Make no mistake: When the conservatives set out to take over America 30 years ago, they were working off of a well-thought-out plan.
The plan was put in place by a wide variety of thinkers -- but three of the main strategists were Howard Phillips, Richard Viguerie, and Paul Weyrich, each of whom wrote important books and papers laying out the goal of creating a conservative America, and showing specifically how the movement could make that happen.
It has been a month now since the Signs editors engaged in a little exercise of connecting the dots: we noticed a number of high level meetings of some of the most prominent Axis of Evil personalities, and thinking it likely that there is an important reason for the activity, we published our observations here.
We have decided to make this a periodical effort of 'joining the dots', hoping to make sense of the avalanche of information that comes our way on a daily basis. It may help us to detect trends, and to understand which way the drivers are steering this bus called Planet Earth.
Well, judging by the events of April, it seems that they are taking us towards a cliff, and it is rapidly approaching.
Despite Israel's refusal to acknowledge its nuclear weapons status, its secret arsenal is an open secret that Israeli policy makers don't go out of their way to deny. From its beginnings in the mid-1960s, Israel's program has developed into one that rivals those of larger powers like France and Britain. Here, based on interviews with U.S. intelligence officials and nuclear experts, is a portrait of Israel's strategic weapons programs.
See interactive map, read full story
Last week, Washington released intelligence alleging Syria had built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help before an Israeli air strike destroyed the facility on September 6.
In the last eight years implementing the plans for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) designed "to promote American global leadership" has backfired.
To accomplish PNAC's goals, all threats needed to be eliminated. From the onset, the United Sates earmarked two countries as mortal enemies: Venezuela and Iran. With Venezuela, it is well documented that the CIA attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chavez. And with Iran, the United States continues to use it as a scapegoat for its failures in Iraq. These cold war tactics however are proving to be US's undoing.
The United States is hemorrhaging from every orifice, and oil prices can be used to measure the rapidity of its demise.
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Officials fear near total crop losses, and the fungus, known as Ug99, is spreading.
Wheat prices have been soaring this week on top of already high prices, and futures contracts spiked, too, on panic buying.
Experts fear the cost of bread could soon follow the path of rice, the price of which has triggered riots in some countries and prompted countries to cut off exports.
Lewis, ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, seeks to tack on retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who spied on Americans for President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, The Hill reports.
"It’s time for the Democratic leaders to put our national security ahead of the desires of trial lawyers and pass the FISA bill that was passed by the Senate," Lewis said. "This Congress should make this legislation one of its top priorities until the intelligence gap is closed."
Where does one start with the new wave of propaganda that passes for US news and opinion regarding Iran? It is clear that the aim is to flood the airwaves (and our brains) with so much insanely ridiculous propaganda that we throw up our hands, give up trying to fathom the details, and retreat into a numbed state of acceptance.
What we are seeing is pure propaganda and Newspeak, and for those who know something of Pavlov and his work on Transmarginal Inhibition, the scenario is classic. People, ordinary people, do not want to go to war if left to their own devices. The kick or shove to provoke a reaction for war must come from outside. History provides us with many examples from the last 100 years: the Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, 911. In each case, the event galvanized public opinion, and war, which had been unthinkable the day before, became a certainty.
As the war in Iraq enters its sixth year, Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky have published a "definitive, footnoted, hilarious but depressing compilation of experts who were in error" about the war from the beginning. You can read more about the book -- "Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won The War In Iraq" -- here.
Below, an excerpt from the chapter titled "Their Finest Hour: America Readies Itself To Free The Iraqi People."
CAKEWALK!
Which to Bush means it's an unmitigated success. - Ed.
The US "war on terror" has backfired, strengthening extremists in Afghanistan and Somalia and turning them into legitimate political actors in the eyes of their local populations, a thinktank said today.
The Senlis Council, which has strongly criticised US policy in Afghanistan in the past, is particularly scathing of the Bush administration's "abject policy failures" in Somalia.
This may or may not be related to why the Wall Street Journal's top editor, Marcus Brauchli, quit yesterday, but it sure looks to be connected. The "this" that I am referring to is the propaganda piece published in the WSJ - now owned by propaganda magnate, R. Murdoch - today on what went down in Syria last year:
"North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor before Israel bombed the site last September, the Bush administration is set to tell Congress.Read full story
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
Thu, 01/10/2008 - 16:08 - Wire Services - US President George W. Bush promised Israel's opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu that the United States will join the Jewish state in a nuclear strike against Iran, Israel Radio reported today.
Former Prime Minister Netanyahu, opposition Likud party's hardline chairman who opposes the US-backed Annapolis peace process, reiterated to President Bush his stance, that a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran's nuclear installations was the only way to stop the Islamic nation's nuclear weapons ambitions.
"I told him my position and Bush agreed," Netanyahu told Israel Radio.
Credit-card numbers can now go for as little as 40 cents each. A matching name, Social Security number, address, and date of birth cost just $2.00, according to security experts.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.
Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from Gaza, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death", receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.
Certified wingnut. - Ed.
Who is the unnamed source from America's Jewish community telling this to Newsmax? - Ed.
Contrary to some claims that the Bush administration will allow diplomacy to handle Iran's nuclear weapons program, a leading member of America's Jewish community tells Newsmax that a military strike is not only on the table - but likely.
"Israel is preparing for heavy casualties," the source said, suggesting that although Israel will not take part in the strike, it is expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution.
Bur the nation is in no mood for celebrations. It is gloomy.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) — Palestinian officials said on Sunday they are preparing events to mark the 60th anniversary next month of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Arabs during the 1948 Middle East war.
The National Committee for the Anniversary of the Nakba -- the Arabic word for "catastrophe" used to denote the expulsion of some 700,000 Arabs during Israel's war for independence -- will stage several events in the coming weeks.
Under the Bush-Yoo theories, all Bush has to do is pronounce a detainee “an unlawful enemy combatant” – whether a U.S. citizen or not, whether there is any credible evidence or not – and the person loses all human rights.
As radical – and as shocking – as these theories may seem to many Americans, Bush is within one vote on the U.S. Supreme Court of having his vision enshrined as “constitutional.”
"Bribery and outright theft are flourishing in virtually every Iraqi ministry," notes CBS's Steve Kroft, "and some of those ill-gotten gains are being used to kill American troops."
For the first time in decades, the spectre of widespread hunger for millions looms as food prices explode. Two words not in common currency in recent years — famine and starvation — are now being raised as distinct possibilities in the poorest, food-importing countries.
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The rapid rise in food and fuel costs is causing concern in developed countries and riots in poor countries.
Note to environmentalists: Remember, you were the ones who demanded biofuels the loudest.
It turns out the production of biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel is likely to cause far more environmental damage than it prevents, not to mention triggering widespread famine and eating up more rainforest and grassland than beef production ever could.
By now, the term "liar loans" is common. Prospective house buyers provided false information to representatives of loan-initiating firms.
Our nation is wrought with corruption, greed and suffering. Each day thousands more Americans discover that their dream, the American Dream, is dying. These numbers are now affecting the middle class, but only after robbing the lower classes of their dreams many, many years ago.
Wake up America. The corporations and foreign interest are buying America, one elected official at a time.
