher in austerity, one of the tenets was to demoralize the people so much that they lose the will to fight for their rights and for equal treatment.  And it is more and more clear the more research I do that a moral high ground is definitely at the heart of this — whether it be eugenics or not.    And it is more clear that the Muslims are the new “Jews” of the new nazis.

A really good piece.  I have to hand it to the reporter.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen American news report like this that I’m a little taken aback:

A good debate on Greece and the financial disaster capitalism where opportunists seize on catastrophe, whether it be weather disasters, financial disasters, war, or some other circumstance where people are put off their guard by the events surrounding them.  They are in survival mode, and not able to think beyond getting their necessary needs met such as food, shelter, clothing.

Greece is an example of what can happen and how to handle it.  Perhaps they’re not as weak a people as the financial world would like to think?  The British guy on the video below was wringing his hands at the thought of Greece not being able to get financing now that they have voted “no” on more austerity.   Dr. Roberts asserts that banks will loan to Greece once again, after they have readjusted the debt to be more reasonable.

You know I don’t claim to be an economics whiz, but I’ve been exploring this trying to understand what is going on.  Max Keiser is pushing bitcoin very heavily with his own startup.  Something didn’t feel right as I listened to his promoting startcoin and how wonderful it is.

I went to the bank of the future website which had a link to the bitcoin page.  Bill Gates is recommending it.  Huge red flag there.  It also quotes Ben Bernanke, a disciple of Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of Economics which Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama have followed.  It’s wealth without ethics.  Libertarian thinking that wants to privatize everything and charge people for living (not exaggerating if you believe that geoengineering is about manipulating the weather to make a profit off of governments, i.e., the public, so there won’t be droughts, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.)

An electronic “coin” is not something you hold in your hand.  It relies on computers that will correctly put your money where you want it to go.  We all know how computers can and have been hacked.

Secondly, it depends on people being honest.  Honesty is in short supply nowadays with people lying to achieve their own ends.  The ends justifies the means.  Just because someone says they will put $$ in your account, does not mean that they will.  It depends on a human being programming a computer to do what it is told, and if it does not, having a human being correct the computer.

It also means at some point in time, that there will be a human being along the line that will add or subtract coins according to your wishes.

That is giving waaay too much power to individuals that you cannot see in real time, know them (like you would know people at your local bank), and if all else fails, be able to walk to your bank and withdraw money.  You are at their mercy.

So…yeah, I’ve grave concerns about bitcoin and now about Max Keiser promoting it and blaming Germany for everything happening in Greece.  I have to ask “why”?

At the risk of sounding like I’m a suck-up, which I’m not, I did think of the Native Americans as the holiday approached, and wondered what they must think every Fourth of July. Carol does a good job explaining her honest feelings as an Ojibwe. We celebrate our independence from a government that taxed us without representation….but forget how we oppressed another peoples. This euro ancestry gal is thankful for this land and all those who love it enough to stick their necks out for it–including the Native Americans who watched us trash the place in a few hundred years.

…well, after the heavy stuff this week, I thought I’d share a couple of funny things today:

–There’s a call-in show on the local radio station where folks can trade or sell stuff they don’t want.  They also call in for urgent announcements.  Today, a lady called in with a missing pet.  She went on to describe it as, I believe she said, a shih-tzu.  Then the host ask for the dog’s name.  Guess, just guess the name.

Bruiser.

Hahahahaha.  Cracked me up.

—————

A line from “Coming to America”:  “…there’s a fine line between love and nausea…”   Hahaha.