Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Sunday, November 18, 2012
We are forbidden to say this - Gaza is a Concentration Camp / Politics / Israel
Arthur Silber writes: THE MOST STRIKING and significant quality of our national conversation "is one of overwhelming, oppressive and suffocating unreality.
It is as if everyone knows, but will never acknowledge, that we may speak only in code, and that we may only utilize the safe, empty phrases that we have agreed are 'acceptable' -- phrases and language that are safe precisely because they have been drained of all correspondence to facts.
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Sunday, November 18, 2012
Gaza: Here we go again, A Terrorist Attack for an Terrorist Attack / Politics / Israel
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a terrorist attack for a terrorist attack. Sit back ladies and gentlemen for the next round of hypocrisy as Israel plays the victim card, forgetting the fact that it has stolen Palestinian lands, that it continues to bulldoze Palestinian homes, expel people from their lands and loots Palestinian resources. If your home is taken, what do you do?
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Sunday, November 18, 2012
Death of the West and Decline of the East / Politics / Global Economy
We are used since a century to denounce and comment the so-called decline of the West; the great essay of Spengler, unfit for the public of today, was published during the WW1 and it has been quickly fulfilled, Western Europe becoming an American colony and a bureaucratic disaster, both economically and spiritually. Her ageing population is rapidly disappearing and it will be replaced during the next decennials. Nobody should lament this process since Solzhenitsyn observed that the westerners do not know if there are alive! Modern world is a bad dream, said once French philosopher Deleuze, a left-wing genius completely forgotten nowadays in what is left of France (pardon, Hollande...). Statesmen in Europe hate or fear Mr Putin for he is the last statesman with a brain and a soul. This is why there are each year more youngsters fond of him in Western Europe. We will see where this hope will get us to.
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Sunday, November 18, 2012
Israel Gaza War's for Control of Offshore Natural Gas Fields / Politics / Israel
The [December 2008] military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.
This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.
British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.
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Sunday, November 18, 2012
Why We Should Not Fear the Fiscal Cliff / Politics / UK Politics
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Optimism Bias: What Keeps Us Alive Today Will Kill Us Tomorrow / Politics / Social Issues
Definition of a lie: any not entirely accurate representation of the world as we perceive it; what's not spoken can be as crucial as what is.
So yeah, people lie. They, we, all do. Some of us understand the extent to which this is true better than others, but that's probably just because we haven't all spent equal time wondering when it was we first started doing it. Let alone why. Interesting questions. After the fact, it's blindingly obvious why we would want to lie: accomplished liars get to mate faster and more often. Which still is the purpose of life, even though it may not be terribly fashionable to phrase it that way these days.
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Saturday, November 17, 2012
Targeting Civilians: Israel's Specialty / Politics / Israel
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Israel Military Implements Gaza War, Phase1 of Iran Nuclear Attack Plan / Politics / Middle East
It is no news that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been preparing the world for an attack against Iran all year, as illustrated by the PM's September visit and speech at the UN (Netanyahu Warns of Attack on Iran). In a continuation of the propaganda war, Channel 4 recently aired a fly on the wall documentary into the suggested thought processes that the Israeli Government, Military and Intelligence agencies were going through during September 2012 as they war gamed the consequences of a unilateral attack against Iran's air defence, missile and nuclear infrastructure, and how the aftermath could play out in terms of world reaction and Iranian military response.
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Friday, November 16, 2012
What is the “fiscal cliff”? / Politics / Government Spending
Patrick Martin writes: The term “fiscal cliff,” first used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last February, refers to the simultaneous expiration of tax cuts and imposition of spending cuts on January 1, 2013.
The American media has seized on the term “fiscal cliff” and promoted it, in part, to suggest that measures which would otherwise be enormously popular—ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy or cutting military spending—are threatening, even dangerous.
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Friday, November 16, 2012
What to Expect If We Go Over the Fiscal Cliff? / Politics / Taxes
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: I'm on the road this week in Las Vegas and Los Angeles and receiving lots of great questions as usual from your fellow Money Morning subscribers.
Here's a few that really caught my attention. Not surprisingly, one of the biggies deals with the fiscal cliff.
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Friday, November 16, 2012
A United Europe? / Politics / US Politics
Alexander Jousse writes: Since the start of the European debt crisis, there has been some growing opposition to the idea of a united Europe. Well, this had to stop, so the best thing would be to label anyone against Europe as neo-Nazi holocaust denier. End of argument. Since the Nobel Mass Murderer Peace Prize was given to the EU, anyone who is against the EU is obviously against peace and the institutions that have worked so tirelessly to prevent the reincarnation of Hitler. If you are against peace in Europe, then you are obviously a pro-Hitler Nazi who loves war and gas chambers; then whatever you say can be comfortably ignored.
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Thursday, November 15, 2012
China's New Leadership: Progressive, Not Conservative / Politics / China
Hu's defeat vs. Jiang's victory
We disagree with media reports that China's new Politburo Standing Committee is dominated by relatively conservative members. What we see is a complete defeat of current President Hu's CCLY clique and a victory of retired President Jiang's Shanghai clique. In recent days, Jiang's unusually frequent and high-profile public appearances suggest he is still highly influencing policy making and senior official appointments.
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Thursday, November 15, 2012
Do You Need Institutional 'Weapons' to Defend Against Wealthy Capitalists? / Politics / US Politics
Ed Bugos writes: The anarcho-capitalist movement appears to be tweaking the interest of the young leftist movement, which historically represents the radical side of the political spectrum. Maybe the time has come for "revolutionary politics." In his 1969 essay, "The Death of Politics", Karl Hess concluded that the world was not yet ready to realize that the social problem involved a choice not between different parties but rather politics and freedom:
"Radical and revolutionary movements seek not to revise but to revoke. The target of revocation should be obvious. The target is politics itself."
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Thursday, November 15, 2012
Ron Paul's Farewell Speech to Congress / Politics / US Politics
This may well be the last time I speak on the House Floor. At the end of the year I’ll leave Congress after 23 years in office over a 36-year period. My goals in 1976 were the same as they are today: promote peace and prosperity by a strict adherence to the principles of individual liberty.
It was my opinion, that the course the U.S. embarked on in the latter part of the 20th Century would bring us a major financial crisis and engulf us in a foreign policy that would overextend us and undermine our national security.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012
U.S. States Secession Petitions: Good PR But Bad Politics / Politics / US Politics
Tens of thousands of Americans are now petitioning the White House wanting to withdraw from the union. Although peoples and regions around the world are in the process of withdrawing from debt laden, failed central governments including Scotland, Venice, Catalonia, Bavaria, Flanders and others, it won't be as easy here in the USA. While the US petitions generate great PR for the legal right of secession, this is not the way a state or people legally withdraw from the US union.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Why Government and Central Bank Regime of Financial Repression Will Fail / Politics / Central Banks
Excessive leverage and risk in the financial system, e.g., using customer funds to speculate, never ends well. Stock market crashes, bank and investment firm failures or economic recessions are all potential consequences. Following the failure of the United States to regulate over the counter (OTC) derivatives and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, U.S. banks became the largest financial business entities in history. The U.S. real estate bubble, sub-prime lending and mortgage backed securities (MBS), along with unregulated OTC derivatives, then lead to bank insolvencies, a historic stock market crash and a near collapse of the global financial system.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Taxmageddon Holding Hands While Jumping Off the Fiscal Cliff / Politics / Taxes
The rapid approach of the Thelma & Louise bipartisan plunge into the financial abyss is upon us. It is simply unbelievable, that the prospects of rational tax salvation by the end of the year, measured by every statement coming out of the Washington political cabal, will materialize. Extending the current tax rates from automatic rescission on January 1, 2013, as a stopgap method for an enactment of a lasting political rapprochement, is the best that might occur. The net effect will be a perspicacious downturn in economic activity, a new round of layoffs, rising permanent unemployment and a plunge in consumer confidence. Wall Street will make hay by shorting the market while placing blame on the uncompromising hacks that refuse to cut a deal.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Should the Republican Party Be Saved? / Politics / US Politics
Clyde Wilson writes: Since the election there has been much discussion of the future of the Republican party. Can it ever again win a national election, or is it doomed to permanent minority status? The most common response has been that the party must "reach out" (i.e., compete in the offer of bribes) to the exploding Hispanic population. Rather neatly and deceitfully avoiding the obvious fact that Republican sponsorship of mass immigration is the cause of their minority status.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Obama Retirement Care / Politics / US Politics
Wendy McElroy writes: How long will starving governments keep their itchy fingers off your private pension funds? Only as long as they can't get away with it. And governments are literally getting away with murder these days. Why not your pension money, too?
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Tuesday, November 13, 2012
IMF and Eurogroup Fall out Over Greece Debt to GDP Ratio Reduction Timing / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
An article today reports on an apparent disagreement that arose last night between Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers, and Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Juncker is reported as having said that Greece will be given two additional years - to 2022 from 2020 - to meet its debt reduction target of 120% of GDP. Ms. Lagarde is reported as having taken exception to this saying she and Mr. Juncker "clearly have different views" on Greek debt.
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