Labor’s Demise Is America’s Demise

"Today the US has the most unequally distributed income and wealth of all developed economies and one of the worst in the entire world"

Paul Craig Roberts

Thoughts for Labor Day

Anthony Freda Illustration

Labor Day is a holiday that has outlived its time. Like Christmas, Labor Day has become a time-out period. As Christmas has become a shopping spree, Labor Day has become the last summer holiday.

The holiday originated in 1887 to celebrate the contribution made by American workers to the strength and prosperity of the United States. The first Monday in September was chosen by President Grover Cleveland to avoid a May date that would keep alive the memory of the previous year’s Haymarket Massacre in which workers striking for an eight-hour day suffered casualties from the Chicago police.

The Mad MUSIC of Machine Warfare

Future Combat Systems

Activist Post

The symphony of destruction continues to get louder, as an unabashed war project has been named MUSIC.

We have been discussing drones almost ad nauseam as of late, because a dystopian science fiction plot has entered our reality whereby machines have not only supplanted humans on the battlefield, but they have become autonomous -- they can work together and make decisions on their own.

If the use of drones to unilaterally bomb six countries from thousands of miles away doesn't get people's attention, then perhaps fleets of weaponized surveillance drones with the ability to communicate amongst themselves and wage war independently will.

The MUSIC project officially integrates unmanned and manned aircraft in combat, and was put on display with the largest showcase of "aircraft interoperability" to date:

"...all have the capability to shoot and stream live video. These aircraft also possess the ability to exchange and use the information as needed, whether it is to conduct surveillance or reconnaissance of a given area."

This interoperability creates a Universal Ground Control Station, or network of drones and their payloads.  In addition to the dangers presented by this technology and its use in undeclared wars, a single operator can orchestrate movements on the platform.  This would seem to greatly increase the negative effects of operator error or abuse. 

A single operator is then able to take control of a given payload, or sensor, on the aviation platform by using the One System Remote Video Terminal. The operator can steer the aircraft's payload in any direction to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance of an area.

This fusion of multiple platforms is also slated to extend across the different branches of the military and can thus potentially play a concert of war between the aerial and ground drones of the Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy:

Not only is MUSIC helping shape the future of CAB units and the Army but its creating connections across joint boundaries to include the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, said Maj. Gen. William T. Crosby, the Program Executive Office, Aviation.

The capabilities reported in the ASD press release are echoed in an article from the Washington Post today entitled A Future for Drones: Automated Killing.  This is where things begin to get creepy.  The drone network that is being set up is designed to conduct its mission without the need for human direction:

One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in search of an orange, green and blue tarp.

The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control.

As we reported last week, an additional capability is being added to keep the drone network aloft indefinitely using lasers to convert power from multiple sources.  Therefore, in the near future an unblinking, unfeeling, permanent matrix of war will confirm its target independently by data supplied to its sensors, orchestrate the attack plan between its member drones and robots, and execute the mission:

This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans.

Whoever said that machines can't surpass humanity's ability to make music?

Perhaps the better question is whether or not humanity will be around to hear the final note.

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Banging the Drums of War: Iran and the Neo-cons

Dees Illustration

Robert Bonomo, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

All the Usual Suspects

In the last few years Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Norman Podhoretz of Commentary, Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post, Bill Kristol from the The Weekly Standard and Thomas Friedman of The New York Times have all clamored for an attack on Iran. The debate has been shaped. Do we or don’t we attack Iran in order to destroy or delay their supposed nuclear weapons program.

All the usual suspects that hyped a war in Iraq which was started on false precepts and lies.  Here are some excerpts from their new project.

Are US wars and economic disaster well-intended mistakes? What we know from facts

image source

Carl Herman, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

The American public struggles with political rhetoric and US corporate media to discern fact from spin.

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” unsourced and attributed to Andrew Carnegie

What US “leadership” has done are the following:

- from Congressional reports we now know that all “reasons” for war with Afghanistan and Iraq were known to be lies as they were told.

- allows a million children a month to die of preventable poverty, even though historically ending poverty reduces population growth rate and the investment is less than 1% of the developed nations' gross national incomes (GNI).

- engages in Orwellian unlawful wars, including using depleted uranium weapons to damn the victims with continuous misery and death.

Collapsing China

1997 Neo-Con report describes containing and collapsing China. 

 SSI's 2006 "String of Pearls" report, strategy for China containment

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer

Activist Post 

Bangkok, Thailand June 25, 2011 - Neo-Con degenerate Robert Kagan penned a fairly insightful 1997 piece in the Weekly Standard titled, "What China Knows That We Don't: The Case for a New Strategy of Containment," where he discusses the prospects of an effective containment strategy coupled with the baited hook of luring China into its place amongst the "international order." The entire piece is a spectacle to behold, where Kagan, and apparently the audience he is writing for, believes America has the right to manipulate, contain, and arrange the world's nations on behalf of the "international order" as it pleases.

Kagan, in regards to the "international order" writes, "The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. And it is poorly suited to the needs of a Chinese dictatorship trying to maintain power at home and increase its clout abroad. Chinese leaders chafe at the constraints on them and worry that they must change the rules of the international system before the international system changes them."

Further into his article Kagan concedes that the West's goal is to collapse China's government. He writes, "Some new China hands agree that the Chinese regime is vulnerable and believe that increased ties will hasten the day when political liberalization finally catches up with economic liberalization. By embracing the Chinese, by exporting our Western ways through our Western goods, we will bring them down. By helping them expand their economy, we will exacerbate the contradictions of "authoritarian capitalism" and force their resolution in favor of more democratic forms."

Can Obama say 9 Orwellian lies in 3 Afghanistan speech sentences? Yes, he can!

Dees Illustration

Carl Herman, Contributing Writer
Activist Post


Upon US public critical mass recognition of the “emperor has no clothes” obvious facts that current US wars are not even close to lawful, President Obama will be a leader among an oligarchy of War Criminals that go back several Administrations.


Until such time, Americans have the opportunity for unique heroism, intellectual integrity, and public service to explain, document, and prove that speeches such as Mr. Obama’s are tragic-comic Orwellian lies. The tragedy is the millions killed directly by unlawful war lies and indirectly by lies that allow a million children’s deaths every month from preventable poverty, the billions made to live in misery, and the trillions of our dollars looted.

War Counsel: Obama shops for Libya advice that lets him ignore the law

President Woodrow Wilson asking Congress to
declare war on Germany, 2 April 1917 - Wiki Image

Jacob Sullum
Reason Magazine 

During the Bush administration, when the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) got into the habit of rationalizing whatever the president wanted to do, Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen dreamed of an OLC that was willing to "say no to the President." It turns out we have such an OLC now. Unfortunately, as Barack Obama's defense of his unauthorized war in Libya shows, we do not have a president who is willing to take no for an answer.

While running for president, Obama criticized George W. Bush's lawless unilateralism in areas such as torture, warrantless surveillance, and detention of terrorism suspects. "The law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers," he declared in 2007, condemning "unchecked presidential power" and promising that under his administration there would be "no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient."

Obama's nomination of Johnsen to head the OLC, although ultimately blocked by Senate Republicans, was consistent with this commitment; his overreaching responses to threats ranging from terrorism to failing auto companies were not. Last week, by rejecting the OLC's advice concerning his three-month-old intervention in Libya's civil war, Obama sent the clearest signal yet that he is no more inclined than his predecessor to obey the law.

NATO's Terror Over Tripoli

NATO slowly admits what the Libyan government has said all along. 

Dees Illustration

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Bangkok, Thailand June 19, 2011 - The NATO excursion into Libya started withdisingenuous humanitarian concernstranslated into a no-fly zone, which incrementally transitioned into attacks on Qaddafi's ground forces, targeted assassinations against Qaddafi himself, then talk of destroying civilian infrastructure and a full-out ground invasion. NATO declared mid-May that it would be "increasing the range of targets" it could hit, including "government infrastructure." With a residential area hit and NATO playing dumb over its role in murdering the very civilians it is supposedly protecting, it appears they made good on their promise.

The key to Qaddafi's long reign, his survival and resistance in the face of NATO's relentless attacks is the support he garners from his own people. While the mainstream media preys on the ignorance of its audience, those who took the time to examine the demographics of Libya would realize the current fighting is split along traditional tribal lines where animosity has existed, and in fact been funded and fostered by the West for at least three decades. With NATO incapable of handing their inept terrorist stooges on the ground the country with airstrikes alone, it appears they are attempting the same terroristic "shock and awe" tactics used against Iraq to break the will of the population with overwhelming violence.

NATO Preparing Ground War in Libya (Video)

YouTube -- GlobalResearchTV

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'Up To Nine Dead' Civilians In Tripoli Air Strike

Sky News

Libyan officials have said up to nine civilians were killed in a Nato air strike in eastern Tripoli in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Reporters were taken by Libyan government officials to a residential area in the Arada neighbourhood of Tripoli and saw a body pulled out of the rubble of a destroyed building.

"There was intentional and deliberate targeting of the civilian houses," deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim told reporters at the site.

"This is another sign of the brutality of the West."

According to Sky's Sam Kiley, reporting from Tripoli, Nato has responded to the claims and said it is looking into the air strike allegations.

There were heaps of rubble and chunks of shattered concrete at the scene, which a large crowd of what appeared to be local residents were helping to clear.

At a local hospital, reporters were shown three bodies, including a child, which government officials said were people killed in the air strike.

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Pentagon wants to 'extend' Afghanistan surge

© AFP/Getty Images/File John Moore

AFP

WASHINGTON  - The US military is asking President Barack Obama to maintain its troop surge in Afghanistan until the fall of 2012, a month before a scheduled withdrawal, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The timeline would mean the president could promise large troop reductions to a war-weary public just ahead of the November 2012 presidential elections in which he seeks a second term, but military officials told the Journal that the electoral schedule had nothing to do with their proposal.

The Weekly News Wrap-up with Greg Hunter (Video)

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog

There is a lot to cover in the Weekly Real News Wrap-up this week.  First off, Greek debt problems look like they are going to get ugly, and this could spell problems for Europe and the world.  Looks like Greece will default, we just don’t know how bad it will be.  Bill Gross says the U.S. is in worse shape!

There is a showdown between Congress and the White House over Libya.  Congress wants oversight and the President says it is not necessary.

There was a big defeat for the bankers in the foreclosure world.  It also looks like the mainstream media is finally catching on that the economy is really bad.  The cover of Time Magazine is the latest of the MSM to finally tell you there is NO RECOVERY.  The reason?  Nothing has been fixed!

Finally, Congressman Weiner has resigned–thank goodness it is finally over.  Please enjoy this week’s installment of the Weekly News Wrap-up!



For more analysis about global events and the U.S. Economy, please visit Greg Hunter atUSAWatchdog.com

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Living in the Shadows: A World of Black Ops and Cyber Wars

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. -- John F. Kennedy

Dees Illustration

John Galt
Activist Post

A shadow has descended on freedom worldwide:  Congress is in the dark; sovereign foreign nations are in the dark; and the average American can't imagine that a world of espionage, black ops, psy ops, and the apparatus of a surveillance-industrial complex run by globalists has them in the crosshairs.

When exiting CIA director, Leon Panetta, openly admitted that shadow wars and black ops should be a strategy employed through direct military control by the CIA, it marked a new Dark Age.  

'(It's) appropriate for the head of such department or agency [read: CIA] to direct the operations of the element providing that military support while working with the Secretary of Defense.' A 'significant advantage of doing so,' he continued, 'is that it permits the robust operational capability of the U.S. Armed Forces to be applied when needed.'

That’s contentious: it would put the military in the territory of performing operations that the government can legally deny all knowledge of ordering... (Source)

US lawmakers file suit over Obama's Libya war

Speaker of the House John Boehner
© AFP/Getty Images/File CHIP SOMODEVILLA

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) -  The White House will deliver a report to Congress Wednesday explaining its involvement in Libya, as a bipartisan group of lawmakers filed suit charging US military action in the war-torn nation is unconstitutional.

The report will include legal analysis arguing that President Barack Obama did not overstep his powers in the conflict in the north African nation.

"The president has acted in a manner that is consistent with the War Powers Resolution," White House spokesman Jay Carney said, arguing the 30-page report would show the "success" of the mission to protect Libyan civilians.

Obama's Libya policy fell under the spotlight in court as anti-war Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich filed the lawsuit challenging what it described as the Obama administration's circumvention of Congress in using military force in a protracted effort to oust longtime ruler Moamer Kadhafi.

"With regard to the war in Libya, we believe that the law was violated. We have asked the courts to move to protect the American people from the results of these illegal policies," said Kucinich, who was joined in the suit by nine other House members including Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

CIA Expands Drone Strikes to Yemen

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars

The CIA is ready to expand its drone strikes from Pakistan to Yemen. A U.S. official said that a secret plan to bomb Yemen has been in the works for months, Fox News reports today.

Corporate media propaganda on the CIA’s effort to destablize Yemen.

 
Obama approved the secret plan without consulting Congress last year. It has been under development for several months and is set to be rolled out in July.

'NATO bombs civilians!' - Cynthia McKinney from Tripoli with truth (Video)

YouTube -- RT


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Panetta: Obama Can Unilaterally Use Military to Protect ‘National Interests’

"Liberty Upended" - Anthony Freda Illustration

Matt Cover
CNS News

CIA Director Leon Panetta, who President Barack Obama has nominated to be secretary of Defense, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that he believes the president can unilaterally use military force, without congressional authorization to “protect our national interests.”

Panetta’s claim of broad unilateral presidential power to initiate U.S. military action absent an attack or imminent threat to the United States came in response to a question from Sen. John McCain—who said he agreed with Panetta.

The U.S. is now involved militarily in Libya even though Congress has never authorized that involvement.

Read Full Article 

RELATED ACTIVIST POST ARTICLE:
10 Indications The United States is a Dictatorship

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Ron Paul Explains Neoconservatism (Video)

YouTube -- f328owner


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IMF Financial Terrorism

Stephen Lendman, Contributing Writer

Activist Post

In July 1944, the IMF and Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now the World Bank) were established to integrate developing nations into the Global North-dominated world economy in ways other than initially mandated.

Under a new post-war monetary system, the IMF was created to stabilize exchange rates linked to the dollar and bridge temporary payment imbalances. The World Bank was to provide credit to war-torn developing countries. Both bodies, in fact, proved hugely exploitive, using debt entrapment to transfer public wealth to Western bankers and other corporate predators.

On a grander scale today, the scheme destructively obligates indebted nations to take new loans to service old ones, assuring rising indebtedness and structural adjustment harshness, including:

Panetta: Escalate Shadow Wars, Expand Black Ops

Wiki Commons

Spencer Ackerman
Wired

Icing Osama bin Laden? Just the beginning, once Leon Panetta makes it to the Pentagon.

At his Thursday confirmation hearing to become secretary of defense, CIA Director Panetta made a broad case for expanding the U.S.’ already extensive shadow wars. Now that bin Laden is dead, “we’ve got to keep the pressure up,” Panetta urged senators. Expect a lot of drone strikes and a lot of special ops raids — some conducted by future CIA Director David Petraeus. In a lot of places.

Panetta said he wants to hit al-Qaida’s “nodes” from Pakistan to North Africa, “develop[ing] operations in each of those areas,” so terrorists have “no place to escape.” That means working with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the elite commandos that executed the raid on bin Laden’s Abbotabad compound. And Panetta has some specific ideas about how that should work.

In his written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Panetta endorsed a command scheme that would place select U.S. military personnel temporarily under the authority of the CIA director for the most sensitive counterterrorism operations. Panetta told the committee that it’s “appropriate for the head of such department or agency [read: CIA] to direct the operations of the element providing that military support while working with the Secretary of Defense.” A “significant advantage of doing so,” he continued, “is that it permits the robust operational capability of the U.S. Armed Forces to be applied when needed.”
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