America’s Tomorrow

The intrusion by the corporatist state will define our existence in our daily lives. Propaganda posters will line the streets and public spaces; surveillance cameras will watch our every move. Project Echelon and its offspring will monitor our phone calls, emails, faxes and conversations; through our fingerprints, DNA and iris scanning the state will be aware of our movements at all times. National psychology examinations for children will be made mandatory, with those deemed ‘troubled’ forced to take certain prescription drugs, made to attend special schools, creating a caste system of undesirables through genetic and social engineering. Through the use of television we will be told what to think and what reality is. Our children will be forced into conscription, trained to become soldiers of fortune in wars against East Asia, Middle Asia and South America. The end of privacy as we know it will arrive with the insertion of cameras into our homes, used to monitor our daily lives and record our most intimate moments.

President Chavez Announces Construction of 15 New Hospitals in Venezuela

Mérida, July 26, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the construction of 15 new hospitals across the country at an event in Caracas yesterday. The new hospitals, along with the remodeling of existing hospitals, make up the third and fourth phases of the Barrio Adentro (Inside the Barrio) health program. The Chavez government’s social programs, such as Barrio Adentro, have benefited nearly 50 percent of Venezuelan households according to a recent survey.

New Study Says Venezuelan Economy to Continue to Boom

Washington, DC: A new paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research looks at the Venezuelan economy during the last eight years and finds that it does not fit the mold of an "oil boom headed for a bust," as is commonly believed.

"There's no obvious end in sight for Venezuela's current economic expansion," said economist Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and co-author of the paper “The Venezuelan Economy in the Chávez Years.”

D.C. Madame: "Big Names" May Be On Client List

As we have highlighted before, mainly Republican self-proclaimed Christian attendees to the annual Bohemian Grove retreat - a kind of summer camp for the elite where policy is formulated without oversight - are routinely "serviced" by gay male porn stars, who are transported in to work as valets, according to a report in the New York Post .

The D.C. Madame scandal is important for several reasons but the core issue is the fact that the majority of high-level public and government officials are embroiled in these kinds of activities, along with even seedier pursuits, and this ensures they are completely compromised and can be politically blackmailed to maintain the status quo, because if it was to fall then they would go down with it.

This strikes at the very root of why the majority in Congress consistently oppose immediate withdrawal from Iraq, a new investigation into 9/11 and the impeachment of Bush and Cheney - because to lend support to such actions would leave them vulnerable to a brutal exposé of whatever skeletons are in their closet.

Palfrey concluded by promising that new developments in the case may emerge within the next few weeks.

Traders ask how low can the dollar go

Official silence on the dollar's woes also extends to Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary. “You get the sense the administration wants a weaker dollar,” said Mr Strazzullo.

Bush's Martial Law Plan Is So Shocking, Even Congress Can't See it

President Bush's post-terror attack martial law plan is so shocking that even sitting members of Congress and Homeland Security officials are barred from viewing it, another example of executive über alles and a chilling portent of what is to come as constant reminders of the inevitability of terror attacks reverberate.

Congressman Peter DeFazio (D - OR) was asked by his constituents to see what was contained within the classified portion of the White House's plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.

The Invisible Government

The title of this talk is Freedom Next Time, which is the title of my book, and the book is meant as an antidote to the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism. So I thought I would talk today about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called "professional journalism" was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment—objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, "entirely bogus".

Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement

The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of whoever opposes the US led war.

A presidential Executive Order issued on July 17th, repeals with the stroke of a pen the right to dissent and to oppose the Pentagon's military agenda in Iraq.

The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of "certain persons" who oppose the US led war in Iraq:

"I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people."

In substance, under this executive order, opposing the war becomes an illegal act.

Kissinger’s Secret Meeting With Putin

RAF fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian strategic bombers heading for British airspace yesterday, as the spirit of the Cold War returned to the North Atlantic once again. The incident, described as rare by the RAF, served as a telling metaphor for the stand-off between London and Moscow over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.” (Times Online, Richard Beeston; “RAF scrambles to intercept Russian bombers, 7-18-07)

"Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.” Niccoló Macchiavelli

When a political heavyweight, like Henry Kissinger, jets-off on a secret mission to Moscow; it usually shows up in the news.

Not this time.

A Wake-up Call by Paul Craig Roberts

The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally seventy-odd years ago. Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats. Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government’s protection.