(Reuters) - The U.S. government will have unmanned surveillance aircraft monitoring the whole southwest border with Mexico from September 1, as it ramps up border security in this election year, a top official said on Monday. U.S. drones to watch entire Mexico border from September 1

Everybody should be pretty aware already of how serious the Mexican drug wars have become.  Over 28,000 people have already died, with uncounted number of injuries.

72 more bodies were found a couple of days ago, and now two car bombs have exploded with no injuries.  The investigator looking into the 72 massacre has now been killed, making Mexico and anything related to the drug war, one of the most dangerous places on earth.

There have been numerous kidnappings and ransoms, border incursions, threats to American landowners and ranchers, extortion and smuggling (drugs and human trafficking).

Mexico is in melt-down. The United States is expecting millions of Mexican climate refugees over the next decades, with as much as 10% of the population being forced to migrate.

Personally, I think this number is way, way too low, and does not account for the millions of illegal immigrants that are already swarming across the border.  I do not blame anybody for seeking a better life for themselves — I would personally do the same.  But this border war / invasion is going to bring with it a great many problems for the United States.

Environmental collapse is already affecting Mexico, causing economic hardship and unemployment.  Southern and agricultural States within the US are absorbing the influx of refugees, however, Arizona’s new immigration laws are causing a lot of States to take notice.

Hotly contested by civil libertarians and rights groups, the ethnic profiling of immigrants is far from being a settled issue.  This, plus the Mexican war now literally taking place on the US border will most likely cause a civil war in the Southern states.

I’ve no doubt that a totalitarian military response will happen (on both sides), eventually.  The body count is already high enough for justification, but corruption, ineptitude and bribery have kept a lot of this dangling on the table for years already. The Obama Administration is unwilling to do much — so far.  National Guard troops have been dispatched, whatever that means (532 Guards won’t be able to do much on thousands of miles of border).

The United States has long tolerated the porous southern border, probably for economic reasons.  I do not expect this to change much, but war could change a lot of things in a hurry.

I’m somewhat doubtful that very many people that read this blog are following the WikiLeaks story, but the reason why I think you should is it will set a very strong precedence for the future and who is willing to take on the war machine and other government corruption.

It is also a classic example of how character assassinations are being used to crush any dissent by those that would speak out.

The Pentagon is very angry that anybody would defy their murdering juggernaut and dare to publish any of their so-called “secret” machinations to encourage war.  Basically, officials have vowed to shut down WikiLeaks and serve a lesson to Assange.

Prosecutor Eyes WikiLeaks Charges

WikiLeaks Says Pentagon May Be Behind Rape Charges

Assange will not come out of this unscathed.  It is already too late for that.  Most likely, he will be forced to step down his profile quite a bit.  WikiLeaks will probably reduce their efforts at exposing government corruption, and effectively the thugs in charge of this planet will win again.

Because the rest of us did not support those who were trying.

The reason why this simple statement is true is it is simply not possible for the elite to stop everybody from speaking up.  It is not possible.

But because we refuse to speak up and out, and put a stop to the atrocities going on in our name, they continue to run amok, causing devastation and death all over the world.  They’ve got the rest of us kowtowed, afraid to do anything, and so we don’t.  And those that try are without our support.  We’re too busy living our lives, trying to stay alive, trying to keep our heads above water.

This is why the ongoing decline of our world continues, because the people cannot overcome their own disagreements and divisions and realize that we really are all in this together.  What they do to one country, they can do to ours.  What they do to one whistleblower, they can do to you.  Without support, everyone that steps up to the plate gets chopped down.

I think most people have given up, believing in the lies that we do not have the means to stop the grief being created.  To some degree, this is probably true — we don’t have the means, at least not through normal channels.  You have to realize  that these normal channels are the only “authorized” means of dissent.  They’re just as controlled and manipulated as everything else, rigged to ensure that your dissent can be effectively resisted and extinguished.

Wearing you out with years and years of legal blockades and wrangling behind bureaucratic bullshit, the methods permitted to the public to oppose government largess and malfeasance of all flavors and stripes are played directly into the hands of the elitists.  If WikiLeaks is not careful, they’ll find themselves ground up and spit out by the same system that is already rigged in favor of those who control it all.

Meanwhile, the war(s) will continue to be prosecuted with a vengeance and people will die.  Mothers, fathers, children, soldiers, civilians, innocents who did nothing wrong except live on the wrong soil, or be born to the wrong skin color or believe in the wrong religion.  They’re the real victims of this juggernaught, these agents of death and destruction and global domination.

Most of us don’t care about them, because we have our own lives to live, which are getting increasingly harder and harder.  What we don’t realize is that we still have incredibly cushy lives here compared to the rest of the world, thanks to the decades-long practice of economic exploitation and servitude demanded by the corpocracy, conducted through the U.S. military.  You don’t think it is any accident that we now occupy over 145 countries do you?  Or that this is really about the “fight for freedom and democracy”?

It’s about business, pure and simple, and exploitation and control, who owns what, who governs who, who calls the shots and makes sure that profits pour in as fast as humanly possible.  It’s about removing obstacles to global trade and finance, and exploiting raw resources and human labor as cheaply as possible.  This is why human life is actually cheap, the notion that human life is “valued” is a sick, sad joke in the rest of the world, and even here, depending on how far up the social ladder you live.

If you are poor, destitute and really down and out, you’re value is just barely above the value of a worm.  You can be crushed and extinguished with a simple misstep.

If you’re powerful and influential and make tons of money, society has been taught to value you as being important, essential and necessary.  But your life is no different then the poor in reality.  You’re the same, the only difference is how society has been brainwashed into deeming one over the other.

We worship money, power, control, influence and greed.  This is all part of the divide and conquer strategy deployed down through the ages. We’re oftentimes not bright enough to realize how easily manipulated we are.  The new American Tea Party “revolution” believes that they are different then all others before them, but they’re preaching the very same mantra every other group has tried before.

Does anyone really believe that this guy offers anything but more of the same?. This is the same dude caught funding anti-global warming campaigns too.  But what could you expect from Big Oil?. After you cut through the carefully crafted stories, you read about power, greed, corruption, abuse, a playboy lifestyle (realize that this article is designed to lay a trap upon your mind and lull you into acceptance for the man, and for that reason alone, cannot be trusted).
The Republicans .vs. the Democrats .vs. the Green Party .vs. the Libertarians .vs. the Constitution Party and on and on.  There isn’t a lick of difference in reality when you cut through the bullshit and rhetoric — they all want control so that they can be in charge, but the world won’t change one iota under their leadership.

And nobody asks why.

It should be obvious why.  The divisions that we embrace are what disempowers us.  It’s all part of the same script that keeps us blind and stupid, thinking that we can achieve what we cannot.  The script goes further to demonize our so-called “enemies”, manufactured boogie-men who have to be opposed by whatever costs, even if means wiping an entire country right off the map.  And I have only barely begun to mention the true script being played out.  The goal is to keep humanity divided against itself, playing both ends against the middle.

This is why you will find the wars funded by the same “side”, the same brokers and the same people, again and again.  They’re manipulating everything, profiting from the loss and the victories.  They don’t care who is ground up and spit out, or what children are being burned to death with white phosphorous or who’s houses are smashed to smithereens by tanks, or how agent-provocateurs betray the people they’ve befriended, or who’s economy is ruined.  Human lives and human freedoms to these people are like gnats flying in a hurricane.

And year after year, decade after decade, the human experiment in social structure continues on as before.  We remain divided, sworn “enemies” of each other, endless victims of their deception and deceit, their evil machinations and manipulations, staring down the barrel of a gun at each other.

We die by the hundreds of millions, ceaselessly ignorant of how we are throwing our lives away on their behalf, doing their bidding and blowing up the bridges, the towns, the homes, the lives of those whom they’ve declared on our behalf, “the enemy”.  We’re so fucking stupid we think we are doing ourselves a favor by these actions, spouting patriotic bullshit that declares only us as being valuable and important.

I hold very little hope for the human race, we’re not bright enough to wake the hell up and just say “No”.  Nobody can make you go, nobody can make you pull the trigger, nobody can make you believe their lies but you.  You have come to accept that what they preach is the divine truth of the world and the way it is “supposed to be”, marginalizing life itself, regulating the living, breathing, beating hearts of all others as being less deserving somehow then yourself.

You believe that we are different when we’re really not.  We all want the same things and we all have the same dreams, but many of us never get the chance, being born to the wrong skin color, the wrong religion or living in the wrong country, or being cursed with evil “leaders” or economic oppression of such magnitude that any dream you harbored is in daily reality, a living nightmare.

We’ve been told too, endlessly since birth, that this is the way the world is.  That may be true, but it is only true because we helped make it that way.  It does not have to be this way and never has.  There is enough resources to go around, enough food, land and shelter for all.  But because we insist on too much and so does every other government in the world, it ensures that there is not enough for everyone.  That’s the way it is designed to be, and the way it is.  Only through this manipulation of taking, and impoverishing some to improve others, do we even have an economy as we understand it today.

The world is deathly sick, ill with psychotic disorders and deadly beliefs.  But you do not have to go very far to find healthy individuals who are neither sick or diseased with greed and corruption.  They are bewildered at the apathy of the world, but they remain undiseased.

None of them are found in government or the halls of power, which corrupts men and women absolutely, warping them into evil caricatures of their former selves.  Whatever they once were, they no longer remain and giving themselves over to the darker side of evil, they lord over the rest with their positions of power and prestige and illusionary self-importance.

They’re no different then us in reality.  Giving the chance many of us will do the same in the workplace or by promotion, climbing over the backs of all others so that we can eat our slice of the creamed pie.  The healthy individuals don’t bother with such things, forsaking their “opportunities” to advance at the cost of others.  Most don’t work for anybody other them themselves, feeding their families by the sweat of their brow as it has been done since time immemorial.

The workplace is a structure designed to compete instead of serve.  Modeled after the rest of modern civilization, profits and economic control and market share are the main mantra’s each employee must serve.  Baal would be proud, as lordship over each little “kingdom” is practiced throughout the world.  Competition serves the powers-that-be quite well, creating oppression and division as we ruthlessly divide and conquer the world up again and again.

We believe that this is the way the world “works” and as it should be, giving us the standard of living which we have come to enjoy.  We ignore the trail of destruction we cause, the long chain of ruined and exploited lives reaching far over the horizon to foreign lands.  The hands of a small child, blistered and cracked from forced slavery are ours, as we buy exploited goods from big box stores promoting cheap goods.

There is a way out of this nightmare, but we’re not ready to hear it yet. It’s too foreign to our way of thinking, our way of life, how we live from day to day.  We cannot conceive of our own sovereignty and how we alone are truly the kings of our own lives.  We prefer servitude to the faceless masters of this Earth, the plantation owners that pull our strings and manipulate our world, even creating our beliefs.  We have become theirs, so thoroughly and so completely that concepts such as self-identity are trademarked with corporate logos.

There is a way out, but we’re not ready to hear it yet.

[A great summary on what the WikiLeaks document release reveals, the atrocities that have long been occurring by hidden by the media and the Whitehouse. This fits right in with all the (necessary) meat to my earlier quick assessment a few days ago - Admin]

WikiLeaks “Afghan War Diaries”

WikiLeaks “Afghan War Diaries” - by Stephen Lendman

Calling itself “the intelligence agency of the people,” WikiLeaks is “a multi-juristidictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive material to communicate to the public” that has a right and need to know - to then use responsibly for better government in a free and open society, absent in today’s America run by warlords, criminal politicians, and corporate bosses, spurning the rule of law for their own gain.

On July 26, WikiLeaks published “The Afghan War Diaries,” its modern day Pentagon Papers, top-secret documents eroding support for the Vietnam War, The New York Times saying they “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance” - what Julian Assange has done on Afghanistan, revealing Bush and Obama administration lies and duplicity about their illegal war of aggression, America’s longest. More on that below.

Releasing over 75,000 of nearly 92,000 reports, they represent a small fraction of millions of US files uploaded to WikiLeaks databases, more to be regularly released, “high quality material,” according to Assange.

They’re chronologically listed in over 100 categories, covering the period January 2004 - December 2009, describing lethal US military actions, including numbers internally killed, wounded, or detained by geographical location, units involved, and major weapons used.

Since the Pentagon Papers, they comprise the “most significant (comprehensive) archive about the reality of war,” with no resolution or opposition in Congress, providing “a comprehensive understanding of the war (and) modern warfare in general.”

Accounts come mainly from soldiers and intelligence officers, but also from US embassies and other sources revealing corruption and criminality across Afghanistan, including coverups, collusion, distortion, and duplicity - a sordid story needing telling to shock a comatose public to action, and revive a badly needed anti-war movement.

As expected, the White House reacted sharply and deceptively, National Security Advisor James Jones saying:

“The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk and threaten our national security,” ignoring the war’s illegality; its duplicitous, mindless, shameless destructiveness; a brutal quagmire; waged under false pretenses; and its shocking human costs on both sides; Afghan civilians mostly, but also NATO casualties, including deaths, mutilations, disabling injuries, PTSD, suicides, deadly toxins exposure, and proper care at home denied.

In several Nation magazine articles, Joshua Kors highlighted how US soldiers are treated, his April 26, 2010 article titled, “Disposable Soldiers: How the Pentagon is Cheating Wounded Vets,” mistreating them, misdiagnosing their needs to deny care and disability pay, providing substandard care, abandoning them when no longer needed, the major media not reporting it, how they’re now sanitizing WikiLeaks revelations, downplaying their importance, omitting important truths - about illegal wars and crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Bush and Obama administrations culpable.

America’s Lawlessness

The Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8 grants Congress only the power to declare war, appropriate funding, and “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the” nation.

The UN Charter is also explicit, explaining under what circumstances violence and coercion (by one state against another) are permitted. Articles 2(3) and 33(1) require peaceful settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its threatened use, and Article 51 allows the “right of self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member….until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security.”

In other words, justifiable self-defense is permissible. Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33 absolutely prohibit any unilateral threat or use of force not specifically allowed under Article 51 or authorized by the Security Council.

Three important General Assembly resolutions concur, unconditionally prohibiting “non-consensual military intervention:”

– the 1965 Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty;

– the 1970 Declaration on the Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations; and

– the 1974 Definition of Aggression - “the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations….”

Under Bush and Obama, Washington violated these laws by attacking and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, two nations posing no threat to America, willful aggression, what the Nuremberg Tribunal’s Justice Robert Jackson called “the supreme international crime,” enforceable under the Constitution’s “supremacy clause” (Article VI, clause 2), under which international laws and treaties automatically become US ones.

Then since October 2001, US forces (including CIA operatives) committed appalling crimes of war and against humanity, in violation of the four Geneva Conventions, the US War Crimes Act, the UN Torture Convention, the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide Convention, the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment and Principles, US Army Field Manual 27-10, and other US and international laws - using weapons of mass destruction to massacre millions (mainly civilians), cause vast devastation and destruction, and continue oppressive occupations illegally.

WikiLeaks documented the evidence, lifting the fog of war, revealing its true face, the human carnage, shocking atrocities, rampaging death squads against civilians, murdering women and children wantonly, torturing randomly arrested victims, operating freely under a media blackout.

Partnered with NATO, America’s military/industrial/media collaborators misportray US wars as humanitarian, hiding their imperial purpose - state terrorism against millions, showing an utter disregard for the law, truth, humanity or justice.

Even now after WikiLeaks revelations, media reports focus largely on their legality, political impact in November, and how congressional Democrats and the Obama administration may be harmed. They say nothing about nine years of duplicitous lies, shocking war crimes, no accountability, and two illegal wars, demanding they end, their grotesque harm stopped, and hundreds of billions for war profiteers used for homeland needs to revive a sick economy, harming millions as a result.

Undaunted, the White House vowed to keep fighting, continue America’s longest war, its occupation and violence in Iraq, defying popular sentiment against them, discounted for imperial gain and expediency - what the media won’t explain.

WikiLeaks Reports

Civilians are willfully targeted, those killed or wounded called insurgents, the numbers affected downplayed and misreported, embedded journalists an echo chamber for Pentagon/NATO lies and distortion.

Reports cover most Army units, not Special Forces, top-secret European ones, and other International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) except in combined operations, including assassinations and killing of civilians, including women and children, the media calling them militants or saying nothing at all.

Downplaying the revelations, The New York Times described “an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war,” portraying a bleaker picture than reported, yet collaborating with the White House to sanitize it, clearing it in advance before publishing, its usual practice for sensitive materials to keep readers misinformed, an article like this one impossible to clear its censors.

Der Spiegel published an interview with Julian Assange on his motivation for publishing. He said it eclipses everything released so far about the war and modern warfare, shockingly detailed to influence public opinion and political decision-makers - by “shin(ing) light on the everyday brutality and squalor of war,” in hopes the mood will shift to end it.

“Reform can only come (when) injustice is exposed. To oppose an unjust plan before it reaches implementation is to stop injustice.” America’s most dangerous men wage wars, not whistleblowers who expose them, their motives, false promises and crimes. Asked why he established WikiLeaks, he said:

“We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time (and) do something….meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying. That is my temperament. I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work,” more than ever vitally needed.

Headlining “Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation,” London Guardian writers Nick Davies and David Leigh discussed numerous incidents of tens or “hundreds of civilians killed by coalition troops,” covert units hunting leaders for “kill or capture,” the “steep rise in Taliban bomb attacks on NATO,” and the paper’s full war logs investigation, exposing real war, not a sanitized version omitting the human toll, vast destruction, corruption and drug-dealing, collusion and deceit, key unreported incidents happening daily, an “unvarnished picture,” lifting the fog of war.

The Guardian said “Washington fears it may have lost even more highly sensitive material, including an archive of tens of thousands of cable messages sent by US embassies around the world, reflecting arms deals, trade talks, secret meetings, and uncensored opinions of other governments.”

Interviewed on Democracy Now, Daniel Ellsberg was “very impressed,” calling the release the first “in 39 or 40 years, since I first gave the Pentagon Papers to the Senate,” saying he hopes it will inspire others to come forward and reveal what they know despite the considerable risk.

The documents were released in advance to the Guardian, Der Spiegel, and New York Times, revealing “a contemporaneous catalogue of conflict,” classified secret, encyclopedic but incomplete, in total presenting a very disturbing picture, including many accounts of coalitions forces willfully targeting civilians, killing or injuring them, unreported until now.

Other reports cover hundreds of border clashes between Afghan and Pakistani troops, armies supposedly allies, Special Forces killing Taliban, Al Queda leaders, and civilians, mindless slaughter on both sides, and numerous incidents of lethal friendly fire, taking NATO, American and Afghan forces lives - the main concern then concealing the evidence, weapons used, and crimes committed, embedded journalists saying nothing, including about regular demonstrations against America’s presence and the corrupted Kabul government, Hamid Karzai a US stooge.

The documents also discuss Pakistan’s ISI (its Inter-Services Intelligence) linkage ‘to some of the war’s most notorious commanders,” sending 1,000 motorbikes to warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani for suicide attacks in Khost and Logar provinces. In addition, Islamabad’s involvement “in a sensational range of plots, from attempting to assassinate President Hamid Karzai to poisoning the beer supply of western troops.”

Even the White House admits that elements of Pakistan’s army are linked to Afghan militants, endangering US troops by providing them safe havens.

As revealed, “this is not an Afghanistan that either the US or Britain” are about to turn over to the Kabul government. “Quite the contrary. After nine years of warfare (a Guardian editorial wanting it indefinitely extended), the chaos threatens to overwhelm. A war fought ostensibly for the hearts and minds of Afghans cannot be won like this.”

Neither can one fought for imperial gain, Afghan and American hearts and minds be damned. The first casualty also - the truth, WikiLeaks courageously exposing it to arouse a groundswell of public outrage and opposition, demanding the (Iraq and Afghan) wars end, and wasted billions diverted to homeland needs, people ones, including economic development creating jobs and futures, not handed to war profiteers and Wall Street bandits.

A Final Comment

In his 1995 book, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said “we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why” about a war that shouldn’t have been fought and couldn’t be won, what he told Lyndon Johnson privately, what the public never knew and few know now.

It’s no less true about Iraq and Afghanistan, General Stanley McChystal not sacked for deriding his superiors but for losing an unwinnable war, his Chief of Operations, Major General Bill Mayville saying: “It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win,” an assessment McChrystal and others know, what major media accounts won’t report, what WikiLeaks hopes to change by inspiring a crescendo of antiwar sentiment, what can’t come a moment too soon.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Yet another attempt to enslave Americans is being tried.

The Universal National Service Act:

To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.

H.R. 5741 is legalized slavery and indoctrination. They’ve expanded the draft age from past attempts, now up to 42 years old.

You had better oppose this, vehemently. Burn down the ‘frickin house if that’s what it takes.

“Homeland security” is a sick joke in this country, a euphanism for American oppression and tyranny of the citizens, make-believe ‘terrorists’ and no-fly lists for 6-year old’s and Grandma’s.

I’ve long warned that the Government would enact desperate measure to retain control (and funding, as in tax you blind). Now they want your body and your soul, so they can churn out multi-generations of indoctrinated, brainwashed and dumbed down fools totally enslaved to their every whim.

Don’t give in to them.

Americants are going to have to finally develop a backbone (a.k.a spine) and shut this insanity down.  I doubt very much that this will pass — but they keep trying, don’t they? That’s because these scum-sucking bottom feeding politicians think they actually own your ass.  You live to please them.
So send these pricks a message — Hell no, we won’t go.

The very idea that they can dream this shit up and enact it into law should scare the living pants off of you. They want to force you to participate in their plantation slavery pyramid scheme (as if it wasn’t bad enough already through economic oppression).

Screw that.  You hear me?  SCREW THAT!!

The military or “civilian service” is NOT the answer to this nations problems, but they are ONE of the major SOURCES of this nations problems and the reason this country is in such deep shit (and hated around the world, that’s what occupation gives you).

This dick-headed moron that is trying to see this passed into law is yet another would-be tyrant that would have every American “reformed” into the image and likeness of whatever this asinine government would dictate.

Hitler tried this.

Look where it got him and what he did with it.

So did Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Guyana, Israel, Iran, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.

Good luck with that.  Don’t count me in.  My life is not for sale, and is not on any political “exchange”, subject to a politician’s (paid prostitute) wet-dream.

Yeah, I’m livid.  You should be too.

In a blow to U.S. hegemony and belligerence, WikiLeaks has released 91,000 documents on the Afghanistan conflict.

The Afghan War Diary is massive, containing detailed day-to-day events.  The White House is livid of course, calling this exposure “irresponsible” and is in full-retreat, coverup and scramble mode.

The reason is obvious — we’ve been repeatedly lied to, again and again and again.  Support for our intervention is lagging and this exposure reveal the duplicious nature of US Government “policy”, and that of Pakistan.

Julian Assange claims that these documents “show the true nature of war“.  Assange has been the targeted of a global smear campaign, including the target of Steve Aftergood, head of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org) — and organization and effort that many have now come to highly question.

Aftergood claimed “In fact, WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals.”

Unbeknown to all of you, I posted on this article in June as “Reader”.

Reader Says:
June 28th, 2010 at 1:19 pm

I could not agree with you less. It is plainly evident that a attack on Wikileaks is well underway by many agencies, there has been quite a bit of news on this topic lately.

To see you join into this fray is dismaying at best, and somewhat revealing on your own openness.

Wikileaks does not have to fit your assumptions on what you think it should and should not publish. It makes no difference if they are secret rites or rituals or undisclosed government documents.

This side-handed character attack is beneath you, or so I once thought.

The allegations you make are based on conjecture — example was your comment about not receiving funding from the Knight Foundation. There could be any number of reasons Wikileaks was not selected, but your conjecture was inappropriate, unnecessary and somewhat revealing of your own bias.

And frankly, it’s not really important or even relevant to the real issue here — which is just as much about you as it is Wikileaks.

What EXACTLY then is your own agenda is this debacle?

Your own position is dead clear, in your own words: “In fact, WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals.”

That remark is the stupidest thing I think I have ever read here.

Enemies? Since you chose this word yourself, what the hell does that make you?

The rule of law is a sick joke — which any honest person acknowledges, and the very reason sites like this exist. If the rule of law was in point of fact in effect and actually working, this very site would not need to be here. But here you are — and here is Wikileaks, trying to overturn the corruption and secrecy (and violations of law).

The rights of individuals you alleged is a straw argument altogether, which you should have immediately realize before uttering this nonsense. You are trying to cloak the issue while sounding self-righteous and ethical yourself, but all you’ve managed to do here is point a finger for some bizarre and unknown reason. Maybe you aren’t the open and honest source you allege yourself to be.

Shame on you for this entire essay. You’ve only revealed yourself uncommitted to open information sharing, biased and quite possibly, not working for the good intention of the people you allege you serve.

Which leaves all your readers with this question: Who exactly are you serving here?

From that point on in the comments, it was a dogpile, as commentator after commentator rejected Aftergood’s insane comments.

Mike001 Says: The “Reader” whose comment began with “I could not agree with you less” pretty much hits the nail on the head with his/her assessment of this article. The absurdity of this article knows no bounds and I, too, question your motives Mr. Aftergood. 

Assange himself sought to answer Aftergood’s claim (several times), but Aftergood would have none of it.

I posted my absolute disgust once more:

Reader Says:
July 1st, 2010 at 2:14 pm

Apparently, some of you, or most of you, have no idea what it is actually like (in real life, beyond the keyboard) to try and expose wrong doing.

My comments above towards Aftergood and his ridiculous essay on Wikileaks were based on personal experience with deep corruption and the inability of government(s) to react with openness, honesty and the necessary transparency to all parties involved when clear abuses were documented and real lives were endangered (this is the same Reader commentator that first disagreed with Aftergood).

I am not affiliated with Wikileaks and barely understand what it is that they do. However, personal experience in these matters revealed to me that Aftergood’s little tirade against Wikileaks was entirely without merit, and even more importantly, based upon some rather blatant false assumptions.

Aftergood alleges that the rule of law should apply to any individual, organization or entity that expresses itself. This is a faulty argument, because the law in many, many cases does not protect you; does not assist you; does not defend you; and can be just as easily manipulated by your opponents who are demonstrably without morals or restraints. To say that they will even kill you to shut you up is no stretch of the imagination at all.

Who then will submit himself to “law” or “rules” under these rather onerous conditions? Self-preservation is paramount in many instances. Perhaps that makes me a coward, but I was not alone — my family was just as threatened as I and their lives were deemed even more important then my own.

I went to the authorities, once believing that I was doing the right thing and that my own role in all of this was unquestionably right. In my now-dead-naivete, I thought that these “protectors” of truth, law and justice would help me and resolve the situation, only to find out that not only did they not help, they swiftly turned against me, because I has naively uncovered one of their own in wrong-doing.

It is patently absurd to believe in the practice of the rule of law when the law does not in fact apply, or can be so capricious that it may as well not exist. Government create laws so that they can literally get away with murder without objection from the people they allege to serve, but just the opposite is now true.

You serve government at their behest and dictate — and if you don’t, then you are their declared enemy. They even have a name for this now on the law books — enemy combatant, a designation that can now be placed upon anybody, anywhere, for any reason.

Aftergood is asking us to support this ongoing atrocity and abomination of justice. I can’t do it anymore and neither can some of you.

Those of you that decry the “secretiveness” of Wikileaks are unlearned in the real world, where anonymity is the ONLY thing that actually protects you and your sources. You apparently believe in the illusion that you are safe in your identity and whereabouts and activities at all times. This cannot possibly be true in a society that targets individuals and organizations anytime that they are deemed a threat to the status quo.

Aftergood’s assassination attempt totally fails to acknowledge that whistleblower activities of any type are not governed by special pre-approved “rules” (especially ones deemed by him), that any such activity carries with it inherent risks to all parties involved, and that this activity itself is ungovernable anyway by anyone. In point of fact, no attempts should even be made to govern this.

That IS the price of an open society, so get used to it.

Or accept the consequences when you try and stop it. If that resulting society is preferable to you, then we are truly living on opposite ends of thought here. One of us is committed to an open society, the other is not. One of us is now the true enemy of the other, because one of us wrongly believes that you can control me, which can be rightly assumed, always to your advantage and not mine.

Which one will you be?

It does no good at all to attack such activities as Aftergood has, except to quench any further discourse and to shut down any would-be whistleblowers, some who have learned as I have — do so at your own risk. To expect or even demand that these people “follow the rules” is patently absurd — and damned dangerous for some.

Aftergood remains unrepentant and recalcitrant because he continues to wrongly believe that all should remain committed to the same illusions that rules and laws apply in all cases.

Aftergood expects that this cage of illusions is sufficient for all and in service to all, when this has never been the case in the real world, and it is only by challenging these established “norms” does society itself marginally improve.

Governments rely upon victims (real and imagined) as an effective tool to quench dissent. Aftergood is in effect, helping this process, which is quite bizarre when you think about it.

manuel piñeiro was quite right – he missed a real opportunity here and created a giant chasm between himself and his readership.

The REAL question remains however – why engage in this line of attack?

Aftergood has not presented a reasonable explanation here.

Perhaps we should start with the most obvious then — full financial disclosure of all sources of income and support.

This is usually the real reasons we find Judas in our midst.

I realize that this is a side-story to the WikiLeaks furor.  Aftergood never did respond to my (anonymous) request for full financial disclosure — and I really did not expect him to.  Neither did climate change “denier” (liar) Lord Monckton — liars never do.

I cannot comment further on this or the released documents,  — but just remember, honest and transparency are NOT being practiced by those who would fuel the flames of war.  Despite all the retrenchment you will read about in the coming days, weeks and months ahead, all the outrageous claims of how this will “hurt” us (them, let’s get this straight here and now) — they lie, repeatedly, often and without fail. T

They cannot be trusted. Period.

So don’t.

They’re going to spin-spin-spin this story, and cover it up, even redefine the very words to suit their own ends.  Just you watch.  This is a huge story of yet another failed policy of war and uncounted deaths and destruction that up until now, they’ve managed to keep pretty well hidden, even enlisting the likes of Aftergood to do their bidding.

The bottom line is they are going to defend the status-quo to the death, by whatever means possible, even if that means that they will kill you or send you off to Afghanistan to fight in yet another failed war.

I have no illusions at all that anything will change.  Nothing will, nothing ever does.

Oh wow, it’s been five years of blogging already. I just realized that this blog was begun in July 2005.

On the up side to this effort: I’m still here and so are most of you.  My fingernails are getting worn and so is my patience. A lot has happened in the world and we’re still headed down the same self-destructive path as ever.  Not much is being done to change this fact, unfortunately.  I stand by my conclusions reported years ago on what we should expect, what we should do and where this is all still headed.

You might want to read the 2010 Disaster Calendar for a “quick” overview of events that have all occurred.

January 2010

February 2010

March 2010

April 2010

May 2010

June 2010

July 2010

These are just some of the events that occurred in 2010, there are many thousands more that all point in the same direction for humanity.

There is a growing sense of “escape” response occurring now throughout America.  While I can empathize with this fear, I can’t actually endorse it entirely.  Escape implies a refusal to deal with reality, which no matter where you go or run off to, you will still eventually have to deal with.

This life as we know it today is already over. We’re only hanging on by our proverbial fingernails, trying desperately to avoid the personal collapse that is coming our way.  We’ve all learned by now that we are not immune or isolated from events taking place elsewhere, it’s all interconnected and intertwined in ways which will and does affect each of us.

Global collapse is a reality, as is our national collapse and right on down to personal collapse.  I once wrote about three stages of collapse, pre-collapse, collapse and post-collapse.   We’re still in that middle stage, which I now call personal collapse, as it happens to each of us, one by one.  We lose our jobs, our homes, our way of life and our reality, our world, falls apart.

We roll with these punches, as best we can.  Sometimes we pick up and move and start over, or we hang on where we are at.  Most of us are still here, still alive, still struggling on.  And most of us, still believe in the “dream”, the one that promised each of us that we could get it all back.

I do not believe in this dream. I do not accept the notion that it is accurate or even desirable.  The dream is the same, everywhere you go and with everyone you meet.  It is based upon endless consumption and endless resource extraction, fueled by an endless supply of energy.  Most companies in America are still spouting this same dream.  Most government agencies are still focused on this dream.  Most businesses are oriented around this dream.  Most lives are trying to live this dream.

But this dream is not going to come true.  Like most dreams, it is all based upon an illusion of reality, that stark, harsh world of how things really work.

Five years of blogging (and two forums) and a few million words later has taught me one important thing: we refuse to wake up to reality.  As a species, humans have shown an incredible propensity for being unbelievably dense.  We suffer from several maladies; cognitive dissonance, speciescentrism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and although I don’t know the proper word, an incredible capacity (enjoyment) for death, destruction and hatred, to our own kind and to everything else.

The “dream” blithely ignores all this, but reality reveals it many times over.  Our maladies are incurable within this present culture, which has elevated these illnesses to celebrity status. The July 2005 first blog entry revealed that “civilization is the problem”, and a short five-years later, it still is.  The dream responds within the boundaries of this civilization, itself an illusion of reality.  We can’t envision anything else it seems, even our dreams are confined.

But I still contend that it could be very much different, if we but let it happen.  Believe it or not, the collapse is part of this process.  It signals the end of this civilization and the beginnings of a new one.  Because we are so ethnocentric and shortsighted, we have a hard time seeing that.  Cognitive dissonance takes over, ruling our very thoughts and imprisoning our minds with “no solution is this”.  But this is not true.  The solution is happening right now, collapse IS the solution.

I’ve posited many times in past blog entries what I would “save” from this civilization, or from this government, or from this way of life.  This of course was pure speculation, because it isn’t up to me what to save and never will be.  I recognized a long time ago that most of what we have built needed to be swept away.  I pointed out the foolishness of trying to “reform the system” from within, or even from without.  That protest and marching and letter writings and “demanding” from our government was never going to work.  That your answer lay within you all along — and that the solution was actually up to you, each of you.  You had to abandon what was no longer working, turn your back on it all and walk away.

A lot of people struggle with that, still believing that they should “help” or participate within a system that has already abandoned them.  The system itself has long since become self-serving, protectionist against anything and everything that would threaten the status quo.  I saw little point in any attempts at reform.  Let it collapse I said, let it all fall apart, we’ll all be better off without it anyway.

Hard realities, but a position I still personally hold.  I see nothing good coming from propping up the very system that has destroyed most of this world.  I don’t want to be a part of that and more then suggested you shouldn’t be either.

But admittedly, this is all we’ve ever known.  That by our living and our very existence, we were seriously contributing to the death of this planet.  Facts like that are in the news every single day now, but it’s still passing through one ear and out the other with most of the people on this planet.  They simply don’t care, they don’t give a shit, day to day survival has become their modus operandi, they’re “status quo” that I rail on so often.

In many ways, you can’t blame them. We all try to survive, doing whatever it is that we can.  We’ve been forced into this position oftentimes against our will.  Most of us cannot envision anything else.  Many of us do not want anything else.  And the longer we keep doing this, the worse it is going to get.

We are now all living witnesses to these facts. Harsh fact, brutal facts, in the news and found on websites throughout the world daily.  But these facts have become “entertainment” and do not penetrate the denseness of our minds or translate into new realities for how we actually live on this planet.  We cannot seem to change, no matter what it is that we may “know” or “do”.  It is as if it is truly beyond our capacity to self-adjust.  And perhaps it truly is.  Our civilization refuses to accomodate anything else.  I’ve long pointed out that it is actually illegal to step away and live differently, this civilization has long committed genocide to any group that did.  Laws are enforced to the point of death to ensure you do not “step away” and stop your contribution to this death-culture.

Even so, death be damned, your going to die anyway.  I still advocate a refusal to participate.  It’s flat-out stupid to believe that you don’t have a real choice in the matter.  If they own this much of you already, then we have long since passed the time where a full-blown armed revolution needs to take place, a point I have also raised time and time again.

Your life is your own.  Nobody else “owns” it, even though many, many groups and governments claim that they do.  You live at your own behest, the promise that your life is really your own and nobody else’s.  Nobody should be allowed to tell you what to do with your life either, as long as you do not bring harm to anyone or anything else.  But that is not reality in today’s world, where you are truly owned, bought and paid for, enslaved to a system that forces you to participate in its death-culture and planetary ecocide.

But you still have a choice.  I repeat — you still have a choice.  A life that is worth living is a life that reacts responsibly. Otherwise, you’re just a robot, mindless and without conscience, doing what you are told, when you are told, how you are told.  Not many people seem to realize that this has become the job of the American media, which does this very well, molding millions upon millions of human lives into mindless automons.

I often harp on personal responsibility and personal authority, these are definitely related to all my points here today. Humans have choices, even if they don’t seem to exist or be allowed to you (they do in most cases).  We get to choose how to live.  As humans, we have choices not allowed a plant or a tree or a fish or a bird or an animal.  We can live conscientiously, or we can live haphazardly, without responsible thought or choices, wreaking havoc and destruction in everything that we do.  That is exactly how this civilization was designed, this habitat of humanity, ensconced within our minds through a myriad of methods of pre-programmed, brainwashed responses.  We’re “greenwashed” and brainwashed into beleiving we are “responsible humans” when we’re anything but.

You’re told you do not have a choice.  To this I say, “bullshit” (and why my patience is wearing thin).  Our civilization self-protects and attacks anyone that brings its tenets into question.  But we should question!  Constantly, endlessly, seeking better ways to live and to find peace in all that we do (and what we never seem to question, what we don’t do).  Endless wars and acts of aggression should be teachers enough to make us stop our collective insanity, but somehow, this doesn’t seem to be impetus enough despite the bloodshed or the rivers of tears we cause.  Our behavior is unbelievably xenophobic and hate-filled, insane behavior to an insane culture, totally out of control and beyond all hopes of humanity.

Five years.  Five years of documenting, cajoling and ranting about our collective insanity.  Not really a very long time at all and certainly not enough time to believe that any real change could be forthcoming. This juggernaut of civilization is massive, unmovable and certainly not willing to change, but I still contend, the change begins with you.

The 4th of July is not what most people think it is.  Now, a few hundred years later, it’s something else entirely.

This is a plea for true independence - from war, from genocide, from senseless slaughter, and from mass brainwashing in support of these things:

Humans are not supposed to eat their own young, but it is exactly what we are doing.  While we mortgage the economic future of our children through worldwide empires built on corruption and debt, building a series of oligarchical societies quickly returning the world to feudalism, we similarly are raising a generation of our children to fight wars, narco-wars, oil wars, wars meant to exploit resources and maximize poverty, despair and breed another generation of extremism and fear.  Genocidal Empire - “PRIMORDIALISM” AND THE DECLINE OF HUMAN CULTURE

“Mass Casualties”: The Dark Underbelly of Occupation, an Army Medic’s Account by Dahr Jamail

Perhaps, this latest account in its unsophisticated and gut-level rejection of the lie that the US military has come to represent will make people sit up and take notice … and action.

“Trillions for war, no money for Americans!”

The objective evidence proves the US war against the people of Afghanistan is paper-thin propaganda of “self-defense” masking a psychopathic War of Aggression; but the world will continue to suffer from this and related vicious policies until the American people lead in understanding of verifiable evidence and law, thought, voice, and acts to force these unlawful policies to end.

This is an absolutely ESSENTIAL must read: Zero Point Of Systematic Collapse

We stand on the cusp of one of the bleakest periods in human history when the bright lights of a civilization blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity. The elites have successfully convinced us that we no longer have the capacity to understand the revealed truths presented before us or to fight back against the chaos caused by economic and environmental catastrophe. As long as the mass of bewildered and frightened people, fed images that permit them to perpetually hallucinate, exist in this state of barbarism, they may periodically strike out with a blind fury against increased state repression, widespread poverty and food shortages. But they will lack the ability and self-confidence to challenge in big and small ways the structures of control. The fantasy of widespread popular revolts and mass movements breaking the hegemony of the corporate state is just that – a fantasy.

Too many resistance movements continue to buy into the facade of electoral politics, parliaments, constitutions, bills of rights, lobbying and the appearance of a rational economy. The levers of power have become so contaminated that the needs and voices of citizens have become irrelevant. The election of Barack Obama was yet another triumph of propaganda over substance and a skillful manipulation and betrayal of the public by the mass media. We mistook style and ethnicity – an advertising tactic pioneered by the United Colors of Benetton and Calvin Klein – for progressive politics and genuine change. We confused how we were made to feel with knowledge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand for an experience. Obama, now a global celebrity, is a brand. He had almost no experience besides two years in the senate, lacked any moral core and was sold as all things to all people. The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age’s marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer’s dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertisers want because of how they can make you feel.

Randall first let me in on this over at Cryptogon, but this is the more detailed version of this story:

Afghans Giddy Over Mineral Estimate

This, if true, will bring profound changes to that region (and American policy). Already, the U.S. has made moves on oil and mineral deposits around the world in a pretty big way.  A trillion dollars is one hell of a prize.

But we’ve got those pesky Talibans in the way.

Minerals don’t self-extract themselves out of the ground.  This will take petroleum, and lot’s of it.  I’m sure that there is some hand-wringing going on in “certain circles” in the petroleum industry — those that have it, those that don’t and those that are watching it wash up on our beaches.

Filed under “War, Tyranny, and Terrorism” because if it isn’t already obvious, that is EXACTLY what this “discovery” will mean.

This is a real game-changer on a global scale.

A deconstruction of the Gaza Flotilla attack video:

It’s already been proven that the Auschwitz claims were fabricated, but there’s the proof, and the other doctored footage.  The “scrub” continues however (hide the evidence), as fast as possible.

I didn’t report this, but the Freedom Flotilla has been thoroughly searched and cleared for passengers, contents and destination.  All the claims about connections to “terrorists” were patently false, as were the purpose of the flotilla.  This was a humanitarian mission — which was not going to be allowed to happen under any circumstances.

This next video is much longer, and shows an inside view of activists and the Israeli attack:

Iran is headed to the blockade as I write this.  This could trigger a much bigger, brutal showdown then anything we’ve seen (and probably will).

Steven Lendman has a historical perspective you may want to read, and the Flotilla Two writeup, and the ongoing collective punishment being dealt out.

We’re probably right on the verge of something rather big in the Middle East, and I can guarantee, it’s not the Second Coming.