Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Why would anyone consider Hillary Clinton if they knew this?

What could be so bad about Hillary Clinton that should make just about everyone excluding those financing her campaign refuse to even consider her?

Just about everything!

Especially things that are only reported briefly by the mainstream media and forgotten quickly while they repeat propaganda about her that is mostly positive, or even if it isn't they present her as inevitable, and the only "viable" Republican opposition as even more extreme.

Below are what started as a couple of links about stories that weren't getting enough attention and I saved them so I wouldn't forget. Before I realized it they grew into dozens.

As Jeff Foxworthy might say in his southern drawl, "If you recognize more than a fraction of these stories you might be a political junkie that sees through corporate propaganda!" But if you rely on mainstream media it is virtually guaranteed that you may not have heard most of these stories.

Given enough time I'm sure there is much more where this came from but it is clear that this is an incredibly horrible candidate and not only can't I imagine why anyone would vote for her but I can't imagine why the establishment would support a candidate that is so obviously flawed; and all of them rally behind her to make her seem inevitable.

Don't you think they could have presented several corporate puppets to make it seem like a more credible scam?

They almost certainly know how to come up with a better scam but regardless of why they didn't this is a horrible candidate that supports multinational corporations and the military industrial complex at the expense of the vast majority of the public.

Who do you think is paying for all those ads saying that she'll stand up to Wall Street and the Drug companies?

You guessed it the people paying for these accountability ads are the ones that she's supposedly going to hold accountable.

And that's just the beginning.

Who do you think is near the top of the list of corporations that are donating to her campaign or the Clinton Foundation?

The media that is supposedly "Unbiased" when they control the debate and exclude grassroots candidates by simply refusing to cover them.

This isn't referred to as bribery according to the ironic definition by the Supreme Court that says the rest of us are often restricted to "Free speech zones."

As for the claim that many of these non-profit organizations that are endorsing Hillary Clinton, are part of the establishment that clearly appears to be true, or they're dependent on the establishment for their money, and many of the people heading up these organizations are often closely tied or even related to politicians like Cecile Richards who has seen her pay rise from over $300,000 per year to over $500,000 in a few years.

There is an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that their so-called charitable organizations are being used for political purposes and many of the people or corporations donating to them are involved in a large variety of atrocities that do much more damage than their "charity." This includes selling arms to governments using them to oppress their own people corporations polluting large portions of the world or supporting governments that are spying on people and oppressing them and much more.

In Green Inc. Christine MacDonald reported about how most of the highest profile environmental groups are closely tied with corporations and are actually acting as public relations fronts for them. The leadership of these groups have close ties with CEOs of multinational corporations and are often paid almost as much as them.

These are some of the biggest corporate donors that are paying for the ads telling people Hillary Clinton will hold them accountable:

Hillary Clinton has quietly pursued policies that enabled foreign governments including China, Columbia Honduras, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and more oppress their own people especially the working class and including children that she often claims to defend. This includes support of Cisco when they were helping China spy on their own citizens and Monsanto which is using the public as research subjects without much if any disclosure. Pharmaceutical companies selling antidepressant drugs and other medications are also using people as research subjects without adequate disclosure. Advertisers and lobbyist often have more influence over policies than the most sincere researchers.

If the political establishment including Hillary Clinton, will do this to poor people around the world should we believe they wouldn't do it to people here? Keep in mind that the political establishment routinely remains silent on crisis's like Flint Michigan until it spreads through the grassroots.

Hillary Clinton has been promoting her defense of children for decades by rebroadcasting her speeches including one that claims that she will defend children "no matter where they're born" but that clearly doesn't apply to those in war torn countries including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Columbia or many other countries where her foreign policy positions supported oppressive regimes or wars based on lies; nor does it include the children impacted by welfare reform in our country which wasn't accompanied by efforts to defend workers so they could earn enough to care for their own children.

It also includes the pharmaceutical companies that she claims she’s going to stand up to despite their donations to her campaign, This is a pattern of behavior; like the gun industry while she claims she’s going to stand up to them she’s also profiting from them along with Barack Obama. And of course she’s good friends with Alice Walton, and was a former member of the Walmart board, while claiming that she’ll put workers ahead of her campaign contributors.

Few of her positions promoted with her campaign ads seem to hold up when researched. I almost certainly didn't cover more than a fraction of them here but, on any given subject it is advisable to do a little research before believing what she says.

For starter here are three of my past posts about some of her false claims:

Regardless of Polls Bernie Sanders Supports Blacks much better than Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton was A Republican supporting Barry Goldwater who opposed the Civil Rights bill when Bernie Sanders was marching with Martin Luther King; and she's hired private prison lobbyists in addition to supporting her husbands drug policies which targeted mostly minorities.

Bernie Sanders wins foreign policy debate hands down despite propaganda In addition to supporting the Iraq War based on lies Hillary Clinton also supported many other military actions or tyrants and arms sales as Secretary of State, Senator or First Lady, often antagonizing people that retaliate based on more lies.

Hillary Clinton Is Using Children As Props While Her Record Betrays Them The people who gave her an opportunity to speak when her political career was just started and supported the Children's Defense Fund have come out in opposition to her welfare reform and other policies which did more harm than good for the children she claims to defend; similar problems arise with her alleged support for women.

And there’s much more as the following articles indicate, starting with another collection of links by Jeanette Sandernista, and as I said Google searches will turn up even more, if I have time I might add a few of them:

Jeanette Sandernista A guide to Hillary Clinton information video clips

Hillary Clinton Top Contributors from Open Secrets

Naturally, CNN’s parent company is one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest donors 10/15/2015

Money Talks: Why CNN Wants You to Believe That Hillary Clinton Won the Democratic Debate 10/16/2015

George Stephanopoulos discloses $75,000 contribution to Clinton Foundation 05/14/2015 ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose while reporting on the Clintons or their nonprofit organization, the On Media blog has learned.

CBS and NBC Punt on Latest Clinton Foundation Controversy 04/23/2015 The State Department, with Clinton at the helm, approved the sale of one of America's largest uranium mines to Russia. At the same time, a foundation controlled by the mine’s chairman was making donations to the Clinton Foundation. We are talking about some big money here. Four separate donations totaling $2.35 million. And these reports say that the donations were not publicly disclosed.

Clinton Foundation donors include dozens of media organizations, individuals 05/15/2015

How Hillary Clinton is buying off the Democratic National Committee 01/06/2016

Team Hillary Took Insurance Lobby Cash They fought the Affordable Care Act, and helped torpedo Hillarycare. Then they rained money on Clinton loyalists. 08/13/2015

Top Consulting Firm Emerges In Early Hillary Clinton Efforts 09/14/2014

Hillary Clinton, Cisco And China: Company Funded Foundation, Was Lauded By Clinton Despite Role In Repression 04/16/2015

Snowden Says Hillary Clinton’s Bogus Statements Show a “Lack of Political Courage” 10/16/2015

Despite Hillary Clinton Promise, Charity Did Not Disclose Donors: Report 03/19/2015

Goldman Paid Bill Clinton $200,000 For Speech Before Bank Lobbied Hillary Clinton 04/27/2015

As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations 04/08/2015

Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton's State Department 05/26/2015

The Clinton Foundation: Hillary Beholden To Banks, Corporations, And Foreign Governments 01/23/2016

Firms Paid Bill Clinton Millions As They Lobbied Hillary Clinton 04/28/2015

Campaign 2016: Hillary Clinton Pitched Iraq As 'A Business Opportunity' For US Corporations 09/30/2015

Confession of Hillary Shill from /r/SandersForPresident - thread is now gone but someone saved the content. This may not seem reliable to many since it is anonymous; however there is evidence that this kind of practice is far more common than most people realize. Several books have exposed how corporations have been using on line people for marketing or political purposes and political strategists like Frank Luntz have describe many similar tactics and admitted that they use them routinely. There are also plenty on the Democratic side like James Carville working on the democratic side and the Clinton campaign has been caught planting questions before in the audience and in the media.

'60 Minutes' used 'planted' questions, Hillary Clinton email says 10/01/2015

Student describes how she became a Clinton plant 11/13/2007

The Head of the Democratic Party Is Either a Failure or a Liar 01/17/2016

WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton Pushed Mexico's Oil Privatization 08/10/2015

Barack Obama And Hillary Clinton Donors Profit From Gun Industry 01/12/2016

The Right Baits the Left to Turn Against Hillary Clinton 05/16/2015

Election 2016: Wall Street-Funded Super PAC Airs New Iowa Ad Slamming Hillary Clinton’s Ties to Wall Street 01/17/2016

Hillary Clinton Denounces Corporate Crime While Accepting Cash From Blackstone, Firm Sanctioned By SEC 12/16/2015

The Clintons’ so-called charitable enterprise has served as a vehicle to launder money and to enrich family friends. 11/17/2015

Union fired their own workers for trying to organize a union, source says 09/23/2015

Hillary Clinton Hires Former Monsanto Lobbyist to Run Her Campaign 04/26/2016

Hillary vs. Bernie on Frankenfood Is Hillary a Shill for Monsanto? 06/23/2015

Hillary Clinton: We Can’t Afford to Lose Biotechs 01/25/2014 “I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else,” she said.

“I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record, you say, and are scientifically provable to continue to try to make the case to those who are skeptical,” Clinton said when asked about her stance on GMOs.

She said she promoted drought-resistant seeds while combating food insecurity in Africa, which “by definition, they have been engineered to be drought-resistant.”

Clinton takes in big money from drug industry 10/16/2015 Hillary Clinton has said she is proud to have drug companies as her enemies – but she is also taking their money. Lots of it.

The Clinton campaign received far more money from the drug and medical device industries than any other presidential candidate in either party during the first six months of the campaign, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. She accepted $164,315 during that period.

Jeanette Sandernista: Under #Hillary2016, the State Dept approved $1.65 billion worth of arms deals for her Foundation's donors. 12/25/2015

Chelsea Clinton Takes Aim at Sanders Over Health Policy 01/12/2016

Reminder: Hillary Clinton's Daughter is Married to a Hedge Fund Manager 06/16/2015 Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton's daughter, is married to Marc Mezvinsky. Mezvinsky is not just a hedge fund manager, but a co-founder of a hedge fund. And how did he get a number of his big money investors? Through his ties to the Clintons.

Report: FBI expands investigation of Clinton 01/11/2016

Hillary Clinton made more in 12 speeches to big banks than most of us earn in a lifetime 01/08/2016

Emails expose close ties between Hillary Clinton and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger 01/12/2016

Former Planned Parenthood donors are now sending their money to Bernie Sanders 01/06/2016

FBI's Clinton probe expands to public corruption track 01/11/2016

Even the “Clinton News Network” (CNN) laughs at Hillary’s ‘dead broke’ comment

"This is from Mahatma Gandhi. He ran a gas station down in St Louis for a couple of years" Hillary Clinton

Here's How Elizabeth Warren Is Holding Clinton's "Feet to the Fire" on Liberal Policies 04/27/2015

Clintons charge big fees to small groups The Clinton Foundation has taken in as much as $11M in payments from non-profit groups. 06/15/2015

How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World Fall 2014

Conservatives are making hay out of Hillary Clinton’s defense of an accused rapist 06/16/2014

How Hillary Clinton Betrayed the Children's Defense Fund for Political Gain 01/16/2008

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Is the academic world defending democracy? or corrupting it?

It is often said that colleges are defenders of democracy where ideas are debated freely; this is necessary to protect democracy and it is also necessary to get the information the public needs to them, and enable them to compare all ideas to make the best decisions possible when participating in the democratic process.

Unfortunately the cost of college keeps it out of reach for the vast majority of the public and, even worse, a close look may indicate that the best ideas with the most credible research often takes a distant back seat to the ideas with the most political support, especially in the media; however there appears to be an enormous amount of academic support for these political ideologies, even when they don't stand up to scrutiny.

A close look at almost any given subject, especially if it impacts economic ideologies that benefit the wealthy or foreign policy, either directly or indirectly, indicates that the beliefs repeated over and over again in the media, and by the highest profile politicians or academics often presented as experts, is not the most reliable. However it takes time on any given subject to sort through the details and figure out where the more reliable research is.

People more accustomed to checking alternative media outlets or reading non-fiction books that aren't promoted much by the traditional media are much more likely to find out about this. Once people do check enough different subjects it should be clear that the best academic work isn't being presented to the majority of the public or used to make the most important political decisions.

As I explained in numerous posts including John McCain really isn't a War Hero; North Korea Nuclear Test Propaganda Is War Mongering and many more previous ones the vast majority of research about foreign affairs is rarely mentioned in the media while they repeat propaganda to maintain a permanent state of war over and over again. For example, on a few occasions they might remind the public about the Iranian coup with the help of the CIA in 1953, or that the Reagan government sold arms to both sides of the Iran/Iraq war and other activities then quickly forget it; but they will repeat Iranian retaliation over and over again without reminding the public what they're retaliating against.

Like other subjects there are some more credible college professors or reporters doing a much better job reporting this; however the reporters have to work for alternative media outlets assuming they find work at all, with less resources and both the professors and reporters like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Stacy Mitchell and many more including those contributing to the American Empire Project (additional sources available for other subjects will be listed at end of post) are treated like radical fringe professors, if they're mentioned at all by the traditional media. In most cases they ignore them since even mentioning them might bring attention to them and if people check their work they might realize that it holds up much better to scrutiny than the traditional version of truth presented by the mainstream media.

Establishment ideologies often have many of the same characteristics of a cult. They repeat their version over and over again with charismatic speakers often using a variety of psychological manipulation tactics. This isn't a fringe conspiracy theory, at least if you use the strictest definition of the word conspiracy, since the vast majority of the information that they're downplaying isn't completely secret but it is almost absent absent from political and media discussion on this subject or many others. Some of the alternative media outlets or professors that do more credible research explain many of these manipulation tactics so that those inclined to take the time to read them can compare them and confirm it for themselves.

In "Shock Doctrine" Naomi Kline describes hoe Milton Friedman used to speak in a very charismatic and authoritarian manner like a preacher when promoting his fiscal ideology. Most of his students were almost certainly from the upper class and raised to expect to be part of the political class that controls the system. This enabled them to promote their ideology abroad where there was the least amount of resistance for decades. However it eventually began to backfire especially in Latin America where thy finally learned how to stand up to them. This kind of cult mentality can only last so long before it backfires when it does so much damage that society can't function properly, and that is what happened. Milton Friedman's ideologies was forced on Latin America for a long time with the help of tyrants supported by the United States government like Pinochet and numerous others by violently repressing their people. But the news reported to the United States public was very different and they didn't report when they were distracted with the war on terror after 9/11 that a lot of their puppet governments were in the process of being overturned partially reversing the process.

This is also clear when it comes to the recent water crisis in Flint Michigan, which has been part of a pattern of behavior for decades, although it has only made it into the mainstream media recently. Alternative media outlets including Maude Barlow author of "Blue Gold" and Susan Clark and Woden Teachout author of "Slow Democracy" have reported on this crisis years ago long before most of the public ever heard of it. Numerous communities around the world have been facing major problems with their water thanks to the privatization practice of extremists following Milton Friedman's ideology. The most extreme cases have been in third world countries where the mainstream media feels no need to report on but there have been some less extreme examples including in France where one of the leading privatizers is founded and Gloucester Massachusetts, among others which are only reported at the local level. By only reporting it in low profile places they enable the multinational corporations to pull the same scam one time after another.

This is very common among an enormous amount of environmental research, where the best researchers report on astronomical amounts of damage around the world but they can't get any coverage in the mainstream media or attention from the majority of the political establishment. People in third world countries are routinely standing up to corrupt multinational corporations because the damage is already threatening their lives, yet the media refuses to report on most of it. And the economists are often portrayed as the so-called experts; on top of that the energy companies buy up enormous amounts of media time to portray themselves as environmentally friendly while they're causing all this destruction.

It is virtually guaranteed that many more of these examples will be exposed in the years to come, and in many cases they already have been exposed, at least at the local level.

This will guarantee a growing backlash since multinational corporations can't hide the enormous damage they're doing forever.

The same practice goes with one subject after another. When it comes to advertising to children, which most people don't think about very much, the most effective research exposing how deceptive it is and how it is impacting education and even interfering with the democratic process don't get any media coverage. This may seem trivial to most people, but when children are targeted by advertisers, even in schools, they often spend more time thinking about them than their education; and researchers have demonstrated that it impairs the development of critical thinking skills and even impacts their ability to scrutinize promises from politicians threatening their ability to participate in the democratic process.

If there's any doubt about the impact of advertising on the economy or quality of life, imagine of they send advertising expenses through the roof along with lobbying, shipping, union busting, and legal expenses that don't benefit consumers through the roof while cutting expenses that do benefit consumers how will that impact the value and quality of consumer goods or service?

It would of course be a disaster and yet this is happening even though politicians, media pundits, and academic experts rarely if ever mention this to the majority of the public.

There are numerous academic sources defending the current patent and copyright system based on the claim that it provides incentive for innovation yet a closer look indicates that it provides more pay, in many cases for copyright lawyers than it does for authors. Now that we have new computer technology it is much more expensive to prevent the free distribution of information than it is to spread it even when it comes to educational information people need to participate in the democratic process. The government routinely subsidizes medical research or other kinds of research then allows multinational corporations to have patents any way and is even extending them enabling the multinational corporations to gouge consumers.

Yet this isn't reported to the vast majority of the public and they try to portray those that exchange information as "pirates" as if they're the ones destroying our education system by giving people the information they need to participate in the democratic system. Researchers that try to minimize this or correct these problems like Lawrence Lessig, Robert McChesney or John Nichols are treated like fringe "radicals" and little or no high profile discussion takes place to find a more effective system to educate the public in a fair manner.

There are an enormous amount of academic sources that study politics in a manner that is far more likely to manipulate the public than educate them so they can look out for their own best interests like Karl Rove, Frank Luntz and many more who get far more attention than those that try to expose their manipulation tactics. When it comes to choosing the leaders of many colleges they routinely chose those with the most political connections among the wealthy rather than those that do the best work, like Lawrence Summers, William Bulger, or John Silber, all of whom are often paid batter than those doing the best work that stands up to scrutiny, assuming scrutiny is actually applied.

In most cases this scrutiny isn't actually applied, or at least not in a high profile manner; the best research is often relegated to lower profile alternative media outlets or books that most people don't read.

This also applies to authoritarian child rearing methods for children that often lead to escalating violence and blind obedience to authority especially in the military. This is often used differently along class or racial lines. Those that are expected to do menial labor are much more likely to be taught in an authoritarian manner while those expected to develop critical thinking skills for more complicated jobs are often taught using less authoritarian methods that help encourage the development of critical thinking skills necessary for advanced education.

This escalates in institutions like the military or police academies where recruits are put intensive boot camp where they're taught to blindly obey orders without question and hazing is often used to intimidate anyone that thinks for themselves. the psychological research for these boot camp techniques are done in the academic world without explaining it to the majority of the public so they won't realize they're being manipulated.

The good news is that even without political clout or an enormous amount of resources the more sincere researchers have been able to do a much better job than those with the most political connection but they have little or no opportunity to get their point across to the vast majority of the public. As I said this doesn't fit the strictest definition of a conspiracy, since it isn't completely secret; however the best researchers are limited to low profile methods of getting their points across while the political establishment has centralized authoritarian control over the mass media and the leading political parties and the system to interview and elect politicians.

Sometimes it is almost like the most trustworthy are only allowed to speak in "free speech zones" where hardly no one is listening; which might as well be a conspiracy.

Do we really need all these academics that are more concerned about manipulating the public for benefit of the wealthy instead of looking out for the best interests of all?

I've written dozens if not hundreds of posts about additional material to back up mt conclusions most of which can be found on my table of context but the following are a few of the external sources cited here followed by some of my relevant previous posts about the academic divide and some of the more reliable sources on various subjects:

Blue Gold The global water crisis and the commodification of the world's water supply A Special Report issued by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) by Maude Barlow She followed this up with a longer book by the same name and another called "Blue Covenant."

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein - Infoshop.org PDF

Slow Democracy by Susan Clark and Woden Teachout

And these are my previous posts:

Roy F Fox on unethical targeting of children by marketers

Roy F Fox Harvesting Minds, Channel One Indoctrination of Kids

Wal-Marts unethical marketing to children

Michelle Obama pushes token advertising restrictions while ignoring research that calls for more

Copyright Bureaucracy

Copyright violators are thought criminals

Lawrence Lessig encouraging an Educational Commons

Fundamentals of Psychology

Manipulation Tactics

Political Manipulation

Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment including information about how this may be used for indoctrination purposes when military puts recruits through Boot Camp.

Corruption or Bias in the American Psychological Association

Eli Roth’s Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize

Political Psychologist Are Suppressing Democracy

Does child abuse and bullying lead to more violence?

Child abuse and bullying link in study long over due

The real victim rights advocates

Cause and Effect of Hatred

Coming soon real reform ….. or book burning? Genocide?

Monday, January 11, 2016

North Korea Nuclear Test Propaganda Is War Mongering

North Korea's recent alleged nuclear test is being used far more for anti-North Korea propaganda than it is for North Korean propaganda purposes; and it is being used to continue a permanent state of war or the threat of war, whether it is intentional or not.

The propaganda presented to the vast majority of the American public only mentions some of the things the US government and South Korea have been doing to antagonize North Korea briefly; and more important they're ignoring an enormous amount of historical context and even out right lying about it. The following article reminds us of some of the propaganda that South Korea has been using almost bringing them to the brink of war and there is more including the 2000 agreement, which has been almost forgotten that could have eased tensions since then.

North Korea warns of war, claims US and South 'jealous' of purported nuclear test 01/09/2016

North Korea warned of war Saturday as South Korea continues to blast anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rivals’ tense border in retaliation for the North’s purported fourth nuclear test.

The South’s propaganda broadcasts drove the Korean peninsula to the brink of war in August after a brief resumption. Seoul said the two sides exchanged artillery fire in response to the broadcasts and they would eventually end them. Pyongyang says the broadcasts are tantamount to an act of war.

North Korea’s top ruling party official said the broadcasts, along with talks between Washington and Seoul on the possibility of deploying U.S. warplanes capable of delivering nuclear bombs in Seoul have pushed the peninsula “toward the brink of war.” The official was speaking to a crowd at Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square. Complete article

This is just the most recent history of the conflict with North Korea. Chalmers Johnson provided a more detailed history going back at least to World War Two in his trilogy of books, "Blowback," "The Sorrows of Empire," and "Nemesis," that indicates that although North Korea has always been a tyrannical government as our propaganda indicates, but not always quite as tyrannical, South Korea wasn't Democratic as often implied. And anyone familiar with history would know that Harry Truman could have ended the Korean War almost immediately when he quickly fought the North Koreans pushing them back across the border but took MacArthur's recommendation to keep going invading the North as well even though the Chinese said they would enter the war if he did so which led the war to go on for three more years unnecessarily.

However, more important for recent relations, is the missed opportunity to negotiate peace that almost took place in the nineties but was abandoned by George W. Bush when he took office for somewhat arbitrary or political reasons. This was actually initiated by Jimmy Carter and reports at that time indicated that although he did so with the approval of the Clinton white House there was a lot of opposition from the more hawkish members of the administration. At times the public of South Korea and under pressure from the grassroots the South Korean government were also supportive of attempts to reconcile with North Korea, at least partially.

Jimmy Carter described some of this in a PBS Interview with Jimmy Carter on March 21, 2003. He also wrote about it in at least a couple of the books that he wrote after Bush withdrew from the agreement.

According to the Chronology of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear and Missile Diplomacy, which only tells an abbreviated version of the history, on October 12, 2000: 'The United States and North Korea issue a joint statement noting that resolution of the missile issue would “make an essential contribution to fundamentally improved relations” and reiterating the two countries’ commitment to implementation of the Agreed Framework. The statement also says that Albright will visit North Korea in the near future to prepare for a possible visit by President Clinton.' At that time there was an enormous amount of news coverage about the warming of tensions with North Korea, clearly implying much more possibilities although there still had to be details worked out.

I remember arguing that although at that time I didn't think the disagreement with North Korea justified the refusal to ratify the treaty on land mines this could eliminate that last poor excuse and it should enable them to outlaw them.

Unfortunately after the contested election George W.Bush began almost immediately taking antagonistic foreign policy positions. Even before 9/11 there were incidents with both Russia and China and he reversed position about North Korea, at one point holding a press conference, which isn't mentioned in the chronology, where he explains that he no longer agreed with the previous agreement without offering much if any reason. According to the chronology on March 13, 2001: 'North Korea, apparently reacting to Washington’s new tone, (which isn't fully explained in this chronology) cancels ministerial-level talks with Seoul. The talks were intended to promote further political reconciliation.' and on March 15, 2001: 'Pyongyang threatens to “take thousand-fold revenge” on the United States “and its black-hearted intention to torpedo the dialogue between north and south [Korea].” The statement, issued by the Korean Central News Agency, called Washington’s new policies “hostile” and noted that Pyongyang remains “fully prepared for both dialogue and war.”'

This chronology doesn't report all the details but there was much more news at that time about how antagonistic the Bush administration was being under the circumstances. Most people including Jimmy Carter agree that North Korea continued to ahve their problems but continued antagonism from the Bush administration only gave them some degree of justification for their claims that the United States was the one that was escalating tensions. This, of course, became even worse after 9/11 when Bush began acting as if he was at war and everyone was "either with us or against us." Ironically sometimes even when sympathetic countries helped him out he still turned on them, like when Iran which still had a more moderate president, Mohammad Khatami agreed to share covert information about Al-Qaeda with the US government Bush accepted his help but then only a few months later declared them to be part of the "Axis of Evil" setting the stage for the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad instead of trying to reconcile differences.

This is part of an antagonistic foreign policy that the US government has often taken throughout the decades passing up on one opportunity after another to reduce tensions with one country after another.

When President Obama took office this didn't get much if any better although any policies that might have been more antagonistic weren't quite as blatant as Bush's policies. Some of the problems with North Korea are highly suspicious although without additional information it may be difficult to rush some conclusions by conspiracy theorists. In some cases if neither some of the conspiracy theories or the official truth make sense it might be a good idea to keep an open mind and consider third or fourth possibilities. I expressed some of my previous doubts about this in Is 60 Minutes presenting Anti-North Korea propaganda? and some of the suspicious news hasn't stopped since then.

North Korea has always been presented as a very backward country with limited resources or advanced technology yet when it became convenient, for one reason or another, just over a year ago there were an enormous amount of news stories about their amazing hacking skills which they were allegedly using against us on a large scale. What few seemed to have noticed is that when it no longer suited the obsession du-jour they stopped using those amazing hacking abilities.

Did they suddenly decide that they no longer wanted to hack our computers?

There was a similar story about the Syrian Electronic Army which seemingly developed amazing hacking skills at a time when we were against them, then as soon as the media moved on they suddenly halted. At that time they were arming rebels against Syria which later became known as ISIS.

There has been an enormous amount of propaganda about how North Korea indoctrinates thei8r soldiers to blindly obey orders and fails to feed their own people because they're spending all their money on the military.

They fail to ever mention that the United States is also carrying out similar policies, although they don't seem nearly as extreme to most people. However people that live in abandoned inner cities are fully aware about this even if the traditional media isn't reporting about it very well. Right now there are news stories about Flint Michigan and their water problems. There have been similar problems in Detroit but the media didn't report on them until they became extreme, although local people knew about them long before. The same thing happened in Cleveland Ohio where three girls escaped after being kidnapped for ten years. What many people might not have noticed was that they briefly mentioned how much financial trouble Cleveland has been in for years if not decades.

These are just a small handful of eh cities that are deteriorating rapidly while our government adopts antagonistic policies that are clearly creating a permanent state of war or potential conflict that distracts people from maintaining a functioning society.

Tomorrow night Barack Obama is giving his State of the Union Speech, and no doubt, as usual he will say the "State of the Union is strong," or "will always be strong" once again as usual; but he rarely ever reports all the news and anyone that checks alternative news outlets that do a better job reporting will know that his word can't be trusted for much, any more than other establishment politicians.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Hillary Clinton Is Using Children As Props While Her Record Betrays Them

Like many other politicians Hillary Clinton is using children or her alleged advocacy for them as a campaign slogan repeating it over and over again but her record isn't remotely like the image she tries to portray for herself. Like a lot of other politicians she put in time at jobs that at least seem to advocate for children; however even if she did some good for them at that time when she had the opportunity to make major changes in policy to help them she did much more harm than good, often benefiting campaign contributors, and even one of her supporters who helped give her first break in politics has criticized her for cuts to welfare she supported as first lady among other things.

As the following article plus several others indicates her defense of children is more propaganda than actual protection of them:

How Hillary Clinton Betrayed the Children's Defense Fund for Political Gain 01/24/2008

Hillary Clinton has clearly, succinctly, and repeatedly challenged Barack Obama and John Edwards to let voters judge them or her by their records. Hillary Clinton has included her 8 years as First Lady in her 35 years of political experience, so it is appropriate to take her up on her challenge.

In this post, we will just examine one of the claims Clinton has made about her record, per her request to look closely at not just words, but her actions.

In the hot and testy debate in South Carolina, Clinton countered Obama's correct assertion that she served on the board of directors of Wal-Mart (followed by years as a corporate attorney for the Rose Law Firm) by saying, in essence, that when Obama was wet behind his ears, she was working and being inspired by the legendary Marian Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense Fund. That is true until you get to the issue of results in public office.

As we have noted in a previous editor's blog (along with the page numbers), Hillary brags in her memoirs that she was the one who lured the infamous Dick Morris back as an adviser to Bill (and Hillary) during the White House years in the mid-90s, as Bill Clinton was trying to find a way to counter the Newt Gingrich assault and the never-ending Republican attempts to investigate and impeach him.

As a result of Morris's "triangulating" advice, the Clintons embraced some cold-hearted measures, including what became called euphemistically "welfare reform." In fact, the progressive and children's advocate community considered it a Draconian measure that would punish poor children if their moms didn't find work. The Clintons, both of them, supported it, and Bill Clinton signed it into law.

Among those who ardently and eloquently opposed the Clinton "welfare reform" bill was Marian Wright Edelman. Her husband, Peter Edelman, quit his high-level job at the Department of Health and Human Services in protest when Bill Clinton signed the bill. He was deeply upset about what the legislation would do to helpless children.

In a July 2007 interview with Amy Goodman, Marian Wright Edelman had this to say about the "welfare reform bill" and Hillary Clinton: AMY GOODMAN: Marian Wright Edelman, we just heard Hillary Rodham Clinton. She used to be the head of the board of the Children’s Defense Fund, of the organization that you founded. But you were extremely critical of the Clintons. I mean, when President Clinton signed off on the, well, so-called welfare reform bill, you said, “His signature on this pernicious bill makes a mockery of his pledge not to hurt children.” So what are your hopes right now for these Democrats? And what are your thoughts about Hillary Rodham Clinton?

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Well, you know, Hillary Clinton is an old friend, but they are not friends in politics. We have to build a constituency, and you don’t—and we profoundly disagreed with the forms of the welfare reform bill, and we said so. We were for welfare reform, I am for welfare reform, but we need good jobs, we need adequate work incentives, we need minimum wage to be decent wage and livable wage, we need health care, we need transportation, we need to invest preventively in all of our children to prevent them ever having to be on welfare. Complete article

When she was first lady she had no qualms about cutting welfare for those that didn't work but she's very reluctant to defend workers rights so that they can afford to stay off of welfare even when they work. She only supports slowly raising the minimum wage to 12 dollars unlike Bernie Sanders who supports 15. This benefits one of her closest friends and campaign contributors Alice Walton who is constantly supporting Walmarts efforts to minimize workers rights for higher profits.

Hillary Clinton first got involved in politics when there was still a lot of Democratic support for progressive causes and according to, Before She Was Famous: Hillary Clinton’s Political Launch with help from Peter Edelman 04/22/2014 who helped her get a speaking spot at the League of Women Voters. Unfortunately even though Peter Edelman has expressed some concerns when she betrays children he often continues to tout her as "a tireless voice for children" even though he helps provide evidence to the contrary. Nor does either Hillary Clinton or Peter Edelman seem overly concerned about the debate process being taken away from the League of Women Voters over twenty years ago so that the Commission on Presidential Debates could take it over keeping grassroots candidates that don't support the corporate agenda out.

On top of that according to the following articles they're charging small non profits much more than they help them raise, enabling them to take credit for any charity that does come out of it, and possibly use it for political purposes:

Clintons charge big fees to small groups: The Clinton Foundation has taken in as much as $11M in payments from non-profit groups. 06/16/2015

When Condoleezza Rice headlined a 2009 fundraising luncheon for the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach, she collected a $60,000 speaking fee, then donated almost all of it back to the club, according to multiple sources familiar with the club’s finances.

Hillary Clinton was not so generous to the small charity, which provides after-school programs to underprivileged children across the Southern California city. Clinton collected $200,000 to speak at the same event five years later, but she donated nothing back to the club, which raised less than half as much from Clinton’s appearance as from Rice’s, according to the sources and tax filings.

Instead, Clinton steered her speaking fee to her family’s own sprawling $2 billion charity.

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which has come under scrutiny for its fundraising and fiscal management, has taken in as much as $11.7 million in payments from other nonprofit groups. The money was paid for speeches given by Hillary Clinton; her husband, the former president; and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, since the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency in 2001, according to a POLITICO analysis of a list of speeches voluntarily released last month by the foundation. Complete article

This is almost certainly part of the reason why she's able to get so many endorsements from organization that allegedly help defend the poor. If they don't support the right candidate or at least remain silent they might get much less funding. Many non-profit organizations are run by people from the upper class that also has connections to multinational corporations, and they often make much more money than the lower level workers. Christine MacDonald wrote about how this is done in the environmental community in "Green Inc." but looking at other non-profit organizations like Planned Parenthood or the American Red Cross who have both had politicians leading them at one time or another indicates that this practice goes way beyond the environmental community.

Her political advisers go back decades to the same ones that helped Bill Clinton with their rapid response team in the nineties and has been learning to be more manipulative since. However in 2008 one of their tactics was exposed when they were caught planting questions as the following article indicates and they almost certainly learned to be more sophisticated since then:

Student describes how she became a Clinton plant 11/13/2007

GRINNELL, Iowa (CNN) -- The college student who was told what question to ask at one of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign events said "voters have the right to know what happened" and she wasn't the only one who was planted.

In an exclusive on-camera interview with CNN, Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, a 19-year-old sophomore at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, said giving anyone specific questions to ask is "dishonest," and the whole incident has given her a negative outlook on politics.

Gallo-Chasanoff, whose story was first reported in the campus newspaper, said what happened was simple: She said a senior Clinton staffer asked if she'd like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.

"I sort of thought about it, and I said 'Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates' energy plans?'" Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night.

According to Gallo-Chasanoff, the staffer said, " 'I don't think that's a good idea, because I don't know how familiar she is with their plans.' "

He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.

"The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she added. "It said 'college student' in brackets and then the question." Complete article

This received an enormous amount of attention when it happened and almost certainly contributed to her Iowa loss; however they almost certainly learned to be more careful about not being so obvious when they plant questions or relying only on people they can trust to remain silent. On another occasion before she declared as a 2016 presidential candidate, perhaps in 2013, give or take a year, Hillary Clinton was on a speaking tour when another college student asked something like "If you don't run for president to defend women who will?" in an overly dramatic manner that made great propaganda as part of almost non-stop media coverage presenting her as the only viable candidate representing "Progressive" causes.

This also received an enormous amount of coverage for weeks if not months; however this time the traditional media didn't mention her history of planting questions at all while this was going on, although people at the grassroots level might have.

More recently she was accused by Donald Trump of planting a question about bullying by a young girl about ten years old; their campaign denied it and the girls family also denied it. In this case it is highly unlikely that they would have planted this question so blatantly; however, once again it made great propaganda, regardless of the circumstances.

This doesn't completely mean that they didn't do some screening so that they would be more likely to get favorable questions. Recently they let the public know that an enormous amount of voter information was being gathered by their campaign and that it is now standard operating procedure for campaigns to research their voters so they could get them to the polls. This research could also be used to get them to rallies and enable Hillary Clinton or who ever chooses the people getting opportunities to ask questions picking ones more likely to be favorable without them knowing that they're being screened.

She demonstrated that this is part of her planning when they found out that Black Lives Matter was planning a protest and headed them off ushering them into a back room in an attempt to address their concerns out of view from the crowd; but this tape made it on the air anyway, and she came off very bad.

This seems cynical, and it is, but unfortunately there are numerous examples where politicians representing campaign contributors have been caught doing things like this, including a recent event where a Bush and Ayotte supporter asked liberal questions from Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton and most other politicians are carefully prepared actors and actresses taught how to behave for voters, and some of this planning has been disclosed at times, in low profile manners by political operators like Frank Luntz or James Carville, but most of these advisers remain silent behind the scenes. They even teach her to appear pleasant and likable by laughing a lot of things off but surprising she often seems to do this very poorly, at least if people are paying attention.

She laughed on camera when asked about defending an accused rapist and her plan to defend her apparently included the possibility that she would attack the victim; she laughed when asked if her claim that victims of rape should be believed included Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey, claiming that their claims have been discredited which isn't true although they weren't proven either that I know of. She laughed when asked about Gadhafi saying "We came we saw he dies." She didn't mention that when it suited her political and financial purposes that she supported Gadhafi for a while.

She claims women are primary victims of war, which along with children is true; however she has a history of supporting wars based on lies including the Iraq war and bombing of several countries that they often previously supported, often for the benefit of corporations donating to her campaigns. As I reported on previous posts she flip flopped on a banking bill, which according to Elizabeth Warren she referred to as "That awful bill" after receiving donations from the banks. This is just a small samples of the examples where she betrayed children women and just about everyone else except her campaign contributors while creating enormous amounts of propaganda to make her look good.