I don’t know how you feel about surveys, ranking or indexes, but whether you follow them or not, you must be aware of how we’ve been falling steadily as a nation. Those of you who follow lists-surveys and global indexes, let’s admit it- as a nation we have not been going up on most global ranking lists – in fact, just the opposite.

We have been going down on the list of the World’s Least Corruption Nations-way down. We have been dropping continuously when it comes to our ranking in the education arena. We have been dropping royally when it comes to Healthcare Systems. When it comes to World Press Freedom, we are embarrassingly low, behind Cape Verde, Cyprus, and even trailing Mali, Tanzania, El Salvador, Botswana and Comoros!! We didn’t even make it onto the ridiculous list of the top ten nations’ national happiness index. 

All these competitive areas aside, there is one list we should be climbing steadily and rapidly. Even if you don’t care about all those other global lists you must care about this particular one; for your own good and even your survival. I am talking about a list pertaining to a nation’s status as to its need for acceptance of its political refugees by the global community.

Please don’t laugh or shrug off this suggestion. Instead, pause and think about our whistleblowers in jail or those awaiting the results of their prosecutions. Remember the journalists and reporters being targeted and investigated by our national police. Recall our new laws recently put in place to secretly and indefinitely detain any American citizen (that is you and me)-without any warrant or even having to show any justification. Think about the still-growing national no-fly list. Remind yourself of torture as our government’s common practice; abroad and here at home. Take a look at your land line, cell, laptop, fax and I-Pad as tools used by our government to illegally-secretly-continuously spy on you. Read more È

Those concerned about “The New World Order� speak as if the United States is coming under the control of an outside conspiratorial force. In fact, it is the US that is the New World Order. That is what the American unipolar world, about which China, Russia, and Iran complain, is all about.

Washington has demonstrated that it has no respect for its own laws and Constitution, much less any respect for international law and the law and sovereignty of other countries. All that counts is Washington’s will as the pursuit of hegemony moves Washington closer to becoming a world dictator. Read more È

The International Peace Bureau has today requested the Swedish Foundation Authority to stop the payment of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union, and urgently investigate the unlawful reinterpretation of Alfred Nobel’s will and testament that has taken place over the last few years.

The Swedish Foundation Authority (länsstyrelsen) is the authority tasked to control if foundations are following their statutes and rules. In case of the Nobel Foundation, they control if the will of Alfred Nobel is followed by those organs entitled to select prize winners.

-          “The European Union, announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2012, clearly is not one of the “champions for peaceâ€� Alfred Nobel had in mind and described in his will as “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congressesâ€�, IPB Co-Presidents Ingeborg Breines, Norway, and Tomas Magnusson, Sweden, state. Read more È

In the post-World War II period, the United States undertook a strategy aimed at building up Germany and Japan as the major industrial powers of their respective regions (Europe and East Asia), with the aim of integrating these regions, inevitably requiring them to undertake neo-colonial programs of domination and exploitation of surrounding areas (Africa and Southeast Asia). While the United States was to maintain dominance over and exploit Latin America, Germany and Europe were to exploit Africa (along with the US), while Japan was to exploit Southeast Asia (with US collusion).

German industrial expansion was aided by European integration into what is now the EU, while Japanese industrial expansion was aided primarily by the Korean and Vietnamese wars, respectively. As these two new centres of power emerged, following along the lines of their previous imperial designs as Nazi Germany’s ‘New Order’ for Europe, and Japan’s ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’, a new form of co-ordination was promoted among the three global industrial centres. This became the Trilateral Commission, which facilitated cooperation between Western Europe, North America, and Japan in their domination of the ‘Third World’, the true object of the ‘Cold War’, which was a battle between the North and South, not East and West.

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In anti-austerity protests around the world, over the past several years, we often hear of ‘riots’ breaking out, when bank windows are smashed or rocks are thrown at cops. The violence exists, but the imagery of a ‘riot’ evokes the notion of drunk youths mindlessly causing havoc and setting things on fire and looting shops. This is not the nature of violence in the battle against austerity. Rather, invoking a term used by Stokely Carmichael when he was describing the urban ghetto riots in the United States in the 1960s, we need to be referring to these incidents as “urban rebllions.” As the urban rebellions are taking place all over the world, we are also seeing something new developing in Spain. In the northern mining towns in the regions of Asturia and Leon, the coalminers have gone on strike against the government’s plan to cut their subsidy by 63% this year alone. They began blockading streets and railways, and were met by the Guardia Civil (riot police) who brought tear gas and rubber bullets to the mining communities and rural areas. There, the miners have taken to defending themselves with sling-shots and homemade rocket launchers.

We are witnessing a new phase in the anti-austerity rebellion in Europe, and emerging from the very same region and communities in which we witnessed the beginning of the Spanish Civil War back in 1934, where the miners were subsequently crushed by Francisco Franco. History is in the making in Spain, the question is: will we pay any attention?

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Increased poverty, social unrest, talk of military coups, removal of democratic leaders, bailouts, exploitation, and detention camps. This is the new Europe, and Greece is the microcosm of the continental crisis. The situation unfolding in Greece, and spreading across Europe, is explosive to say the least. With austerity and adjustment comes poverty and exploitation. With these circumstances, we see resistance, protests, riots and the potential for revolution. With this we see increased repression and the rise of radical neo-fascist elements. The scapegoats for the new European fascism are the largely Muslim immigrants, most of whom enter the continent through Greece. They become the target of fascist attacks, and also the reason for the construction of literally hundreds of detention camps across the continent.

The EU is now constructing 50 detention camps in Greece alone, designed to ‘house’ immigrants before they are deported back to countries we bomb and destroy. How long before the camps are filled with political dissidents and others? What is taking place in Greece and the European Union will spread across the industrialized world, so it’s time to start paying attention to the Greek Tragedy unfolding in Europe.

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How did Italy come to be ruled by an unelected banker-EU-dominated technocracy? This episode looks at the messy maelstrom of melodrama that is Italian politics, the decline and fall of Berlusconi, the emergence of a hopeful and potentially radical new politician (the “most popular politician in Europe”), and the ascension of Mario Monti to lead a technocratic and banker-dominated government designed for one purpose: to punish the population with austerity measures. This is the new Italy, this is the new Europe. Welcome to the EU, leave your democracy at the door.

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What created the European debt crisis? Was it the “welfare states” as repeated by the mainstream (and even many in the alternative) media, or was it the European Union itself? Was it the euro, the trade policies, or perhaps the major international banks? It is important to look at the causes of the crisis, so that we may better understand the solutions which are being proposed. Over the past few weeks, top ‘Eurocrats’ and central bankers from around the world have been declaring their desire for deeper union: for a fiscal, political, and banking union of Europe. The ‘solutions’ proposed are, in fact, ways to strengthen that which created the crisis in the first place. Problem, reaction, solution. Unfortunately for the people of Europe and beyond, they must – as the people always do – bear the brunt, the hardship, and the pain.

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“What you need to succeed is sincerity, and if you can fake sincerity you’ve got it madeâ€�

“A few months ago I told the American people that I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.” — President Ronald Reagan, 1987

On April 23, speaking at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, President Barack Obama told his assembled audience that as president “I’ve done my utmost … to prevent and end atrocities”.

Do the facts and evidence tell him that his words are not true?

Well, let’s see … There’s the multiple atrocities carried out in Iraq by American forces under President Obama. There’s the multiple atrocities carried out in Afghanistan by American forces under Obama. There’s the multiple atrocities carried out in Pakistan by American forces under Obama. There’s the multiple atrocities carried out in Libya by American/NATO forces under Obama. There are also the hundreds of American drone attacks against people and homes in Somalia and in Yemen (including against American citizens in the latter). Might the friends and families of these victims regard the murder of their loved ones and the loss of their homes as atrocities?

Ronald Reagan was pre-Alzheimer’s when he uttered the above. What excuse can be made for Barack Obama? Read more È

Playing with Dynamite & Nuclear War in the Balkans

In one of the more bizarre foreign policy announcements of a bizarre Obama Administration, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that Washington will “help� Kosovo to join NATO as well as the European Union. She made the pledge after a recent Washington meeting with Kosovan Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in Washington where she praised the progress of the Thaci government in its progress in “European integration and economic development.�^[1]

Her announcement no doubt caused serious gas pains among government and military officials in the various capitals of European NATO. Few people  appreciate just how mad Clinton’s plan to push Kosovo into NATO and the EU is. Read more È