Banksters, Corporate Welfare, Geopolitics/War

“War is Peace, it Makes Us Rich and Safe”… or So Says the Mainstream Media

Julie Lévesque
Global Research: April 29, 2014

War is Peace. What was known as a famous quote from George Orwell’s fiction 1984 has become a reality. Or maybe it is still fiction if you consider that the mainstream media is making up reality on a daily basis.

On April 28, 2014, the homepage of The Washington Post web site featured the picture of a nuclear explosion with the following title: “War is brutal. The alternative is worse.”

Peace is worse than war? Diplomacy worse than a nuclear explosion? I wonder if people in war torn Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and the likes agree.

The subtitle is probably the apex of nonsense: “War may be the worst way imaginable to create peaceful societies, but this professor argues that it’s the only way.” Professor? How can you be a professor and say something so illogical? And how can a newspaper be taken seriously when it publishes such absurdities?

But it gets worse, if that’s even possible. Clicking on the article, you get this:

“Wars make us safer and richer”.

Wow. Really?

Who’s “us”? Certainly not the American people:

The decade-long American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would end up costing as much as $6 trillion, the equivalent of $75,000 for every American household, calculates the prestigious Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government…

It is also imperative to recall that the Bush administration had claimed at the very outset that the Iraq war would finance itself out of Iraqi oil revenues, but Washington DC had instead ended up borrowing some $2 trillion to finance the two wars, the bulk of it from foreign lenders.

According to the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government 2013 report, this accounted for roughly 20 per cent of the total amount added to the US national debt between 2001 and 2012.

According to the report, the US “has already paid $260 billion in interest on the war debt,” and future interest payments would amount to trillions of dollars. (Sabir Shah, US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6 trillion)

So, who’s “us” getting richer? The bankers maybe? Because if war makes some people rich, it’s the bankers:

Bankers are often the driving force behind war.

After all, the banking system is founded upon the counter-intuitive but indisputable fact that banks create loans first, and then create deposits later.

In other words, virtually all money is actually created as debt…

Debt (from the borrower’s perspective) owed to banks is profit and income from the bank’s perspective. In other words, banks are in the business of creating more debt … i.e. finding more people who want to borrow larger sums…

What does this have to do with war?

War is the most efficient debt-creation machine…

War is also good for banks because a lot of material, equipment, buildings and infrastructure get destroyed in war. So countries go into massive debt to finance war, and then borrow a ton more to rebuild. (Washington’s Blog, War Creates Massive Debt and Makes the Banks Rich)

“Us” is probably also the military industrial complex, for which peace is enemy number one:

The fact that military activities may become a profitable enterprise leads to the realization that peace is the main enemy of the military-industrial complex. A simple metaphor can illustrate this problem. Grape growers, the wine industry and wine marketers would be completely out of business if people stopped drinking wine. In a similar way, the military-industrial complex would be put out of business by lasting peaceful conditions because the development, production, marketing and use of military equipment would be not needed.

To stay in business, this complex needed the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the “cold war” with the Soviet Union, war on terrorism and various other wars. And it needs to be involved in new conflicts, such as in Ukraine at this time. (Vashek Cervinka, Peace is the Enemy of the US Military Industrial Complex)

WE, the people of the world, don’t want wars and WE are not getting “richer” and “safer” with wars. It’s actually quite the contrary. Wars ruin economies and guess what? Wars kill people! How are mass killings and massive debts making “us safer and richer”?

(read the full article at Global Research)

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Health/Environment

Harvard Study Links Pesticide to Honeybee Colony Collapse

A new study from Harvard implicates two neonicotinoid pesticides, imidacloprid and clothianidin, in the ongoing plague of honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder. Imidacloprid is the most widely used pesticide in the world, and both are approved by the EPA.

World’s No. 1 pesticide brings honeybees to their knees, say scientists

By Fabien Tepper
The Christian Science Monitor : May 9, 2014

A team of Harvard biologists has come closer to cracking the mystery of honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), eight years after its appearance.

CCD persists in transforming bee colonies around the world into ghost towns: by the end of each winter, some colonies wind up littered with dead bees and emptied of many more, with no signs of renewal.

“One of the defining symptomatic observations of CCD colonies is the emptiness of hives in which the amount of dead bees found inside the hives do not account for the total numbers of bees present prior to winter when they were alive,” states the report, published May 9 in the Bulletin of Insectology.

The exact mechanism behind these collapses remains dauntingly unclear, but they have been linked with pathogen infestation, malnutrition, and pesticide exposure. This week’s report strongly indicates that two neonicotinoid insecticides that are widely used on crops can decimate honeybee colonies’ winter survival rates, whether or not mites or parasites are present.

The two chemicals, imidacloprid and clothianidin, both block insects’ central nervous systems, killing them by paralysis. Imidacloprid is the world’s most widely-used insecticide, and has been registered for use in the US since the 1994; clothianidin was registered in 2003 by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which found that it had passed honeybee-specific toxicity tests.

These scientists studied the health of 18 bee colonies in central Massachusetts over a six-month period spanning the winter of 2012-2013. Six of the colonies were fed sugar spiked with sub-lethal doses of imidacloprid, six had theirs laced with clothianidin, and six less-unfortunate control colonies ate clean sugar, starting in October.

All of the colonies went about their apian routines in good form throughout the fall. But by late January, six of the 12 poisoned colonies experienced collapses with CCD-like symptoms, like en-masse disappearance and the presence of un-hatched young. Of the six control hives, only one failed to survive the winter, seemingly due to an infestation by Nosema Ceranae parasites.

“The honey bee clusters in the six surviving neonicotinoid treated colonies were very small, and were either without queen bees or had no brood,” reports the study, suggesting the poisons harm the animals’ abilities to raise and train new young. In contrast, the five surviving control hives replenished their populations quickly, as the winter gave way to spring.

According to the report, these results “reinforce the conclusion that sublethal exposure to neonicotinoids is likely the main culprit for the occurrence of CCD.”

(read the full article at CS Monitor)

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Geopolitics/War, Tyranny

Show Us the Drone Memos

Rand Paul
New York Times: May 11, 2014

WASHINGTON — I BELIEVE that killing an American citizen without a trial is an extraordinary concept and deserves serious debate. I can’t imagine appointing someone to the federal bench, one level below the Supreme Court, without fully understanding that person’s views concerning the extrajudicial killing of American citizens.

But President Obama is seeking to do just that. He has nominated David J. Barron, a Harvard law professor and a former acting assistant attorney general, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

While he was an official in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Barron wrote at least two legal memos justifying the execution without a trial of an American citizen abroad. Now Mr. Obama is refusing to share that legal argument with the American people.

On April 30, I wrote to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, urging him to delay this nomination, pending a court-ordered disclosure of the first memo I knew about. Since that letter, I have learned more. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to all senators on May 6, noting that in the view of the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, “there are at least eleven OLC opinions on the targeted killing or drone program.” It has not been established whether Mr. Barron wrote all those memos, but we do know that his controversial classified opinions provided the president with a legal argument and justification to target an American citizen for execution without a trial by jury or due process.

I believe that all senators should have access to all of these opinions. Furthermore, the American people deserve to see redacted versions of these memos so that they can understand the Obama administration’s legal justification for this extraordinary exercise of executive power. The White House may invoke national security against disclosure, but legal arguments that affect the rights of every American should not have the privilege of secrecy.

I agree with the A.C.L.U. that “no senator can meaningfully carry out his or her constitutional obligation to provide ‘advice and consent’ on this nomination to a lifetime position as a federal appellate judge without being able to read Mr. Barron’s most important and consequential legal writing.” The A.C.L.U. cites the fact that in modern history, a presidential order to kill an American citizen away from a battlefield is unprecedented.

The Bill of Rights is clear. The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Sixth Amendment provides that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury,” as well as the right to be informed of all charges and have access to legal counsel. These are fundamental rights that cannot be waived with a presidential pen.

In battle, combatants engaged in war against America get no due process and may lawfully be killed. But citizens not in a battlefield, however despicable, are guaranteed a trial by our Constitution.

No one argues that Americans who commit treason shouldn’t be punished. The maximum penalty for treason is death. But the Constitution specifies the process necessary to convict.

Anwar al-Awlaki was an American citizen who was subject to a kill order from Mr. Obama, and was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a missile fired from a drone. I don’t doubt that Mr. Awlaki committed treason and deserved the most severe punishment. Under our Constitution, he should have been tried — in absentia, if necessary — and allowed a legal defense. If he had been convicted and sentenced to death, then the execution of that sentence, whether by drone or by injection, would not have been an issue.

But this new legal standard does not apply merely to a despicable human being who wanted to harm the United States. The Obama administration has established a legal justification that applies to every American citizen, whether in Yemen, Germany or Canada.

Defending the rights of all American citizens to a trial by jury is a core value of our Constitution. Those who would make exceptions for killing accused American citizens without trial should give thought to the times in our history when either prejudice or fear allowed us to forget due process. During World War I, our nation convicted and imprisoned Americans who voiced opposition to the war. During World War II, the government interned Japanese-Americans.

(read the full article at New York Times

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Drugs

Mexico to legalize vigilantes fighting drug cartel

Alberto Arce
AP: May 10, 2014

Mexico’s government plans on Saturday to begin demobilizing a vigilante movement of assault rifle-wielding ranchers and farmers that formed in the western state of Michoacan and succeeded in largely expelling the Knights Templar cartel when state and local authorities couldn’t.

The ceremony in the town of Tepalcatepec, where the movement began in February 2013, will involve the registration of thousands of guns by the federal government and an agreement that the so-called “self-defense” groups will either join a new official rural police force or return to their normal lives and acts as voluntary reserves when called on.

The government will go town by town to organize and recruit the new rural forces.

“This is a process of giving legal standing to the self-defense forces,” said vigilante leader Estanislao Beltran.

But tension remained on Friday in the coastal part of the state outside the port of Lazaro Cardenas, where other “self-defense” groups plan to continue as they are, defending their territory without registering their arms. Vigilantes against the demobilization have set up roadblocks in the coastal town of Caleta.

“We don’t want them to come, we don’t recognize them,” vigilante Melquir Sauceda said of the government and the new rural police forces. “Here we can maintain our own security. We don’t need anyone bringing it from outside.”

With Saturday’s ceremony, a federal commissioner now in charge of the violence-plagued state hopes to end the “wild west” chapter of the movement, in which civilians built roadblocks and battled cartel members for towns in the rich farming area called the “Tierra Caliente,” or “Hot Land.”

The new rural forces are designed to be a way out of an embarrassing situation, in which elected leaders and law enforcement agencies lost control of the entire state to the pseudo-religious Knights Templar drug cartel. Efforts to retake control with federal police and military failed. Eventually government forces had to rely on the vigilantes because of their knowledge of where to find the cartel gunmen.

Since the commissioner, Alfredo Castillo, was named in January, federal forces have arrested or killed three of the main leaders of the Knights Templar. The fourth, Servando “La Tuta” Gomez, is in hiding and rumored to be in the rugged hills outside his hometown of Arteaga.

But the vigilante movement has been plagued by divisions, and its general council dismissed one of the founders, Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles, as its spokesman earlier this week because of an unauthorized video he released directed at President Enrique Pena Nieto. Another founder, Hipolito Mora, is in jail accused of the murder of two alleged rivals. Castillo told Mexico’s Radio Formula on Friday that he is also investigating claims that Mireles was involved in the killing of five vigilantes near Lazaro Cardenas on April 27.

Meanwhile, no one is giving up their guns, even assault weapons prohibited under Mexican law.

(Read the full article at Yahoo)

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Drugs, Health/Environment, Original

British Journal of Pharmacology Study Says Cannabis May Treat Alzheimer’s Disease

AlternativeFreePress.com

The British Journal of Pharmacology has published a new study which found that cannabis may treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. The study “details the mechanisms of neurodegeneration and highlights the beneficial effects of cannabinoid treatment.” Researchers studied the effects of cannabinoids in treating neurodegenerative diseases, finding that; “Through multiple lines of evidence, this evolutionarily conserved neurosignalling system has shown neuroprotective capabilities and is therefore a potential target for neurodegenerative disorders.”

Abstract:

In an increasingly ageing population, the incidence of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease are rising. While the aetiologies of these disorders are different, a number of common mechanisms that underlie their neurodegenerative components have been elucidated; namely neuroinflammation, excitotoxicity, mitochondrial dysfunction and reduced trophic support. Current therapies focus on treatment of the symptoms and attempt to delay the progression of these diseases but there is currently no cure. Modulation of the endogenous cannabinoid system is emerging as a potentially viable option in the treatment of neurodegeneration. Endocannabinoid signalling has been found to be altered in many neurodegenerative disorders. To this end, pharmacological manipulation of the endogenous cannabinoid system, as well as application of phytocannabinoids and synthetic cannabinoids have been investigated. Signalling from the CB1 and CB2 receptors are known to be involved in the regulation of Ca2+ homeostasis, mitochondrial function, trophic support and inflammatory status, respectively, while other receptors gated by cannabinoids such as PPARγ, are gaining interest in their anti-inflammatory properties. Through multiple lines of evidence, this evolutionarily conserved neurosignalling system has shown neuroprotective capabilities and is therefore a potential target for neurodegenerative disorders. This review details the mechanisms of neurodegeneration and highlights the beneficial effects of cannabinoid treatment.

Written by Alternative Free Press
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British Journal of Pharmacology Study Says Cannabis May Treat Alzheimer’s Disease by AlternativeFreePress.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Source: British Journal of Pharmacology

Drugs, Health/Environment

Drugs are dangerous because they are illegal

Deaths from PMA, a more toxic form of ecstasy, are rising in the UK, but are almost unknown in countries that take a more pragmatic approach

A lethal ignorance: We could make drugs safer. We choose not to

Archie Bland
The Independent: March 2, 2014

The story of paramethoxyamphetamine, or PMA, is a neat parable of the war on drugs: a story of unintended consequences, a problem with viable solutions that are being ignored. Fixing this problem will not fix everything else. It is a relatively small part of the picture. But the logic that drives our response to it stands as a bottomlessly depressing symbol of the whole.

PMA has been around since the 1970s. It has some similar effects to MDMA (ecstasy), and it really came to prominence when efforts to crack down on that drug began to succeed in the mid-1990s. “It is a classic example,” says David Nutt, the former government adviser who now chairs the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. “Prohibition has led to the attempt to avoid prohibition, and therefore the production of more toxic substances.”

The purity of ecstasy tablets is often higher now than it was a few years ago. But unscrupulous dealers like the fact that PMA is cheaper, and it appears to be more prevalent than ever. There were no recorded deaths caused by PMA in the UK in 2009 or 2010; in 2011, there were five; in 2012, there were at least 17. The total for 2013 will be higher again. And yet, no one is using it on purpose. “There’s a gulf between what people are buying and what they think they are buying,” says Fiona Measham, a professor of criminology at Durham University and a leading authority on drug trends. “That gulf is growing.”

PMA is often described in newspaper headlines as “stronger” than MDMA. But it doesn’t get you higher. It’s just more toxic. What’s more, the effects of PMA take longer to come on, and a small increase can turn a relatively safe dose into a dangerous one. So people take a pill, think it’s poor quality ecstasy when they don’t feel anything after an hour, and take more to catch up. And then things go wrong.

Nicole Tomlinson was one of those who died in 2012. She had taken what she believed to be ecstasy when she was given it by her boyfriend, James Meaney; when nothing happened, they each took another two doses. Tomlinson was 19 years’ old. The couple’s child was two when she died. Last week, Meaney, 22, was sentenced to seven months in prison.

There is no question that Meaney bears a terrible responsibility for the fact that his child will grow up without a mother. But ultimately, his story is one of haplessness; on the other side of the equation is an approach so negligent that it is hard to distinguish from deliberate malice. The truth is, one simple step might have considerably reduced the chances of Nicole Tomlinson’s death, and that of many other victims of PMA: the provision of drug-testing facilities at clubs, so that researchers can find out which varieties of pill are not what they are said to be, and let people know.

This sort of scheme could be instituted this week without any legal difficulty. It is, of course, impossible to test every pill: you’d do well to operate in one or two big clubs in a particular city. But proper testing reshapes the market. It gives people the knowledge they need to make better decisions. Every headline on the Tomlinson story features the word “ecstasy”. But it wasn’t ecstasy that killed her. It was ignorance. If she had taken ecstasy, she would have been fine.

Such testing regimes run in Austria and the Netherlands. And to those involved, Britain’s resistance to a protocol with real evidence behind it seems perverse. “If we are not there, there is no information,” argues Rainer Schmid, a toxicologist and founder of Vienna’s “checkit!” project. “In Britain, it is a cynical approach, if you ask me. You know what is happening, and you say, no, we don’t want to solve it.”

The Home Office sees things differently. “We have no plans to introduce testing centres for illegal drugs,” it says. “Drugs are illegal because they are dangerous.”

(read the full article at The Independent)

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Privacy

Snapchat ‘deceived users’ about disappearing messages

Snapchat ‘deceived users’ about disappearing messages, will be monitored by gov’t

RT: May 9, 2014

If Snapchat users thought their photos and videos disappeared – like they’re supposed to – they may be in for a surprise. The company settled with the Federal Trade Commission Thursday for deceiving users.

Snapchat is a messaging application that allows users to share pictures, short videos, messages and video chats with a friend or group. These messages, called Snaps, can be viewed for up to 10 seconds before they disappear.

“In most cases, once the recipient has viewed a message, it is automatically deleted from Snapchat’s servers and cannot be retrieved,” the company writes about its product. The app says it will notify a user if their Snap has been screen-captured by the recipient. But a study carried out by a US firm last April said Snapchat was not in fact designed to erase the files.

The FTC filed a six-count complaint against the popular app, saying it wasn’t living up to its promises of privacy and security. The commission accused Snapchat of misrepresenting how the application actually works.

“Despite Snapchat’s claims, the complaint describes several simple ways that recipients could save snaps indefinitely,” the FTC said in a press release.

In a blog post, the FTC went into detail on how even those people who aren’t particularly tech-savvy could save Snaps. “When a recipient got a video message, Snapchat stored the file in a location outside of the app’s ‘sandbox,’ the private storage area on the device that other apps can’t access. Because the file was in an unrestricted place, the recipient could connect their device to a computer and use simple browsing tools to locate and save the video,” the blog post says. “That method was widely publicized as early as December 2012, but the FTC says Snapchat didn’t fix the flaw until almost a year later when it began encrypting video files sent through the app.”

The complaint also detailed how Snapchat deceived its users regarding the amount of personal data it collected and the security measures taken to protect that data. It accused Snapchat of “failure to secure its Find Friends feature resulted in a security breach that enabled attackers to compile a database of 4.6 million Snapchat usernames and phone numbers,” the statement said.

(read the full article at RT)

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Drugs, Health/Environment

Treating PTSD with MDMA

Over 80% of subjects receiving MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a pilot study no longer met the criteria for PTSD. A long-term follow-up study revealed that overall benefits were maintained an average of 3.8 years later.

Bob, a Vietnam vet struggling with PTSD for many years, was desperate for relief. When a number of his vet friends committed suicide, he knew he could be next. Then he saw a CNN report on the successes of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in PTSD treatment. After being rejected from participation in the clinical trials conducted by the Mithoefers and MAPS, Bob decided to seek his own therapist, as well as his own MDMA. The journey took him to peyote ceremonies, Burning Man, and finally to a friend’s son, who was able to supply him with the illegal substance. Since completing the treatment, Bob has finally found relief from the crippling symptoms of PTSD. He claims the treatment saved his life.

Long after his experience in the Vietnam War, Bob Walker, like many veterans, still experiences the harsh effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He had little luck in dulling the pain — until discovering MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy. Though it has a notorious reputation as a party drug, Walker and others are convinced that MDMA’s unique qualities have the potential to treat the debilitating symptoms of PTSD that other approaches can’t. The Verge investigates the past, present, and future of MDMA therapy.

Source

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Health/Environment

Conventional Produce Full Of Pesticides: 80% of US Apples Contain Cancer-Causing Chemical Banned by EU

Apples top list for pesticide contamination in 2014

CBC News: May 8, 2014

The U.S.-based Environmental Working Group has released its “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” lists for 2014, detailing which fruits and vegetables have the most — and least — pesticide residue.

The EWG is a non-profit organization that acts as a public health and environmental watchdog, monitoring consumer products, food and environmental practices.

Senior analyst Sonya Lunder said the organization has been looking at the safety of pesticides on fruits and vegetables for over a decade, based on data gathered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration.

But the information “wasn’t formatted in a way people without a scientific degree or courses in statistics could really take any conclusions away from,” she said.

That’s when the lists started. And though they do not change greatly year over year, each list brings to light certain new points of interest.

This year’s data found that a single, conventionally grown grape sample contained 15 pesticides, and an average potato had more pesticides by weight than any other food tested.

This year’s Dirty Dozen list includes apples, strawberries, grapes and celery — produce that is often eaten unpeeled. While the Clean 15 singles out avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, cabbage and others that often have a protective outer layer.

This year the EWG added an extra category — the Dirty Dozen Plus — to include kale and collard greens. The vegetables don’t meet the group’s traditional ranking criteria, but were still found to have residues of pesticides it considers toxic.
[…]

Lunder said the EWG discovered a common pesticide on American apples that’s banned in the European Union because of safety concerns. Diphenylamine is applied after apples are harvested to protect the peel from breaking down during storage. It has been linked to nitrosamines, which are “well-known and well-studied cancer-causing chemicals that are found and formed in smoked meats and other consumer products,” Lunder explained.

“Now in the most recent year of sampling, we found this on 80 per cent of American apples and [in a] lower concentration and less frequently in apple sauce,” she said.

A separate study by published at the end of April in the journal Environmental Research by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia looked at pesticide levels in organic food.

In it, 13 adults were divided into two groups. One ate conventional food for a week, while the other consumed about 80 per cent organic food. Then the groups switched and ate the alternate diet. The study found that when tested on the eighth day of each phase, those in the organic group had reduced pesticide levels in their urine by 89 per cent.

Lunder says studying the levels of pesticides in produce has motivated her to make changes in her own home.

“When I started doing this research, it made me really think about organic raisins. And you’re getting all the pesticides that would be found on grapes individually,” she said.

Lunder said the American Academy of Pediatrics, which takes a broad look at children’s health and safety, has also endorsed the work being done by the EWG.

Citing research that links childhood exposure to pesticides with behavioural problems, decreased cognitive function and pediatric cancers, the AAP has recommended parents take steps to reduce pesticide exposure in the home, which includes using lists like the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 in the produce aisle.

(read the full article at CBC News)

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Geopolitics/War

China plans high-speed train to USA & Canada

China is considering building a high-speed railway across the Siberia and Bering Strait to Alaska, across Canada to the US. In not so distant future, people can take the train from China to the US, according to Beijing Times Thursday citing Wang Mengshu, a railway expert and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The proposed journey will start from China’s northeast region, cross Siberia to Bering Strait, and run across the Pacific Ocean by undersea tunnel to reach Alaska, from Alaska to Canada, then on to its final destination, the US.

(read the full article at China Daily)

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