Transcript:

We have been hijacked by another corporate government who controls our media. “Independent” opinion polls are as skewed as the media.  Ron Pauls treatment clearly reflects this as he would have demonstrated a real threat to those behind the scenes.

Gitmo is a travesty and a moral outrage against the principles this country was founded on.  The mortgage crisis serves to remind the populace that we have to work, work, work lest our homes be taken from us.  Haed to get a general strike going when your up to your eyeballs in debt and illegal workers vieing for your job.  All part of the “big plan”.

Very good thesis.

Before the US can go to war with Iran, there will need to be a pre-text much like the move up to the Iraq War.  There really isn’t much time left, but a good pre-text and build-up if not attack will certainly improve McCain’s chances in the presidential election.  Then again, there’s always Israel who must be itching to give it’s military a free rein and sock it to a plethora of enemies.  Any US/Israeli action against Iran will be closely followed by serious attacks against Hezbollah and Hamas----things are getting a little dull and monotonous lately!!!

Talked with you last night here in Austin, both at the meeting and at the party. Gave you the books to read list.  Much to my extreme embarassment, I did not recognize John Stockwell, famous apostate CIA agent, author of the great In Search of Enemies, at the meeting and consequently am mortified that he was given the bum’s rush by the radio show event moderator.  He deserves better than that.  Perhaps you could contact him, and give him the opportunity to ask and get answered his question?  Please extend to him my regards, if you would, in the process.

Thanks--

Daniel White

Roses; ought to Grow their Thorns on the Stems

With what ever the cleverness, a case can be articulated of projecting and escalation of violence and terrorism through our corporate media in and around the Middle East and try to build the pretexts to invade the sovereign countries like Iraq and Iran; it is eventually going to turn into a futile effort. The myth of terrorism stands no chance in the future and bears no ethical grounds to stand. It is by the vile choices of few assailants only. The assailants, the big wicks with their vicious designs and choices like United States; who are trying to forcibly siphon the resources of this area to run the machinery of its own economy through deceit and fallacy.

Iran stands as our old teacher on this planet; who once ornamented our old civilisations with the knowledge of medicine, physic, chemistry, mathematics and sciences that present day advancement in technology and science stems from it. The advancements that today the entire west so proudly helms on and relishes it.

How come we can ever think of restraining the same old teacher to reap the benefit and restrict the fragrance of it that once he very earnestly sowed its seeds in our soils for us; that some how we find our old teacher now frail and with no deterrent; because his ethics did not pursue him to grow thorn along with its roses and now we are trying to exploit and rob him of his assets and services.

But who has ever been successful in robbing and out smart their teachers? The history of this planet at least, does not support this.
-------------------------
Love for all, Hatred for none

You bet!

It seems a little odd that you would post nothing less than what the NY Times prints.

You can dig up an equal number of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Both sides have a lot to answer for. The best US policy is: HANDS OFF! (aka Ron Paul non-interventionism). I have no desire to pick sides in a conflict with no available solution, in which both sides commit atrocities. Get the US OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST (as well as all 130 countries in which we station troops).

The best defense against the filth is cynicism, hatred and smarts.  Are we overcoming our physical cowardice yet.  Have you put a sign in your car’s back window?  Have you stood on the side of the road with a sign?  Every car and person can be a billboard.

The best thing about the Palestinian crook rocket attacks is the way that Israeli crooks never fail to answer with a strafing.  The dead match the dead (more or less), and the crooks on both sides get to keep the scam going.

Palestinian Rockets Hit Israel - Isabel Kershner

Rockets fired by Palestinians slammed into the Israeli town of Sderot in quick succession Thursday evening on a third day of heightened hostilities between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza. Hamas and other militant factions launched about 40 Kassam rockets throughout the day, Israeli Army officials said. Four Israelis were wounded and a dozen were treated for shock.

Eliyahu Cohen, 65, was surveying the damage to his home, which was struck during an early barrage about 8 a.m. His wife, Marcelle, had been alone in the house at the time, and had managed to reach a fortified basement room, escaping injury. At best, the municipal alert system gives residents about 20 seconds to find shelter from incoming rockets. The rocket crashed through an outside wall into the Cohens’ kitchen, sending the refrigerator flying across the room and blasting off its door, which lodged in the ceiling. The ground floor was covered with broken glass and debris.

The house next door, where the Cohens’ daughter, Nofit, lives, was also carpeted with glass and debris. “I’m happy that everyone was miraculously saved,” said Mr. Cohen. As he spoke, another alert sounded, and about a dozen friends, relatives and local officials who had been standing outside tramped through the daughter’s house, glass crunching underfoot, and crammed into a tiny fortified room. Thirteen Israelis have been killed since the rocket attacks started seven years ago, eight of them in Sderot. (New York Times)

I think it almost always makes sense to assume that the world is run by an endless contest of vicious criminals.

They appeal to morals, when man is not a moral actor.  So people like the feeling of being good without going to the trouble of figuring out just what is good.

People are basically lazy cowards.  They are to scared to think and too lazy to find out.  (That’s why protection rackets work almost every time, including 911)

In the ruling circles you have crooks and suckers.  The crooks put out the lies and the suckers repeat them.

The crooks do what they do because they like to lie, cheat, and steal.  It isn’t necessarily about money and power.  (Iraq will never pay off, but the fun of the hustle keeps going on and on.)

Powerful crooks don’t like to take chances.  They work very hard to make sure that they are “betting” on a sure thing.

Haha, good stuff.

Sodium:  I look at it in another way.  Israel was an anti-semitic dream.  Jews actually creating and believing in their own concentration camp?  Heaven on earth, especially for America’s oil crooks who are genetically anti-semitic.  Israel and the Zionists being naturally obnoxious are able to create a common enemy for every arab and muslim in the world.  That keeps their populations focused on Israel when they should be paying attention to the dictators and oil companies who are burglarizing their house.  Israel is like a settler’s outpost of disgustingness for the U.S.

They do the crazy stuff and we use them as a market for our weapons.  For weapons, you need a reliable enemy and Iran has been chosen, especially after Iraq had been overrun.

We want to attack Iran because we owe Israel and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for their help staging the 911 stunt.  If they helped Bush become dictator, we have to pay them back.  In organized filth, you never welsh on a deal.

The real Jewish homeland is basically New York.  There are more Jews there than anywhere else in the world, and they will be safe there as long as they have decisive control over much of our infrastructure. 

Judaism never needed wailing walls and all that other bric a brac anyway.  All that stuff is sheer idolatry.  Like every other religion, if is the moronic holy books that count.

I love the ‘crooks without borders’. That is just too accurate.

I read an article a few days ago, that BAE has hooked up with Boeing and American Airlines, to equip 3 of their 767’s with a test anti-missile device.

Now get this. The airline says that they don’t ‘favor’ using these things on passenger aircraft, but they’re gonna test them on 3 airplanes, that allegedly will NOT be passenger aircraft. It’s supposed to involve about 1,000 flights, so that they can ‘test’ under real conditions. (the device is somewhere on the belly of the aircraft if I understood it correctly).

But, check this out. How are they gonna do this, if they DON’T use passenger aircraft? Now, last I knew, American was NOT a carrier that did solo cargo flights. In short, like most of the majors, they fly cargo and people. So, if they aren’t gonna use it on passenger flights, (oh, I should mention that they say not PAYING passenger flights - though that was sort of introduced at a different spot in the article)then, what will they use them for? Will they just ‘test’ them by burning fuel to fly them empty?

It didn’t make sense. It said that it didn’t ‘favor’ using them, but at the same time, they got this billion dollars from BAE, so what the hell I guess. They specifically noted that these devices would apparently ‘ward off’ missiles shot by ‘terrorists’ from the ground, with shoulder mounted firing things. This is supposedly only on 3 aircraft, to be outfitted in the spring.

Now of course, this would really confuse me, if I didn’t know they were lying.

Therefore, I’m sticking to train. If I can’t get there on the train, I don’t need to go.

Isn’t it strange that so many people who claim to have a personal relationship with the Lord (George Bush for one) also believe in extreme violence (shock and awe) as a solution to problems. No, you should always be maladjusted to that self defeating notion. In other words: “we are speaking today of the wipe-out gang, the wipe-out gang owns and operates the insanity factory.”
Bob Dylan
The only thing we have to fear are the cowards telling us to be afraid.

Fear fuels the arming and fear fuels the first attack.  “Get them before they get you.” Republicans are afraid of everybody because they have a lot of rackets to lose.  They were afraid of missing out on oil rackets and that is why they invaded Iraq.  Of course the weapons, drugs, construction, and protection rackets were pretty nice to get and keep too.

We should take every guilty Republican and tie them to a lamp post with a sign saying “Coward and Thief”.

Bush/Cheney are running the American Military more like a football team than a military establishment meant to defend OUR NATION , and protect allies (not many remain) against aggression .
The trouble with the Bush/Cheney Rooks is that their offensive line is continually going off-sides .Despite boos and jeers from the sidelines and the penalties of unfair play , the game is perpetual for the Bus/Cheney Rooks . Devious tactics , officials on the dole , and the occasional “Hail Oil” TD reception keeps the Rooks going and going and going .
Now a new game - against the Iran Speedboaters Association - the Rooks are a fearless (and mindless)"team" who fear nothing .
Mr. Putin has been satisfied thus far to observe our activities and occasionally give this administration a mild rebuke here and there . What is Mr. Putin doing at this time . He is very intelligent , ex-KGB and very , very cozy with Iran . The unthinkable may happen - The Bush/Cheney Rooks may have to punt . Noooooooooooooo - this just can’t be !

It is suffice to say that resolving the injustice that is the Middle East would go a long way to solving problems in this world, especially for the United States. But a person only has to read the reporting of Robert Fisk to become fully aware of the enormity of this weapons dealing beast. As the late great Howlin’ Wolf said: “that’s evil going on”.
Of course the way things are set up here, if you criticize Zionism you must be a Nazi. And why is it that a country that is suppose to support, liberty and secular democracy, makes this exception for a Jewish state, but condemns Iran for being an Muslim state?
But it is even weirder than that. I know an Arab shop owner who likes the idea of the U.S. keeping their boot print in the desert. Why? Well he is a Sunni and he does not like the Shia establishing their own state, Iran. When I asked what was the difference between the two groups, he said the Shia Muslims are the poor Muslims. In other words, the peasants.
The United States government wants the population to believe that they are all Islamic extremists, dead or alive. But one only has to look at Wahhabist outlook from George Bush’s beloved Saudi Arabia to see that is not so. The orthodox Wahhabi do not consider the Shia to even be Muslim, let alone the Sufi!
But the whirling dervish spin masters of misinformation are unstoppable. In politics the first thing that is deleted are facts.
I am of the opinion that religious extremism, of whatever stripe, will eventually lead to the destruction of this planet. Maybe I should choke up like Hillary Clinton. That same humane Senator Clinton, who thinks distributing more cluster bombs is the right thing to do.
I hear the candidate has found her voice. Sweet cyrena, the sky is burning and I must go.
My only prayer is Thank You.
The Beer Doctor

Beer Doc,

I’m definitely game, (especially with the increase in the chocolate rations) but I don’t think Howard would have much fun. He’s the nervous type. He thinks Israel is just ‘defending itself’ with those nukes under every household plant. (or at least in every garage). Howard says every single household in Israel has at least one computer, so maybe they have all of their nukes hooked-up that way.

You see how worked up he gets about these alleged ‘rockets’ from Hamas, (sometimes he blames Hezbollah) which are actually nothing more than oversized pop bottles, and don’t even have as much fizz.

And, quite frankly, I get sick of listening to him. It’s like some sort of genetic ‘hysteria’ that all Zionists have. I mean, if the Palestinians, or the Lebanese, or the Egyptians, or ANY of those Arab people who have been living there for thousands and thousands of years could have done anything to prevent themselves from being genocided by Israel, or prevented their own enslavement in the open-air prison that is Gaza, or avoided all of those camps that they’ve been forced to live in for decades, while their homes in the West Bank are bulldozed, and Israeli settlers continue to move right in, and give themselves all sorts of privileges, while continuing to confine the Palestinians…don’t we think they would have done it by now?

But, they can’t. So they haven’t, and that’s the bottom line. But, the Howard’s of the world will always whine about being under ‘attack’ by the Palestinians, without EVER acknowledging the basic common sense reason why…WHEN YOU STEAL SOMEBODY ELSE’S SHIT, YOU NEED TO EXPECT THAT THEY WILL WANT IT BACK.

And, when you enslave and torture and entire population, what the hell do you expect them to do? I mean, even the slaves in the US finally stopped putting up with that.

And now I see that Georgie the evil moron is over there again, (Israel) supposedly to revive the peace process. That’s such a grotesque joke. All he can manage to do is to just piss everybody off, all that much more. (well, except the Israelis) So, maybe he’s delivering some more nukes or cluster bombs. Or, just going to advise them on how to vote in OUR election.

I was pretty damn amazed to read the article in Haaretz.com, that gave a rundown on most of the US politicians running for Prez, and who THEIR choices were. (Yes, I DID mean the US Presidential election, and yes, these are the Israeli polls – who THEY will vote for).

It’s such typical gall, that I shouldn’t be surprised. But, I always am.

Anyway, while the Israelis finish deciding on who they want to be the US president, (right now, they like Giuliani first, and Hillary second) the rest of us can play Tonk. Some of us might even get a chance to vote for our own prez. Then again, maybe not.

Since the human race has obviously been a terrible mistake (hardly a noble experiment), I would like to help everyone enjoy the peace of the grave.  Iran has every right to use the big one as a threat to the completely insane nations and powers that surround it.
Of course Israel in particular is stark raving mad and suicidal. Where can I get some nuclear weapons, and how can I send them?  I hope I can send them C.O.D. since I’m sure that shipping would be beyond my means.  I understand that the American air force has left a few nuclear missiles lying around.  Maybe they would give me one, if they don’t plan to use it as a false flag pretext on the U.S.

This is a twisted sense of logic but alas, true. When the world’s largest stockholder of nuclear weapons tells other nations they can not possess them, this only serves as an incentive to obtain them. Why is it that Israel is permitted to have these weapons but her neighbors are not? This is the total hypocrisy of foreign policy: do as we say, not as we do.
But to assist Iran to go nuclear? This will not bring peace. Nuclear weapons have not brought peace to India and Pakistan. But rather an anxious stalemate that could become a full blown disaster in a moment’s notice.

Nuke is not a weapon; it is a deterrent. It ensures security to vulnerable countries like Iran and helps; to wards off the oppressor forces with their evil designs.

Let’s assist the Iranian to go Nuclear. It will certainly bring peace and calm in the war torn Middle East. Lives of millions can be saved; including the lives of many more soldiers of American occupying forces in the Middle East being used as war fodder.

We can’t even fold.  They never dealt us any cards.

hetzer, cyrena, Howard, PatrickHenry, perhaps we should all get together and play a good old card game called Tonk. Let’s play using Gulf of Tonkin rules. Now don’t be alarmed folks, under these rules the dealer is allowed to bring up cards from the bottom of the deck. Oh and good news brothers and sisters, the chocolate ration gets raised to thirty grams next month.
The Decider has decided that this titanic struggle must continue, until the last vestige of Islamofacism is eradicated from the face of the earth. Thus spake the cowboy angel of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Beer Doc

I read the thing on the Iranians allegedly ‘provoking’ US Navy ships. Read it with dread, since we’ve certainly been THIS route before. (remember how Johnson lied us into Vietnam with the same sort of excuse?)

But, all I can say is...The Hormuz Straight is a REALLY long way from home for the US Navy, eh?

I don’t call Bush the “pretext” President for nothing.  Is anyone stupid enough to believe anything the Israeli or U.S. Government says?  We are Charlie Brown.  Lucy is holding the football again.

“not like something we’ve seen before”? Check out the article posted on the BBC world news (UK version) about Iranian speedboats threatening US Navy ships.

Rocket that Hit Ashkelon Was Made in Iran
- Isabel Kershner (New York Times)

Israeli security officials said Sunday that a rocket with a longer range than usual fired by Palestinians from Gaza into the coastal city of Ashkelon on Thursday had been made in Iran.

There have been a few cases of militants from Gaza firing old, 122-millimeter Katyushas that were probably manufactured in the Eastern bloc and smuggled into Gaza.

But the rocket that landed Thursday in the city of 120,000 people was different, “not like something we’ve seen before,” said Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/world/middleeast/07m ideast.html

It is good to remember what veteran journalist Robert Fisk said about the west always wanting to give the people of the middle east, democracy or free markets etc. But what the people of the middle east want is justice. And that is something that the west refuses continuously.

The terrorism of Israel.

http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2008/01/06/the-politics-of -an-israeli-bag-lady

I saw the report from the ICRC. But then, only those of us actually looking for that stuff would.

Thanks for the link.

In the United States there is a general blackout of any criticism of American Israeli policy, except in the alternative media. So I guess it is no surprise that the report issued by the International Red Cross in December on the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank was mostly ignored. But here is something, published from Israel:
http://www.yesh-din.org/site/images/BackyardProceeding sEng.pdf

Well hetzer,

A great big AMEN to this!! I sure couldn’t have said it better.

If Nazis had been the rulers of Israel, it wouldn’t have been any different.  They are just like them, and we are just like them.  We think we’re special and that they law gives us the right to murder and steal.

Remember though, both the U.S. and Israel are only disgusting because of the crooks that have been manipulating the media.  Most people are just lazy cowards who will believe whatever they are told to believe.

Israel To U.S.: Don’t Delay Iraq Attack
Sharon Government Urges Prompt Action Against Saddam

JERUSALEM, Aug. 16, 2002
(CBS) Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday.

Israeli intelligence officials have gathered evidence that Iraq is speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons, said Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/18/world/main51 9037.shtml

To use the brutal words of Ranaan Gissin, an aide to then Israeli PM Ariel Sharon:  “Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose.”

And this article:

Israel Says War on Iraq Would Benefit the Region

By James Bennet New York Times February 27, 2003

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations last week that after Iraq, the United States should generate “political, economic, diplomatic pressure” on Iran. “We have great interest in shaping the Middle East the day after” a war, he said.

“The shock waves emerging from post-Saddam Baghdad could have wide-ranging effects in Tehran, Damascus, and in Ramallah,” Efraim Halevy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s national security adviser, said in a speech in Munich this month.

Until recently, Mr. Halevy was the chief of the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. He said, “We have hopes of greater stability, greater enhanced confidence from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic shores of Morocco.”

Israelis have also suggested that that an Iraq war may salvage their economy and even prompt the opposition Labor Party to join Mr. Sharon’s coalition in a new government of national unity.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attac k/consequences/2003/0227benefit.htm

How cold, cruel and calculating can a nation get to hope for a war so that nation’s economy would be salvaged?  Salvaged from what?

Saved from the financial machinations of your own people?  An economy revived with the blood, death and suffering of another nation, while your nation remains above the fray and uses that war to ramp up the ethnic cleansing of its indigenous people?

Thank you cyrena, I leave you this quote: “So where are you America? Don’t you want to know how your president was elected. How the IMF spends your money?
Greg Pallast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

My only prayer: Thank You. The Beer Doctor

Amen to the this beerdoctor. It IS the US government that is the threat, and has been, with it’s multiple intervention and meddling in Iran, AT LEAST since they overthrew Mossadeq, to replace with their own puppet, and that was over 50 years ago. Seems to be a habit with this unvarnished quest for rule of the planet, and specifically all of its natural resources.

So, yep, this appetite for militarism is fueled by fear, greed, and I would add the hubris of raw and naked POWER!!(which goes wit the greed).

The FEAR of course, is manufactured. On the other hand, it’s also a legitimate fear, in the sense that when they KNOW perfectly well, that they’ve continued to perpetrate this malfeasance against another nation(s) it’s goes without saying that they should expect repercussions. THAT’S where the ‘fear’ comes from.

The only time or reason that a criminal is ‘fearful’ is of being caught, or otherwise retalitated against.

Bush is more like a pretext president.  He tells you to look to the left and then delivers a sucker punch from the right.  Remember when bullies would trip you in the hall and then point to someone else?

I think we have to go to war with Iran because we promised criminal elements in Israel and Saudi Arabia that we would take them out.  After all we owe bums from those two countries for their help with 911.

Warnings about a false flag nuclear attack are circulating all over the place.

I find it interesting that when George W Bush announces proudly that he is a war president, no one has the temerity to ask: Why are you proud of that? You only have to examine the sordid intervention into Iran over the last fifty odd years, by U.S. intelligence, to see that calling that country a threat to the United States is a pathetic joke. It is the U.S. government that is the threat, not only to the civilians in Iran, but to peaceful people throughout the world. The appetite for militarism is insatiable, fueled by the dual engines of fear and greed.

You don’t need to worry about spying on people or national I.D.’s when everyone just stays home watching TV.  TV pandering is the way of enforcing martial law.  As poverty and unemployment increases there will just be more people watching TV.  It is vital to convince the public that everything is for their own good, inevitable and that really they are at fault.

Reagan wore the cheap perfume, and Bush gave us the clap.  We love being suckered so.

Joe,

I’m delighted that I could introduce you to Naomi Klein. Yes, I’m familiar with her site, as I have been following her work for quite a long time now.

And yes, like me, she IS unbiased in her views. (no doubt I’ll get some snide remarks from that) We have a tendency to call things what they are, and as a general rule, (there are always exceptions) most academics are unbiased, if only because the work requires it. It’s impossible to establish any measure of credibility if one is obviously biased, and simply trying to blow smoke up the asses of anyone who might be inclined to believe you. So, it’s just a professional habit that one acquires, not just in scholarship or academics, but anytime any of us do work with the public at large, and for a long time. We ALL should learn more, how to examine the facts of any set of circumstances, in order to reach logical conclusions, and we have to know the differences between what are opinions, (ascertained by facts) and what is just a bunch of BS, based on personal ideology. And, we ALL have some biases. The point I think, is to be aware of them, in reference to whatever we’re saying.

However, that doesn’t always come across as “unbiased’ when people become caught up in the rhetoric of blogs, and quite often, what they say is as much a ‘reaction’ to something else, as it is their own unbiased opinion.

That at least, has been my own experience. So, I just find from time to time, that I have to take a breath, and simply ignore the most ignorant among the posters who ARE the most ignorant. This is a public space, and there’s really no ‘monitoring’ per se. In a way, that’s great, and it’s what I so much appreciate about the Truthdig site. I’ve discovered so much really value information from the many posters here. On the other hand, it also means that the loonies come out as well, so that has to be taken into account. At some point, everyone else, (like you for instance) can figure it out. (at least anybody that’s going to figure it out).

So, yes..keep reading Naomi’s stuff. She’s good. Very smart lady, and she does her work. I’m hoping to use her most recent work, (although it IS considered to be a ‘controversial’ work) in some upcoming seminars, as well as some things I’m hoping to put together for academic journals.

Happy New Year.

I agree with the consumerism and educating ourselves but there is one challenge I am not sure how we as a society can overcome.

In this day and age of dems/repubs. People are die-hard voters for their “party”.  I always joke that my grandma who is a devote democrat and Christian would vote for Satan if he were a democrat but she would not vote for Jesus if he was a republican.

People are so set in their “party” ways that they literally voted in Bush regardless of his real qualifications to lead or govern?  The average conservative and liberal just vote for the party not the person. 

I personally vote for the best candidate (which many times is a choice for the lesser of two evils) I do not consider party when I vote.

So, my concern is that if we are educated and informed, many will still feel compelled to vote for their party.  For example, the bible thumping 30% of our population can not vote against the Republican Party (or party of god) as they would be voting against god. 

Sincerely,

Frustrated!

This from my all time favorite website - for serious thinkers only.

I don’t generally plaster this site with the same links on various threads. BUT, I think this one is important enough to do that.

This is an interview with Namoi Klein, on her most recent and excellent work, “The Shock Doctrine”.
She doesn’t need any introductions from me, since her work speaks for itself.

But, for those without the time, or even the inclination maybe, to read the book, the interview will still provide what I believe to be very nutritious food for thought.

Happy New Year!

Naomi Klein on
the Shock Doctrine

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122807J.shtml

John Hanks,

You and your buddies sound like my dad and his buddies, not to mention several of my uncles on my mothers side. (none are politicians).

Without a doubt, many of my uncles, (all gone now) have been low level crooks. And, they all died broke. (never got to any organized mafia style crookery, and they didn’t indulge in any of the more high-stakes stuff) Like I said, light-weight rackets like numbers running and such. And, like you, my dad was never guilty of much