If We Don't Get Big Money Out of Politics ...

"If we don't get Big Money out of Politics, everything else what we want to do is hopeless" (Robert Reich, blogger, Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, former member of President-elect Obama's economic transition advisory board, chairman of Common Cause, ...)

video --> Former Labor Sec. Robert Reich on Clinton's Errors of Crippling Welfare to Repealing Glass Steagall

More on Surveillance: U.S. Citizens Hesitate To Report Suspicious (Terrorist) Activity

News on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's notorious “See Something, Say Something” campaign: Americans seem to feel some reluctance towards denouncing their fellow citizens, a FEMA survey found out (it is not said how many overall, just the different types of hesitation are mentioned).

For the FEMA .pdf document, click on the following headline:
Improving the Public’s Awareness and Reporting of Suspicious Activity: Key Research Findings from Literature Review, Household Survey, Focus Groups and Interviews

A summary of and comments to the survey can be found at the Center for Investigative Reporting:
Citizens fear reporting 'suspicious activity' will hurt the innocent

An infamous video (funded by the Department of Homeland Security) was shown in 2009 "at the Center for Empowered Living & Learning (CELL), an institution dedicated to addressing the global threat of terrorism, with a museum facility (called Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: Understanding the Threat) in Denver. The facility includes exhibits on the history of terrorism and its prevention."

But even in Nazi-Germany the population didn't really jump on the Gestapo's denouncing bandwagon: contrary to myth, the willingness of Germans to denounce their fellow citizens was rather not "overwhelming", as recent historical investigations show. (see Denunziation im Dritten Reich - Die Bedeutung von Systemunterstützung und Gelegenheitsstrukturen).

Das kann doch nicht wahr sein !?

"[...] Und dann haben wir den großen Konzern von Springer, den tonangebenden Konzern in den Printmedien, und Springer ist explizit, ausgesprochen verpflichtet amerikanischen und israelischen Interessen. D.h. jeder Redakteur, jeder Mitarbeiter muß bei Einstellung eine entsprechende Erklärung unterschreiben, daß er nicht anti-amerikanisch und anti-israelisch veröffentlicht [...]" Jürgen Elsässer in einem Interview über die Deutsche Medienlandschaft

Dem Springer Verlag gehören in Deutschland etwa

Bild, Bild am Sonntag, Die Welt, Welt Kompakt, Euro am Sonntag, Welt am Sonntag,

Hamburger Abendblatt, Berliner Morgenpost, B.Z., B.Z. am Sonntag,

Audio Video Foto Bild, Auto Bild, Bild der Frau, Bildwoche, Computer Bild, Computer Bild Spiele, 

Euro, Fonds&Co., Frau von Heute, Funk Uhr, Hörzu, Jolie, Mädchen, Markt und Mittelstand, 

Metal Hammer, Musikexpress, Popcorn, Rolling Stone, Sport Bild, Starflash, TV Digital, TV GUIDE, 

TVneu, Yam!, ...

Gibt es irgendwelche glaubhaften Bestätigungen für Elsässers Behauptung?

Al Jazeera vs Russia Today

Al Jazeera about RT (Russia Today) 
 

RT Replies to Al Jazeera 

Dubious Militarization of US Local Police

In addition to the NDAA puzzle, here's another dubious step taken into a problematic future for US citizens: the militarization of the police. "More than ever before, local police across the U.S. have transformed into small army-like forces using billions in grants from the federal government" the Center for Investigative Reporting says. Drones are already in use on US soil. Here's an elaborate DemocracyNow! report:

"We've Got All Sorts of Dark Arts"

One of this year's finest contributions of real journalism: When reporters from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (a sister paper of The Independent) posed as agents for the government of Uzbekistan – a notorious dictatorship allegedly responsible for killings, human rights violations and child labour – they caught on camara what the guys of PR agency Bell Pottinger Group plc told about their dark arts, e.g.

• exploiting their contacts to highest governmental officials to get into dialogue with foreign politicians;
• manipulating Google results to "drown" out negative coverage;
• using members of parliament known to be critical of investigative programs to attack their reporting for minor errors ...

An interesting development of monitoring the British lobbying machine followed since then, including revelations on the PR firm manipulating Wikipedia entries, now under investigation by Wikipedia's own staff.

Not much coverage in German speaking media on that, except "PR-Agentur brüstet sich mit Manipulation von Wikipedia und Google".

Probably the easiest way of manipulation politics in European countries is via EU staff and law makers, as the example of Ernst Strasser, ex-Federal Minister for the Interior of both conservative Schüssel-governments in Austria - has spectacularly shown:

Ernst Strasser taped red-handed

Best of Strasser

Strasser/EU-Lobbyism Persiflage

Following the Dark Prince of Militarism

Washington Post: Notorious private security contractor firm formerly known as Blackwater, intermediately known as Xe Services LLC, now changed its name to Academi. (see also Wikipedia entry)
The net is following the Dark Prince.

Madman Gingrich on Palestinians: An Invented People of Terrorists

US-Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich: "I believe that the Jewish people have the right to have a state, [...] Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, who are historically part of the Arab community [...] And they had a chance to go many places."

Can anyone see any logic in this? 

And later on:  "these people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, if there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left? We pay for those textbooks through our aid money. It's fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, enough lying about the Middle East."

Who's Behind the Crushing of the Occupy Wall Street Movement?

Naomi Wolf in the Land of the Brave and the Free: The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

Fisk on Torturers

Why do torturers really like to film their misdeeds?

"And we must forget, of course, that other American pictures from Abu Ghraib, which Obama the Good has decided we must not see, show the rape of Iraqi women and boys."

"Help Solve an Open Murder Case"

It's certainly a good idea to ask the public for help if specialists (in this case cryptologists) can't get on with a solution to a problem.

On June 30, 1999, Ricky McCormick was found dead. He had been murdered and dumped in a field in Missouri. The only clues regarding this incident were two encrypted notes found with the victim. The FBI is asking the public for help (click here).

Also in science it is not unusual to ask for help: see Foldit - Solve Puzzles for Science. Only in the realm of politics it is still kind of "against the rules" to ask the public for help ...

Fox News: Poor Trickery on the Poor

Before you read this, you should watch the video in order to find out how you would have reacted to the Fox News trickery with numbers.

15% of the American population living below the poverty line;
16% of the entire federal budget being spent on the poor;
9% of Americans have some kind of substance dependence, most of them cannot earn a living.
------------------------
Implicitly suggested conclusion: The American state spends overwhelmingly much on the poor, most of which are addicts and therefor unable to work for their own living.

These "facts" leave more questions open than Mr. O'Reilly dreams of: 1) What is it exactly which is spent on the poor (and not to the wealthy)? 2) Which substances are meant, medicinal substances, coffee, nicotine, alcohol, illegal drugs? How many upper class people are addicts? 3) How much does addiction contribute to low income and how many people had low income BEFORE they've got lost in some kind of addiction?

This is what Fox honestly calls "journalism" but what is in fact nothing more than the inventing and nursing of prejudices.

The Party is Over for Wall Street Protesters

"New York City police began removing the Occupy Wall Street protesters about 1 a.m. Tuesday, saying any demonstrators who did not leave would be arrested."

Still in the eighties of the last century you could find lots of beggars in Manhattan, if you remember; then they were gone, they were banned. Salesmen and shop owners had been complaining about these subjects disturbing their businesses. It's not essentially different to banning now the protesters from Zuccotti Park, because the current financial and economic system just does not need these subjects, they're just annoying ... all those "leftists eating sushi and smoking nargilas" as they were called in Israel, if you can't get a job, why don't you move to Mumbai as suggested by British Rail minister Theresa Villiers? Of yourse, they may go on protesting and guitar playing in the beautiful woods of Oregon ...

Israel und die Begin Doktrin

ARD Tagesschau über offene Spekulationen hinsichtlich eines bevorstehenden militärischen Anschlags Israels auf den Iran.

http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/ondemand100_id-video1008088.html

In diesem Video Beitrag wird die "Begin Doktrin" erklärt: Mit offenen Karten - Bombenangriffe auf den Iran?

Who is James Arthur "Art" Pope?

"State for Sale"

A conservative multimillionaire has taken control in North Carolina, one of 2012’s top battlegrounds.

http://www.artpopeexposed.com/

German: Ein Mann "kauft" einen US-Bundesstaat

Gene Sharp & Otpor

Krude Verschwörungsstheorie, infantile Reinterpretation der Geschichte der Revolutionen, einschließliche des Arabischen Frühlings? In diesem Video wird behauptet, die USA hätten so gut wie alle gewaltfreien Widerstände und Revolutionen der letzten Zeit finanziell und moralisch gesteuert - mit Hilfe der Theorie des gewaltfreien Widerstands von Gene Sharp und Gruppen wie der serbischen Otpor. Seltsam, wenn man daran denkt, daß Mubarak einer der besten Gefolgsleute der USA waren ... warum hätten sie irgendeinen Grund haben sollen, ihn zu entfernen?

Das Buch von Sharp gibt es online:
From Dictatorship to Democracy - A Conceptual Framework for Liberation