“How to Write a News Story.”
The first paragraph: “the lead” (in newsroom-speak it is spelled “the lede”).
This second paragraph: is the part of the story that seeks to convince you to drop your preconceptions and take this lesson with us, “the nut ‘graph” because it provides “the context of what the lede is: The lede explains ‘what happened’ and the nut explains ‘what does it mean?’” Truth is, the best writers learn over and over again how to write a news story
“Typically, if you are working in quick news fashion,” George comments, “you want to follow the nut with a quote: A very simple statement from someone who was at the event that gives context, life and meaning to what you have just written.”
Four easy steps to write: A lede, a nut ‘graph, a quote and then add background information
Who? What? When? Where? Why?
early questions for journalists, who is your audience. One: who are your readers? Two: who are your editors? Are you writing for a general audience? Or are you writing for a niche audience?
With a general audience you cannot get into the minutia and fine detail that you would if writing for an audience that already knows about the subject matter.”
two general approaches to write a basic news story
“You either answer these five questions: ‘Who? What? When? Where? Why?’
Or you answer three questions: ‘What? So what? Now what?’
“The lede is sort of a poetic set-up for your story. It must sum up the essence of the news event.”
The power of repetition as a teaching tool.
1. Lede. 2. Nut. 3. Quote. 4. Background
“Background is the historical significance of the event, maybe the events that led up to the moment that you’ve just covered,” the most important history that must be known if your reader can only read four paragraphs or sentences of a story
four paragraphs: Your lead, your nut, your quote, your background. That is a very, very basic structure of a news story.”
George offers an example of a lede: “In Los Angeles the Board of Education today voted to extend eating rights for children.”
George follows it with a sample nut ‘graph: “Although this will improve the health of the district’s two million children, it will cost Los Angeles five million dollars.”
“But he used to say you only get four paragraphs at most. You gotta pack everything in there. George already talked about the structure of a story. Why should your audience care about what you are writing about?”
Erin then outlines five general points to keep in mind when writing: timeliness, conflict, currency, prominence and proximity.
Timeliness, happen recently or did it happen a long time ago?
Conflict, where the conflict is, no conflict not interesting
Currency, are people talking about the issue you are reporting on?
Prominence, to serve the community below, if someone with great power has done something very bad or wrong that is also a story.”
Proximity, relevant to where you are located
“You Can Organize It Later”
“There are lots of problems I see with writing. “One that is common is that a news story will be written like an essay paper. It tells you nothing that you didn’t already know.”
“The second thing, people assume their audience already knows what they know, but only referred to it as the EZLN, they would not know
Three, “Another problem is leaving the audience with unanswered questions,” a prisoner on death row. what he did
Four, facts are stated but no source is given,” 8,000 people died. who is saying that, where the information is coming from
in the end, not about structure or format, experiment with a variety of forms. don’t think about the structure first. Just put it down on paper, organize it later
another set of eyes, someone who doesn’t know the facts
In an interview, not to transcribe every word, knowing which quotes in advance one
will want to use
“writer’s block,”, do something else
“We Are Not Writing a Book”
one genre, Writing a profile of a person, in every phrase there is an idea or information to interest your reader in the person you are profiling
“The first three sentences are very important if they don’t like them then they stop reading.”
important tricks of obtaining a good interview, you will learn many more things if the person that you interview thinks you don’t know anything.”
write a lede, then a nut ‘graph, add a quote, and then offer background
Saturday, February 27, 2010
THE AP FROM DETAIN THIS
What You Should Know about The Associated Press
And What You’re Not Learning from Them
1. The Associated Press is the largest mouthpiece for the U.S. government and the Military-Industrial Complex in their militaristic enterprise known as the “War on Terror.”
2. The conscience of AP is its board of directors; on that board sits tabloid mogul Rupert Murdoch, president and CEO of News Corporation, which owns Fox News, among many other tabloids.
3. AP’s West Jerusalem bureau is a mouthpiece for the hard-line, genocidal Israeli government and its illegal settler movement.
4. AP perpetuates neocon-Likudnik lies about Iran’s nuclear program and the contrived “existential threat” Iran poses to Israel, the USA, and the world.
5. AP habitually conceals the hideous illegality and immorality of U.S. and Israeli actions in Iraq, the IOPTs, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran.
Friday, February 26, 2010
TERMINAL GENERATION
Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. the driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain which is accepted as legitimate even praiseworthy on the grounds that private vices yield public benefit in the classic formulation.
Now it has long been understood very well that a society based on this principle will destroy itself in time. it can only persist with whatever injustice and suffering it entails as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is a infinite resource and that the world is an infinite garbage can.
at this stage of history either one of two things is possible, either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community interests guided by values of solidarity, sympathy and concern for others or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to control.
As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority it is going to set policy for the special interest that it serves, but the conditions of survival, let alone justice require rational social planning in the interest of community as a whole, and by now that means the global community.
The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must , namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority, and remove them from the public arena.
the question in brief is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. in this possible terminal phase of human existence democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured , they may well be essential to survival
ONE PICTURE
At the time Israel violates all rules and don't stop its daily threats against Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Palestine, one mere picture can do a lot…'
It's the first meeting of its kind, at least in public, since the Israeli war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006…
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bachar Assad were finally united in one and only one picture…
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
His 2005 presidential campaign, supported by the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, garnered 62% of the runoff election votes, and he became President on 3 August 2005
HILLARY CLINTON DISSIMILATES
see news article here
I really dont like Ron Pauls' politics, Right wing libertarians are Fredeerick von Hayek or Ann Ryn types. They are in fact what the neoconservatives claim to be but are not.
But at least they rage against the $1 trillion dollar annual defense budget, which since the demise of the Soviet Union, is driven completely by 911 event and the collapse of the 3 towers on that day.
It is a complete fraud and hustle and sets up RICO capitalism for a very narrow group of people while the rest of us go stratigt to hell. And since the leftist and liberals are out to lunch, Ron Paul is all we have.
But that really isnt my point. In this video Hillary Clinton is found saying
"It breaks my heart that 10 years ago we had a balanced budget, that we were on the way of paying down the debt of the United States of America," Clinton said.
"I served on the budget committee in the Senate, and I remember as vividly as if it were yesterday when we had a hearing in which Alan Greenspan came and justified increasing spending and cutting taxes, saying that we didn't really need to pay down the debt -- outrageous in my view," she said.
What is convenienly left out is that during the Bill Clinton administration:
See Clinton List
Thursday, February 25, 2010
THE BANKRUPTING US EMPIRE
U.S. military as too big and too expensive and recognize spending $1 million to keep a soldier in Afghanistan for one year
U.S. has more than 2,500,000 Dept. of Defense personnel deployed across the planet and 761 military bases on foreign soil, not counting more than 100 in Iraq and more than 400 American and NATO bases in Afghanistan. U.S. troops are now stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories
a military network larger than the Roman Empire, which at its height had 37 major military bases, and the British Empire which had 36.
More bases are planned; billions spent building bases in far off lands while large swaths of American cities degrade into impoverished zones and the infrastructure of the nation crumbles
When the Cold War ended U.S. decided to the sole superpower. U.S. military spending is equal to the whole world combined
U.S. Navy exceeds in firepower the next 13 navies combined
budgets are accounted for – the Pentagon, the wars, the 16 intelligence agencies, the super-sized embassies – total Empire spending is more than $1 trillion annually
the entrenched military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in 1961 is now so powerful that cutting the military budget is off the table in Washington, DC
The war budget grows and grows despite a fragile if not collapsing economy at home
Undoing a century-old empire that is larger than any that ever existed is no easy task, but for citizen patriots it is an essential one for the survival of the nation and the benefit of the world
BILL MOYERS AND THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT
History of Our Secret Government pt 2 of 2
History of Our Secret Government pt 1 of 2
Secret Government 8/9
Secret Government 7/9
Secret Government 6/9
Secret Government 5/9
Secret Government 4/9
Secret Government 3/9
Secret Government 2/9
The Secret Government (CIA Overthrow of Mossadeq)
History of Our Secret Government pt 1 of 2
Secret Government 8/9
Secret Government 7/9
Secret Government 6/9
Secret Government 5/9
Secret Government 4/9
Secret Government 3/9
Secret Government 2/9
The Secret Government (CIA Overthrow of Mossadeq)
WELL, I JUST HAD TO LAUGH
"Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred."
President Roosevelt, Madison Square Garden, October 31, 1936
There is an astonishing lack of anger among liberals, progressives and radicals who have abandoned emotion to the right. Our role model continues to be not FDR, still less Malcolm X, but our "bipartisan" and apparently tone-deaf President Obama
Michelle Obama lectures us on obesity while one in eight Americans (and one in four children) are on federal food stamps.
Where and when did we lefties lose this vital part of our social language? Was it in pre-school where we're urged as toddlers to use sweet reasonableness to resolve disputes?
the suppression of sane, liberal anger has been around at least half a century, certainly since the sociologist C Wright Mills in his influential book The Power Elite deplored the loss of capacity by the public to experience outrage as contrasted with earlier periods in American history
Why should full-throated emotion be the monopoly of the so-called "populists" who seem to be the only people around unafraid to shout, yell, stomp and scream?
THE MISSILE AND THE PENTAGON
the first video images of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the military headquarters building and killing 189 people in the Sept. 11, 2001
made public in response to a December 2004 Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, a public interest group.
Traveling at an estimated 530 mph, the hijacked plane plowed into the southwest side of the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m. EDT
that a novice pilot who could barely fly a Piper Cub handled a complex passenger jet over hundreds of miles of tightly protected airspace, the last 50 miles the most secure in the world, executed a complicated 270-degree turn while simultaneously dropping thousands of feet, and finally skimmed in at ground level to hit the backside of the Pentagon farthest from important people such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
FOR A FULL LIST OF 911 DOUBTERS
Click one of the following boxes to select a section
200+ Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials
1,060+ Engineers and Architects
250+ Pilots and Aviation Professionals
400+ Professors Question 9/11
300+ 9/11 Survivors and Family Members
200+ Artists, Entertainers, and Media Professionals
9/11 WTC North Tower Exploding - Architects and Engineers
Summary of 9/11 scepticism:
http://outsidethebluepillcave.blogspo...
Sources:
http://www.4shared.com/account/dir/32...
#1
For a full list of doubters:
http://patriotsquestion911.com/
Military leaders questioning the OCT:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/...
CIA veterans doubting:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/gene...
Engineers & architects doubting:
http://www.ae911truth.org/
Physicists doubting:
http://physics911.net/
Pilots doubting:
http://www.pilotsfor911truth.org/
High-level officials doubting:
http://911proof.com/7.html
In a recent Zogby International poll (September 06, 2007):
51% of Americans want Congress to probe Bush/Cheney regarding 9/11 attacks;
over 30% seek immediate impeachment;
67% fault 9/11 Commission for not investigating anomalous collapse of World Trade Center 7
http://911truth.org/article.php?story...
Protest in Brussels for 911 Truth (09 Sep 2007):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyuwQY...
#2
But surely this could not have happened, I mean, governments would not actually resort to terror attacks to advance their interests. Would they?
Unfortunately, yes they would.
Actually, they have a history of doing so.
Operation Ajax:
From the archives of the New York Times, the British and US involvement in overthrowing Mossadegh in Iran:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/...
Operation Northwoods:
Operation Northwoods was a 1962 plan by the US Department of Defense to enact acts of terrorism and violence on US soil or against US interests, blamed on Cuba, in order to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operatio...
Operation Gladio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operatio...
Other false flag operations:
http://joecrubaugh.com/blog/10-false-...
US Marines Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine in US history, figured out what war is all about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_...
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/w...
#3
Right, I see. What are some good links for further research?
http://911research.wtc7.net/index.html
http://911truth.org/index.php
The Journal of 9/11 Studies is a peer-reviewed, open-access, electronic-only journal covering the whole of research related to 9/11/2001.
http://journalof911studies.com/
Of particular interest is a paper by physicist Dr. Steven Jones (link opens .pdf document):
http://www.journalof911studies.com/vo...
Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice:
http://stj911.org/
Dr. David Ray Griffin's books:
- The new Pearl Harbour (recommended by Gore Vidal)
- Debunking 9/11 debunking
#4
The bigger picture:
Historian and professor Dr. Antony Sutton's book on 'Skull and Bones' (link opens .pdf document):
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2...
or
http://www.4shared.com/account/file.j...
Of particular interest is the chapter: 'How the Order creates war and revolution'
Bilderberg 2007 (Istanbul Turkey) - attendees list:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFWLIs...
Guardian article about America on its way to fascism:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story
/0,,2064157,00.html
Guardian article about the connection of Bush's grandfather to Hitler's finances:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany
/article/0,,1312542,00.html
Related video with researcher / journalist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnAUQe...
Money
What it is, how it is created & how its supply is regulated and controlled.
Recommended viewing: Money as debt
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USE5gv...
Zeitgeist (documentary):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUGJMv...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc...
Action:
First of all, your actions are important and can make a difference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqK3KC...
What you can do:
http://www.wanttoknow.info/9-11
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Who is this man? 9-11 official story started minutes after.
I have wanted to know who this man was since the beginning. Perhaps some journalist is out there who knows? Maybe someone with facial recognition links to our databases?
This "Harley Davidson" guy as I call him has been a mystery for quite a while.
It is quite obvious this guy is some kind of plant, but by who? FBI, CIA, CFR, or news media trying to make hype?
Perhaps he is employed by Silverstein. Can the We Are Change team help out?
"...come out of nowhere and just ream right into the side of the twin tower, exploding through the other side...and then I witnessed both towers collapse, one first then the second, mostly due to structural failure because the fire was just too intense".
http://www.911blogger.com/node/9045
http://www.911blogger.com/node/6467
http://www.slate.com/?id=2074678
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/conspiracythe...
A & E IN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center.
"In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards," says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry.
e is particularly disturbed by Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper, which was not hit by an aircraft, yet came down in "pure free-fall acceleration." He also says that more than 100 first-responders reported explosions and flashes as the towers were falling and cited evidence of "multi-ton steel sections ejected
ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEER FOR 911 TRUTH ON RT
On 9/11, the world watched as two airplanes crashed into the twin towers of the world trade center, both of which collapsed shortly after. This much we know for sure, but for some, the cause of the collapse is still not so clear. Michael T Donly is a part of a group that says the two planes that hit the WTC twin towers could not have destroyed them. (To get more - Join our new Youtube channels at http://www.youtube.com/RTAmerica and http://www.youtube.com/thealyonashow)
FROM INFORMED CONSENT
Europe is the world's largest economy and got there without any recent substantial wars
the fastest-growing economy for the past nearly 30 years has been China, which spends a fraction on their military of what the US spends on its
the US has been at war for 19 of the last 47 years (not counting US-backed insurgencies such as 1980s Afghanistan, on which we spent billions) but has not grown faster than the other two economically
US overspent on its military because Washington mistakenly thought the Soviet economy was twice as big as it actually was, and vastly over-estimated Soviet military capabilities. The bloated military budgets continue now, apparently because of a couple thousand al-Qaeda operatives hiding out in caves in the Hadhramawt and Waziristan.
US Military Budget 2009: $711 billion
European Union Military Budget 2009: $289 billion
European Union Military Budget 2009: $289 billion
China Military Budget 2009: $122 billion.
US GDP 2009: $14.4 trillion
European Union GDP 2009: $16.5 trillion (PPP)
US GDP 2009: $14.4 trillion
European Union GDP 2009: $16.5 trillion (PPP)
China GDP 2009: $8.8 trillion (PPP)
US economic growth 2009: 0.2%
European Union economic growth 2009: -4%
European Union economic growth 2009: -4%
China economic growth 2009: 8.7 %
The real military-related expenditures of the US are closer to $1 trillion. If the US cut those back to the level of the European Union and spent the money on promoting solar energy and making it inexpensive, America would have a chance of remaining a great power in the 21st century. If it goes on rampaging around the world bankrupting itself by invading and occupying other countries, the Chinese will laugh at us all the way to world dominance.
ALL IN A DAYS WORK
I know there are things of which we must not speak and I don't want to be a buzz kill, but it is getting where I cannot read the nets a single day without seeing things appearing more crazed. It reminds me of two movies. Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Network (1976) and Michael Douglas (Bill Foster) and Robert Duvall (Sergeant Prendergast) Falling Down (1993)
First there is this article, a well known investment website with a lot of its content coming from it's readers. It shows the Share of Nation's Income Gains Going to To 1 Percent at Highest Level Since 1920's.
I know, historically speaking, that when graphs look like this, governments either turn to drastic socialism or to various kinds of totalitarianism
Then there is this madness. In order to explain our predicament, Shawn Hannity is reaching back fifty years to build an absurd narrative which completely overlooks the replacement of a Rooseveltian (Keynesianism) economic system with neoliberalism (laissez-faire Adam Smithism, RICO capitalism) that started with the administration of Jimmy Carter with deregulation and the enshrinement of Milton Friedman monetarists economics via Paul Volcker at the Federal Reserve and continued apace, alarmingly so during the Clinton and the last Bush administration, and arrived where it always arrives - crises of capital accumulation, the falling rate of profit, and the inter-imperial competition.
This narrative is produced by Citizens United, the winner of the latest Supreme Court sweepstakes. The Supreme Court obviously wanted us to hear what Citizens United had to say. They wont have to plot a military coup on a Roosevelt this time, because this time they will make sure he never get in office.
It is not for nothing that Hannity is promoting this narrative. It is a perfect narrative for a population who now builds reality out of their own set of facts and for a rapacious globalized capitalism that gives that population its "facts". It doesn't help that I just completed reading a history of the Spanish Civil War.
And then there is this guy. Even though Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration and is a Friedrich von Hayek disciple he is a darling of the left simply because there is no "organized left" left in this country and right wing libertarianism is all we have. The left doesn't agree with where Paul Craig Roberts ultimately wants to go, but they agree completely with him about where we are.
Roberts recognized Joe Stack as a suicide bomber with legitimate complaints. Roberts says in part
The latest Rasmussen Poll indicates that 79% of Americans are convinced that “their” government is totally unresponsive to them, their concerns, and their needs
Joseph Stack was sane. Like Palestinians. A suicide attack was the only weapon left to him. “Terrorist” is a term the government reserves for Muslims who do not like what Israel does to Palestinians and the U.S. government does to Muslim countries. But Stack experienced the same frustrations and emotions as Muslims who can’t take it any longer and strap on a suicide vest.
Now a former head of the most culpable bank is campaigning to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits in order to pay for the bailout. President Obama has obliged him by creating a “deficit commission.” The “deficit commission” will be used to gut Social Security
Joseph Stack was sane. Like Palestinians. A suicide attack was the only weapon left to him. “Terrorist” is a term the government reserves for Muslims who do not like what Israel does to Palestinians and the U.S. government does to Muslim countries. But Stack experienced the same frustrations and emotions as Muslims who can’t take it any longer and strap on a suicide vest.
Now a former head of the most culpable bank is campaigning to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits in order to pay for the bailout. President Obama has obliged him by creating a “deficit commission.” The “deficit commission” will be used to gut Social Security
Joe Stack has become a hero and a martyr to a very high percentage of that number in the Rasmussen poll. Since there is no "organized left" in the country it is going to shape out to be a battle between the neoconservatives and the right wing libertarians.
JOE STACK, SUICIDE BOMBER
The Joe Stacks are rising up against unresponsive government
By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Feb 24, 2010, 00:34
The latest Rasmussen Poll indicates that 79% of Americans are convinced that “their” government is totally unresponsive to them, their concerns, and their needs
the gap “may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century.”
Joseph Stack was sane. Like Palestinians. A suicide attack was the only weapon left to him
“Terrorist” is a term the government reserves for Muslims Israel does to Palestinians and the U.S. government does to Muslim countries
But Stack experienced the same frustrations and emotions as Muslims who can’t take it any longer and strap on a suicide vest.
Terry Hoskins bulldozed his house rather than allow a bank to foreclose on it. online survey, 79 percent of respondents agreed with Hoskins’ action
turning point
The cause of poll, federal government’s bailout of the investment banks. Now a former head of the most culpable bank is campaigning to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits in order to pay for the bailout
President Obama has obliged him by creating a “deficit commission.”
The “deficit commission” will be used to gut Social Security, just as the private insurance health plan is paid for by cutting $500 billion out of Medicare.
It could not be more clear that government represents the interest groups that finance the election campaigns.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
911
Senator Max Cleland - Former member of the 9/11 Commission, resigned in December 2003:
"I, as a member of the [9/11] Commission, cannot look any American in the eye... It is a national scandal... this White House wants to cover [9/11] up."
Senator Mark Dayton - Member, Senate Committee on Armed Services and Homeland Security:
"[NORAD] lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 Commission.. .the most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence"
Congressman Ron Paul - Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee:
“The [9/11] investigations that have been done so far are more or less cover-up and no real explanation"
Congressman Curt Weldon:
"[9/11 Commission] there's something very sinister going on here... something desperately wrong... This involved what is right now the covering up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people"
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney - Member of the House Armed Services Committee:
“The [9/11] Commission ran up against obstruction by the administration and non-cooperation from government agencies... the errors and omissions immediately jumped out at us"
Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh:
"[9/11 Commission findings] raise serious challenges to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself"
Former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts, PhD:
"Distinguished national and international scientists and scholars present massive evidence that the 9/11 Commission Report is a hoax and that the 9/11 "terrorist attack" has been manipulated to serve a hegemonic agenda in the Middle East... We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to "pancake" at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false"
Why Propaganda Trumps Truth
I have asked on several occasions and have never had an answer, which does not mean that there isn't one, how millions of pieces of unburnt, uncharred paper can be floating over lower Manhatten from the destruction of the WTC towers when the official explanation of the destruction is fires so hot and evenly distributed that they caused the massive steel structures to weaken and fail simultaneously so that the buildings fell in free fall time just as they would if they had been brought down by controlled demolition.
What is the explanation of fires so hot that steel fails but paper does not combust?
Recently, an international team of scientists, who studied for 18 months dust samples produced by the twin towers' destruction collected from three separate sources, reported their finding of nano-thermite in the dust.
Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire
Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire provides a sharp analysis of historic and current events in the struggle for Palestine—from the division of the Middle East by Western powers and the Zionist settler movement, to the founding of Israel and its regional role as a watchdog for U.S. interests, to present-day conflicts and the prospects for a just resolution.
The book’s narrative is firmly rooted in the politics of Palestinian liberation. Here is a necessary introduction to the heroic efforts of the Palestinian people to achieve justice in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
JOEL KOVEL: OVERCOMING ZIONISM
Born in 1936 in Brooklyn of Ukrainian Jewish parents, Joel Kovel is the author of 10 books and over 100 articles
Describing himself as an "eco-socialist," in 1998 he was the Green party candidate for Senator from New York
Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, Capitalism Nature Socialism
Overcoming Zionism, advocating "a single democratic state in Israel/Palestine, he demolishes Zionism from historical, political, cultural, environmental, ethical, and psychological perspectives. Zionism seeks "the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militarized and aggressive state. It "fell into the ways of imperialist expansion and militarism, and showed signs of the fascist malignancy
"if you sign on to the idea of a Jewish state, you are taking the particularism that is the potential bane of any state, mixing it with the exceptionalism that is the actual bane of Judaism, and giving racism an objective, enduring, institutionalized and obdurate character
Monday, February 22, 2010
SPAIN
General Franco imposed by Hitler and Mussolini, Spanish Republic during the years 1936–1939.
possibility, land reform, educational reform, public pension refor, trade unionism
groups opposed to these reforms carried out a military coup. Spain’s popular classes defend the Republic but lack of arms
The West did not lift a finger, afraid reform would “contaminate” their own popular classes
More than 200,000 executed, another 200,000 died in concentration camps 114,266 people, disappeared
until 1978, repression was a constant, apologists such as Juan Linz denied
fascist totalitarian, defined it as authoritarian. It was a nationalism based
on a special race
transition in 1978 carried out on terms favorable to the right-wing led by the king
Amnesty Law, immunity for all. Pact of Silence from all political parties, 114,266 disappeared remained disappeared.
three years ago, the grandchildren started looking. There were people who knew where. in this “model” transition, the right-wing forces still held enormous power
new law, The Law of Historical Memory. socialists have done little, afraid
the monarchy, the Army, and the Church) that insists on Pact of Silence and the Amnesty Law.
Enter Judge Garzon who tried to take General Pinochet to court. Under pressure recovery of historical memory. Pinochet was a boy scout compared with Franco. Judge Garzon called for inquiry. hold tribunals, the repression was even broader and deeper than previously known
reactionary forces mobilized, took Judge Garzon to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court, Judge Varela saw merit in their request. Amnesty Law
gave permanent immunity. Judge Varela’s indictment exposing all the political and judicial systems to the criticism
Judge Varela wants to prevent Judge Garzon, will reveal a pact of silence
The initial work done by Judge Garzon has already proved. United Nations Human Rights Law, Article 15.2 “crimes against humanity” cannot be silenced by
Amnesty Law
And the “official” international media remain silent.
JOE STACK AND PAUL GOODMAN
“When the wealthy fuck up,” writes Stack, “the poor get to die for the mistakes.”
“two interpretations for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us.”
corporate socialism,
Corporations marred by their own stupidity and greed get bail-outs, writes Stack, while healthcare companies plunder the ranks of the sick and the dying for profit
the “vulgar and corrupt” Catholic Church as a “monster of organized religion” that grows inordinately wealthy exploiting religious tax exemptions.
IRS, a gigantic system of wealth transfer that keeps alive a government which ably represents its corporate handlers but coldly calculates the length and breadth of the shaft for its citizens
a government that has allowed bigness oligopolies to take the dominant position in just about every major sector of the economy (in banking, finance, food production, energy, defense, steel, pharmaceuticals, airlines, and media), while institutionalizing unfairness for the small man
echoes of Paul Goodman, the author and anarchist and one of the great unsung thinkers of our time
“one interlocked system of big government, big corporations, big municipalities, big labor, big education, and big communication, in which all of us are pretty regimented and brainwashed, and in which direct initiative and deciding have become difficult or impossible.”
[that] politics is essentially a matter of ‘getting into power,’ and then ‘deciding,’ directing, controlling, coercing, the activities of society”
centralization and bigness remain the norm
MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Dwight Eisenhower, "military-industrial complex."
he was telling us that U.S. decisions to fight wars may not be motivated just by defense of the United States
Why does the United States have over 700 military installations around the world (and growing)? Does it have THAT many enemies?
Why are U.S. military expenditures year after year equal to ALL other military expenditures of ALL other nations in the world?
Why has the United States been the number-one arms dealer in the world for the past decades?
military-industrial complex
CPAC AND JUSTIN RAIMUNDO
Wait for it...
...And here it is. Greenwald was first, but he must write on the weekend. Here is the voice of right wing libertarianism in the flesh.
I used to hate these guys. While I don't disagree with their historical analysis, their praxis is only a few steps up the evolutionary ladder from the John Birchers. Now, I root for them.
The first step is rounding up all the neocons war criminals and putting them in a "Nuremberg docket". Hang 12 of them in one night, Limbaugh first.
Then we can fight income distribution with these guys.
- anti-interventionist foreign policy as the key to reining in big government
- Invoking the shade of Robert A. Taft, and wondering aloud how we’re going to pay for our empire
- traced the roots of our dilemma back to Woodrow Wilson
- Paul realizes that the whole kit-n-kaboodle of progressivism culminated in US involvement in the Great War
We didn’t hear Beck own up to the essentially Wilsonian foreign policy of the Bush administration.
It warmed the cockles of my libertarian heart to hear Ron Paul mentioned Eugene Victor Debs raised as a martyr to the cause of individual rights. It was a Republican, Warren G. Harding – who finally freed Debs. Ron truly is the anti-Cheney
Paul’s CPAC victory is a stunning repudiation of the War Party’s (read Neocon) long-standing dominance of the GOP
Let it be so.
ARGHANISTAN'S OUTSOURCED WAR
Here is a great article from Le Monde diplomatique but found at Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Afghanistan’s outsourced war by Marie-Dominique Charlier
A British contractor said recently that the Americans, the British and other armed forces were in Afghanistan to win the war, but for his firm, the more the security situation deteriorated the better
A worrying two-thirds of the Pentagon’s personnel in Afghanistan are private military contractors, unaccountable to military law or ethics, swaggeringly overbearing, and not in any hurry to help improve the poor security situation that assures their firms’ current and future profits
There is a convergence of financial interests between the PMCs and big US industrial conglomerates: most PMCs have been bought up by conglomerates through mergers and acquisitions, many since 2001.
Xe (Blackwater), DynCorp, MPRI (Military Professional Resources Inc) and Kellog Brown and Root (4), are all part of a grouping known as Private Security Companies of Afghanistan. interrogators and interpreters in the Abu Ghraib were recruited CACI International or Titan
This reality is so totally fubar'd, its hard to know where to start.
Mass Casualties:
Thursday 18 February 2010
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Review
"Mass Casualties": The Dark Underbelly of Occupation, an Army Medic's Account
Thursday 18 February 2010
an insider's scathing testimony of an ongoing illegal and unethical military action in a distant, once-sovereign state, by the US
The late historian and Author Howard Zinn held the book in high regard. "Michael Anthony's memoir is not about the politics of Iraq. Instead it takes us deep inside the war, inside and outside the operation room, the barracks, the talk of the soldiers, the feeling of the situation ... unique and powerful," Zinn wrote.
If for nothing else, "Mass Casualties" gains immense importance in its honest portrayal of a young soldier's vulnerability as he struggles hard to cope with his shattered illusion about the Army
Sunday, February 21, 2010
GOLDWATER HAD ONE THING RIGHT
I believe what Barry Goldwater believed in 1994:
When you say "radical right" today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.
I stand with Goldwater when he declared:
"Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."
WEALTH DISTRIBUTION - 20's LEVELS
What a time to be an oligarch! All I wanted to do was vomit when I saw this.
Folks, there is no way we can have economic prosperity in this country when the top 1% has all of the money. The middle class is basically being destroyed right in front of our very eyes. Consumption economies die when the consumers have no money to consume!
I see growing signs of desperation and anger as the wealth of this nation continues to get transferred to the elite of this nation.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS
Will announce a decisive milestone today, more than 1,000 worldwide architects and engineers now support the call for a new investigation
The press conference will be held concurrently in 38 cities in 6 countries
We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST official
Other disturbing facts
# Complete destruction of both Twin Towers in just 10 to 14 seconds at near free-fall acceleration
# Over 100 first-responder reports of explosions and flashes at onset of destruction
# Multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft at 60 mph
# Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking
# 1200-foot-dia. debris field: no "pancaked" floors seen in the debris pile
# Several tons of molten metal found in debris.
# Evidence of advanced explosive nano-thermitic composite material found in the WTC dust by an international team of scientists
The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial
GOVERNMENTS ADMIT THEY CARRY OUT FALSE FLAG ATTACKS
The German people were whipped up into a state of hysteria and fear, because they thought they were under attack by Poles and other "bad guys". The Germans were in shock, and rallied around their "strong" leader (it wasn't just the bad economy). Without first exposing the truth that the attacks were false flag attacks - which were largely the source and root cause of the German people's fears, and which allowed the German parliament and other institutions to hand Hitler total power - the sweeping away of good political causes by the wave of fear could not be stopped.
Moreover, the Nazis might have been derailed and perhaps brought to justice well before the Nuremberg trials if the false flag hoaxes had been exposed at the time. The German people could have been spared from the horrors inflicted on their nation and the world by the Nazis. And sanity and positive political changes might have prevailed in 1940's-era Germany.
ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEER FOR 911 TRUTH
1044 architectural and engineering professionals
and 6673 other supporters including A&E students
have signed the petition demanding of Congress
a truly independent investigation.
GO ASK ALICE, I THINK SHE'LL KNOW
What do all these people have in common?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17688
1. Jason Chafetz, Utah Congressman
2. Bob Graham, Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
3. Patrick Leahy, Democratic U.S. Senator
4. Ron Paul, Republican Congressman
5. Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Congressman
6. Mike Gravel, Former Democratic Senator
7. Lincoln Chaffee, Former Republican Senator
8. Dan Hamburg, Former U.S. Democratic Congressman
9. Curt Weldon, Former U.S. Republican Congressman and senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and who served six years as the Chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee
10. Lee Hamilton, Co-chair 911 Commission
11. Timothy Roemerm 9/11 Commissioner
12. Max Cleland, 9/11 Commissioner
13. Bob Kerrey, 9/11 Commissioner
14. John Farmer, Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission
15. Lynne Larkin, CIA Operations Officer who co-chaired a CIA multi-agency task force coordinating intelligence efforts among many intelligence and law enforcement agencies
16. Daniel Ellsberg, Former military analyst and famed whistleblower
17. Raymond McGovern, 27-year CIA veteran, chaired National Intelligence Estimates, delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush,
18. William Bill Christison, 29-year CIA veteran, former National Intelligence Officer, former Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis
19. David Steele, 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
20. Robert Baer, decorated 20-year CIA veteran
21. Melvin Goodman, Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004,
22. Major John M. Newman, PhD, U.S. Army, Professor of History and International Relations, University of Maryland. Former Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency, former military attaché in China, with a 21-year career in U.S. Army Intelligence
23. General Wesley Clark, U.S. General, Commanding General of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe
24. Morton Goulder, Former Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter,
25. Edward L. Peck, former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism
26. J. Michael Springmann, former US Department of State Foreign Service Officer
27. Lt. Col. Jeff Latas, President of the U.S. Air Force Accident Investigation Board, who also served as Pentagon Weapons Requirement Officer and as a member of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review
28. Col. Ronald D. Ray, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan
29. Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17688
1. Jason Chafetz, Utah Congressman
2. Bob Graham, Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
3. Patrick Leahy, Democratic U.S. Senator
4. Ron Paul, Republican Congressman
5. Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Congressman
6. Mike Gravel, Former Democratic Senator
7. Lincoln Chaffee, Former Republican Senator
8. Dan Hamburg, Former U.S. Democratic Congressman
9. Curt Weldon, Former U.S. Republican Congressman and senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and who served six years as the Chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee
10. Lee Hamilton, Co-chair 911 Commission
11. Timothy Roemerm 9/11 Commissioner
12. Max Cleland, 9/11 Commissioner
13. Bob Kerrey, 9/11 Commissioner
14. John Farmer, Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission
15. Lynne Larkin, CIA Operations Officer who co-chaired a CIA multi-agency task force coordinating intelligence efforts among many intelligence and law enforcement agencies
16. Daniel Ellsberg, Former military analyst and famed whistleblower
17. Raymond McGovern, 27-year CIA veteran, chaired National Intelligence Estimates, delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush,
18. William Bill Christison, 29-year CIA veteran, former National Intelligence Officer, former Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis
19. David Steele, 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
20. Robert Baer, decorated 20-year CIA veteran
21. Melvin Goodman, Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004,
22. Major John M. Newman, PhD, U.S. Army, Professor of History and International Relations, University of Maryland. Former Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency, former military attaché in China, with a 21-year career in U.S. Army Intelligence
23. General Wesley Clark, U.S. General, Commanding General of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe
24. Morton Goulder, Former Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter,
25. Edward L. Peck, former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism
26. J. Michael Springmann, former US Department of State Foreign Service Officer
27. Lt. Col. Jeff Latas, President of the U.S. Air Force Accident Investigation Board, who also served as Pentagon Weapons Requirement Officer and as a member of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review
28. Col. Ronald D. Ray, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan
29. Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI
Friday, February 19, 2010
THE TIPPING POINT
Canada's Permafrost Has Moved North 80 Miles in Past 50 Years
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 02.18.10
Science & Technology (science)
Writing in the journal Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, the scientists also say that permafrost is in an advanced state of deterioration as far north as the 55th parallel.
Stored Methane Emissions Increasing
methane is a more potent greenhouse gas. The fear is that a tipping point will be reached and vast stores of methane will be released in a relatively short time period as the permafrost melting trend continues.
FROM INFORMED CONSENT
Meanwhile, the main strategy of the Israeli and Jewish-American Right to preserve Israeli capacity to continue the colonization and to act belligerently in the region had been the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That strategem has failed, as I argued in Salon. The Shiite fundamentalists who have taken over Baghdad are pro-Hizbullah and pro-Palestinian. (Hizbullah was in part set up by the Islamic Mission Party, Da'wa, of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and Da'wa supported Hamas in the recent Gaza War). Moreover, Baghdad has ceased helping contain Iran for the Sunni Arab world and the West, and is now a close ally of Tehran. The prospect of a well-armed, 250,000-man Iraqi army now being reconstituted, and riddled with agents of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, must be a matter of consternation for Israelis. Only Jordan separates them from Iraq, now an outpost of the Shiite religious parties allied with Khamenei. The Neoconservatives, such as Richard Perle, David Frum, Paul Wolfowitz, Irv Lewis Libby, Michael Rubin, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, Larry Franklin and others thus not only shot themselves in the foot, but they shot Israel in the chest.
This Iraq strategy, which intended to stop the Rabin peace process and prevent the return of Gaza and the West Bank to the Palestinians for their state, was laid out by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and other Neoconservatives in a white paper for Bibi Netanyahu in 1996. Many of the authors were subsequently put in high office by Bush-Cheney and pushed for an American war on Iraq with dirty tricks and false propaganda in 2002-2003. They included Canadian gadfly journalist David Frum, who authored Bush's 2002 'Axis of Evil' speech in consultation with Perle. The mostly Jewish Neoconservatives were only one faction in the Bush-Cheney coalition that wanted regime change in Baghdad, which included the Christian Right, Big Oil, and the military-industrial complex. However influential, they were not 'in control' and most Jewish Americans opposed their ideas and policies.
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