With the last comments in mind from Karl and Palin ,bankster spin docs could field something like Oil flows from north America to Europe. Gold kept safe for Democracy! the whole time Oil prices are kept high for speculators and rockefeller!More Gold for private reserve to invest and loan to them selves.Russia is a social democracy now.a free country. Cicero's corner stone of Law Who Benefits?

Think they will give the Ukraine Bankers that is! the same % they give China and the Saudi's on that gold?

So, the US is sending $18bn to the Ukraine? Except there have been reports that the US just recently took possession of Ukraine's gold...flew it back to the US (for safe keeping ;-})??

"Ukraine’s Gold Reserves Secretely Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?
The Spoils of War and Regime Change"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraines-gold-reserves-secretely-flown-out-...

wire.com/2014/03/21/the-latest-heist-us-quietly-snatches-the-ukraines-gold-reserves/

What better way of keeping gold out of the hands of the Russians should they take the Ukraine. What better way of keeping gold out of circulation. What better way of locking the Ukraine in debt by loaning them US dollars. Some countries were trying to break away from the petro dollar and this was a big threat to the US. Gadaffi, in Libya, was going off it and starting to circulate gold coins. NATO confiscated Libya's gold as well.

Frac: Acharya S. (aka Dorothy Murdock) has a lot of interesting history on how more ancient religions influenced modern day religions. Oh, yes, and also how astrology is woven into religion as well. I believe, however, that she is in to astrology herself (as a belief)...so I consider astrology to be a mixture of superstition and astronomy (the science). So, I don't buy everything about her beliefs. But she is very intelligent and knowledgeable in archeology and ancient history and can read several ancient languages. But, I guess you probably already know all of this.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell's Teapot.

Quote wikipedia:In an article titled "Is There a God?" commissioned, but never published, by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Russell wrote:

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.[1]

In 1958, Russell elaborated on the analogy as a reason for his own atheism:

I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Quote wikipedia:The "Flying Spaghetti Monster" was first described in a satirical open letter written by Bobby Henderson in 2005 to protest the Kansas State Board of Education decision to permit teaching intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes.[6] In that letter, Henderson satirized creationist ideas by professing his belief that whenever a scientist carbon-dates an object, a supernatural creator that closely resembles spaghetti and meatballs is there "changing the results with His Noodly Appendage". Henderson argued that his beliefs were just as valid as those of intelligent design, and called for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism to be allotted equal time in science classrooms alongside intelligent design and evolution.[7] After Henderson published the letter on his website, the Flying Spaghetti Monster rapidly became an Internet phenomenon and a symbol of opposition to the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
http://www.venganza.org/about/ The web site of FSM.

Of course the Republican's will go along with spending on foreign policy interests like the Ukraine situation. There's a potential new war to be had...more killing for profit. Beyond that, Republican agreement on spending "over there" is no threat to the lessening of their austerity driven economic terrorism "here." The Reagan/Bush tax cuts for the super rich have created a perfect environment for this terrorism. Blaming deficits and economic problems on unions and progressive policy, like the social safety net, is the end game for these Fascist scoundrels.

The Teapublican Party is fully confident that this economic misery they're inflicting on our working class will be viewed by more than 50% of the voters, as the fault of the person in the White House, who happens to be a Democrat. This is all being made possible thanks to Citizens United and the Fascist sponsorship and control of our Corpse Mass Media. Voting is no longer going to restore our democracy. The social contract has been broken. The Fascist private powers are now in complete control. How anything other than a complete "nonviolent?" revolution will restore power to the people is beyond me.

P.S. As an afterthought, I'll submit an example of a veterinary practice that is indeed abusive, that serves no purpose except the comfort and convenience of humans: de-clawing. Everytime I meet someone who has de-clawed a cat, I have to bite my lip and restrain myself from saying something I might later regret. - AIW

Yep, Ukraine's new unelected government has a "nice little lifeline from Washington" while Americans citizens, unemployed by no fault of their own, must make do with no lifeline at all. Swell. Have fun paying your taxes, suckers.

Ever notice how these facists love unelected governments? Dictators haven't fared too badly with them either.

God bless America. - Aliceinwonderland

humanitys team - To change from one belief to another, seems to me, to be doing the Einstein quote that you mentioned. You mentioned some beliefs, but there are many other beliefs that people hold that are very different from those. And a belief is not actual, it is a fantasy. It does not exist. It's expressed in many ways, an ideal, an image, a philosophy, an ideology, a system and other ways. So, what IS different is to end beliefs entirely. When you end believing, what are you left with? The actual, the 'what is' Now you see who you actually are. As well as others. You see the futility of solving symptoms and not solving the problem. You quoted Einstein. He had another one that eventually made sense to me. 'We can not solve our problems by using the same level of thinking that we used to create them.'. I am suggesting that ending beliefs is a different level of thinking.

johnbest

They will NEVER cut anything which helps their corporate buddies and yes, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits and health care, education and help for children to feed and house them is EXACTLY where they want the cuts. That way it keep the poor even poorer and enslaves them - back to indentured servitude for them to use and abuse.

If you do not have money and cannot help them - all of them in the Senate and the House - then you are just a piece of crap on their shoe and not worthy of any assistance from them. The ONLY people they help are the corporations with tax cuts, allowing them to outsource jobs and off shore their money, help Wall Street and the bankers keep their money instead of it going out to the people which is where it was intended to go - that is their goal.

If we, the people, the 99%, do not get off our collective asses and hit the voting booths in the next local, township, state and national elections then it is OUR fault. Whatever it takes. Go back and read some of Howard Zinn's writings and you will see what he said about what we MUST do to take back our government. Unless and until we are willing to do that we continue to get just what we have now.

I'm sorry, nothing I wrote was that complicated, and required some interim step to be done. You just DO them.

Furthermore, send bush, cheney and rumsfeld to the Hague to be tried for crimes against humanithy, crimes against peace and war crimes. Prosecute the banksters who drove us into the Great Republican Depression of 2009. Prosecute the oil trillionaires who dirty our rivers, rail lines and oceans with crude oil. Overturn Citizens United. Impeach Scalia and Thomas. Try Cantor for treason for taking 24 of his henchmen to Israel in 2009 and telling them to ignore President Obama. If these allegations are true, he should be tried for treason and shot by firing squad in front of the Capitol.

Thank you, Thom, for that information on the Mike Lofgren interview on Moyers & Moyers. I watched it and it was refreshing to hear a Republican fess up. As he said in the interview...it took quite a while of seeing various things that just didn't add up..before he came to the conclusion that the visible government was not the real government pulling the strings in this country. I'm glad he not only had the moral forthrightness to quit the Republican Party but now speaks out against the whole corrupt government...both Republican and Democrat and the many, many corporations that own them. He talked about the revolving door illustrating that most of the Generals go right into the military industrial corporate complex. And other corporate big shots get paid millions of dollars to quit and go into positions of government to "regulate" the corporations they just left. Obviously, they don't actually 'regulate' them...they use their new powers to benefit the corporations they left.

Most of us already knew these things anyway but it is refreshing that it is reiterated by someone that held such a powerful right-wing position.

They also commented on the conspiracy of government organizations and various corporate sectors...like Silicon Valley and that the government couldn't do what it does without Silicon Valley. But Silicon Valley is starting to balk at cooperating with the government...that they have gone too far. And if it had not been for Snowden we may not have totally caught them at their insidious spying games.

Here's Bill Moyers' web site with the 30 minute video:

http://billmoyers.com/episode/the-deep-state-hiding-in-plain-sight/

note: there is also an essay: "Anatomy of the Deep State"
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/