August 24, 2013

Plutocrats' New Pitch: Let Us Rob You Now So You Can Plan Ahead for Poverty

http://www.alternet.org/economy/pete-peterson-and-social-security

Somehow, I’ve wound up on the mailing list for a group of oligarchs campaigning to swindle Americans out of their hard-earned retirement insurance. Hedge fund billionaire Pete Peterson, the budget buffoons Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, and the rest of their merry band of hustlers over at the hilariously named Committee for a Responsible Budget have asked me to consider their latest proposal.

So I thought I’d oblige them, what the heck.

Judging from the shrill headline in their mailing, these men (and a token woman or two) wish to sell me on the idea of “Social Security Reform and the Cost of Delay.”

The cost of delay? Boys, I hear you on that. Any delay in ripping me off must be very costly — for you.

(More at the link.)

August 24, 2013

‘Occupy’ Group Organizes Victims of Alleged Loan Modification Scam

http://egpnews.com/2013/08/occupy-group-organizes-victims-of-alleged-loan-modification-scam/

Last year, buckling under the weight of a $3,000 monthly mortgage, East Los Angeles resident Catalina Gaitan needed help getting a loan modification. A commercial on a Spanish-language radio station lead her to the Siringoringo Law Firm, but nearly $6,000 later, Gaitan found herself in a much worse predicament.

She is now one of several people allegedly harmed by the law firm who is getting help from Occupy Fights Foreclosures (OFF), an organization aligned with Occupy LA.

Gaitan says she paid Siringoringo a $1,500 up front fee and that the firm also required that she pay a $495 monthly retainer fee — in the form of a monthly automatic withdrawal from her bank account — for the work she was told would take just three months to complete. She says she was also advised by a Siringoringo representative to stop making mortgage payments.

But the loan modification never came through and according to Gaitan, eight months of automatic withdrawals by the Siringoringo law firm left her with just $4 in her bank account.

(More at the link. Via Occupy Fights Foreclosures.)

August 23, 2013

Powerful ones, an emergency action against destruction

US warships move closer to Syria. Please effect a positive outcome in your own special manner please...


Charlie Kaye ?@CharlieKayeCBS

BREAKING. @CBSNews has learned that the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a Cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces


Syria are Iranian "best buddies/allies". Zion wants its war with Iran and this is its possible conduit, to something far worse. WE DO NOT WANT THIS...

August 23, 2013

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

August 23, 2013

From Spying on "Terrorists Abroad" to Suppressing Domestic Dissent: When We Become the Hunted

http://truth-out.org/news/item/18292-from-spying-on-terrorists-abroad-to-using-massive-surveillance-to-suppress-domestic-dissent-when-we-become-the-hunted

If you're wondering why the ongoing revelations about the development and use of a massive public and private surveillance complex should be of concern to you, read what Michael German, senior policy counsel for the ACLU (and former FBI agent), says about the new book, Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance:

Heidi Boghosian's 'Spying on Democracy' is the answer to the question, 'If you're not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone's watching you?' It's chock full of stories about how innocent people's lives were turned upside-down by public and private-sector surveillance programs. But more importantly, it shows how this unrestrained spying is inevitably used to suppress the most essential tools of democracy: the press, political activists, civil rights advocates and conscientious insiders who blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance and government abuse.

Truthout recently spoke with Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, about the ever-expanding government/corporate surveillance state.

(More at the link. Cross-posted from Occupy Underground.)

August 23, 2013

From Spying on "Terrorists Abroad" to Suppressing Domestic Dissent: When We Become the Hunted

http://truth-out.org/news/item/18292-from-spying-on-terrorists-abroad-to-using-massive-surveillance-to-suppress-domestic-dissent-when-we-become-the-hunted

If you're wondering why the ongoing revelations about the development and use of a massive public and private surveillance complex should be of concern to you, read what Michael German, senior policy counsel for the ACLU (and former FBI agent), says about the new book, Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance:

Heidi Boghosian's 'Spying on Democracy' is the answer to the question, 'If you're not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone's watching you?' It's chock full of stories about how innocent people's lives were turned upside-down by public and private-sector surveillance programs. But more importantly, it shows how this unrestrained spying is inevitably used to suppress the most essential tools of democracy: the press, political activists, civil rights advocates and conscientious insiders who blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance and government abuse.

Truthout recently spoke with Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, about the ever-expanding government/corporate surveillance state.

(More at the link.)

August 23, 2013

Greek community creates an off-the-grid Internet. "When you run your own network, nobody can shut it

Occupy Oakland ?@OccupyOakland

Greek community creates an off-the-grid Internet. "When you run your own network, nobody can shut it down."

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/greek-off-the-grid-internet-mesh/

August 22, 2013

People Who Got Shorter Sentences Than Chelsea Manning: Spies Selling Secrets To Russians etc...

techdirt ?@techdirt

People Who Got Shorter Sentences Than Bradley Manning: Spies Selling Secrets To Russians & Active Terrorists
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130821/18434224275/people-who-got-shorter-sentences-than-bradley-manning-spies-selling-secrets-to-russians-active-terrorists.shtml …


Take, for example, the case of David Henry Barnett, a CIA agent who directly sold secrets to the Russians, including but not limited to outing around 30 active CIA agents to the KGB. Oh, and at the urging of the KGB, he also tried to get a job on Capitol Hill in order to get access to more secrets. He was eventually caught and charged with espionage in 1980... and received an 18 year sentence. Got that? Directly sell the identity of CIA agents to the KGB and you get about half the time that Manning got, not for revealing the identity of any intelligence agents, but basically for embarrassing the State Department and the military. That doesn't seem right.

Okay. And how about people, including Americans, who actively tried to hurt America? Remember, Manning made it quite clear his goal was to help America. But that's not true for these five people who joined the Taliban or teamed up with terrorists working on plans to attack America. Those people actively wanted to harm America. And they got shorter sentences.

David Hicks: An Australian national who was captured fighting alongside the Taliban and sent to Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002, Hicks plead guilty to material support for terrorism in a Gitmo military commission in 2007 and was sentenced to seven years confinement. That sentence was reduced to nine months given time already served.

John Walker Lindh: Lindh was convicted of a slew of terrorism and conspiracy charges in 2003 for fighting with the Taliban against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.


(More at the link.)

August 22, 2013

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

Samwise ?@SamwiseEyes

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance
http://www.filmsforaction.org/news/8_reasons_young_americans_dont_fight_back_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance/#.UhZ1YsMTgSA.twitter …

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt—and the fear it creates—is a pacifying force. There was no tuition at the City University of New York when I attended one of its colleges in the 1970s, a time when tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to get a B.A. and even a graduate degree without accruing any student-loan debt. While those days are gone in the United States, public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt.

snip

2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance. In 1955, Erich Fromm, the then widely respected anti-authoritarian leftist psychoanalyst, wrote, “Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.” Fromm died in 1980, the same year that an increasingly authoritarian America elected Ronald Reagan president, and an increasingly authoritarian American Psychiatric Association added to their diagnostic bible (then the DSM-III) disruptive mental disorders for children and teenagers such as the increasingly popular “oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD). The official symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules,” “often argues with adults,” and “often deliberately does things to annoy other people.”

snip

(More at the link.)

August 22, 2013

All your money and privacy are belong to BushCo

Inspired by Duer go west young man's current thread (0) in which he posits that through Booz Allen, the Bush family has access to all of our email. Barely scratching the surface here:


HW Bush was once the head of the CIA (the same people involved in the Iranian Coup) (1). He helped arrange the supposed “October Surprise” in which the Iranians agreed (late 1970s) to hold the US hostages until Reagan gained office, to make Reagan appear powerful and a good leader (2). Note that Bush family friends OPEC engaged in an embargo against Carter which made him look weak and powerless. (Bush family friends Enron later used embargo tactics in California to drive out the governor in a special election. Arnold Schwarzenneger was elected. Enron had met with Arnold prior to engaging in the embargo tactics. Both times hitting Americans in their pocketbooks and personal convenience, a prime motivator to demanding change, even if the change benefits those creating the undesired negative conditions from which the desire springs, to benefit themselves. “Creating causes and conditions.”) (3)

W Bush ignored a document entitled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US” which paved the way to 9/11 and the subsequent surveillance state. Note that Bush family friends the neocons also had a document entitled “Project for a New American Century”...”Section V of Rebuilding America's Defenses, entitled 'Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force', includes the sentence: 'Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor'. (4)

“The PNAC's stated goal is 'to promote American global leadership.' Fundamental to the PNAC were the view that 'American leadership is both good for America and good for the world'”. (5) Also note that the leaked Citigroup “Plutonomy” memos indicate that globalisation is a prime driver of Plutonomy.(6) Some Saudis, Bush friends, are aligned with Citigroup. (7)

But back to 9/11. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

Because we HAVE to stop TERROR!

TERROR! For God's sake, TERROR! Won't someone think of the children!?

And off we go into Iraq, after significant conflation of “Saddam” and “9/11” flowed freely. In Iraq, as depicted in “Fahrenheit 9/11”, taxpayer dollars flowed freely into the coffers of start-ups eager to gnosh at the trough. The “We are New Fields” segment is most telling regarding the profit engine available in Iraq to canny investors. Custer Battles being well-known, but with Dick Cheney's Halliburton being the most brash:

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2004 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- Five former Halliburton employees and one former executive of a Halliburton subcontractor describe egregious examples of abuse involving Halliburton's Iraq contracts. In a letter written by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), these whistleblowers describe instances where Halliburton employees would abandon or torch new trucks -- worth $80,000 -- if they acquired a flat tire or other minor mechanical problems. Halliburton would subsequently purchase new trucks with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

The former employees also described repeated instances of theft involving both Halliburton and Army personnel. One employee complained to Halliburton's KBR chief, Randy Harl, about the contracting abuse, but two weeks later he was fired.

Another former employee said Halliburton purchased soda for $45 per case and laundry bags for $100 each.

Employees billed the government for work even when they sat around and did nothing all day. These employees spent weeks in Iraq with virtually nothing to do, but were instructed by Halliburton to bill the government for 12 hours per day for seven days of work. (8)

This is a business model for pocketing tax dollars while making the citizen grateful they're doing it. All the “new fields” opportunist need do is create the opportunity. TERROR!

Among those profiteering from taxpayer dollars is the Bush family's Carlyle Group. Today, the surveillance state installed as a direct result of 9/11 funnels billions of dollars directly to the Bush family:

“In total, Booz Allen Hamilton made over $5 billion last fiscal year.” (9)

Note that the Bush family Carlyle Group owns 2/3rds of Booz Hamilton and recently pocketed $2 billion from this relationship. (10)

Note that last year Booz Allen won a $23 million contract with the Saudi Navy to provide many services including electronic warfare. (11)

In fact, you'll get 1310 hits if you search the Booz Allen website for “booz allen saudi jobs”, everything from “IT vulnerability analyst” to “Military Logistics Advisor”. (12)

Oh WTF?

How about “Health Data Mining Analyst, Senior Job"?

“Applicants selected will be subject to a security investigation and may need to meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.” (13)

I cannot find the link but I'd read that the Bush family (sorry: Booz Allen) are teaching the Saudis how to data mine their people.

Where does this end? One thing is most telling: There is no exit strategy for the “war on terror”. Same as with the massively profitable “war on drugs”. Gotta keep those tax dollars flowing

BECAUSE TERROR!

HW Bush on the "new world order" : "When we are successful...and we will be..."


In summation:

We've got a group of CIA-based, government-toppling/puppet-installing spooks and neocons intent upon “ Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force” through “some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor”. Given 9/11, creating a surveillance state both limiting and incrementally eliminating the Constitution and freedoms upon which our country was built. Massive personal profit for the extremely rich both here and their friends abroad. Privatization of our electronic communication. Privatization of our tax dollars. Pretty much a Plutonomist coup. The NSA/Snowden/Greenwald attackers here on DU never seem to mention the amount of money and power involved in the surveillance state or the people and corporations behind it. They are in danger of directly supporting the Bush family in their defense of the surveillance state and attacking any who criticize it! The surveillance state has an annual budget of $1 trillion! (14) OUR tax dollars! They have to push "austerity" (sequester) but look at all that money going to the Bush family...

0 If Booze, Allen, Hamilton=access to all the worlds emails....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023489060

1 CIA Admits It Was Behind Iran's Coup
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/18/cia_admits_it_was_behind_irans_coup

2 October Surprise
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise#1980_Carter_vs._Reagan

3 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room

4 PNAC: New Pearl Harbor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#.22New_Pearl_Harbor.22

5 PNAC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

6 (Third memo, “The Plutonomy Symposium: Rising Tides Lifting Yachts”)
http://our99angrypercent.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/download-citigroup-plutonomy-memos/

7 (In March 2013, Forbes listed Al Waleed as the 26th-richest man in the world...his holdings in Citigroup now comprise about $1 billion.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Waleed_bin_Talal

8 Halliburton bills taxpayers $45 per case of soda, $100 per bag of laundry
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/whistleblower_hearings_denied.html

9 (Current thread by kpete: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023481879 )
5 Companies That Make Money By Keeping Americans Terrified of Terror Attacks
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/5-companies-make-money-keeping-americans-terrified-terror-attacks?paging=off

10 Carlyle Group has made $2 billion off Booz Allen
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/06/10/the-carlyle-group-has-made-2-billion-off-of-booz-allen/

11 Booz Allen wins $23.2M contract with Saudi navy
http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/07/31/booz-allen-hamilton-contract-with-saudi-naval-forces.aspx

12 Career search: Booz Allen Saudi Jobs
http://careers.boozallen.com/search?q=booz+allen+hamilton+saudi+jobs

13 Career: Data Mining
http://careers.boozallen.com/job/Rockville-Health-Data-Mining-Analyst,-Senior-Job-MD-20847/2683117/

14 Meet the Contractors Turning America's Police Into a Paramilitary Force
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12525281

For further reading:

How America's Top Tech Companies Created the Surveillance State
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023378102

Meet the upcoming "Conflict Records Research Center" dedicated to data and metadata analysis.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023449669

And all of these:

https://www.google.com/search?q=know+your+bfee&sitesearch=democraticunderground.com

Also, the Saudis have a majority interest in Time/Warner. This is where Colin Powell went after government service. The same Colin Powell who in an interview prior to 9/11 stated that the Iraqis had, IIRC, limited conventional armament if any. After 9/11 he didn't repeat that once.

"All your" reference:



Cross-posted from GD.