[It] is pretty undeniable that the West is not only supporting the wrong side but also that this decision is not only completely immoral but also amazingly short-sighted.  This is yet another case of what the French called fuite en avant (literally "to flee forward"): when somebody does something clearly and obviously mistaken and then, frightened by that, instead of reversing course decides to run forward at an even higher speed.  In contrast, Russia's decision is not only morally right, it is also pragmatically correct.

For Russia a separate and independent Ukraine is first and foremost a way of avoiding being drawn into a civil war. If, say, Tymoshenko managed to supress the neo-Nazis and negotiate some kind of modus vivendi between, on one hand, the western Ukraine and Kiev and, on the other, the eastern and southern Ukraine there is little doubt that she and Putin could find some peaceful and pragmatic way to coexist. ...

Another option is to have the nationalists take full control over all of the Ukraine. That seems extremely unlikely to me, but who knows? I have been disappointed with Ukie politicians enough not to put the worst possible outcome past them. That would mean that the Russian-Ukrainian border would turn into something between the Wall which separated the two parts of Germany during the Cold War or the DMZ between the two parts of Korea. ...

Which leaves option three: the nationalist attempt to subdue the south and east and fail. The violence escalates and eventually Russia is drawn in. Now in purely military terms, Russia could very easily defeat any Ukie army which would attempt to fight it. ... But just imagine the nightmare resulting from a Russian military operation in eastern Ukraine! It would be back to a new Cold War, but this time on steroids: western politicians would scramble over each other to denounce, declare, threaten, condemn, proclaim, sanction, and pledge God knows what kind of nonsense. Hysterical russophobia would become the order of the day and the AngloZionist Empire would finally find the kind of eternal enemy it has desperately been seeking since the end of the First Cold War.

What's perhaps most striking about all this is the inability of the Obama administration and its intelligence bureaucrats to grasp the nature of what's happening to them. For that, they would need to skip those daily briefs from an intelligence community which, on the subject, seems blind, deaf, and dumb, and instead take a clear look at the world.

As a measuring stick for pure tone-deafness in Washington, consider that it took our secretary of state and so, implicitly, the president, five painful months to finally agree that the NSA had, in certain limited areas, "reached too far". And even now, in response to a global uproar and changing attitudes toward the US across the planet, their response has been laughably modest. ... [M]aybe, just maybe, they can store it all for a mere three years, rather than the present five. And perhaps, just perhaps, they might consider giving up on listening in on some friendly world leaders, but only after a major rethink and reevaluation of the complete NSA surveillance system. And in Washington, this sort of response to the Snowden debacle is considered a "balanced" approach to security versus privacy.

It is standard practice for intelligence agencies to place spies within the intelligence agencies of other countries, and obviously the NSA would be a prime target. If just 1 in 10,000 of the "480,000 private contractors in the US [who] had the 'top-secret' security clearance issued to Snowden" was a Russian or Chinese spy, then there were about fifty such spies who were in a position to obtain the documents that Snowden did. And if they were in a position to do so, we may assume that they did, and that these documents were passed to the Russian and the Chinese intelligence agencies months or perhaps years before Snowden saw them. The Russians and the Chinese have insisted that they have neither received, nor attempted to extract, any of Snowden's secrets. Probably because they already had them all. They were secret only from the public.

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals. Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

Research shows that indiscriminate monitoring fosters distrust, conformity and mediocrity.

[Janna Malamud Smith:] The totalitarian state watches everyone, but keeps its own plans secret. Privacy is seen as dangerous because it enhances resistance. Constantly spying and then confronting people with what are often petty transgressions is a way of maintaining social control and unnerving and disempowering opposition ... And even when one shakes real pursuers, it is often hard to rid oneself of the feeling of being watched — which is why surveillance is an extremely powerful way to control people. The mind's tendency to still feel observed when alone... can be inhibiting. ... Feeling watched, but not knowing for sure, nor knowing if, when, or how the hostile surveyor may strike, people often become fearful, constricted, and distracted.

The reasons for unleashing Snowden upon the world were threefold. First, it is an attack an Obama who is now a lame duck and has outlived his usefulness. ... Second, Snowden's revelations would let them gage the level of popular push-back they would suffer when the world would eventually learn about their behavior. ... [Third,] to make it clear especially to global intellectuals who are always the ones who create the most problems for the ruling classes, that they are being watched, that everything they do or say is going to be recorded ...

With a comment by Peter Meyer.

Governments ... always plead security no matter what’s going on. The reflexive defense is security. But anyone who’s looked at [what Snowden has] published, it’s not any kind of threat to security, with one exception, the security of the government from its own population. And in fact if you look at anyone who’s spent any time poring through declassified records ... you find that [what they have found is that] overwhelmingly the [alleged] security is [actually] the security of the state from its own population and that’s why things have to be kept secret.

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

Historians seem to agree that the rise of fascism in Europe might have been averted [anytime in 1931-35] had the liberal or left political class [in Britain] understood the true nature of its enemy [Nazi Germany]. The parallels today are very different; but the Damocles sword over Snowden, like the casual abduction of the Bolivian president, ought to stir us into recognising the true nature of the enemy.

By what right is the United States exempt from the first amendment principles it demands be applied elsewhere?

... even if you're not doing anything wrong you're being watched and recorded. And ... you don't have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer. ... And ... it's only going to get worse, until eventually ... they'll flip the switch, say that 'Because of the crisis, because of the dangers we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power.' And there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.

I suggest that the extent of non-body-awareness consciousness may be as great as the extent of our consciousness of the physical world, and that there is an oneiric world which may be as vast as the physical world .... The term oneiric relates to dreams, but I suggest that this is an appropriate term for this (largely undiscovered) world because most people’s experience of the oneiric world is confined to their dreams. But beyond dreaming are states of consciousness similar in nature but very different. ... Our personal selves lie at the intersection of these two worlds, the physical and the oneiric, and we can experience both, sometimes at the same time.

In January 2012 Rupert Sheldrake published a book entitled The Science Delusion ...

The physicalist view of the world is not merely a subject of philosophical debate, with no psychosocial consequences.  ... [It] is actually a cosmology according to which nothing in the universe is really alive or is really conscious (because only sub-atomic particles and energy really exist) ...

• Peter Meyer
• Leonard Spencer
• John Kaminski
• Gilad Atzmon
• Richard K. Moore

[The ruling elite has given itself] over to systems and mindsets that are implacably inhuman. They are all in the process of self-murdering their own souls. It's a horrible, sickening sight. And although I condemn their crimes and tainted minds with all the fury and outrage and scorn they deserve, I take no pleasure in this rage. I am heartsick, truly, at every soul lost to the machines — the War Machine, the Money Machine, the Power Machine — that rule our world.

Although the cabal is quite willing to use whatever force is necessary to achieve its objectives, up to and including orchestrating major wars, it never relies exclusively on force. A way is always sought to bring Western public opinion into alignment with those objectives. Thus military interventions are portrayed as 'humanitarian', bailouts are portrayed as 'unfortunately necessary', and austerity is portrayed as a 'path to growth recovery'. Such false portrayals are sold to the public by propaganda from the cabal-controlled mass media, and by the lies of government officials.

And a comment by Peter Meyer.

The young rioters see a corrupt government which doesn't listen, which lies and breaks promises. One which does not speak for them. A government which denies them a future, slashing funding and enforcing austerity measures left-right-and-centre in a bid to serve their criminal banking paymasters. ... While more visibly violent and tangibly fear-inspiring, the acts that pockets of London's youths have committed over the last four days are no worse than the insidious raping and plundering of our global economies by the criminal banking elite.

And a very intelligent and perceptive commentary by the Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne.

Hierarchy always breeds greater hierarchy; every hierarchy provides a position of power for some clique, and power always corrupts, sooner or later. In an age of technology, the inevitable outcome of the hierarchical social model is a tyrannical world government, of one flavor or another.

The full facts of the Norwegian tragedy are, as yet, unknown, but the message should by now be transparently and urgently clear to all of us: Western intelligence agencies must immediately crack down on Israeli and Zionist operators in our midst ...

Strauss-Kahn had set out on a "kinder and gentler" path, one that would not force foreign leaders to privatize their state-owned industries or crush their labor unions. Naturally, his actions were not warmly received by the bankers and corporatists who look to the IMF to provide legitimacy to their ongoing plunder of the rest of the world. These are the people who think that the current policies are "just fine" because they produce the results they're looking for, which is bigger profits for themselves and deeper poverty for everyone else.

If we can see the that there is a wisdom that is trying to be expressed through [addiction] we can approach it in a creative way that aims to redirect the expression rather than forcefully stop it out of judgment.

You may be here by accident, or you may have booked a place to watch the perfect storm. I'm here to witness the liberation of humanity. The fact is that 'the everywhere' (the global systems) have been destroyed by a calamity (the engineered financial collapse). We may not realize it yet, but 'the real world' (our communities) is where we need to be pursuing our survival.

The temperature calculations, fire durations and other evidence are brought together to demonstrate the extreme unliklihood of the core columns ever reaching critical temperatures in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001.

The people are like a powerful, slumbering dragon. Even as it slumbers this dragon is filled with a sense of injustice. None of the pomp and grandeur of the contemporary mechanisms of jurisprudence are able to cause it to be blinded to the pervasive, underlying injustice that prevails in the world. A small, seemingly insignificant event, some last straw like the imposition of harsh governmental austerity programs, might be the breeze that awakens the dragon. Once awakened it begins to unfold its wings and feels a hunger in its belly. One small act of courage, of standing up to the powers-that-be, can inspire other acts of courage.

Why would these hundreds of organizations and contracting companies be willing to take gigantic amounts of the taxpayers’ money when everyone agrees that the money cannot be spent sensibly and that the system already in place cannot function effectively or efficiently to attain its ostensible purpose? The question answers itself. It’s loot for the taking, and there has been no shortage of takers. ... What we see here is not really an “intelligence” or counterterrorism operation at all. It’s a rip-off, plain and simple, fed by irrational fear and continually stoked by the government plunderers who are exercising the power and raking in the booty to “fight terrorism.”

The opinion polls were showing that the nation had had a bellyful of Rudd, and so the party dumped him and crowned Gillard. The junta then decided that their girl would go to the people for a mandate before the novelty of having a female at the helm had worn off. This turned out to be a mistake.

The Gulf of Mexico is one of the oldest and most studied drilling areas in the world. Any legitimate attempt to tap into that deep oil system would have called for better-than-usual safety measures, not systematically shoddy safety measures. Deepwater Horizon was an accident meant to happen, and the witnesses have been scared into silence.

In our post-2012 world, we will have for the first time one centralized global government, and one ruling elite clique, a kind of extended royal family, the lords of finance. As we can see with the IMF, WHO, WTO and the other pieces of the embryonic world government, the institutions of governance will make no pretensions to popular representation or democratic responsiveness. Rule will be by means of autocratic global bureaucracies, which take their marching orders from the royal family.

[Tom Paine] was in fact arguing for the non-necessity of government and the practicality of holographic self-governance, to use modern terminology. ... The myth that democracy exists has blinded us from re-examining Paine, and noticing that the self-governance model was long-ago hijacked by the elite-led republican movements, and was replaced by a competitive party model that is itself elite dominated.

Israel is the gravest danger to world peace. Clearly the nations made a tragic mistake in 1947 giving an emerging volatile racially orientated identity an opportunity to set itself into a national state. However, the nations’ duty now is to peacefully dismantle that state before it is too late. We must do it before the Jewish state and its forceful lobbies around the world manage to pull us all into a global war ...

... is a huge scam designed to increase the profits of the corporate capitalists and the parasitic international bankers, to advance their goal of a world government ... and to impose even more "legal" restrictions upon the freedom of people to live according to how they themselves think best.

The meeting [between George W. Bush and Tony Blair] at the Crawford ranch was where the British leader bent the knee before his feudal lord and master. After that craven act of submission the British leader had no option but to apply hard feudal power through the use of domestic patronage as well as soft pursuasive power in the form of media manipulation, spin and lies.

In his acceptance of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature, Harold Pinter asked this question: “Why is the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought of Stalinist Russia well known in the West while American criminal actions never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it never happened. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”

In Australia, we are trained to respect this censorship by omission. An invasion is not an invasion if “we” do it. Terror is not terror if “we” do it. A crime is not a crime if “we” commit it. It didn’t happen. Even while it was happening it didn’t happen. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.

• Some Thoughts on Beliefs, Progressives and Conservatives

  ... why well-meaning scientists, and people generally, persist in ignoring hard evidence when it disagrees with their preconceptions.

• Beliefs, cultures, and human brotherhood: a vision of social transformation (228 KB PDF file)

The 9/11 movement has not been able to articulate enough benefits to the public from disbelieving the official government story and pursuing a new investigation. What might ordinary Americans gain? Would proof-positive of government involvement make them feel better, more secure, and more patriotic? Apparently not. In fact, just the opposite. By its very nature, the 9/11 issue threatens many things by discovering the truth: still less confidence in the US political system, government and public officials. Still more reason to ponder the incredible loss of life and national wealth in pursuing the Iraq war. In other words, revealing 9/11 truth offers the specter of a huge national bummer. Conversely, it would show the world that American democracy has integrity.

Tamiflu is a useless drug. The "swine flu" panic is being promoted by the WHO for the benefit of the big pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders (and perhaps for more sinister reasons having to do with rapid global population reduction).

Drink lots of Diet Coke — poison yourself.

[T]he future of the global political economy is one of increasing moves toward a global system of governance, or a world government, with a world central bank and global currency ... and thus, a rise in authoritarianism. What we are witnessing is the creation of a New World Order, composed of a totalitarian global government structure. ... [However, the] human mind and spirit ... will continue to overcome the greatest of challenges to humanity, and will, without doubt, triumph over the New World Order.

Only five banks are the source of the current financial 'crisis'. And these should be allowed to fail.

The very culture in Washington has become one of subservience to financial and corporate elites. Our leaders' mouths speak words of patriotism, or reflect popular concerns, but their souls, as in a horror film, are possessed by vampires.

Plus a note by Peter Meyer.

By these means the USA has been sold into perpetual debt bondage. The methods long employed in the imperial periphery have been brought across the Rubicon and are now being applied to Rome itself. And with slight variation from place to place, the same debt bondage has been successfully imposed throughout the West. Already social service budgets are being cut around the world, while trillions are still flowing to the banks, as the cold hand of banker's logic settles in and gathers all of us into its greedy grasp.

If and when World War III comes about, it will be over within hours, and nothing will then stand in the way of the New World Order. All other ducks have been carefully lined up, and Obama is the perfect fellow to keep us hypnotized while our freedoms, and all vestiges of democracy, are erased once and for all from the face of the Earth.

Classical economics [became established with] ... the emergence of unified nation states in Europe, monarchial in government and structured by classes — mainly aristocratic and peasant. Wealth and property were held by the former, and the latter were considered disposable livestock whose only function was to support and defend the state and the status quo.  ... Two hundred years of Capitalism and common people are still serfs, wars are still fought to protect our "national interests," and the extermination of human beings occurs at ever increasing rates.

My basic mistake in all along supporting a two state solution was thinking that the Israelis, and World Jewry, were sane, and would eventually do the rational thing. They are not sane ...

The most profitable of all was [and still is] the financing of wars, because when fighting for survival, governments are desperate for funding, and will agree to whatever terms they can get. Particularly profitable is the financing of both sides in a war. That way the war can be kept going as long as possible, both fall deeper and deeper into debt, and when the war is over the victors will be in a position to repay their loans.

Bill Gates's .. net worth [is] equivalent to the collective net worth of the poorest hundred million Americans (and the poorest half of humanity — which might be the most mind-boggling statistic of global capitalism).

Our scenario is very much like that preceding the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. The 'problem' then, as now, is a scary, engineered 'collapse'. The 'solution', then as now, is the greater centralization of banking in private hands, now some kind of IMF cum Central Bank on a global scale. In both cases the promise is to avoid future collapses, while the reality is increased enslavement to banking elites.

... since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: "inverted totalitarianism," a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on "private media" than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events.