This is not just about Iran. It is about other major world economies moving away from holding the US dollar as a means of doing business.

In his drastic prediction of war, one might assume that Obama is referring to Israel launching a preemptive military strike on Iran with the backing of US Republicans. Or that he is insinuating that Iran will walk from self-imposed restraints on its nuclear program to build a bomb, thus triggering a war.

But what could really be behind Obama’s dire warning of “deal or war” is another scenario – the collapse of the US dollar, and with that the implosion of the US economy.

That scenario was hinted at this week by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Speaking in New York on August 11, Kerry made the candid admission that failure to seal the nuclear deal could result in the US dollar losing its status as the top international reserve currency.

“In ‘A Full Life,’ Jimmy Carter at 90 remains a wise truth teller”.

His announcement was candid and truthful.

The cancer first identified in his liver, has “spread to other parts of his body”. He expects to hang around for a while; his travel schedule is only cut back, not canceled. How long will a “while” last? We will just have to wait and see.

The pending freedom of both Israelis and Palestinians from the bondage of conflict, owes a great deal to this man.

Diana Kim grew up on the Island of Maui where her father was a photographer, which is where she first learned her trade. When her parents split, Kim began to live with friends and relatives, and she lost touch with her father who became “absent.” In 2003 Kim began a long-term photo-project about the homeless; in 2012, she made a shocking discovery. Kim found her father among the homeless she was documenting in Honolulu.

Greece is now obviously on the same hit list of the Empire, as are countless other nations, from Ecuador and Venezuela, to Russia, China and Iran.

Has it been a warning or an act of desperation? A reaction to recent humiliation, to a rape that Greece once again suffered at the hands of Germany, its politicians and banks, and in the paws of the rest of the European Union?

In Greece, it all feels like a calm before a huge storm.

The basic question for all Americans is whether we will act as an independent, sovereign country pursuing peace through diplomacy, as we currently see unfolding with Iran and Cuba, or a submissive military instrument, directed by Israel’s proxies hell-bent on destroying America for Israel.

While many US intellectuals, liberals, progressives and leftists support the US-Iran agreement (see the Scientists’ Letter to Obama on Iran Nuclear Deal, Aug. 8, 2015 with 29 top scholars and Nobel laureates support diplomacy), few would dare to identify and attack Israel’s US proxies as they promote Tel Aviv’s agenda pushing the US to war with Iran. A brief glance through the sectarian left press, for example, The Socialist Register, New Politics, New Left Review, finds no discussion of the powerful, well-financed, highly organized, elite-driven Israeli proxies and their role in determining US wars in the Middle East, and more specifically the war agenda toward Iran.

Benjamin Netanyahu is laying siege to the Congress of the United States, not for the first time. He has thrown his voice and channeled his influence into the arena of American legislative politics, to abort the P5+1 nuclear settlement with Iran, which was signed on July 14 by the US, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia. The Israeli strong man’s latest intervention is in keeping with the rest of his political career. Netanyahu owes all his importance and his success to actions that have been purely destructive.

President Obama's singular achievement is the effort he has pursued to break the stranglehold the Zionist and NeoCons have exerted over American policy.

“Top diplomats from Russia and China joined a rare meeting of world powers’ envoys on Capitol Hill this week with roughly 30 Senate Democrats to tamp down concerns over the nuclear agreement.

“The prospect of the rejection of a deal makes us nervous,” Philipp Ackermann, the acting German ambassador to the United States, said Thursday. “It would be a nightmare for every European country if this is rejected.”

The signatories are calling “all the peoples of the world, to realize that the struggle of the Greek people is also their struggle”.

Friends of Greece,

On 3 August 2015, MikisTheodorakis, the Greek world famous music composer and Resistance figure, called upon the Greek people – and the peoples of the world – to respect Democracy – the very Democracy, born in Greece some 2500 years ago and given to the world as a set of values for respect for each other, for humanity – for equal rights and for free expression.

The following text summarizes MikisTheodorakis’ appeal to stop the Syriza Government from selling out the Greek people’s country and stop the currently – almost in secret – ongoing negotiations with the troika on the modalities of the € 86 billion loan and the details of the new austerity measures – “negotiations” to be concluded by about 20 August 2015.

"Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t win anymore..." Donald Trump

Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has said that the US, on the financial front, is “on the wrong side of history.” As for the Republican candidates chasing the nomination for the 2016 US presidential race, well, they may qualify only for the ‘wrong’ side of the bargain, as they hardly know what ‘history’ means.
And that brings us to a mammoth specimen of entertainment/reality TV; the first Republican debate, no less than a seemingly-eternal 15 months before the actual US presidential election.

It definitely started with a – what else? – celebrity TV bang. Would anybody raise their hands if they were mulling running as a third-party candidate, and ignore the eventual Republican nominee?

MikisTheodorakis, the Greek world famous music composer and Resistance figure, called upon the Greek people – and the peoples of the world – to respect Democracy – the very Democracy, born in Greece some 2500 years ago and given to the world as a set of values for respect for each other, for humanity – for equal rights and for free expression.

He referred in particular to the Greek referendum in which the Greek people on 5 July 2015 voted with an overwhelming 61% against the continuation of the economic and financial strangulation of Greece by the infamous troika – the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In the whole modern history of Europe, there was not such a shameful surrender, or even treason. ‘Alexis Tsipras’ is a Greek translation of ‘Vidkun Quisling’ or of ‘Maréchal Pétain’.

After the Syriza debacle of Greece, there is a very little trust for left-wing rhetoric. In the whole modern history of Europe, there was not such a shameful surrender, or even treason. ‘Alexis Tsipras’ is a Greek translation of ‘Vidkun Quisling’ or of ‘Maréchal Pétain’. The man received the full support of his people, and chickened out. (The first step of Syriza after the fiasco was to enter into military cooperation with Israel.) Now only the far-right Golden Dawn speaks loudly against surrender to the bankers, but this is a party in opposition, and it risks nothing by speaking out.

Once we defeat the Israeli-directed attempt to derail the Iran deal in Congress we can safely go out into the streets declaiming: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we’re free at last!

The Iran deal is a turning point in US foreign policy, and its approval by Congress will represent a sea change in American politics: it will mark nothing less than a day of liberation which future generations might dub “VI Day” – victory over Israel day.

The signing of the Iran deal, and its probable approval by Congress – it doesn’t look like the War Party has the votes to overturn it – heralds the victory of the countercoup, i.e. the overthrow of the Lobby’s stranglehold and the eventual restoration of a pro-American foreign policy. This was evident in practically every line of President Obama’s recent speech at American University, and the text deserves closer examination than it has so far gotten.

The Iran deal is a turning point in US foreign policy, and its approval by Congress will represent a sea change in American politics: it will mark nothing less than a day of liberation which future generations might dub “VI Day” – victory over Israel day.

The signing of the Iran deal, and its probable approval by Congress – it doesn’t look like the War Party has the votes to overturn it – heralds the victory of the countercoup, i.e. the overthrow of the Lobby’s stranglehold and the eventual restoration of a pro-American foreign policy. This was evident in practically every line of President Obama’s recent speech at American University, and the text deserves closer examination than it has so far gotten.

May a story like Mohammad Ali’s, of which there are surely countless others not known to the common citizen at large – bring back compassion, solidarity and consideration for our brothers and sisters at large into the mindset of peoples’ values of our western society --

Mohammad Ali’s destiny is not known, but he is on a positive track – and more importantly he is in good and caring hands. May he be testimony and symbol throughout Europe and the rest of the world for Greece’s compassion for refugees and their fate, for Greece’s generosity and thriving sense of solidarity – a sense of kindness that has been gravely devastated in the rest of the western world!

Should Congress prevail in undermining “this strong, principled policy diplomacy”, we would have reached a shameful moment in U.S. foreign policy.

While President Barack Obama was speaking about the people’s business, and his Kennedy-like preference for diplomacy over war, freshman members of the U.S. House of Representatives were either 5,000 plus miles away in Israel, or preparing to go there to be feted and educated by a foreign power which opposes the nuclear agreement the U.S. has reached with Iran and major European powers.

Democratic freshman congress members who may or may not have heard the Obama speech, are traveling in Israel (all expenses paid) courtesy of an educational nonprofit “affiliated with” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Israel Education Foundation, AIPAC’s charitable arm.

What “affiliated with” means is that AIPAC runs the trip while its “education foundation” pays the bills.

Samantha Power has become something of an expert at Russia-bashing and using fiery rhetoric for her selective political aims at the UN Security Council.

The US, as with other NATO states, has set itself up as jury and judge on the MH17 tragedy, and has already decided on Russia’s guilt over the incident. From the outset, Western governments and media have insinuated that Russia or “Russian-backed rebels” in eastern Ukraine are the perpetrators. The case has already been poisoned with politicized prejudice, without any evidence. As Christopher Black, a respected international war crimes lawyer, has pointed out to this author, the tribunal proposed by the NATO countries would have been used as “a trap” to incriminate Russia and possibly even indict President Vladimir Putin for having ultimate responsibility.

The Masters of the Universe seem to believe that the “pivot to Asia” won’t work if Iran is not part, as a vassal state, of the imperial design for Southwest Asia. Well, listen to Khamenei; that won’t happen.

So what is the Obama administration really up to in Iran? What sort of strategic calculations have led to what for the moment looks like a tactical geopolitical shift?

President Obama certainly concluded that the 36-year-long Wall of Mistrust against Iran was bound to fail. The real Masters of the Universe in Washington – those who control the deep state – always knew that the “nuclear weapons” hysteria was bogus. That was part of a strategic decision to keep the Islamic Republic isolated from the West as long as possible, and ultimately force regime change.

As a Social Democrat government came to power in September 2014, the Swedish Army, Navy and pro-NATO media plotted to prevent a possible rapprochement of Russia and Sweden.

These days, Sweden is all agog. In the midst of the coldest summer in living history that deprived the Swedes of their normal sun-accumulating July routine, the country plunged into an exciting search for a Russian submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, and (as opposed to the previous rounds of this venerable Swedish maritime saga) this time they actually found the beast.

Russia and China finally caught on. It is amazing that the governments of the two countries that Washington regards as "threats" were so tolerant of foreign-financed NGOs for so long.

Americans need to understand that the biggest threat to them resides entirely in the crazed neoconservative ideology of Washington’s hegemony over the world and over the American people, Paul Craig Roberts believes.

It took two decades for Russia and China to understand that “pro-democracy” and “human rights” organizations operating within their countries were subversive organizations funded by the US Department of State and a collection of private American foundations organized by Washington. The real purpose of these non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is to advance Washington’s hegemony by destabilizing the two countries capable of resisting US hegemony.

So what is the Obama administration really up to in Iran? What sort of strategic calculations have led to what for the moment looks like a tactical geopolitical shift?

President Obama certainly concluded that the 36-year-long Wall of Mistrust against Iran was bound to fail. The real Masters of the Universe in Washington – those who control the deep state – always knew that the “nuclear weapons” hysteria was bogus. That was part of a strategic decision to keep the Islamic Republic isolated from the West as long as possible, and ultimately force regime change.

The rulers of the two most powerful authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are launching major wars to reconfigure the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared war by proxy on Iran, announcing full-scale military mobilization within Israel (July 27 -29) and organizing the biggest political campaign of ultra Zionist Jews in Washington. The purpose of this two-pronged propaganda blitz is to defeat the recently signed US-Iranian agreement and start another major Middle East war.

At the same time, Turkish Prime Minister Erodogan has launched a major war against the Kurdish people and their aspirations for a Kurdish state. T

Whenever you stay in any hotel in Latin America, which does not “play” RT, PressTV, CCTV, TeleSUR, be a pest; demand! Nag, nag, and nag!

Mighty new television networks based in South America, Russia, China and Iran are locked in what could only be described as an epic battle against the omnipresent Western propaganda and indoctrination networks.Their programs can be seen all over the globe, and they have been dramatically changing the lives of millions in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, even in some hubs of the Empire itself, like New York and London.

Dear Reader, this is as far as we have fallen since the ascent of neoliberalism in the last twenty-some years. No ethics, no moral, no law, just coercion for greed and ultimate hegemony – enslavement of the people while and after they are lulled and dulled with lies 24/7.

According to UNHCR about 50 million refugees are on the move every day on our globe. This is most likely an understatement, as this figure doesn’t take into account what takes place in the almost hermetically closed-off Central Africa, Congo, Zaïre, where western corporations are exploiting for a pittance and with millions of slaves precious metals, uranium, hydrocarbons and rare earths – and where millions have died over the past ten years, by butcher regimes supported and armed by the west – and where millions are on the run.

The real figure of refugees on the run is easily 60 to 65 million;

Viewers and readers should question polls, whether reported by CNN or Fox or MSNBC with the same vigor the old Chicago News Bureau once counseled, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out”.

Blessings upon New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for pointing out that “fulmination” is the right word to describe opposition to the diplomatic deal President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have just reached with Iran and the P5+1 major world powers.

The P5+1 offers a strong array of international powers. The term P5+1 refers to the UN Security Council’s five permanent members (the P5); namely China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany.

The PPP poll finds that “there’s strong support nationally for the Iran deal, that voters want their members of Congress to let it move forward, and that there’s no potential political backlash for members who do support the deal”.

Jonathan Pollard, a paid spy for Israel described by Michael D. Shear as “one of the country’s most notorious spies,” has been pardoned from his life sentence.

Pollard is a hero to Israel, not to America, and it is Pollard who is released. Manning, Snowden, and Assange are heroes to America, and they continue to be confined.

What disturbs me about the case is that it is Pollard, who spied for a foreign country, who is released. In contrast, Manning and Snowden who spied for the American people are locked away, Manning in a federal prison and Snowden in his Russian exile. Julian Assange, who merely did his job as a journalist and made available to newspapers documents leaked to him, is confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

Does Beinart really believe the media complex that gives the War Party a guaranteed platform suffers from amnesia? I hardly think so.

Peter Beinart asks some pretty good questions: he wants to know why the same crowd that lied us into war in Iraq isn’t completely discredited when it comes to their opposition to the recently concluded deal with Iran. No, he doesn’t put it quite that way, in part because, by his own admission, he was one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for what he now describes as “one of the most important, and damaging, episodes in the history of U.S. foreign policy.” He frames his question this way:

“I have a fantasy. It’s that every politician and pundit who goes on TV to discuss the Iran deal is asked this question first: ‘Did you support the Iraq War, and how has that experience informed your position?’”

Beinart is right to regard this as a fantasy, because it will never happen. Yet he fails to ask why that is.

British government under Cameron's watch has been an active and willing partner in the Machiavellian strategy of divide and rule in the Middle East spearheaded by the US and Israel.

Obama picked up where Bush left off, flooding Syrian and Libyan insurgent groups with untold largesse and arms, using the corrupted Arab Gulf kingdoms as conduits for weapons transfers for the sake of plausible deniability.

ISIS themselves have mostly eschewed hostility towards Israel, posting an official statement on social media in July 2014 saying that they’re more interested in fighting “Muslim infidels” than the Zionist state.[6]

Israeli officials have expressed similar sentiments, with Israel’s former envoy to the US,Michael Oren, stating in a September 2013 interview that Tel Aviv “prefers” ISIS and al-Qaeda over the “bad guys backed by Iran,” namely Syria’s Assad and Hezbollah.

Thirteen U.S. Senators is all President Obama needs to ensure that the nuclear deal with Iran does not get derailed by Congress

Voters in their states still have time to communicate to Senate offices locally or in Washington.

Do the math:

There are currently 54 Republican senators, all of whom are expected to oppose the deal. The Republicans will need only 13 Democrats to cross party lines and vote against the deal to reach the 67 votes required for an override.

It is simply tit for tat and it is part of the window dressing routine that both sides have to engage in for a long while.

In the meantime, again we are being told by the Administration officials and the mass media that Iran continues to be the world’s biggest supporter of terrorism and is busy destabilizing the region by backing the Assad regime in Syria, the Shi’a militia in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen.

An exchange between US Ambassador to the UN and her Iranian counterpart is another example of the post-nuclear-agreement Cold War between the United States and the Islamic Republic:

The Iranian administration, reading and hearing the foregoing rhetoric on a daily basis, is certainly not going to take all the allegations and insults without reacting in kind. Both sides must remain actively engaged in window dressing and face saving charade for some time.

What we are witnessing is the rise of a new wave of the most dangerous arms race with totally unpredictable consequences.

At the moment it is unrealistic to expect a speedy improvement in US – Russia relations. This is to be regretted, but it is a fact: these relations have reached perhaps the lowest point and are even worse than during Soviet times – a really disturbing development.

The general public is aware that both nations are facing off on the political, economic, and informational fronts. However, they also confront each other in yet another area which is only followed by a narrow circle of experts, though it bears directly on the most important security issues facing the whole planet.

The reference is, of course, to major arms control treaties. These took many years and tremendous efforts to negotiate, and yet they now dissolve one after another.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich : The United States has not changed its attitude towards Iran. Tactics change but goals don’t. Iran has negotiated in good faith but must expect mischief from the U.S.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the Iran nuclear deal and paving the way to lifting longstanding sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

– UNSC unanimously votes in favor of lifting Iran sanctions

– All 15 members of UNSC vote in favor of lifting sanctions against Iran

– All UN nuclear-related sanctions against Iran will be removed in 90 days from UNSC approval.

– Any P5+1 country can raise what it considers violation of conclusion.

The British royal family is up in arms – excuse the pun – over old video footage that shows the young Queen Elizabeth giving a Heil Hitler salute. A photograph published on its front page by British tabloid newspaper The Sun has caused a storm of controversy, with the British monarchy denouncing it as an invasion of privacy. But the real significance is that the image shows how Western so-called democracies were – and still are – so close to embracing fascism.

There was a consensus among Britain’s ruling class during the 1930s that quietly but enthusiastically endorsed Hitler and fascism as a bulwark against democracy and socialism in particular.

Does she really think the American voters will overlook her criminal behavior and put her in the White House where she can pardon herself?

Recently, in conjunction with my colleagues Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne, I read the transcripts of an interview Ms. Browne did with a man named Marc Turi, and Ms. Herridge asked me to review emails to and from State Department and congressional officials during the years when Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state.

What I saw has persuaded me beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that Mrs. Clinton provided material assistance to terrorists and lied to Congress in a venue where the law required her to be truthful. Here is the backstory.

Mr. Turi is a lawfully licensed American arms dealer.

Iranians are celebrating the prospects of a long awaited relief from the economic pain that the sanctions had imposed upon the nation. While they blame the United States government for what they believe to have been an unjustified and unfair treatment, they are divided as to what the true motivating factors could have been behind America’s animosity toward Iran.

The majority opinion points to America’s insatiable appetite for a hegemonic control over the region and its energy resources. A much smaller segment of the population comprising of the more educated elites, believe that Israel and its Zionist supporters in the United States have been at the helm and steering America’s foreign policy in the Middle East toward Israel’s preferences, even at the expense of America’s own strategic interests.

Iran has sought negotiations with the U.S. for two decades, but both Democratic and Republican administrations favored hostility demanded by Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Now that Iran nuclear deal is completed, the attention of Western news media and political commentators is predictably focused overwhelmingly on the opposition to the agreement within the U.S. Congress and from Israel and the Saudi-led Sunni Arab coalition.

That media lens misses the real significance of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is that Iran succeeded in negotiating an agreement with the United States that upheld its national right to a nuclear program despite the obvious vast disparity in power between the two states. That power disparity between the global hegemon and a militarily weak but politically influential regional “middle power” has shaped not just the negotiating strategies of the two sides during the negotiations but, more importantly, how they came about in the first place.

The financial terms dictated to Athens over the latest so-called bailout is nothing less than the subjugation of a sovereign country to the dictate of German banks. The troubling question for several European states is: who’s next?

I urge anyone who reads this to watch the video above called All Wars Are Bankers Wars that will reinforce my stance and opinion into a more digestible understanding of the how and why and greed and inhumanity, as there is far more going on here than I can put into this already over lengthy op-ed and I will now explain why and how we keep the wars going and in doing so make a small cartel of banksters richer… for here is the crux of it all and HERE is an example of exactly how I understand what happens…

In a rare rebuke to his bullying, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to stop the United States and five other world powers from reaching an agreement to constrain but not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Yet, Netanyahu still is dominating how the U.S. public and congressional debate is being framed, with Iran accused of regional “aggression” in four countries.

There is little truth and much exaggeration to Netanyahu’s depiction of what is going on in the Middle East. Yet, the U.S. mainstream media mindlessly reprises Netanyahu’s falsehoods...

Netanyahu’s reference to “Iran’s aggression,” which is now becoming a conventional-wisdom talking point in Official Washington, was curious since Iran has not invaded another country for centuries. In 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – at the urging of Saudi Arabia – invaded Iran. But Iran has not invaded any of the four countries that Netanyahu cited.

There is a madness in how the mainstream U.S. media presents the world to the American people, a delusional perspective that arguably creates an existential threat to humanity’s survival. We have seen this pattern in the biased depiction of the Ukraine crisis and now in how Official Washington is framing the debate over the Iranian nuclear agreement.

In this American land of make-believe, Iran is assailed as the chief instigator of instability in the Middle East. Yet, any sane and informed person would dispute that assessment, noting the far greater contributions made by Israel, Saudi Arabia and, indeed, the United States.

The larger issue for the American people is what to do with this insane political-media system that dominates Official Washington. Either these powers-that-be are detached from reality or they are deceitful propagandists who think they can manipulate us with lies and distortions.

I have sometimes thought that if wars could be shown in slow-motion, we could put an end to this barbarism that gives the lie to all claims of “civilization” and “humanity.”

GAZA WRITES BACK is one of those very rare books that depicts war in slow motion.

The 23 stories here, written by 15 young authors (from late teens to early 30s, all but three female) were compiled to commemorate the 5-year anniversary of “Operation Cast Lead”—the name Israel gave to its 2008-2009 campaign to once more (but not finally) “mow the lawn” in Occupied Palestine—mostly, in this case, in Gaza.

It is a book that vivifies and personalizes the horrors, but also adumbrates the gnawing losses, the indelible memories.

Congratulations! – With a resounding “OXI” = “No” – with 61% the Greek rejected the troika imposed austerity. They joined a majority of economists worldwide, including from the IMF, who also know that austerity doesn’t help recovery – and certainly doesn’t wipe out debt, the noose around a country’s neck.

But – what does the decisive no-vote mean for the 39% yes-voters? – Do they want more of austerity? – Hardly. Or were they manipulated with fear-mongering by the mostly privately owned western media, which also dominate Greece?– Blackmailed by the threats of Brussels? – Were they afraid of what’s next? – Western presstitute media propaganda for a “yes” vote, spiked with fear, threats and purposeful confusion was horrendous.

The Greece referendum was a victory, and a victory can do wonders even to wet and wobbling leaders. It would be a shame to cast the pearl of Greece to the banker swine.

How to beat banksters at their own game?

The real issue holding things up is whether the Americans have the "political will" to make that leap, to agree in writing to its obligations (without 100 caveats) and the courage to face their sprawling bureaucracy whose bread-and-butter is the 'sanctions industry' and the 'Iranian enemy.' says Sharmine Narwani

It’s D-Day in Vienna, and the parties sitting across the negotiating table still haven’t ironed out terms to settle a 12-year standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. Expect this deadline to be missed. And prepare for a lot of hot air to fill its space.

The “hot air” is calculated narrative-spin from a range of players that seek to 1) scuttle a deal, 2) increase pressure/create leverage at the negotiating table, or 3) frame an upcoming agreement in language favorable to one side.

Please forgive my cynicism and negative connotations in this letter but I find it is often necessary to infuse the negativity to emit action, anger and resolution.

Why do You allow the criminal, corporate media to continuously and incessantly lie to its citizens and not only misrepresent the facts but often fabricate stories in order to inflate the severity of the fiction?

Mr. Tsipras lets it be known that if the Greek vote ‘yes’ – for the austerity program, he may resign – that might bring the hegemon’s desired ‘regime change’.

Greece is a moving target. A new bail-out package in the wings? Being negotiated as these lines are going to print? An act of desperation? – Confusing for sure – for the electorate, for observers – but especially for the suffering every-day Greek. Almost hour by hour things are changing.

A last-minute, last ditch negotiation with Brussels for a new bail-out program has apparently been initiated by Athens for two years. No amount has been mentioned – let alone the austerities that Greece would have to accept – or the troika.

All sort of things in these negotiations are going on behind the scenes, not only between the P5+1 and Iran but between the Western allies as well.

Additional demands on Iran at the nuclear talks put forward by France are basically impossible to fulfill; it’s unlikely that they were made without the full knowledge and approval of the US, says political commentator Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich.

Summing it up, President Putin speaks softly. If he carries a big stick, he does not flash it around.

Hail, fire and brimstone, new sanctions or the US tanks on its borders, Russia takes things in stride. President Putin could adopt the motto of William of Orange: saevis tranquillus in undis, calm amidst the tempest.

The Delphi Declaration asks the European peoples, especially the Germans, to do the right thing and object to the plunder of Greece by the One Percent.

This appeal to goodwill is likely to fall on deaf ears even though the pillage of Greece will create a precedent that can then be applied to Italy, Spain, France, and even Germany.

European governments, European institutions and the IMF, acting in close alliance, if not under direct control of big international banks and other financial institutions, are now exercising a maximum of pressure, including open threats, blackmailing and a slander and terror communication campaign against the recently elected Greek government and against the Greek people.

The world must realize that the so-called troika – IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission, is literally blackmailing Greece and subjecting her to outright economic torture.

During the weekend of 20 and 21 June 2015 a forum of international scholars, scientists, economists, sociologists, political analysts – met in Delphi Greece to discuss Greece and Europe.

The organizers were the so-called “Delphi Initiative”, sponsored by the Lyssarides Foundation in Cyprus, the Greek Institute for Research on Political Strategies, the Russian Institute for Globalization and Social Movements, and the Forum Mondial des Alternatives, France.

The world must realize that the so-called troika – IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission, is literally blackmailing Greece and subjecting her to outright economic torture.

The World is Turning, Don't Let it Turn Away

Do not take the Latin American revolutions for granted.

They inspired the entire Planet. They brought hope to every corner of our scarred Earth. But now they are themselves in need of our support.

All of revolutionary Latin America is “screaming”.

As I described in two of my recent books, “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”, the Empire is using similar destabilization strategy against all countries that are resisting its deadly embrace.

We need to do a lot more searching, a lot deeper digging, if we're going to root out and destroy the virus that has been killing us for centuries!

For over half a century, I’ve written articles against racism and war. I was shocked and I grieved to see what happened at the Charleston Emanuel Church. Quickly, the call went out: We need to have a “conversation” about race in America! And, almost as quickly: Take down the Confederate flag! But, let’s be very clear: the Confederate flag is NOT a central issue here.

On the 4th of July, when Americans raise their flags as a proud symbol of their “freedom,” will anyone dare to lower their flags to half-mast to commemorate the 60,000 Americans who died in a now-acknowledged “unnecessary” war in Vietnam– let alone the millions of Asians?

Would it be disrespectful even to suggest such a gesture?

The Greek people are being penalized for having had the audacity to elect a socialist government – How dare they! – That’s the verdict.

What the troika is doing to Greece these days is the pinnacle of financial terrorism.It is economic waterboarding. It is blackmailing of the first degree. These people are neoliberal fascists, putting the Greek government before a dilemma – ‘either you present us with an acceptable list of austerities, or we will prepare one for you’ – literally. An austerity plan you better accept, lest you may default and being expulsed from the European monetary union and maybe even the EU. That is their threat. That is what Brussels does to a brother; to one of theirs. There is not a shred of solidarity left in this miss-called ‘Union’. This ‘Union’ doesn’t deserve existing.

The prove-a-negative trap is the Big Lie technique of Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels: there is no substance to the allegations and there is no obligation to present evidence to verify, thanks to the dutiful and unquestioning nature of Western corporate “journalism”.

The United States and its Western allies are trying to ensnare Russia in an audacious disinformation trap over the Ukraine conflict. That trap involves imposing an insoluble conundrum on Vladimir Putin’s government, which we might call “prove a negative”. It is a familiar conceptual device that Washington has used elsewhere, against Iraq and Iran for example, in order to pursue what are otherwise illegitimate geopolitical aims.Russia is being held up as the guilty party that is undermining the shaky Minsk ceasefire; and Western economic sanctions are being extended “until Russia implements the ceasefire”.

The key to TTIP is the so-called Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism that essentially gives corporations free reign to sue governments using a “failure to implement” provision, if state policies or legislation interfere with profits. But is this all about trade?

There was a direct, crucial “secret” agenda linking the G7 meeting in Germany and the Bilderberg meeting in Austria last week; the advancement of the virtually secret negotiations towards the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the massive free trade agreement between the US and the EU.

Even though the corporate powers behind TTIP are itching for a deal to be reached before the end of 2015, serious (negotiation) trouble remains.

This is not my endorsement of Trump for President. It is merely my speculations on how we might think of how large egos might be brought into our service.

Celente put it well. If you look at the sorry collection that aspires to be the CEO of what continues to be described as the “exceptional, indispensable, most important country with the largest economy and military, the world’s only Superpower, the Uni-power,” you see a collection of nobodies. America is like the last days of Rome when contenting factions fought to put their puppet on the throne.

In actual fact, Trump might be our best candidate to date. By all accounts, he is very rich. Thus, he doesn’t need the office in order to become rich by selling out America to interest groups.

It is time to stop fighting among ourselves, for JVP and others to stop their witch hunts against deeply committed writers and activists, for JVP to stop its attempted censorship and domination of the Palestine movement, and for all of us to get on with our desperately important work.

With the publication of my book last year, “Against our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the US was used to create Israel,” the attacks seemed to escalate.

It appeared that some JVP leaders were attempting to thwart my talks and prevent people from learning the facts that my book and my talks contain.

The West is finished, its culture dead. What is left is unattractive, even horrifying. There is no heart, no compassion, and no creativity.

It was the first time in many years that I had missed my column, my essays, for several weeks.

I was shocked by the state in which I found the United States.

I couldn’t breath. I lost the ability to write. I felt anger building inside me. The anger was suffocating, strangling me. It was unhealthy anger, mixed with frustration! It was not that sacred anger one feels when going to a battle against great evil. It was also somehow petty, indescribable, and pathetic. It was breaking me, humiliating me.

I hated the fights I had to fight here.

I tried to see the reality that was surrounding me with different eyes but wherever I looked I saw only a dysfunctional, sad, collapsing country and culture.

This visit broke me. It exhausted me. It thoroughly depressed me.

I hope JVP will desist from its attacks on those it dislikes, and will instead focus on the often excellent work it is doing and that its members want.

I feel strongly that we all contribute important things to the movement for justice and peace in Palestine.It is time to stop fighting among ourselves, for JVP and others to stop their witch hunts against deeply committed writers and activists, for JVP to stop its attempted censorship and domination of the Palestine movement, and for all of us to get on with our desperately important work.

That’s what I intend to do.

—Alison Weir

Americans have to eventually share their preeminent position with China.”

As intellectual acumen and cross-cultural expertise go, it would be hopeless to expect self-described “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff” Obama administration foreign policy advisers — as well as Pentagon functionaries/hacks — to understand the complexities of China.

For instance, they would be incapable of evaluating all the myriad ramifications included in Professor Alfred McCoy’s masterful deconstruction of US-China geopolitics.

“The US cannot stop China’s rise. It just has to live with a bigger China, which will be completely novel for the US, as no country has ever been big enough to challenge its position. China will be able to do so in 20 to 30 years.” (Lee said that at the Future China Global Forum in Singapore, in 2011. Under Xi, China is already challenging the U.S.’s position.)

How the ‘Hard Left’ embraces the policies of the Hard Right

Greece has been in the headlines of the world’s financial press for the past five months, as a newly elected leftist party, ‘Syriza’, which ostensibly opposes so-called ‘austerity measures’, faces off against the “Troika” (International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and European Central Bank).

Early on, the Syriza leadership, headed by Alexis Tsipras, adopted several strategic positions with fatal consequences – in terms of implementing their electoral promises to raise living standards, end vassalage to the ‘Troika’ and pursue an independent foreign policy.

We will proceed by outlining the initial systemic failures of Syriza and the subsequent concessions further eroding Greek living standards and deepening Greece’s role as an active collaborator of US and Israeli imperialism.

Winning Elections and Surrendering Power

G1 plus junior partners? Bilderberg? Get a job; you’re not the only show in town, any town.

What’s the connection between the G7 summit in Germany, President Putin’s visit to Italy, the Bilderberg club meeting in Austria, and the TTIP – the US-EU free trade deal – negotiations in Washington?

We start at the G7 in the Bavarian Alps – rather G1 with an added bunch of “junior partners” – as US President Barack Obama gloated about his neo-con induced feat; regiment the EU to soon extend sanctions on Russia even as the austerity-ravaged EU is arguably hurting even more than Russia.

The “civilized” G1 + junior partners could not possibly argue whether they would collectively risk a nuclear war on European soil over a Kiev-installed ‘Banderastan’, sorry, “Russian aggression.”

The Iraqi government is calling for more foreign international assistance to help fight the Daesh terror group.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich says.the United States created ISIL, aka Da esh, so why would they want to fight them. Every effort is being made to divide the Iraqis.

Also see:
Back to Iraq: The First 450 Soldiers Are on Their Way

Considerable attention has been devoted to the millions of dollars Bill and Hillary Clinton have received from wealthy individuals and corporations for their foundation and for themselves.

Hillary Clinton’s greatest billionaire backer has been Haim Saban, a dual United States-Israel citizen and hardline supporter of Israel, who has openly commented, “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.”

It would not be beyond the realm of possibility that those who handed over tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clinton Foundation (some of which took place while Hillary was Secretary of State) or to the couple themselves for speaker fees expected favors in return.

Americans are already dispossessed of their livelihoods and careers and their pensions are next. Wherever we look, the fate of populations under Western influence are the same. The Ukrainians are exploited, the Greeks, the British, the Americans.

Apologists for exploitation claim that the rich are richer because they are smarter. But the stupidity of the rich is everywhere visible. The greedy fools have destroyed their domestic US market. Really, how stupid can you be? How do Americans buy when they are forced by offshoring out of well paid manufacturing and software engineering jobs into being waitresses, bartenders, retail clerks and part-time Walmart workers in order that corporate bottom lines improve? Who buys the stuff that sustains the profits? Not Americans who no longer have the incomes to do so.

Obama spouts stupid propaganda stuff that is ultimately damaging to the American Republic.

President Barack Obama must know better regarding the crisis in Ukraine, but he insists on reciting the propaganda lines drafted by his neoconservative and “liberal interventionist” advisers blaming everything on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Watching his behavior in the White House over the past six-plus years, I’ve come to suspect that – if he had been a national politician amid the Iraq War fever – he would have gotten in line just like ambitious Sens. Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden did. Even as President, a position that gives him enormous power to push back against Official Washington’s “group think,” he won’t.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and Finance Minister Jaresko are on a U.S. trip to drum up weapons and money to crush the ethnic Russian resistance in the east – and they are finding a lapdog U.S. press that won’t ask them tough questions.

There once was a time when the U.S. news media investigated U.S. imperial adventures overseas, such as Washington-sponsored coups. Journalists also asked tough questions to officials implicated in corruption even if those queries were inconvenient to the desired propaganda themes. But those days are long gone, as the Washington Post demonstrated again this week.

The “secret” Vegas weekend focused on planning for, and funding, a campaign to kill BDS in its academic cradle.

With U.S. billionaires both funding and setting up its top down strategy with Israeli-inspired organizations on American campuses, Israel’s successful invasion of U.S. institutions takes another major step toward “occupying” American institutions.

Four days after the Salon posting appeared, The New York Times buried two paragraphs about the Vegas event inside a longer story which featured the success Israel was enjoying in gaining anti-BDS support in state legislatures in South Carolina and Illinois.

This campaign against American supporters of Palestinian freedom, was prompted by the alarmed awareness among Israeli leaders, and their U.S. allies, that the BDS movement is rapidly gaining ground.

Iranian people have no problem with a rapprochement with the United States...…?Iran could prove to be a powerful strategic partner to the United States, as long as its independence and regional influence are not threatened.

While Mr. Obama had, realistically speaking, no better alternative in choosing the timing for his administration’s foreign policy reorientation, a meaningful follow-through to implement his vision after his term in office expires would need a new Chief Executive with similar convictions; and, as things appear now, that prospect seems somewhat in doubt.

The current jockeying by potential candidates for the 2016 presidential elections is a perfect example of how true national interests are sacrificed for the sake of personal gains.

The current jockeying by potential candidates for the 2016 presidential elections is a perfect example of how true national interests are sacrificed for the sake of personal gains.

Iran could prove to be a powerful strategic partner to the United States, as long as its independence and regional influence are not threatened.

The belated focus of American and British authorities on the alleged wrongdoings at FIFA can be readily seen as both ludicrous and laughable when we compare that with the absolute dearth of interest by these same authorities in applying law enforcement where it ought to be applied – on the Wall Street and City of London banksters.

Both the timing of the US-launched corruption probe – in the week of FIFA’s annual conference and leadership election – plus the way that senior American and British officials, not to mention the publicity of Western news media, have weighed-in to rebuke FIFA suggests that it is all part of a coordinated political campaign authored at the highest level of government. That, in turn, suggests that there is an ulterior political agenda behind the supposed criminal crackdown on FIFA, and that the ulterior agenda is the Western objective to undermine Russia.

Jeffrey St. Clair, one of the few remaining Western journalists with a moral conscience, describes the latest Israeli horror to which we are all accomplices.

The Israel Lobby tries to prevent reports and criticism of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians by branding every critic of every policy of the extreme right-wing Israeli government an “anti-semite.” In other words, if you object to Israeli armed forces shooting down Palestinian children in the streets and then bombing the funerals of the kids the Israelis have already murdered, you hate Jews and are an anti-Semite.

The success that the Israel Lobby has enjoyed in imposing this twisted logic on Congress, the White House, the media, the universities and the insouciant American public is astonishing. As a consequence, Americans are no longer answerable to Christian morality but to the evil that the Israel Lobby represents.

Divide et impera? It’s not working. And it’s bound to fail miserably.

As it stands, what we do know is that 2015 will be a hair-raising year in myriad aspects... we all still remain under the sign of a fearful, dangerous, rampantly irrational Empire of Chaos.

Russia could outmaneuver Western financial markets by cutting them off from its wealth of oil and natural gas. The markets would inevitably collapse – uncontrolled chaos for the Empire of Chaos (or “controlled chaos”, in Putin’s own words).

In a different vein of the “soft beds of the East” seducing Marcus Aurelius, the silky splendors of chic Beijing offer a glimpse of an extremely self-assured emerging power. After all, Europe is nothing but a catalogue of multiple sclerosis and Japan is under its sixth recession in 20 years.

“There’s a general recognition growing that the driving force for this war is the utter collapse of the entire Western banking system,” Billington said.

“And the view from London and Washington and New York is we have to go to war, we cannot allow this BRICS alliance between Russia, China, India, South Africa and most of Latin America creating new financial institutions to take away our ability to loot the resources in the developing sector,” Billington noted.

The increasing deployment of American navy, warplanes and missile systems – under the guise of «protecting its partners» – is fuelling militarization of the territorial disputes.

US deteriorating relations with China are the latest manifestation of America’s self-declared «manifest destiny» to behave like a global hegemon.

The increasing deployment of American navy, warplanes and missile systems – under the guise of «protecting its partners» – is fuelling militarization of the territorial disputes.

China, for its part, says that its own military presence in the region is to protect its voluminous trade routes. Beijing has pointedly refused to cease its maritime development projects, mainly land reclamation in shoals and reefs that it says are strictly within its territorial limits.

The gatekeepers have, I believe, crucified American poetry upon a cross erected by “language poets,” “identity poets,” “politically correct poets,” “apolitical poets” and general nincompoops -- Gary Corseri

The Arts have fallen into an era of petite academicism, crass commercialism and manipulated populism. So, our challenges are many; they are harsh; let us hope they will be invigorating!

Poets who do not see, who do not confront what is out there and around them-- are cowards! Which needn’t mean that that is ALL we must do! But… we must see and confront what surrounds us at some point! Not always…, but when it’s right to do so. To advocate that we always do it is asking us to be propagandists.José M. Tirado

The melodrama had the air of a politically driven media campaign for maximum publicity.

?But the real goal of the full-frontal assault on FIFA, which involved dawn raids at a five-star hotel in Swiss city Zurich, seems more to do with American political purpose to damage Russia’s World Cup plans. That objective has to be seen in the context of Washington’s aim to isolate and destabilize Moscow in an ongoing geopolitical battle that is currently centred on Ukraine.

Russia’s World Cup plans appear to be now similarly targeted for an ulterior political agenda. Within hours of the US-launched arrests of FIFA officials in Zurich, the football federation was obliged to state that the forthcoming World Cup in Russia was not in jeopardy of cancellation over related claims of wrongdoing in the selection of that venue.

If one were to propose a realistic and reasonable ‘US Grand Strategy toward China’ one would have to start by shedding all the false assumptions and bellicose proposals that have been put forth by the CFR and the authors of the Report under review.

The US should not attempt to block China’s growth and expansion; it should assist and share in its ascendancy, especially in the face of great global climate and energy challenges. Washington is much more likely to strengthen its Asian – Pacific partnership and succeed in its diplomacy if it replaced its military posturing with robust economic growth.

It is time to cut these losses and bring some heavyweights into this battle against extremism.

Baghdad and Washington are pointing fingers, each accusing the other of being asleep on the job.

An objective look at US interests in the region paint an entirely different picture. The Americans seek to maintain absolute hegemony in the Mideast, even as they exit costly military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Their primary interests are 1) access to low cost oil and gas, 2) propping up Israel, and more recently, 3) undermining Russian (and Chinese) influence in the region.