Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
This partly sums up the Syrian intervention...
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/1081/xh10.png
We're only concerned about human rights violations that take place atop of large oil reserves or in the path of important pipelines. Chemical weapons use is like "eating peas with a knife". It justifies dispensing with any restraint to punish such an infraction against codes of decency.
@Mark
Not only the so-called lefties predicting that Syria was next. US Generals!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw
Btw, the lefties and liberals are notorious for supporting humanitarian wars of intervention, like the UK's BBC and Guardian media. They always supported Tony Blair's wars of aggression. Fake lefties and progressives, methinks.
Here's hoping that democracy beats tyranny in the US...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-american-people-have-spoken-calls-to-co...
Shock Poll Results Just In ;-)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/poll-majority-of-americans-approve-of-s...
@Palindromedary
Exactly. The murderous cynicism of the Nazis is to be found in the sneering cynicism of the banksters as they enslave us using debt. Greg Palast's research seems like a slam dunk to me if that memo stands up to scrutiny. The plan was to tear down banking regulation all over the world and the prime conduit for transmiting the bankster fraud is the private central bank. Another reason for going to war against Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran.
As an aside, it seems that the decision to tear down a country using violence is triggered when certain global interests align - the bankster cartel; the neocon middle-east agenda; shoring up the petro-dollar etc...
It's been said to death but I still like it.
The "March + 50" showcased that King and Obama are really very similar. King said, "I have a dream!" and Obama said, "I have a drone!"
I want the latter to give back his Nobel Peace Prize.
He also said - to paraphrase - "My political opponents can kill me but they cannot induce or compel ME to kill. Thus they cannot defeat me in my purpose."
I remember just after the invasion of Iraq there was speculation among the lefty academic analysts and experts that Syria was "next". Administration spokespeople laughed it off, "Hahaha, Syria's not next." They were called on it so they backed off.
They waited a decent interval but are now back at it. They don't need "boots on the ground" as they already got 'em - those of their proxies, those patriotic freedom fighters of the rebel army, to effect regime change.
I is a very old political trick to commit an act of terrorism and blame it on the other side. The "mortar round in the marketplace" of Sarajevo is an example and the U.S. C.I.A. did many things like that to get us into Viet Nam and could have construed some thing like that here in Syria. It doesn't make sense for Assad to have willfully crossed the "Red Line" unless he was suicidal.
I guess the cheap oil in Iraq just isn't good enough - or cheap enough - without a pipeline through Syria.
I support the use of our military to stop the use of chemical weapons. In our current situation, we have blood/chemicals on our own hands. I propose we apologize to the Iranians for the CIA's involvement with the overthrow of Mosadeq. Then apologize for supplying Saddam Hussein with the chemical weapons that killed about 100,000 Iranians. Turn H. W. Bushe, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld over to the Hague with the evidence of their participation for war crimes. Then go back to the Iranians and see if we can stop the carnage. I know Americans are exceptional in that they expect others to act in a fashion that we don't but think it would be a good thing and sign treaty's, conventions, etc. to show how good we are.
Obama and his conservative advisors have cynically said that liberals must support him because they have nowhere else to go. Could a strong liberal stand against his Syrian military action lead him to revise his opinion that we are always a safe vote for whatever he proposes? It might even align the progressives with the people they (supposedly) represent.
Coincidently, my recommendations would have been those men with guns breaking down your door.
Why do they go?
The troops charging Fredericksburg.
The bonzai charges in Guadalcanal and the South Pacific.
Why do they do it? Every soldier has got to be thinking and wanting the same thing right before the whistle blows to send them up and over the wall and directly into machine gun fire.
I'm sure this has got to baffle political strategist who are always trying as hard as possible for that one angle or 'push' to get the masses on their side of the fine line of an issue.
But staring down certain death and doom (or most optimistically, becoming horrificaly disfigured and crippled for life) youve got to believe that every soldier involved is most definately on the side of, "umm, maybe this isn't such a great idea?" vs. "CHAAARGE!!!!"
I know it sounds presumptuous but Id be willing to wager that ALL of the people involved would be against going through with this act of sheer lunacy. Shouldn't there be, just by chance, at least one natural public speaker in the crowd of terrified soldiers who can speak up for all and convey the obvious?
Apparently, NO, never went down like that.
CHARGE!!!!! ARRRRRRRRRGH- game over, everyone loses.
On a side note, I've been debating the justification of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in the mid 40's. And, so far, I've boiled it down to this question, "If the roles were switched, would Japan NOT have dropped the bomb on the US because of conscience or what have you?"
My answer to that is, "No, it would have gone down more like this: (Zero airplane noise)errrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRR-BONZAAAAIIIIIIII-end of transmission."
souinwonder is absolutely right. In fact, "corporations" are a legal construction. Eliminate the basic idea that any business can be separated from the actions of its owner/employees. If the corporation breaks the law, the owners are personally responsible.
i had a great pleasurable time out there. Thanks for making my trip such a great success with your services in all aspects. I just love Ukraine! It is really a great destination for holidays. essay writing services Can you inform me a bit earlier, because i have to make preparations for my next KaZantip festival? I don’t want to take chances and i don’t want to Miss KaZantip. One more thing thanks for making my trip a memorable one.
Hi Thom-I think when you debate these pseudo-libertarians (especially on economic issues like the San Franciso/Walmart story yesterday) you would do well with disarming them from the outset. The easiest way to do this is to have them acknowledge that corporations wouldn't exist in a truly free market. Incorporation, as Dean Baker explains, is one of the great gifts to conservatives from the "nanny state".
Once they acknowledge that a corporation is an unnatural creation of government- if they then take a pro-corporation tack- they've admitted that they are actually for government taking an active role in the economy. The debate then becomes about how the government should be active.
Just my .02
Jason
During war, people can get away with murder! ;-O
Even in the Wannsee Conference the participants used a kind of code word lingo and never actually, specifically said anything about outright murdering the Jews...although that is what it was all about..the logistics. It had already been determined well before the conference that the "final solution", itself a euphemism, would entail mass murdering 11 million European Jews. The one time they came close was to say that the work camps would, of course, inevitably result in some people dying of being overworked. They used the term "old age ghetto" where they sent anyone over 65...oh, and anyone else who were deemed unable to work. What they were really referring to were gas chambers. But they didn't want to outright incriminate themselves in a meeting where they recorded their discussions. So they used euphemisms..nice sounding words...code words. They use euphemisms today..ie: code words that sound nice but really mean something entirely different.
You may be on to something there, Flopot! Did you know that the Nazis actually made the Jews to pay for their relocation to the ghettos...the first step in their journey on those trains to the work camps and gas chambers? And then, if the poor Jews couldn't afford it...the Nazis heavily taxed the rich Jews to pay for the transportation. And besides that, the Nazis ended up robbing them all before and after their death....even their hair, skin, and gold teeth fillings, not to mention any property or other tangible assets they had. They even got something like $9 million from rich Jews outside of Germany to help pay for the transportation for the poor Jews. Master deceivers, those Nazis! How else do you manage to kill roughly 6 million Jews...half of the originally planned 11 million all over Europe. The Nazis even had musically talented Jews play chamber music for the arriving Jews just off the box cars so they wouldn't panic and run.
The US (but it is not just the US) has some master deceivers of their own...like that guy from the WTO that Greg Palast interviewed. The ones that created the financial schemes and scams like derivatives. If they can't trick you into participating in so-called investments that are rigged to rob you of every penny, they'll find ways of sending you to virtual gas chambers. They may or may not put a gun to your head and pull the trigger or push you into an actual gas chamber but they can elicit the end result just the same through skillfully causing your early demise through creating poverty related illnesses...unaffordable healthcare*...manipulation of the currency so that your savings are no longer worth anything...sending your jobs overseas. Or, life's savings investment or pension plans we were all cajoled into participating in disappears** because some massive conspiracy by Wannsee-Conference-like economic behind-the-scenes manipulators plotted how they were going to massively rip everyone off. Maybe, if we the people ever win this economic war we can have Nuremberg-like trials in...say Chicago, where much of the current Neo-economic school of thought has ruined much of the world who fell for it. Obama went to that school...why did we ever fall for his bullsh!t in the first place?
Now that the upper classes have cheap laborers in China they no longer need the wage slaves in the US. It is clear that the "old age ghettos" in the US may not be in any one or few locations like they were in Nazi Germany. They don't have to be because now they know who we are, where we are, they can track us, they can monitor everything we say by using the internet and a network of public surveillance cameras and spy satellites. And it is even possible to spy on us by listening to every word we say in our kitchens and bedrooms. The technology is such that they can easily build listening devices into the manufacturing of any device we put into our homes like refrigerators, microwaves, phones, dish washers. They have pin-hole cameras that they can plant in your homes to watch what you do...and they can watch you through your laptop or home computer video devices. If you don't know how to activate/deactivate them then at least keep tape over the lens when not in use. Yes, it sounds crazy...it sounds paranoid...but: "CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher" http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/
They've come a long way from the IBM tabulating cards used in Nazi Germany. They don't need centralized ghettos. The whole of the US is becoming a large ghetto monitored by technology. We are even helping in that endeavor by using our cell phones, tablets, lap tops, home computers, and even in the cars we buy that can be tracked by satellite...even remotely caused to crash into trees at high speed. And the "unseen hand" of crapitalism is slowly "gassing" us all. Less fuss..less mess..and they don't even have to dig mass graves...yet!
*Obama care is not going to be affordable healthcare. It will be a government strong-arming the people to pay whatever the insurance bandits demand. It is just another euphemism to elicit the final solution against masses of people in the lower classes. Their plan is to make social security, medicare, or any other social program unnecessary by manipulating the system where masses of vulnerable people will die early.
**The next step is to have massive bank failures ostensibly caused by some fictitious ploy...like maybe...foreign hackers causing massive numbers of wire transfers of bank funds ...wire transfers...to their overseas accounts..probably try to blame it on the Iranians or Chinese. The FDIC will claim that they have been overwhelmed and can't possibly cover their insurance guarantees...so the people, the savers, are out of their money while the bankster scamsters, who did the real wire transfers to the own accounts, count all their booty now sitting in their offshore accounts.
Actually, Thom, the watchers are watching each other. As sociopaths, they are incapable of trusting or being trustworthy, and so they spy on each other so they can blackmail each other. This is one of the "unfortunate" flaws in their plan for world dominance: they are incapable of true cooperation. They are capable of pretending to cooperate with each other in their drive to turn 99% of humanity into slaves, but doing so requires so many peoples' cooperation that statistically speaking it is a given that many key players will turn against them, such as Snowden and Manning, Wikileaks, and so on.
I don't see any alternative, except to limit Assad's ability to make war on his people.He's no abraham lincoln.
Unfortunately Syria is at the confluence of several global patterns - the Western desire to regain control of Iranian oil and Syria is in the way; the now verified international Bankster plot to control the finance of all economies, meaning private central banks and Syria is in the way; the conflict over Western and Eastern plans for oil and gas pipelines and control of Syria is vital.
Friend, I understand why this sting occurs, but I strongly believe that it is this sting that needs to be addressed in all of us, and not the word. As long as we have any shame or hatered attached to such a small jesture. You're right, it's not a gesture, it's less, its a mere word. Not action.
, the whole point of the expression, sticks and stones... is not too make each insult less painful, but to help us realize that we can simply decide to not allow them to be.
(easier said than done, I agree, but I'm just trying to re-adjust our sights on our artillary in this war against the primitive practice of racism.)
Please tell me that your heading to keep this up! Its so very good and so important. I cant wait to read far more from you. essay writing service I just feel like you know so very much and know how to make people listen to what you've got to say.
Smilodon! Why the hell did that never occur to me?! That's brilliant! We're humans too! USA needs some Checks and Balances on the USA as a whole and its affects to the Earth!!
It is my opinion that President Obama has reached his apex, and is a going along with the establishment. What a disappointment.
You really make it appear so easy along with your presentation however I find this matter to be actually one thing which I believe I would never understand. It sort of feels too complicated and very wide for me. "" I am looking forward for your next put up, essay writing service I am requiring myself to read "" articles more often and your writing just caught my interest.Thank you ! Wow! Thank you! I continually needed to write on my site something like that. Please let me know if you're looking for a article author for your weblog. You have some really great posts and I feel I would be a good asset thanks!!!
The Bigger Picture (pun intended :P)
Remember that Obama is a pawn of the international bankster cartel. Recent evidence has come to light explaining how this cartel deliberately tore down financial barriers (i.e. laws!) around the world to allow the banks to control and enslave other nations. Those nations who refuse to join the private bankster cartel are invaded or threatened with economic sanctions. It really does seem to be that simple. But don't listen to me, here's Greg Palast to make you sit up and cry...
Here's the context...
http://www.maxkeiser.com/2013/09/making-the-world-safe-for-banksters-syr...
Here's Palast's article...
http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/
Here is the video of Palast confronting a top bankster-friend, the Director General of the WTO. It is a frightening example of double-think - the man admits that deregulation let derivatives spread like "mad cow disease" but if you attempt to block derivatives from entering your country we will penalize you! He equates financial fraud with freedom and democracy. Insane and Criminal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKqJmEPuBgc&feature=player_embedded
It is like a "Wannsee Memo" of the financial "crisis" which now seems like a deliberate plot to enslave our countries to debt.
You know it is not just the Government that I worry about when signing petitions. You have to use your real name..address...phone number...email address..or do you? And when you use real information on the internet...even if you think your information is just going to go to the servers you intend them to go to, that leaves you wide open to compromise your security. Even if those petition sites use https the hackers can and do hack into those web sites that store your personal data.
I don't even bank on-line because I don't trust it. I've been to the Pastebin.com website and seen thousands of bank account numbers, account names, and balances...and if you wanted to know the passwords you had to pay.
Yes, I know that just about any business that retains data on you, including sites like Amazon or even your hospital or medical records can be, and have, been hacked. Just filling out those on-line forms require the use of javascript and that can be dangerous. Although one's internet browsing enjoyment would be greatly compromised if you never allowed javascript unless you have some control over it you are just wide open to not only being hacked but you would be allowing unseen junk to fill up your hard drive...much of it could be malware.
How do you even really know that that petition site is legitimate and not a Phished site pretending to be a legitimate petition site? You would just act on your emotions and dutifully type in your data and then...compromised! Gotcha! And before you know it...you find out that someone hacked into various e-commerce web sites using your name and managed to figure out your username and password that you thought was safe to use the same one over the many web sites you log into... using the same usernames and passwords. And Voila! All your bank accounts drained into some foreigner's bank.
This actually happened by the way...and the guy who got taken should have known better because he was a computer guru who wrote articles on computers. Little bits of data here...little bits of data there and they know all about you including very sensitive data...bank accounts...credit cards...names...addresses...telephone numbers...passwords. And the only reason he even knew he was hacked was because the hacker (just a kid) wasn't after his money but just thought it was fun and bragged about it..even freely talking to the guy about his exploit. Which is how he knew how he got hacked.
Using the same username and password at every place you need one..allows someone to gather up little bits of data to paint a broad picture on you. You may think you didn't tell everything at one site but you forgot you said other things at all the other places...and you used the same username and simple password at all of them.
So simple, then, to log in to say... Amazon and get the credit card numbers. And once you start getting id validators like credit card numbers, names, addresses, etc...you can move on to other things more compromising.
When you see that form, at those petition sites, staring back at you..do you also see an https rather than just an http in the url box? If not, that is a big warning that you shouldn't even type your data in those form fields.
Know what!? I went to both of those petition web sites and the form was there to fill out but it sure wasn't using secure http..ie: https which means that the data you enter into those forms will not be encrypted before your data is sent.
update: I did a Wireshark capture while sending dummy form information to the Kucinich web site and I initially saw https, in the Wireshark capture, that I thought was a result of the first page I sent but the https I saw was actually from the second page that popped up thanking me for signing the petition and asking for 10 emails of friends. That second page was https. So, it looks like that first page that you type your personal data into is not secure while the second page is.
Here it is:
email: Adolf@aol.com
first name: Adolf
last name: Hitler
This is what gets sent to the internet:
email=Adolf%40aol.com&firstname=Adolf&lastname=Hitler&addr1=&addr2=&zip=&custom-306=Would+prefer+not+to+answer&best-contact-time=&submit-btn=Sign+The+Petition&redirect_url=
Using Wireshark, if form data is sent...you can see whether it used http or https to send data...if http... then you can actually see your username, password, etc. that you typed into the form being sent over the internet in the open... so anyone, who is monitoring it, can see it. If you send an unencrypted email, you can read the email that is sent out on the internet using Wireshark. With Wireshark you can read whatever goes out and whatever comes in to your computer to/from the internet.
I also noticed that after filling out the forms at the Kucinich web site that when the URL said http...after I sent it...the next page pops up thanking you for signing the petition and asks you to fill in 10 more emails of "friends" (yeah, right, thanks a lot "friend"! ..now the "friends" will be pestered for donations)! But, at least, this time it says https in the URL box..this second page does indicate secure. It didn't protect your first page data but it protects the second page data. Not consoling!
I really detest these damn petition sites for even asking for other people's emails. That's really sick! I don't know of anyone (friends) who would welcome being put on a list without their first agreeing to it...but these petitioners don't care...they just want email addresses so that they can pester people for donations. And I wouldn't doubt that they sell this information as well!
And finally, if these "data-miner" petition web sites don't have it all together and don't use methods for preventing hacking methods like SQL Injection then they are wide open for some hacker to use SQL Injection to break into their database and gain access to all that personal information.
Certain unexpected sequence of characters entered into the form... can elicit responses by the software on the server that will allow a hacker to break into the databases. This is widely known and frequently used. When I see someone not using HTTPS...and especially if I can get a "thank you for your signature" when I entered garbage..then I wonder if they are also vulnerable to an SQL Injection attack. Which I'm not going to try. At times I entered really garbage email and first and last names other than what I listed above...and got through to the second "thank you" page.