News Roundup (3), June 2015

We live in a world that is sometimes loving…

… and sometimes brutal and unforgiving….

As carnal humans on Earth, we embody the noble-savage qualities of nature.

This is part 3 of a three-part  news roundup for the first half of the year, looking at the fractious (unruly) side of humanity that’s reared its head around the world lately. The two earlier installments look at a fragmented  (divided) humanity and fractured (broken) planet.

Snapshot of an Unruly World

Headlines from around the globe suggest that we humans are as unruly as ever… but the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other clandestine government organizations such as the NSA, now may be among the biggest catalysts of hate and fear throughout the world.

Europe

Ukraine. Fighting was intense in January despite a cease-fire agreement between Ukrainians who feel close ties to Russia (which is the vast majority of Ukrainians, especially in the eastern end of the country) and a small group of Ukrainians who overthrew the government in Kiev last year to align the country with NATO countries in Europe. It all started around May 2014, when a group of right-wing US senators introduced a bill (below) that is essentially a declaration of war against Russia. The bill was submitted around the same time that the US State Department and CIA orchestrated an overthrow of the Ukrainian government.  (Read more… )

 Known as the breadbasket of Europe, the Ukraine, with its rich, dark soil and vast farms and dairies, is comparable to the American Midwest.

If the Ukraine were plucked out of Europe and moved to America, it would resonate geographically with the fertile Midwest. Ukraine also includes Crimea, which has connections to vast oil and gas and the open seas… all in all a rich enough region to make the US military-industrial complex drool… and plot and plan… and stir up a smokescreen of hate while grabbing for Ukrainian resources and strategic positioning…. (Read more… )

Russia. Boris Nemtsov, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war in the Ukraine, was assassinated in February, near Red Square. It was set up to look like an assassination by the Putin administration, but evidence and past experience suggest that it was really the work of the US State Department and CIA… an effort to cast Putin in an international bad light. (Read more…  and   here…)

France. Two masked gunmen killed 11 people and wounded 11 more in the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, France. The magazine’s cartoons and commentaries, often described as irreverent and vulgar, were particularly offensive to Muslims. The two gunmen were brothers and members of an Islamist militant group in Yemen. The brothers escaped but were killed by police two days later, January 9.

The Charlie Hebdo magazine has been described as irreverent, lewd, vulgar, and offensive.

(Read more… )

Denmark. On February 14, a similar attack occurred in Denmark for similar reasons… cartoonist Lars Vilks had been publishing rather child-like cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog… also extremely offensive to Muslims.

In the Denmark incident, an Islamic militant gunman first fired into a café where Vilks was speaking, killing one man and injuring three policemen. The gunman escaped, and the next day targeted a synagogue, killing another man and wounding two more policemen. Later in the day, the gunman was killed during a shootout with police.

A policy of common courtesy and respect in the media would defuse the kind of violence that happened this year in France and Denmark… but the savage side of human nature is not so easy to repress. While the mainstream media generally (and arguably, perhaps)  tries to sustain a noble front, the savage side flourishes here and there out along the fringes of journalism… and savagery usually breeds more savagery. (Read more… )

Middle East

Ever since the Bush-Cheney presidency set out on its ruthless quest for oil, Washington has been kicking over hornets’ nests in the Middle East, resulting in the ultimate in human savagery. Shi’a and Sunni Muslims that lived in peace under Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad now hate and murder each other… leaving millions of refugees to starve or be massacred by ISIS. (Read more… )

Some recent highlights:

Israel vs Lebanon. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, resulting in the militant Islamic group Hezbollah, whose aim was to thwart future expansion and aggression by Israel and, if necessary, eliminate Israel altogether. Things have been relatively peaceful between Israel and Hezbollah since 2006… until this past January, when an Israeli airstrike on the Golan Heights killed an Iranian general and six Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah retaliated with anti-tank missiles that killed Israeli soldiers who were amassed at the northern border with Lebanon. Israel retaliated with airstrikes on villages in southern Lebanon.

Yemen. Fighting intensified in January between government troops and Houthi rebels, who are Shi’a Muslims who have coalesced over the past two decades into a well-armed guerilla army that moves through the mountains like ghosts. Violence further escalated in March, involving not just government forces vs Houthi rebels, but also US special ops teams working with Saudi Arabia’s air force in a month-long campaign they called Decisive Storm. The results of the US-led airstrikes were hundreds of civilians killed, 150,000 homeless, and many destroyed neighborhoods. After destroying much of the region, US-led coalition forces then sent their special ops home while launching a “humanitarian” campaign called Restoring Hope that will focus on counter-terrorism and political solutions (read: new Yemeni leadership with American interests). (Read more…   also   here… )

ISIS. The militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) became established in 2004, when it pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. Today ISIS is heavily invested in the chaos in the Middle East, and is trying to form a new nation from portions of Iraq and Syria. In February ISIS captured and burned to death a Jordanian air force pilot. Jordan retaliated by executing two ISIS terrorists. ISIS claimed that their American hostage, Kayla Miller, was then killed by a Jordanian air strike. ISIS militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. Egypt retaliated with airstrikes on Derna, an ISIS stronghold in eastern Libya. ISIS held 150 Assyrian Christians hostage in northern Syria and threatened to kill them. In March, Iran and Iraq joined forces to fight ISIS in Tiqrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown. (Read more… )

So… what exactly is “The Islamic State?” Last year it exploded into public awareness as a savage regime when militants seized large regions of Syria and Iraq, adopted the name ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), and launched a series of abductions, mass killings, and beheadings.

Originally the term “Islamic state” referred to a noble form of government in which the primary basis for governing was the enforcement of shari’a, dispensation of justice, maintenance of law and order. From the early years of Islam, numerous governments have been founded as “Islamic” and several still are noble “Islamic states” today… as shown in the diagram below (dark green countries)… in contrast to the savage “Islamic State” that is ISIS (right):

Africa

Most of the strife in Africa traces back (arguably) to a high fertility rate, manifests as inter-tribal conficts and genocides, and is given impetus and some direction in recent years by Islamic, anti-western ideas sprouting in the Middle East.

As population grows and people starve, competition intensifies for basic necessities. That seems to be the chronic, underlying problem in Africa. (Read more… )

Nigeria. Boko Haram (meaning “western education is forbidden”) began in 2002 as a school and religion complex serving poor Muslim families from throughout Nigeria and neighboring countries. It was a relatively peaceful, isolated community for seven years until, under increasingly tenuous social conditions, it developed a militant subculture within its ranks. Last year Boko Haram militants kidnapped 300 school girls, and this past January they took over Baga, Nigeria, burning the city to the ground and killing thousands of citizens. In March the group pledged allegiance to ISIS, the militant Islamic group in the Middle East. In April, 13 Boko Haram camps were destroyed by Nigerian soldiers, who freed 700 women and children who were being held hostage in the camps. All told, Boko Haram has abducted more than 2,000 women this year. The militant group appears to be one of several genocidal gangs ravaging Africa in recent decades… trying this year to gain a semblance of political legitimacy by aligning with ISIS. (Read more… )

Somalia.  Islamic militants have been targeting non-Muslims… and in April attacked Garissa University just across the border in northeast Kenya, in what they called a planned “operation against the infidels.” They spent the day separating Muslims from non-Muslims, then killed 140 non-Muslims. (Read more… )

Tunisia.  “The Islamic State” in Tunisia perpetuated the war against “infidels” in two separate attacks… as gunmen killed 22 visitors to the National Bardo Museum in March, then 38 tourists at a beach resort in June.  (Read more… )

Trends Across America and Around the World

Politics

Journalism’s dirty little secret. It’s become a routine practice among many journalists and major news outlets in various western countries to accept “news articles” that have been written by CIA agents with the intent of instigating war among nations… and to publish the articles verbatim as though written by themselves. Journalists who don’t cooperate with the CIA can get blacklisted from journalism.

In other words, the CIA is bribing and brow-beating journalists into promoting the American war machine.

That jaw-dropping accusation was made by Udo Ulfkotte, an editor of a major German daily newspaper, Frankfurt General, in his banned but best-selling book, Bought Journalists. (Read more… )

If Ulfkotte’s accusations are true, then it implies that the CIA (etc.) uses media in the USA and abroad to stir up hate and fear toward  the perceived enemies of America’s military-industrial complex (MIC), including…

• the Middle East (because MIC wants Mideast oil),
• Russia (because Russia’s economic influence in Europe could undermine NATO), and
• the liberal politicians here in the States (because liberal ethics, by nature, would dismantle corrupt, bullying forces like the one described by Dr Ulfkotte… as President Kennedy tried to do in the 60s with tragic repercussions).

The illicit relationship between the CIA and US journalists has been explored since 1977 by reporter Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. (Read more…  and   here…)

If the CIA is indeed brow-beating world media for the benefit of the MIC at the magnitude suggested by Bernstein and Ulfkotte, it could be among the biggest news stories of our time… so we’ll revisit the subject in a moment.

Meanwhile, let’s look at the bigger political picture of forces shaping a fractious world.

Islamic propaganda. Some Islamic fundamentalist educators teach kids to hate and fear the western world.  In Iran, for example, to protect the chastity of teenage girls and to insulate them from the charismatic allure of western pop idols, school counselors warn the girls that rock stars are like everyone else in the western world: They’re emotionally broken and resort to dogs and other animals to fulfill their carnal desires. (Read more… )

Twisting unstable minds. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how such teachings could foster a loathing toward the western world with all its “perversions”… a loathing that could sprout, at least in the minds of socially unstable individuals, into destructive compulsions and so-called “acts of terror” such as suicide bombing.

Every human society has sensitive, socially unstable members who, if alienated, can become susceptible to the fear and hatred being stirred up around them in society. Animosities harbored in those unstable minds can fester into violent acts.

Case in point, here in the States: The vicious attack on left-wing Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by a socially unstable young man.  The tragedy occurred in 2011, a time of intense hostility between left-wing and right-wing politicians and their supporters.  (Read more…)

The left-right political animosity here in the States seems to be lessening lately, in 2015, but for a number of years it reminded me of the mutual contempt between Shia and Sunni Muslims in the Middle East.  (Read more… )

Many Americans assimilate the hate and fear that they get from rancorous TV and radio talk shows. The rancor is not just against foreign “enemies” such as Middle East Muslim terrorists… but also political adversaries here in the States.

Right-wing, Christian propaganda. Another case in point: Frequent mentions by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, starting in 2005, of “Tiller the baby killer,” referring to medical doctor George Tiller who was performing abortions at the time. Dr Tiller was murdered four years later, in May 2009, by a socially unstable, right-wing terrorist. A month after the murder, O’Reilly’s guest Ann Coulter quipped, “I don’t really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester.”  (Read more about hatemongering and the top 10 acts of domestic terror in America… )

Polarized by the CIA? I’ll be interested to learn someday, when the whole truth comes out, just how much of the political polarization here in the States, stirred up by malicious media, has really been planted by the US intelligence service, as alleged by the German journalist Ulfkotte (above). If we learn that Bill O’Reilly and other hate-anchors and their guests, especially on the Fox News channel, are pressured and paid by the CIA to stir hatred of Muslims, Russia, liberals, and other MIC targets… wow, what a story that’ll be!

Of all the many news sources in the USA, is it fair to point mostly at Fox News in this hate-mongering scenario?

Well, recent studies (by PolitiFact) of the truthfulness in cable-network news reports find that Fox News lies about 60 percent of the time, followed by NBC and MSNBC (44 percent) and CNN (20 percent). (Read more… )   That statistic—that Fox News is the leader in deception—plus the fact that its news is slanted to spread fear and hatred… suggest that it is more susceptible than most “news organizations” to the pressures of a powerful, dark force of deception, hatred, and fear that is certainly the CIA… if the Ulfkotte accusations are true.

If the CIA turns out to be responsible for making Americans hate each other and the rest of the world since the 1990s… and I realize that sounds like a conspiracy theory of the worst kind… but if it turns out that the CIA really is the real bogeyman behind all of this… then maybe it’s time to unplug that most savage of hate-machines in today’s world.

I suspect that could be among the biggest single steps possible today toward world peace.

Police in the USA

• Communities of minorities typically feel less kinship with society and police than most people do. Minorities tend to view police as “occupying forces” that come in from the outside to control the neighborhood. Presidents Johnson in 1968 and Obama just recently advocated civilian panels for law enforcement oversight to deal with the sense of minority ostracism, but police organizations consistently use political muscle to derail such panels before they can be effective. (Read more…)
• FBI forensic investigators almost always exaggerate or give flawed testimony on the witness stand to convict defendants, which weighs against traditional justice… innocent until proven guilty. False testimony by the FBI can steal innocence away from the accused. (Read more…)
• A Georgia cop sat on a pregnant woman because he didn’t “appreciate her tone,” and she suffered a miscarriage. (Read more…)
• Alabama police beat a grandfather visiting from India, leaving him paralyzed and hospitalized. (Read more…)
• Chicago police converged on a lonely, disaffected black youth who was slashing car tires with a knife, cornered him, and shot him 16 times. (Read more…)
• Police were called to check on an elderly local man. His son, living in another state, had called the police because he was concerned about his dad’s health and disposition. The surprise visit by strangers scared the old man, who grabbed a gun, and was shot and killed by the police. (Read more…)

US Prisons

• Jail is the new mental institution. At Cook County Jail in Illinois (USA), an estimated one in three inmates has some form of mental illness. Across the US at least 400,000 inmates currently behind bars suffer from some type of mental illness—a population larger than the cities of Cleveland, New Orleans, or St. Louis—according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI estimates that between 25 and 40 percent of all mentally ill Americans will be jailed or incarcerated at some point in their lives. (Read more…) Most civilized, high-tech societies today have government-run institutions to take care of the mentally ill. The US abandoned those institutions when Republican Ronald Reagan took over as President in the 1980s, and since then the mentally ill have been tossed into American prisons. (Read more…)
• Jail for Profit. Twice in the past fifteen days, two separate class action lawsuits, one in U.S. District Court, one in Grady County Superior Court, were filed naming Red Hills Community Probation (RHCP) LLC, its CEO Margaret B. Crutchfield, and the cities of Cairo, Pelham and Bainbridge, GA, that hired the private probation company, as defendants.  Private prisons make more money by incarcerating more people, so they pressure those controlling the laws (judges, police…) to incarcerate more people for minor offenses. (Read more…)
• US Prisons bar UN torture investigators. In 2010, Juan Mendez was appointed Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Degrading and Inhumane Treatment by the United Nations. Despite US resistance, Mendez managed to visit one prison to see how widespread solitary confinement is in US prisons… solitary confinement being extreme torture for humans and other social animals. One mother said: “I saw Johnny two weeks after Mendez’s visit,”  (referring to the 15-hour drive she makes once a month for her three-hour no-contact visit with her son through thick plexiglass.) “His face just lit up when he told me about it. That’s something I haven’t seen happen very often in the last 14 years.”  (Read more…)
• Foreign prisoners held for more than a decade by the US military at Guantanamo prison are tortured and humiliated routinely. (Read one graphic, first-hand account…)

US Military

• There have been more arms sales by Barack Obama than by any other President since World War II (Read more…)
• The 2016 US military budget is $35B more than the cap allows… approximately half-trillion a year! (Read more…)
• Already more powerfully armed than almost all other nations combined (Read more…), the US is currently upgrading its nuclear arsenal. (Read more…)
• America’s real national defense budget for next year, including hidden costs, is probably $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000)! (Read more…)
• The US is now “open for business” in Iraq with its totally out-of-control military expenditures. (Read more…)
• America’s “War on Terror” (which is really MIC’s grab for oil and power) costs Americans $14 million every hour? (Read more…)
• FBI sting operations designed to catch terrorists… instead cultivate them. (Read more…)
• The US military is currently involved in bio-engineering efforts to create flying insects that can carry cameras and weapons. (Read more…)

Implications Beyond Our World

The fear and hatred stirred up by the savage element of humanity not only adds to the conflict and chaos on the planet, but also spins off into the shadow world… that dark cloud of spiritual residue that covers our world like an invisible blanket. It’s a world inhabited largely by lost and troubled souls who’ve left the Earth but never made it to that spiritual paradise where most of us awaken after we die. Savage thinking has gotten them stuck in the shadow world. (Read more…)

Healing this carnal world, Earth, will also involve cleaning up that shadow world… by raising the human vibration to resonate more with love, tolerance, trust, and good will.

Solutions

The best solutions, again, are probably these three:

1. Practice turning our personal life over to a higher power, and connecting consciously with that power (for inner peace),
2. Initiate a Basic Income program in every country that can afford it (to eliminate poverty), and
3. Adopt a strong world government that maintains good global standards and fosters a stable world economy that allows Basic Income everywhere… for example by implementing the Vitality Ratio.