Following The IMF Billions In And Out Of Ukraine
Kiev Understands Impossibility of Regaining Crimea - Parliament Speaker
Ukrainian economist: Goodbye Russia, goodbye economy
EU president: Refugee crisis is start of real exodus
Fox News Doesn’t Get it, Blames Russia for Refugee Crisis in EU
Are Moldova Bank Fraud Protests a 'Creation' of US State Dep't?
60% of Japanese youth believe the atomic bomb was dropped by the USSR
Washington Post tells whoppers about Greece and Argentina
Exceptional Pain Dispensed by the Indispensable Nation
‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11
The Long Road From 9/11
Following The IMF Billions In And Out Of Ukraine | Dances With Bears
By John Helmer, Moscow
In Kiev on Sunday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko complained that he isn’t getting cash from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fast enough. Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, told him to stick to the Fund conditions, but she also promised to go soft on whether the IMF will stop the money if Ukraine decides not to repay the $3 billion bond owed for repayment to Russia in December.
“So far, we have received only 38 percent of the total funds earmarked [for Ukraine] under the Fund’s program,” Poroshenko claimed at a press conference following the round of meetings with the IMF delegation. “We have agreed on a strict schedule,” he added, referring to the first two payments the IMF has transferred to Kiev, totalling $6.7 billion so far, in what is being called the Extended Fund Facility (EFF); this replaced last year’s aborted Stand-By Agreement (SBA). The Ukrainian president implied he wants to go faster than the IMF schedule, published in August, allows.
Source: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2015/cr15218.pdf -- page 41
The Fund schedule provides for the next payment to Kiev of $1.7 billion on September 15, after the IMF staff complete their assessment of the Ukrainian government’s compliance with the “performance criteria” as of end-June.
In fact, according to Poroshenko, the timing has slipped; there will be no Fund payment this month; and he doesn’t like it. “The IMF mission is due to arrive in September and will work here until October 2, and we have agreed that after its work is done it may present its offers at a meeting of the IMF board of directors as early as in October.” That is an admission that there won’t be fresh cash this month, and maybe not until October, or November.
The assembled reporters from the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg failed to detect the slippage, so noone asked why.
Complete story at - Following The IMF Billions In And Out Of Ukraine | Dances With Bears
Kiev Understands Impossibility of Regaining Crimea - Parliament Speaker
The speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament claims that Kiev understands the impossibility of regaining Crimea.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Kiev understands the impossibility of regaining Crimea, Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said Tuesday. "I believe that Ukraine understands that the Crimean peninsula will not return to it. It will have to come to terms with this situation, as it is the will of the people of Crimea and Sevastopol," Matvienko told the Izvestiya newspaper.
According to Matvienko, Crimea has fully adapted to being a part of Russia.
Following a 96-percent vote in March 2014, Crimea reunified with Russia after over 60 years of Ukrainian rule.
The republic’s secession – declared illegitimate by the West and Kiev – and the subsequent conflict in southeast Ukraine has drawn several rounds of anti-Russia sanctions from the United States, the European Union and other allied nations.
Complete story at - Kiev Understands Impossibility of Regaining Crimea - Parliament Speaker
Ukrainian economist: Goodbye Russia, goodbye economy - Fort Russ
September 7, 2015
Translated from French by Tom Winter
Original title: Ukraine confronted with a massive disindustrialization
Breaking ties with Russia and other countries of the Eurasian Economic Community has caused many companies to close their doors, says an expert on Ukrainian economy.
The fall in production recorded in several branches of Ukrainian industry is a very bad sign, said Ukrainian economist Alexandr Koltunovich on the digital information portal "Ukrainian choice".
After analyzing the data on industrial development in Ukraine, Koltunovich indicated that production levels had dropped in mining (23.4%), automotive (22.1%), textiles (8.5 %), iron and steel (25.4%) and in refineries and companies producing coal (38.5%).
"As we can see, Ukraine has been facing a process of de-industrialisation for two years now. On one hand, the breakdown of cooperation with Russia and other countries of the Eurasian Economic Community has caused many industrial high-tech companies to close. Other joint ventures are also on the brink of bankruptcy. Millions of Ukrainians have been left without work," noted the expert in economics. At the same time, according to the specialist, relevant government policy is "poor, populist, pseudo-economic" and a total failure.
Complete story at - Ukrainian economist: Goodbye Russia, goodbye economy - Fort Russ
EU president: Refugee crisis is start of real exodus - Al Jazeera English
EU President Donald Tusk has warned that the refugee crisis affecting Europe was part of an "exodus" from war-torn countries that could last years.
Thousands of refugees reach Germany Speaking to the Bruegel Institute think-tank in Brussels on Monday, Tusk said the current movement of people mainly from the Middle East would be a "problem for many years to come".
"The present wave of migration is not a one-time incident but the beginning of a real exodus," Tusk said.
European leaders are scrambling for solutions as bloody conflicts in mainly Syria and Iraq send hundreds of thousands of refugees on dangerous voyages through the Balkans and across the Mediterranean to the 28-nation EU.
Complete story at - EU president: Refugee crisis is start of real exodus - Al Jazeera English
Fox News Doesn’t Get it, Blames Russia for Refugee Crisis in EU
Oh, Fox News. We all love your unintentionally funny videos with your experts oftentimes talking out of the lower part of their bodies.
There is one thing Fox News has learned to do well over the years — that's to blame Russia for all the bad stuff that happens in the world. The Syrian war breaks out — quick to blame the Russians, the US government organized a coup in Ukraine — of course the Russians were behind it, the channel screams. What's next, Fox News? Perhaps the Russians also started the Ebola virus or were behind the extinction of the dinosaurs?
This time, it was no different after Fox News decided to tackle the refugee crisis in Europe. KT McFarland, a Fox News National Security Analyst invited to talk on the issue, was quick to blame… that's right, none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin for creating the refugee crisis in Europe.
Where is the logic? Well, there is none to be found, as it's often the case with Fox News. The truth is that Russia has always said it wanted to end the Syrian conflict. Moscow supported the legitimately elected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and warned Western countries against arming various militant factions, some of whom ended up joining Islamic State, which in turn started chaos in the Middle East that resulted in the influx of refugees to Europe.
Whether al-Assad is a good guy or a bad guy isn't the point here. The point is that during his presidency before the Syrian civil war started, refugees in Syria simply didn't exist, as there was no war and no ISIL militants running around and cutting people's heads off.
Complete story at - Fox News Doesn’t Get it, Blames Russia for Refugee Crisis in EU
Are Moldova Bank Fraud Protests a 'Creation' of US State Dep't?
Anti-government protests in the Republic of Moldova are a creation of the US State Department that has gone out of control, a US anti-war and Democratic Party activist told Sputnik on Monday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova – Mass protests erupted in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau on Sunday to demand the government’s resignation, sparked by last year’s disappearance of 15 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product from three national banks.
"It's possible that the new movement in Moldova is to the US State Department what Frankenstein's monster was to Dr. Frankenstein – a creation no longer under its creator's control," David Swanson speculated.
Swanson, who co-founded the WarIsACrime.org website and directs the Washington, DC section of the Democrats.com online community of progressive activists, argued for greater autonomy in Moldova even if his theory proves otherwise.
"In any case, we ought to assist them in such and agree on a policy of non-interference by all outside nations and alliances," Swanson stressed.
Swanson further cited the former Soviet republic’s geographical positioning – wedged between Ukraine and Romania – as a potential target of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastward expansion.
Complete story at - Are Moldova Bank Fraud Protests a 'Creation' of US State Dep't?
American propaganda success: 60% of Japanese youth believe the atomic bomb was dropped by the USSR - Fort Russ
Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda
Translated by Kristina Rus
Mikhail Delyagin (a prominent Russian author, politician and economist): When we take offence at the Japanese about their inadequacy on the Kuril islands, our offence is directed at the wrong target. We must remember about the Americans. They suppress everything they don't like in Japan without any sentiments. This is hegemony and domination and it brings it's fruits.
If you go to the museum of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki you will not find a mention of who dropped the atomic bomb. It's not there.
Host: It fell by itself...
Delyagin: A bomb fell by itself, a bomb was dropped, but by whom - sorry, you are not supposed to know.
Morevover, there is sociological research, which shows that over 60% of Japanese youth under 26 believe that the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan by the USSR.
Complete story at - American propaganda success: 60% of Japanese youth believe the atomic bomb was dropped by the USSR - Fort Russ
ZCommunications » Washington Post tells whoppers about Greece and Argentina
This WAPO article by Michael Birnbaum and Anthony Faiola said
“But Argentina differs from Greece in deep ways. Argentina is one of the world’s top 25 economies, a commodity-rich nation that exported its way to growth with soybeans, corn and heavy industries such as steel and cars. “
Aside from putting forth the the magic soybean thesis to explain Argentina’s recovery after its 2001 default, a thesis Weisbrot completely rebutted here, Argentina did not export its way out of a depression. It recovered primarily by breaking free of IMF “advice”. Argentina is also nowhere close to being a “top 25 economy” today, never mind in 2001 when it was in very deep trouble.
Also, by the typically used measures of GDP (which rank an economy’s size and wealth) Greece is a richer country than Argentina even after several years of catastrophic Troika rule.
I have to give the WAPO credit for being able to pack so many howlers into only two sentences.
Complete story at - ZCommunications » Washington Post tells whoppers about Greece and Argentina
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Exceptional Pain Dispensed by the Indispensable Nation | TomDispatch
Fourteen Years Later, Improbable World By Tom Engelhardt
Mantra for 9/11
Fourteen years later and do you even believe it? Did we actually live it? Are we still living it? And how improbable is that?
Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance). Fourteen years of the spread of secrecy, the classification of every document in sight, the fierce prosecution of whistleblowers, and a faith-based urge to keep Americans “secure” by leaving them in the dark about what their government is doing. Fourteen years of the demobilization of the citizenry. Fourteen years of the rise of the warrior corporation, the transformation of war and intelligence gathering into profit-making activities, and the flocking of countless private contractors to the Pentagon, the NSA, the CIA, and too many other parts of the national security state to keep track of. Fourteen years of our wars coming home in the form of PTSD, the militarization of the police, and the spread of war-zone technology like drones and stingrays to the “homeland.” Fourteen years of that un-American word “homeland.” Fourteen years of the expansion of surveillance of every kind and of the development of a global surveillance system whose reach -- from foreign leaders to tribal groups in the backlands of the planet -- would have stunned those running the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Fourteen years of the financial starvation of America’s infrastructure and still not a single mile of high-speed rail built anywhere in the country. Fourteen years in which to launch Afghan War 2.0, Iraq Wars 2.0 and 3.0, and Syria War 1.0. Fourteen years, that is, of the improbable made probable.
Fourteen years later, thanks a heap, Osama bin Laden. With a small number of supporters, $400,000-$500,000, and 19 suicidal hijackers, most of them Saudis, you pulled off a geopolitical magic trick of the first order. Think of it as wizardry from the theater of darkness. In the process, you did “change everything” or at least enough of everything to matter. Or rather, you goaded us into doing what you had neither the resources nor the ability to do. So let’s give credit where it’s due. Psychologically speaking, the 9/11 attacks represented precision targeting of a kind American leaders would only dream of in the years to follow. I have no idea how, but you clearly understood us so much better than we understood you or, for that matter, ourselves. You knew just which buttons of ours to push so that we would essentially carry out the rest of your plan for you. While you sat back and waited in Abbottabad, we followed the blueprints for your dreams and desires as if you had planned it and, in the process, made the world a significantly different (and significantly grimmer) place.
Fourteen years later, we don’t even grasp what we did.
Complete story at - Tomgram: Engelhardt, Exceptional Pain Dispensed by the Indispensable Nation | TomDispatch
The Rutherford Institute :: ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11
By John W. Whitehead September 08, 2015
“Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.” ― - Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. Since then, we have been terrorized, traumatized, and acclimated to life in the American Surveillance State.
The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time, but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has transitioned us to life in a society where government agents routinely practice violence on the citizens while, in conjunction with the Corporate State, spying on the most intimate details of our personal lives.
Ironically, the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks occurs just days before the 228th anniversary of the ratification of our Constitution. Yet while there is much to mourn about the loss of our freedoms in the years since 9/11, there is virtually nothing to celebrate.
The Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded to such an extent that what we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—which has historically served as the bulwark from government abuse.
Complete story at - The Rutherford Institute :: ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11
The Long Road From 9/11 by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com
I heard it before I saw it: the horror in the voice of a TV anchor on the morning of September 11, 2001. As my father shook me awake – “Wake up, look at this!” – I shot straight up in my bed and beheld the scene unfolding on the television screen: a plane plowing straight into a skyscraper and coming out the other side, sheering off the top like Death wielding a scythe.
I had arrived in New York a few hours earlier on a plane from California, on the first leg of a trip to Serbia. I was slated to travel with a delegation of writers who had been invited to that recently-bombed country by the government of President Vojislav Kostunica, the liberal nationalist successor to the malevolent Slobodan Milosevic. As virtually the only visible opposition to Bill Clinton’s “humanitarian” crusade to establish the state of Kosovo – today the heroin and human trafficking capital of Europe – Antiwar.com was well known in Serbia, and I was looking forward to visiting the crime scene. But as I watched the drama of 9/11 unfold, I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere.
As news of the attack on the Pentagon was broadcast by a clearly panicked newscaster a shock of pure fear ran up and down my spine. I recalled that the Indian Point nuclear power plant wasn’t all that far away: my father had worked there at some point in his career. I imagined that it probably wasn’t all that closely guarded – and the hair on my neck stood straight up.
Day One of the Long War was dawning.
In the days and months to come, a pall fell over the nation as the smoke emanating from the isle of Manhattan spread out and seemed to cover the whole country. People forget the atmosphere of those dark days: the war hysteria welling up in a collective spasm of fearful vituperation, seeking the closest target. Since Osama bin Laden and the hijackers weren’t available, this hate campaign was directed at anyone who dared question the narrative of a blameless and simon-pure America ambushed by demons.
Complete story at - The Long Road From 9/11 by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com
Kiev Understands Impossibility of Regaining Crimea - Parliament Speaker
Ukrainian economist: Goodbye Russia, goodbye economy
EU president: Refugee crisis is start of real exodus
Fox News Doesn’t Get it, Blames Russia for Refugee Crisis in EU
Are Moldova Bank Fraud Protests a 'Creation' of US State Dep't?
60% of Japanese youth believe the atomic bomb was dropped by the USSR
Washington Post tells whoppers about Greece and Argentina
Exceptional Pain Dispensed by the Indispensable Nation
‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11
The Long Road From 9/11
• Russia/Ukraine •
Following The IMF Billions In And Out Of Ukraine | Dances With Bears
By John Helmer, Moscow
In Kiev on Sunday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko complained that he isn’t getting cash from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fast enough. Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, told him to stick to the Fund conditions, but she also promised to go soft on whether the IMF will stop the money if Ukraine decides not to repay the $3 billion bond owed for repayment to Russia in December.
“So far, we have received only 38 percent of the total funds earmarked [for Ukraine] under the Fund’s program,” Poroshenko claimed at a press conference following the round of meetings with the IMF delegation. “We have agreed on a strict schedule,” he added, referring to the first two payments the IMF has transferred to Kiev, totalling $6.7 billion so far, in what is being called the Extended Fund Facility (EFF); this replaced last year’s aborted Stand-By Agreement (SBA). The Ukrainian president implied he wants to go faster than the IMF schedule, published in August, allows.
Source: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2015/cr15218.pdf -- page 41
The Fund schedule provides for the next payment to Kiev of $1.7 billion on September 15, after the IMF staff complete their assessment of the Ukrainian government’s compliance with the “performance criteria” as of end-June.
In fact, according to Poroshenko, the timing has slipped; there will be no Fund payment this month; and he doesn’t like it. “The IMF mission is due to arrive in September and will work here until October 2, and we have agreed that after its work is done it may present its offers at a meeting of the IMF board of directors as early as in October.” That is an admission that there won’t be fresh cash this month, and maybe not until October, or November.
The assembled reporters from the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg failed to detect the slippage, so noone asked why.
Complete story at - Following The IMF Billions In And Out Of Ukraine | Dances With Bears
Kiev Understands Impossibility of Regaining Crimea - Parliament Speaker
The speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament claims that Kiev understands the impossibility of regaining Crimea.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Kiev understands the impossibility of regaining Crimea, Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said Tuesday. "I believe that Ukraine understands that the Crimean peninsula will not return to it. It will have to come to terms with this situation, as it is the will of the people of Crimea and Sevastopol," Matvienko told the Izvestiya newspaper.
According to Matvienko, Crimea has fully adapted to being a part of Russia.
Following a 96-percent vote in March 2014, Crimea reunified with Russia after over 60 years of Ukrainian rule.
The republic’s secession – declared illegitimate by the West and Kiev – and the subsequent conflict in southeast Ukraine has drawn several rounds of anti-Russia sanctions from the United States, the European Union and other allied nations.
Complete story at - Kiev Understands Impossibility of Regaining Crimea - Parliament Speaker
Ukrainian economist: Goodbye Russia, goodbye economy - Fort Russ
September 7, 2015
Translated from French by Tom Winter
Original title: Ukraine confronted with a massive disindustrialization
Breaking ties with Russia and other countries of the Eurasian Economic Community has caused many companies to close their doors, says an expert on Ukrainian economy.
The fall in production recorded in several branches of Ukrainian industry is a very bad sign, said Ukrainian economist Alexandr Koltunovich on the digital information portal "Ukrainian choice".
After analyzing the data on industrial development in Ukraine, Koltunovich indicated that production levels had dropped in mining (23.4%), automotive (22.1%), textiles (8.5 %), iron and steel (25.4%) and in refineries and companies producing coal (38.5%).
"As we can see, Ukraine has been facing a process of de-industrialisation for two years now. On one hand, the breakdown of cooperation with Russia and other countries of the Eurasian Economic Community has caused many industrial high-tech companies to close. Other joint ventures are also on the brink of bankruptcy. Millions of Ukrainians have been left without work," noted the expert in economics. At the same time, according to the specialist, relevant government policy is "poor, populist, pseudo-economic" and a total failure.
Complete story at - Ukrainian economist: Goodbye Russia, goodbye economy - Fort Russ
• EU Death Watch •
EU president: Refugee crisis is start of real exodus - Al Jazeera English
EU President Donald Tusk has warned that the refugee crisis affecting Europe was part of an "exodus" from war-torn countries that could last years.
Thousands of refugees reach Germany Speaking to the Bruegel Institute think-tank in Brussels on Monday, Tusk said the current movement of people mainly from the Middle East would be a "problem for many years to come".
"The present wave of migration is not a one-time incident but the beginning of a real exodus," Tusk said.
European leaders are scrambling for solutions as bloody conflicts in mainly Syria and Iraq send hundreds of thousands of refugees on dangerous voyages through the Balkans and across the Mediterranean to the 28-nation EU.
Complete story at - EU president: Refugee crisis is start of real exodus - Al Jazeera English
Fox News Doesn’t Get it, Blames Russia for Refugee Crisis in EU
Oh, Fox News. We all love your unintentionally funny videos with your experts oftentimes talking out of the lower part of their bodies.
There is one thing Fox News has learned to do well over the years — that's to blame Russia for all the bad stuff that happens in the world. The Syrian war breaks out — quick to blame the Russians, the US government organized a coup in Ukraine — of course the Russians were behind it, the channel screams. What's next, Fox News? Perhaps the Russians also started the Ebola virus or were behind the extinction of the dinosaurs?
This time, it was no different after Fox News decided to tackle the refugee crisis in Europe. KT McFarland, a Fox News National Security Analyst invited to talk on the issue, was quick to blame… that's right, none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin for creating the refugee crisis in Europe.
Where is the logic? Well, there is none to be found, as it's often the case with Fox News. The truth is that Russia has always said it wanted to end the Syrian conflict. Moscow supported the legitimately elected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and warned Western countries against arming various militant factions, some of whom ended up joining Islamic State, which in turn started chaos in the Middle East that resulted in the influx of refugees to Europe.
Whether al-Assad is a good guy or a bad guy isn't the point here. The point is that during his presidency before the Syrian civil war started, refugees in Syria simply didn't exist, as there was no war and no ISIL militants running around and cutting people's heads off.
Complete story at - Fox News Doesn’t Get it, Blames Russia for Refugee Crisis in EU
• Empire Watch •
Are Moldova Bank Fraud Protests a 'Creation' of US State Dep't?
Anti-government protests in the Republic of Moldova are a creation of the US State Department that has gone out of control, a US anti-war and Democratic Party activist told Sputnik on Monday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova – Mass protests erupted in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau on Sunday to demand the government’s resignation, sparked by last year’s disappearance of 15 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product from three national banks.
"It's possible that the new movement in Moldova is to the US State Department what Frankenstein's monster was to Dr. Frankenstein – a creation no longer under its creator's control," David Swanson speculated.
Swanson, who co-founded the WarIsACrime.org website and directs the Washington, DC section of the Democrats.com online community of progressive activists, argued for greater autonomy in Moldova even if his theory proves otherwise.
"In any case, we ought to assist them in such and agree on a policy of non-interference by all outside nations and alliances," Swanson stressed.
Swanson further cited the former Soviet republic’s geographical positioning – wedged between Ukraine and Romania – as a potential target of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastward expansion.
Complete story at - Are Moldova Bank Fraud Protests a 'Creation' of US State Dep't?
American propaganda success: 60% of Japanese youth believe the atomic bomb was dropped by the USSR - Fort Russ
Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda
Translated by Kristina Rus
Mikhail Delyagin (a prominent Russian author, politician and economist): When we take offence at the Japanese about their inadequacy on the Kuril islands, our offence is directed at the wrong target. We must remember about the Americans. They suppress everything they don't like in Japan without any sentiments. This is hegemony and domination and it brings it's fruits.
If you go to the museum of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki you will not find a mention of who dropped the atomic bomb. It's not there.
Host: It fell by itself...
Delyagin: A bomb fell by itself, a bomb was dropped, but by whom - sorry, you are not supposed to know.
Morevover, there is sociological research, which shows that over 60% of Japanese youth under 26 believe that the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan by the USSR.
Complete story at - American propaganda success: 60% of Japanese youth believe the atomic bomb was dropped by the USSR - Fort Russ
ZCommunications » Washington Post tells whoppers about Greece and Argentina
This WAPO article by Michael Birnbaum and Anthony Faiola said
“But Argentina differs from Greece in deep ways. Argentina is one of the world’s top 25 economies, a commodity-rich nation that exported its way to growth with soybeans, corn and heavy industries such as steel and cars. “
Aside from putting forth the the magic soybean thesis to explain Argentina’s recovery after its 2001 default, a thesis Weisbrot completely rebutted here, Argentina did not export its way out of a depression. It recovered primarily by breaking free of IMF “advice”. Argentina is also nowhere close to being a “top 25 economy” today, never mind in 2001 when it was in very deep trouble.
Also, by the typically used measures of GDP (which rank an economy’s size and wealth) Greece is a richer country than Argentina even after several years of catastrophic Troika rule.
I have to give the WAPO credit for being able to pack so many howlers into only two sentences.
Complete story at - ZCommunications » Washington Post tells whoppers about Greece and Argentina
• 9/11 •
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Exceptional Pain Dispensed by the Indispensable Nation | TomDispatch
Fourteen Years Later, Improbable World By Tom Engelhardt
Mantra for 9/11
Fourteen years later and do you even believe it? Did we actually live it? Are we still living it? And how improbable is that?
Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance). Fourteen years of the spread of secrecy, the classification of every document in sight, the fierce prosecution of whistleblowers, and a faith-based urge to keep Americans “secure” by leaving them in the dark about what their government is doing. Fourteen years of the demobilization of the citizenry. Fourteen years of the rise of the warrior corporation, the transformation of war and intelligence gathering into profit-making activities, and the flocking of countless private contractors to the Pentagon, the NSA, the CIA, and too many other parts of the national security state to keep track of. Fourteen years of our wars coming home in the form of PTSD, the militarization of the police, and the spread of war-zone technology like drones and stingrays to the “homeland.” Fourteen years of that un-American word “homeland.” Fourteen years of the expansion of surveillance of every kind and of the development of a global surveillance system whose reach -- from foreign leaders to tribal groups in the backlands of the planet -- would have stunned those running the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Fourteen years of the financial starvation of America’s infrastructure and still not a single mile of high-speed rail built anywhere in the country. Fourteen years in which to launch Afghan War 2.0, Iraq Wars 2.0 and 3.0, and Syria War 1.0. Fourteen years, that is, of the improbable made probable.
Fourteen years later, thanks a heap, Osama bin Laden. With a small number of supporters, $400,000-$500,000, and 19 suicidal hijackers, most of them Saudis, you pulled off a geopolitical magic trick of the first order. Think of it as wizardry from the theater of darkness. In the process, you did “change everything” or at least enough of everything to matter. Or rather, you goaded us into doing what you had neither the resources nor the ability to do. So let’s give credit where it’s due. Psychologically speaking, the 9/11 attacks represented precision targeting of a kind American leaders would only dream of in the years to follow. I have no idea how, but you clearly understood us so much better than we understood you or, for that matter, ourselves. You knew just which buttons of ours to push so that we would essentially carry out the rest of your plan for you. While you sat back and waited in Abbottabad, we followed the blueprints for your dreams and desires as if you had planned it and, in the process, made the world a significantly different (and significantly grimmer) place.
Fourteen years later, we don’t even grasp what we did.
Complete story at - Tomgram: Engelhardt, Exceptional Pain Dispensed by the Indispensable Nation | TomDispatch
The Rutherford Institute :: ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11
By John W. Whitehead September 08, 2015
“Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.” ― - Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. Since then, we have been terrorized, traumatized, and acclimated to life in the American Surveillance State.
The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time, but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has transitioned us to life in a society where government agents routinely practice violence on the citizens while, in conjunction with the Corporate State, spying on the most intimate details of our personal lives.
Ironically, the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks occurs just days before the 228th anniversary of the ratification of our Constitution. Yet while there is much to mourn about the loss of our freedoms in the years since 9/11, there is virtually nothing to celebrate.
The Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded to such an extent that what we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—which has historically served as the bulwark from government abuse.
Complete story at - The Rutherford Institute :: ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11
The Long Road From 9/11 by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com
I heard it before I saw it: the horror in the voice of a TV anchor on the morning of September 11, 2001. As my father shook me awake – “Wake up, look at this!” – I shot straight up in my bed and beheld the scene unfolding on the television screen: a plane plowing straight into a skyscraper and coming out the other side, sheering off the top like Death wielding a scythe.
I had arrived in New York a few hours earlier on a plane from California, on the first leg of a trip to Serbia. I was slated to travel with a delegation of writers who had been invited to that recently-bombed country by the government of President Vojislav Kostunica, the liberal nationalist successor to the malevolent Slobodan Milosevic. As virtually the only visible opposition to Bill Clinton’s “humanitarian” crusade to establish the state of Kosovo – today the heroin and human trafficking capital of Europe – Antiwar.com was well known in Serbia, and I was looking forward to visiting the crime scene. But as I watched the drama of 9/11 unfold, I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere.
As news of the attack on the Pentagon was broadcast by a clearly panicked newscaster a shock of pure fear ran up and down my spine. I recalled that the Indian Point nuclear power plant wasn’t all that far away: my father had worked there at some point in his career. I imagined that it probably wasn’t all that closely guarded – and the hair on my neck stood straight up.
Day One of the Long War was dawning.
In the days and months to come, a pall fell over the nation as the smoke emanating from the isle of Manhattan spread out and seemed to cover the whole country. People forget the atmosphere of those dark days: the war hysteria welling up in a collective spasm of fearful vituperation, seeking the closest target. Since Osama bin Laden and the hijackers weren’t available, this hate campaign was directed at anyone who dared question the narrative of a blameless and simon-pure America ambushed by demons.
Complete story at - The Long Road From 9/11 by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com
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