Au
I dont think you can compare it like that, thats like saying both work from the same levels, they arent imo.

Posted by: Andor | Apr 29 2016 14:29 utc | 4

Lesser evil voting is a defensive action, and it necessarily loses ground politically because it institutionalizes and normalizes the evils which were once objectionable. This is quite clearly seen by the Obomba Administration’s normalization of Bush era policies.
The speculation that a Romney/Ryan Administration e.g., would have been worse, is nothing but speculation. With the Obomba administration, we have a drone assassination program, extra-judicial killing of American citizens, continued US military aggression around the world, record setting bailouts to Wall St., record setting deportations, attacks on whistle blowers, attacks on press freedoms, and on and on and on…. How much worse does it need to get before you won’t endorse a quasi-fascist, if not genuinely fascist, Democratic candidate?
Another problem with the lesser evil voting is that it makes decent people feel like they are doing something good when they’re not. It feeds the illusion the system needs to sustain itself. In some ways, wouldn’t it be better to have the contradictions and conflicts expressed clearly so that people can raise their consciousness and resist? I recall having conversations with liberal friends during the Bush years, and they expressed their worry about the direction the country was taking.
Yet, with Obomba who has embraced and extended Bush era policies, these same people are still staunch Obomba supporters and will support whatever Dem Party candidate that is ultimately put in front of them. They then go right back to back to sleep every cycle when “their Democrat” gets in.
Finally, yet another problem with lesser evil voting is the erosion of personal political integrity which takes place- erosion of integrity means playing a game with which you don’t agree. You compromise, and compromise, and compromise. Then, as Milton Mayer describes in his book, “They Thought They Were Free”:
“Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.”

Posted by: Allen | Apr 29 2016 14:51 utc | 6

good luck meeting your deadline b!
i want to post a link to an article that the poster “grieved” shared last night in the previous open thread…it’s excellent article on some of the usa-cia-syria history that i found especially fascinating…

Posted by: james | Apr 29 2016 15:09 utc | 8

James – that politico article is really quite incredible. Should be mandatory reading but will quickly become voluntary as it is so well written.

Posted by: Au | Apr 29 2016 16:04 utc | 10

@8, from the Politico article: “Clemente compares ISIL to Colombia’s FARC—a drug cartel with a revolutionary ideology to inspire its footsoldiers.”
Because it’s always been about the Reds, as per Allen Dulles.

Posted by: ruralito | Apr 29 2016 16:33 utc | 12

likklemore – good links. I’ve always viewed the EU as the future model for a more globalized world with actual nations as opposed to sates willfully (or via economic force) coming under a larger more unified central federal rule. Eventually it will be the entire globe but the EU is the first model. Idk maybe I’m off – I think it’s necessary.

Posted by: Au | Apr 29 2016 16:49 utc | 14

To add to the discussion of CIA Matters perhaps, in the context of the RFK Jr. article, I had posted the following link onto cafe-babylon.net/ in a discussion about the Congo:
https://consortiumnews.com/2013/11/25/jfks-embrace-of-third-world-nationalists/
I had been surprised to (re-)discover that the murder of Patrice Lumumba took place only a few days after President Kennedy’s inauguration, so had gone looking for articles related to that. There’s a lot in this one as well, even though it is several years back.

Posted by: juliania | Apr 29 2016 17:09 utc | 16

So Zerohedge has been outed today: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/unmasking-the-men-behind-zero-hedge-wall-street-s-renegade-blog
I must say that I enjoy reading this; the site absolutely bombs the reader with ads. I use uBlock Origin, thankfully, but it’s outrageous. Its journalistic ethos is obviously to throw as much crap at the walls on a constant basis in order to maintain readership (and generate ad revenue).. That is not unlike any other ‘news’ website, but it’s not something I like either

Posted by: aaaa | Apr 29 2016 17:41 utc | 18

According to this site, the Syrian refugee crisis began in April 2011 … of course there were hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Syria before then (and I believe Lebanon and Jordan) whose encampments Syrians joined and there were hundreds of thousands internally displaced Syrians who remained internally displaced for years, although not always in the same place (as conditions changed) … http://syrianrefugees.eu/?page_id=163
In terms of timing of the international media phenomenon in October 2015, the announcement of cuts to food rations/stipends in Lebanon’s camps coincides (and I think cuts had been made the prior fall 2014) due to serious shortfalls in funding … that was what I contemporaneously thought had been the trigger as well as the approaching winter, increased hardship and the closure of routes of migration.
IOW, I’m not surprised that there was planning by consultants but the crisis had been looming – in plain sight – for years.
There were and are thousands of Afghans and other groups as well as the usual tides of “economic migrants” in perennial transit to a better future as guest laborers.
How much onset of the timing of the “crisis” was a matter of media coverage (and outrage over dead bodies washing up on the beaches of Greek resorts) versus an actual surge in the mobilization and movement of large numbers, I don’t know.
Actually, I read something yesterday — from January 2016: AlJazeera: Funding shortfall compounds Syrian refugee crisis[Additional $15bn needed yearly in humanitarian financing for 125 million people affected by wars and natural disasters.] — the funding shortfall continues …

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Apr 29 2016 17:58 utc | 20

FWIW, yesterday, I was trying to find the nationalities of those 500 drowned last week along the Libya-Italy sea route … and found instead a report of 500 drowned a year ago along the same route … a dozen countries were represented. I found another article about the long-standing tolerance by Italians of the northward journey of “illegal” African migrants, the locals now becoming significantly less tolerant, even racist.
Independent:(August 2014) What happens to African migrants once they land in Italy during the summer?
guardian: US warships may join EU in patrolling waters off Libya ….
I was curious why so relatively little coverage of Italy … UNCHR says about 140,000 June 2015 “in country” (I guess rather than arrivals / in transit?) …
latimes in September 2015:

ITALY is the second immediate destination of most Mediterranean migrant voyages and more than 110,000 refugees have arrived there this year. As with Greece, many opt to use the country as a bridge to wealthier, northern countries.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Apr 29 2016 18:16 utc | 22

@13 likklemore, and others thanks.. thanks in turn to the poster “grieved” for sharing that…
i’d read your first link from the other thread and thought it was a good overview on brexit and the usa/cia’s involvement in europe.. it kind of ties in with the 3rd link on nuland using a stick now rather then cookies.. it seems ukraine has also been a cia project gone sour… on a larger scale all of it seems to want to dictate the terms whereby europe can or can’t involve itself with russia… funny how europe doesn’t get a say in the usa/cias meddling… it is non stop and one would think europe is savvy to it, but by the looks of it the euro leadership cares not in the least! at some point europe is going to have to separate itself from it’s masters in washington or london – however one wants to define the financial and etc powers that be…
i just finished listening to senator tim kaine ( don’t know why it says king on the desk name tag) go over how the usa has no international basis for it’s action of sending troops to syria.. he makes the comparison to russia going into ukraine… for anyone interested – i think he makes a very good point even if he is in the minority in the usa – here is the 9 minute video.. he went to harvard law school and says the usa is on very shaky ground sending troops to syria and it’s the wrong precedent to set.. i agree with him!

Posted by: james | Apr 29 2016 18:51 utc | 24

Les @23
Do you think they have any used Toyota’s in desert tan? Low mileage of course and driven by a little old lady, Oh wait, do they let little old ladies drive?

Posted by: Dean | Apr 29 2016 19:19 utc | 26

SS @ 25,
Isn’t it amazing how the US coalition is taking the credit for the ISIS demise? Early 2015 they were quite happy to sit back and let Damascus be taken by October 2015. Funny what has happened since 30 September when Russia stepped up to the plate and started seriously degrading ISIS. MOD stated they have taken out 29,000 terrorist targets since then.
https://southfront.org/over-29000-targets-in-syria-are-destroyed-over-the-past-7-months-by-russian-warplanes/

Posted by: Dean | Apr 29 2016 19:32 utc | 28

Turkish parliament goes ‘full wrestlemania’ when Constitutional change that would strip them of their immunity from prosecution is discussed …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3_7HdpFkpo

Posted by: ALberto | Apr 29 2016 20:42 utc | 30

@ james 24 and @ Au 14
IMHO, two future events will seal the demise of U.S. hegemony:
1. Brexit prevails and promptly signs up to join the China-Russia silk – road economic zone. Much to chagrin of USA, they have already hedged their future bets by joining the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB).
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-03/28/c_134105435.htm
2. Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Russia is said locked into rivalry for dominance in China’s oil market. KSA will succeed in besting Russia only IF its oil will be sold in (RMB/Yuan). Unlikely, due transportation costs and priced in USD instead of Yuan makes Russia more competitive.
It is proferred such an announcement by KSA to price sales in RMB will be the final nail in the petro-US dollar’s coffin – unless Ms. Yellen prints to subsidize KSA budget woes.
Wait for the announcement as Russia sells its oil to China in RMB.
http://sputniknews.com/world/20160203/1034148491/russia-china-saudi-oil-exports.html
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Russia-And-Saudi-Arabia-Locked-In-Relentless-Fight-Over-Chinas-Oil-Market.html
http://sputniknews.com/business/20160328/1037102005/saudi-arabia-oil-share.html
And the continuing currency war, will USA learn? No, not anytime soon.
“US Treasury Gives Explicit Warning To China, Germany And Japan Not To Devalue Their Currencies”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/us-treasury-gives-explicit-warning-china-germany-and-japan-not-devalue-their-currenc
[.] Finally, there was no comment by the US Treasury on the biggest FX manipulator of all, the US Treasury itself which courtesy of the Fed can move the value of the Dollar higher or lower by orders of magnitude in seconds. Why? Because for now the US “reserve currency” privilege allows it to do whatever it wants,[.]

Posted by: likklemore | Apr 29 2016 21:57 utc | 32

@16, The timing of Lumumba’s murder just before JFK’s inauguration is discussed at some length in James Douglass’s book JFK and the Unspeakable.

Posted by: lysias | Apr 29 2016 22:27 utc | 34

On 25th April Dr Al-Azzawi added: “More war crimes have been committed by American Coalition, yesterday April 24, 2016. The coalition airplanes bombed Rashidiya water treatment plant left side of Mosul city and Yermouk electricity generation station in the right side of Mosul. Through targeting these populations’ life sustaining necessities, the coalition is committing genocidal action towards Mosul residents in the pretext of fighting ISIS.”
source – http://www.globalresearch.ca/death-and-destruction-in-iraq-extensive-us-war-crimes-apocalypse-in-mosul-in-the-guise-of-bombing-isis/5522167
see ‘US bombs civilian power plants’ google search – http://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=us+bombs+civilian+power+plants
If this information is true then a pattern of attacks on civilian infrastructure (power plants and drinking water utilities) in Iraq and Syria by US forces reinforces the fact that civilian displacement is one of the main goals of the Balkanization of the ME thereby rendering the remaining cantons that have oil or other natural resources easier to obtain and control and creating a steady supply of immigrants who will further destabilize Europe.

Posted by: ALberto | Apr 29 2016 22:51 utc | 36

Interesting comment in Paul Craig Roberts’s piece on Trump’s foreign policy speech. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/04/27/donald-trumps-foreign-policy-speech-paul-craig-roberts%E2%80%A8/ . “Moreover, presidents are outside the loop of black op affairs. A false flag event can be pulled off that sends Trump in the direction desired by the military/security complex or Israel.”
Two can play at that game. A new president could discredit the military/security complex and his other enemies by revealing the truth about things like 9/11 and the JFK assassination.

Posted by: lysias | Apr 29 2016 23:11 utc | 38

Noirette @ 15,
You ask, why wd Merkel invite in mass immigration? Remember the video of Starikoff when the first immigration wave hit? He pointed out that this is not even the largest wave of immigration that Europe has experienced. And that every country simply abandoned its normal method of channeling immigrants thru their normal process. Except they kept it in place for Ukrainians! That is, the whole “crisis” is preplanned. They were released by Turkey per the plan; they had cell phones; some were even reported as able to access daily money from the banks’ cash machines. Also at least one embassy was facilitating the immigration by making inflatable boats available.
But at the same time that it was facilitated, it was presented as an unavoidably chaotic crisis. Remember how the European media hyped this, w pictures of people climbing thru the windows of buses or trains? The press coverage was facilitated– first to allow the cameraman in an area where policework could have excluded them cuz police were actively controlling a chaotic situation. Instead the police didn’t appear to be trying to control it. And media editors presented the stories, altho I wd think govt there like here cd have requested toned down coverage. Instead it was purposely hyped. The attacks & supposed rape on New Years Eve cd very well have been fictitious or exaggerated.
So to answer your question: Why is this being done? I don’t know. I can’t put words to it, but I sense that it is part of controlling the European population. In the long run mass immigration makes the country less governable by its native citizens; it’s harder for the population to unify against the govt. But the short-run chaos and air of crisis I don’t know. Probably your woman’s intuition can inform you better than I. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it’s on purpose. Merkel hopes for the top spot at the UN as her next position, so I wd say she’s fully on board w the global ‘garchy.

Posted by: Penelope | Apr 30 2016 0:09 utc | 40

@ psychohistorian 27
Thank you for your kind compliments. Much back to you.
Be confident; in your lifetime you will witness the reset. Shadowstats Economist John Williams, who is highly regarded, sees the potential that the $16 trillion in U.S. dollar assets (UST) held outside of America will be sold in a panic. The time draws near as US economy is in serious trouble. Mr. Williams is not alone in his view in targeting this July, 2016.
http://usawatchdog.com/dollar-selling-panic-coming-john-williams/
“We have started to see selling pressure on the dollar. It has been inching lower. It’s down year to year now. . . . The selling is going to intensify, not only with large central banks, but with corporations that will be beginning to dump their Treasury holdings. . . . Nobody wants to be the last one out the door when you have a panic like this. It’s not a panic yet, but the potential certainly is there.”
I offer, what will stop Ms. Yellen of the privately held Federal Reserve from priessing another 30 trillion as was done during the 2008-09 to save the western financial system?
Great observers as they are, China has teamed up with Russia on a gold and silver pricing platform.
April 19th , a historic day, China launched SGE and within a few days, gold and silver prices are into true price discovery. Paper ponzi, paper gold contracts and kicking the can as the can becomes heavy -reaching the end of the road- is all the US has to offer.
We will dance with the lady who wears the gold.

Posted by: likklemore | Apr 30 2016 0:46 utc | 42

Psychohistorian, Much too late to concentrate only on taking financial control away from the ‘garchs. Have to take ALL control away at this point. They are now implementing Agenda 2030 and it IS global governance:
“If there’s any solid constant in protean “enemy image” upon which the system of sustainable development must be built, then it would be “overpopulation”, the inherently genocidal idea pervading all flavors of this doctrine. Sustainable development is, simply put, a system of world encompassing control conceived to automatically self-differentiate and develop it’s functions on the basis of fear. All it really requires is one absolute outside threat which cannot be removed but only infinitely mitigated by unified action of mankind. This enemy image is, of course, just an image, because such threat doesn’t exist and every basis chosen by sustainability programmers has a definite expiration date. On closer analysis, the Agenda 2030 document already indicated that “global warming” scare is reaching this date. It was not very prominent among other “17 sustainability goals” and now it is slowly giving way to another cosmic Osama bin Laden, invoked to make us survey and control ourselves through fear: global – or to be more precise: Europe-based – terrorism.
“Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) in reducing greenhouse gases, which serve as a basis of reaching the goal of keeping the global average temperature – whatever the hell that is – under 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change (PA, 2.1. (a)), are far cry from what global warming dupes would like to see implemented. While we can detect some sporadic attempts to link “climate catastrophe” with demographical shifts from Middle East towards Europe, it is all too obvious, even to the dupes, that those shifts, while obviously man-made, have nothing to do with climate. ” http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/04/29/un-climate-deal-the-joke-is-on-us/
Personally, I’ve been waiting forever for them to bring out the aliens! Must be SOME reason they’ve kept the UFO baloney alive for the past 80 years or so. What better excuse to force us to “unite” as a single global oligarchy than fighting off interplanetary invasion. They could even make an alien dummy “talk” on TV w this technology: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-09/stunning-video-reveals-why-you-shouldnt-trust-anything-you-see-television

Posted by: Penelope | Apr 30 2016 2:09 utc | 44

james @ 39
Well, okay, since you’re only Canadian (smiley face) I’m sorry for that last sentence.
From your earlier posts I knew that, but I forgot to take it into consideration (another smiley face.) Now if you were Irish or English — or Aussie like that Hoarsewhiperer — I’d know you could take it and I’d ream your ass for that link (third smiley face.)
Believe me, any essay that begins “After a (fill in the blank) killed my father, I’ve had an interest in (fill in the blank)” is pandering to hate. Read anything like that at your own peril, but never, ever, link to it.
RFK Jr.’s essay is classic Establishment Liberal — “Okay, mistakes were made. How dumb could we be? The wrong people were in charge…If only we’d known…”
The whole point is to hide the real goal which is chaos. Chaos everywhere, as Noirette’s link shows.
After doing penance pushing ecology, it looks like now RFK Jr. is hoping to gain membership into the gang that killed his Uncle John and his father. “Yeah, yeah, an Arab killed my dad. No hard feelings towards you guys.”
If someone like WoW or that Catcher-in-the-Rye guy — remember them? — had posted that link I wouldn’t have hit it on a bet, but you have a pretty good track record here, so I did.

Posted by: Ken Nari | Apr 30 2016 2:26 utc | 46

@41 penelope.. thanks, but i am really not into the “who done it” around kennedys assassination! i am not into movies either and never watched stones movie on it either.. i like reading text as opposed to video/movies almost always too…
@43 juliania.. thanks – i didn’t think so either! that’s an interesting link @16.. i had no idea of the sequence of events attached to the us presidents of the time.. i am not up on us political history.. being born in the 50’s and meeting many draft dodgers in the early 70’s – most of my first exposure to the usa, was via it’s foreign policy of bombing the shit out of countries that the us leadership thought were being influenced by communists.. fear of and the war on communism was subsiding only to be replaced with the war on drugs.. now it is the war on terrorism.. most of all that i see as a byproduct of the usa.. i never saw the rationale for murdering people over a threat of communism, or having wars in faraway countries.. as a consequence i’ve had a lopsided and fairly negative view towards usa foreign policy since a fairly young age..

Posted by: james | Apr 30 2016 2:33 utc | 48

Wish I believed that the collapse of the dollar would collapse the power of US ‘garchs.
First, I’m not sure that the currency of a country that prints its own really CAN collapse. Certainly it can fall in value, but I don’t see how that hurts anyone except the American people. I mean the bad guys already have their wealth diversified, own tons of hard assets like mines, oil, land, politicians, etc.
Even militarily they seem to wield more armies than the US military. We might go thru an interim period w yuan as reserve currency, but I wd think it’d be supplemented w SDR’s, so wd just bring us closer to a global currency. I see no indication at all that it would lead to the dismantling of the control by the banking cabal of all the world’s central banks.
The only system which allows people any freedom is a system of individual, sovereign nations, each of which controls its own currency & credit creation, its own immigration policy, and its own bilateral trade relations. Countries must be free to protect some industries and to be food self-sufficient. Even when we get back control of our govt, by removing the oligarchs from power, our vote will be meaningless if these matters are decided by International bodies which have looted our nation’s sovereign powers. And the same is true of all other nations.
Today any nation labelled “developing” by the IMF (including Russia) may issue its own currency only in an amount equal to the value of its export income. This is why countries must ruin themselves by borrowing. This is why countries must compete w each other to export, instead of giving primacy to the home market. This is what sets international workers competing against one another.— Source for the understanding of these matters: http://lit.md/files/nstarikov/rouble_nationalization-the_way_to_russia's_freedom.pdf

Posted by: Penelope | Apr 30 2016 2:42 utc | 50

@15 Noirette
The link to the same at NEO is How NATO-linked Think Tanks Control EU Refugee Policy, and a link to the underlying ESI paper is ESI – The Merkel Plan – Compassion and Control – 4 October 2015. Haven’t yet read it. All the Engdahl piece supplies is the paternity. Damning enough, but not very detailed.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 30 2016 3:04 utc | 52

@46 Ken Nari – what strikes me about Kennedy’s article is what almost seems to be a carefully deliberate precision in the way he leaves several paradigms unchallenged, thereby maintaining a sense of identification with his US readers, while at the same time destroying some very large paradigms.
So, as examples I suppose of what we all disagree with: Assad is a tyrant, the US allowed ISIS to arise from stupidity rather than intent, the defense of Israel’s borders is at one with the US heart, and on and on. Furthermore, his conclusion about breaking the addiction to oil is hopelessly lame. But these are all throwaway details. It was not to his purpose to challenge these points and if he had, no one would read his article.
Instead, what he’s done is plant a huge paradigm, that a covert foreign policy has operated since the big war, and that many of the waves the US feels obligated to navigate are in fact simply blowback from earlier covert activities – in other words, the US has caused its own problems, massacred the innocents, and betrayed its own principles, first in foreign lands and now in its own land.
My curiosity here in this forum was: How well does this work as a propaganda tool within the existing US political consciousness? I’m curious too, somewhat, as to how much he actually believes of the things he says that we disagree with, and how much is simply politically correct camouflage in order to get the main point across – I don’t know him well enough to judge. But the facts and collateral materials presented in the article are huge, and I suspect new to many people. They combine to make a damning case against US foreign policy that would be hard to refute. By comparison, the things I disagree with are minute.
Personally, I disagree with perhaps as much as 20% at the very most of the article – and I can see that if someone skims through and touches primarily on those parts, one’s view of the article is for total rejection – but the other 80% I find astonishing. It comes from a name that still resonates in the US, and I hope it works on the US, and begins to weaken the position of its covert foreign policy.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 30 2016 3:42 utc | 54

@54
I guess another point to make is that I’m not one of the article’s audience, first time around, I skipped it. Neither are you. Just found it in the corporate media I imagine, reading it to keep your hand in. Assessing it for its presumed affect on others, rather than ourselves.
But, James points out, there is a thoughtful and diligent strand of evidence at the article’s backbone : Why the Arabs Don’t Want Us in Syria. Topical.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 30 2016 4:23 utc | 56

http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/04/27/syria-political-reform-defies-critics-and-progresses-despite-us-nato-hostility/
Excellent & very heartening. On Syria’s political reforms, with detail.

Posted by: Penelope | Apr 30 2016 5:08 utc | 58

@15 Noirette
ESI – The Merkel Plan – Compassion and Control 4 October 2015

At this rate, the coming year will see more than 1.8 million refugees arriving in Germany – and that’s without taking into account the impact of Russian military intervention in Syria.

No mention of the US/EU/NATO devastation and destruction of Syria as the ultimate source of the refugees. The Big Omission, the big deceit … Barack Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate … same page.

Meanwhile, German politicians keep repeating that there has to be a “European solution,” as if another EU conference might produce a solution like a genie from a magic lamp. This will not happen.

So, here’s a carefully crafted ‘American’ solution. The Neolibraconian Solution, in actuality.

It is eminently clear today that it will be many years before any refugees can return to Syria, back to communities now destroyed beyond recognition.

Point number one seen in Soros’ crystal ball : we devastated and destroyed Syria and it’s damn well going to stay devastated and destroyed.

[C]urrent suggestions that Turkey should do more fail to explain either how Turkey might stop Syrian refugees crossing the Aegean or why it might try to do more than it already does.

How: Stop fueling the devastation and destruction of Syria by al-CIAduh and Daesh.
Why: Because even with Soros’/Merkel’s ‘help’ Turkey will be hard pressed – civil war will cause its collapse.
The Plan
  Germany accepts a half million refugees this year (per year, starting this year?)
  Turkey becomes the source, the guarantor, the gatekeeper for ‘Syrians’ to reach the EU.
  Turkey is declared safe for Syrians (and Kurds) in order for Greece to be able to refuse them asylum and send them back to Turkey.
  The EU pays Turkey a bounty on the refugees it takes back and ‘Turkey’ qualifies for visa-free travel to the EU (as a bonus, the Turks get to include Wahabist terrorists among those visa-free traveling to the EU).
The Plan’s ‘benefits’
  Eliminating political pressure from the ‘pro-Putin far right’ in Europe and the ability of the US/EU/NATO to continue to prosecute their joint war(s) of devastation, destruction, and deceit in Syria (and wherever else war is determined necessary in the Middle East).
Why does Merkel go along with ‘her’ plan?
  She’s being blackmailed? I’m no closer to understanding now than before I read the article. This seems more like The Erdogan Plan than The Merkel Plan to me. It’s certainly not in any way the Syrians’ plan.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 30 2016 5:25 utc | 60

@ jfl/Noirette
I just finished reading this posting which may add a different perspective on the refugee situation:….what happens next Wednesday may be interesting.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/europe-at-pains-over-visa-free-travel-for-turks-a-1090040.html
And yes, calling the jackboot of private finance the cause of social dislocation is never made directly because few can rise above the horror of the moment to see those behind the curtain.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 30 2016 5:40 utc | 62

jfl @ 63, I’m not a libertarian. Of course I’m a woman, w a name like Penelope.
I just think Noirette is especially intuitive. She often sees links in disparate things.
—
Ken Nari @ 46,
“The whole point is to hide the real goal which is chaos.”
Ordo Ab Chao. It’s the “Ordo” that is their goal, and its form is Agenda 2030. It is being pushed immensely right now. It is full global governance, as wished for by Maurice Strong and by Soros. The intention is to have it fully in place by 2030. It is presented as socialism, but will leave not a speck of personal freedom or initiative or even the ability to know what is happening out of your sight.
To learn about it, go to http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/04/29/un-climate-deal-the-joke-is-on-us/ & scroll down to the audio “Agenda 2030”.
or
http://en.kalitribune.com/sustainable-blues/
http://en.kalitribune.com is a tremendous site!! Unique.

Posted by: Penelope | Apr 30 2016 6:02 utc | 64

Mr. Romney would have been able to camouflage the “crop” that this president has been able to get away with! There would have been a great outcry! I think that the left have been supine during most of this president’s tenures! I wish that this had not been the case!

Posted by: susetta | Apr 30 2016 6:08 utc | 66

@60 psycho
So this is the new resident neo-liberal editorialist at Xinhua, telling the Chinese they got it too good and don’t complain, ‘cuz it doesn’t get you anywhere any way? Look at France? They’ve copied Obama’s latest schtick.
@61
As regards refugees and Erdogan … they must have some really strong stuff on Mutti. Now she doesn’t even get “Eliminating political pressure from the ‘pro-Putin far right’ in Europe” as a benefit.
The rest of the Europeans are going to go along with this? I guess they still are Occupied Europe, six – make that seven – decades later. As far as the US is concerned it’s ‘You want it, you got it!’ from the Eurocrats.
So what the hell’s Erdogan got that the US wants? Help with al-CIAduh emplacements in Central Asia. Going after Russia and China. Gotta be.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 30 2016 6:11 utc | 68

I don’t know what to say about the numbers that the US releases about it spying on folks but here are some of the latest
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cybersecurity-surveillance-idUSKCN0XR009
I think I have mentioned here before that in 2004 I was told not to say bad things about our then president on international phone calls by someone ordering one of my products and providing me with a valid CIA email address…….

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 30 2016 6:53 utc | 70

not @44 – should be @55

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 30 2016 8:14 utc | 72

obviously – not ot but not instead

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Apr 30 2016 8:54 utc | 74

@71 g
If he’s serious he’ll just keep doing what he’s doing. Drop the run for prez, so he can drop the dissimulation as well. Keep dumping the truth with conversational, topical articles like this one. Any damn fool or sociopath can run for prez … look at who’s running right now. He’s better off leveraging his talent and dynastic connections in the world of people who know what happened when, and who know where the documents are to prove it.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 30 2016 9:10 utc | 76

Probably not about the “election”:
Trailer Park Boys S10 Behind the Scenes – Lahey AMFA Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhNndMVcCoc#t=59.802583

Posted by: blues | Apr 30 2016 10:53 utc | 78

P @ 50: Quite a read, it’ll take a while, but on the issue of national sovereignty, I agree, nation states MUST have the absolute right of autonomy to chart, and protect their own path.
It is also a pathway for controlling private wealth through regulations. Deregulation is the tool used to usher in this era of globalization, which is destroying humanity.

Posted by: ben | Apr 30 2016 14:05 utc | 80

@15 Noriette and @60 jfl – http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/27/how-nato-linked-think-tanks-control-eu-refugee-policy/

“All of those seemingly inexplicable actions from the once-pragmatic German leader appear to go back to her embrace of a 14-page document prepared by a network of pro-NATO think-tanks, brazenly titled “The Merkel Plan.”
“What the newly-self-confident German Chancellor did not tell her hostess, Anne Will, or her viewers was that “her” plan was given to her just four days earlier, on October 4, in a document already titled The Merkel Plan, by a newly-created and obviously well-financed international think-tank called the European Stability Initiative or ESI. The ESI website showed that it had offices in Berlin, Brussels and in Istanbul, Turkey
…
That so-called Merkel Plan was a product of US and NATO-linked think tanks and of governments of NATO member countries or prospective members. The maxim “follow the money trail” is instructive in this case to see who really runs the EU today.
The ESI
The ESI came out of NATO-led efforts to transform South East Europe following the US-instigated war in Yugoslavia during the 1990’s that resulted in the Balkanization of the country and establishment of a major USA and NATO airbase, Camp Bond Steel in Kosovo.
Current ESI Chairman directly responsible for the final Merkel Plan document is Istanbul-based Austrian sociologist, Gerald Knaus. Knaus is also a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), and an Open Society Fellow.
Founded in London in 2007, the ECFR is an imitation of the influential New York Council on Foreign Relations, the think-tank created by the Rockefeller and JP Morgan bankers during the 1919 Versailles peace talks to coordinate an Anglo-American global foreign policy. Significantly, the creator and moneybags for the ECFR is American multi-billionaire and Color Revolution funder, George Soros.”

It goes on describing in great detail ESI and its tentacles, players and more. Might help with connecting the dots on Merkel and her seeming embrace of Turkey and their obvious blackmail using the refugee crisis as a battering ram.

Posted by: h | Apr 30 2016 15:02 utc | 82

aaaaa at 18. That was 🙂 interesting about Zerohedge. (I never saw any ads, ad blocker.) They have published some OK articles imho, that I read as reco’d from others. The comments, that I briefly perused, were in the trivia pits, and that is a *telling* sign.
———————————-
Susan Sunflower, at 20, yes the migrant crisis was broiling for years. Pretty much ignored … both in the MSM and at top levels…
Turkey does not permit ‘migrants’ to work (locked up in camps more or less) and claimed it had not the money to support them properly, as did Lebanon and others — rightly so. They all appealed to the UNHCR, who could not send enough funds, as the contributions, promised by various OECD countries, for the most part, were not forthcoming. (This is a regular scenario, the promises are not binding.) They don’t say this explicitly on their site (though one can look it up elsewhere) as they like to pretend they are doing a good job and are on top of it all.
At the same time, the black, underground biz of ripping away the last pennies of the migrant’s savings became more structured, competitive, organised, with a semi-settled business model, with competition and collaboration aka price fixing and a monopoly. Prices were lowered but more ‘clients’ were dragged in. A free-market dream model!
Penelope at 40 you imho you are dead right about the ‘hyping’, this suddenly exploded for no discernible reason at all. Though tipping-points exist! Why exactly idk, which is why I posted the RI link.
jfl thx for the links etc. more precise than me.

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 30 2016 15:21 utc | 84

Physics is on the verge of an Earth-shattering discovery

Last year, researchers there recorded faint but extremely promising signs of what could be a new particle that does not fit within the current theoretical model. The LHC is now about to resume operation after being shut down since December for annual maintenance. If its next run confirms the existence of the new particle, that could open the long-sought passage to ‘the new physics’ – and, hopefully, answer some big, longstanding questions.
. . .
For the first time last year, the LHC produced collisions with an energy of 13 trillion electron volts (TeV), far above the 8 TeV it had achieved before.
. . .
The mere announcement of what might be the first signs of a new particle, delivered at the end-of-the-year LHC seminar on 15 December 2015, sent theorists into a frenzy. Expectations are so high that there are already 338 scientific papers on the possible nature of this new particle.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
I believe that better understanding of humanity’s place in the Universe generally leads to more tolerant and enlightened relations among and between people.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 30 2016 15:35 utc | 86

Ben @ 80,
Oh, thank you forsupporting national economic sovereignty. It is so discouraging when even psychohistorian who is so much in favor of reigning in oligarchic financial control doesn’t understand that nations need more power than simply being able to print and manage their own currency/credit formation. We will have to find some good econ sites & quotes to post– maybe from HJudson.
Psychohistorian, we have been propagandized forever to think that “protectionism” is bad. But US workers mustn’t be forced to compete in every industry against people making 46 cents an hour and having no benefits. I’m not explaining this well. Let me make a few points:
1.Britain wanted colonial America to to supply raw materials to the mother country, and then pay for goods manufactured solely in Britain. Hence, the “Comparative advantage theory of economics. But under this system America would have remained a 3rd world country. It MATTERS what your country produces. No segment of your labor force can be highly paid if you are all producing raw materials.
2. “Free trade” is being used today to protect the oligarch’s industries and to destroy those of other countries.
3. “Free trade” as stipulated by the WTO agreements prevented Europe & Britain, etc from excluding the financial “product” of derivatives– making the 2008 crash worldwide.
3. Food self-sufficiency has been targeted by the oligarchs, often w subsideized US ag products. Also many countries had to give over their lands to producing ag products for export– in order to earn the export credits necessary for investment.
I am horrified that you think any degree of protecting your own industry is akin to “not cooperating” w other nations, or will lead to war.
We have wars NOW– during neoliberalism, and specifically as coercion to “open up” nations to to this atavistic system. Trade IS often war today. The NAFTA free trade agreement has impoverished both Mexico & the US.

Posted by: Penelope | Apr 30 2016 15:52 utc | 88

@54 grieved.. thanks for articulating all that…
@68 jfl (thanks for the graphs @75 as well).. i think you’re right in your speculation @68 last sentence. read my comment to goradiva.
@79 goradiva.. thanks for the pepe escobar article.. i want to quote some of it here:
“Moreover, in Pipelineistan terms, Erdogan absolutely also needs the Qatar gas pipeline through Saudi Arabia and Syria to gain energy independence from Russia. That also happens to be a major US goal. And that also portends perennial trouble for the Syria peace process.
Erdogan already has the German superpower at his feet in the shape of a groveling, begging Chancellor Merkel. Were Turkey on its way to become an energy power, Merkel would prostrate herself on that Ankara palace golden ground non-stop. The CIA intimates as much, when it analyzes how Turkey will keep “expanding its influence” in Iraq through the militias they support, at the expense of Iraq’s security and political unity.”
and there i think is as good an explanation as any for the refugee crisis in europe… regime change in syria would have been easier.. turkey/qatar in particular, are having to work harder for the energy independence/sale.. us destroying iraq was for the oil.. turkey is a key player in continuing on in the same tradition as applied to syria.. dam the Euphrates, keep the door open to isis, shut down independent media, let afgan, syrian, iraqi and etc refugees flow into europe – these are all acts of a country not interested in getting along with it’s neighbours! not sure how it ends, but isolating russia is a definite part of it..
@82 h… the refugee crisis is all about money in the final analysis, even if trying to create new energy channels via war creates refugees – people wanting to escape war are a byproduct.. who controls what…
the way i see it, there is some sort of financial war going on here between some big players.. the us$ looks shaky, but i have said this before and could be wrong… physical war for control or sale of resources is another result…
@83 au… ditto..

Posted by: james | Apr 30 2016 16:03 utc | 90

Meanwhile in England the non-existent Jewish lobby is flexing its non-existent muscle. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party is the target of a major smear campaign by the Voldemort lobby and its brothers-in-arms, the Labour Blairites. This attempted coup is taking place in the context of upcoming local elections where a poor showing by Labour is expected to lead to a leadership challenge.
Taking down Corbyn has been a priority for the Voldemorts (They-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) ever since he unexpectedly rode popular opinion to become leader of the Labour Party, thereby breaking the stranglehold the Voldemorts had on British politics. Corbyn’s support for the Palestinian cause and his stance against Zionism is seen as a major threat to the thought police intent on maintaining their domination of the British political system. Consequently Corbyn has been subjected to a relentless assault of alleged racism utilizing the same old schtick of equating support for Palestinians and anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Jeremy Corbyn facing ‘coup attempt’ over anti-Semitism row as ministers hold talks with plotters
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/29/jeremy-corbyn-facing-coup-attempt-over-anti-semitism-row-as-mini/
For a more detailed look at how the non-existent Jewish Lobby operates:
How Israel lobby manufactured UK Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis
https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-lobby-manufactured-uk-labour-partys-anti-semitism-crisis/16481

Posted by: pantaraxia | Apr 30 2016 16:15 utc | 92

April 30, 2016 – You cannot make this stuff up …
As More American Boots Hit the Ground in Syria, U.S. Parses “Boots” and “Ground”
http://www.blacklistednews.com/As_More_American_Boots_Hit_the_Ground_in_Syria%2C_U.S._Parses_%E2%80%9CBoots%E2%80%9D_and_%E2%80%9CGround%E2%80%9D/50801/0/38/38/Y/M.html
I have not been paying close attention. Is this Nam V or Nam VI?

Posted by: ALberto | Apr 30 2016 16:30 utc | 94

Psyco @ 90 said: “Going back to isolated nation states does not deal with the global finance problem”.
That statement is BS. Having National Sovereignty doesn’t always equate to being isolated. I’m shocked you actually believe that.

Posted by: ben | Apr 30 2016 17:25 utc | 96

Au @ 83 “I’d like to see some of the links you are reading because it must be of the highest excellence.actually why don’t you just post some on here some time?”
You give tough homework assignments.
I read mostly the same blogs everyone else here reads.
Over a lifetime I’ve worked to learn languages, have gone to college in different countries, and lived and worked in others, so I skim foreign (meaning not English) newspapers online everyday, as well as foreign blogs and the comments. Once in awhile I find something good, but unfortunately most tend to be just as shallow and heavy on propaganda as in the U.S. I travel a lot.
There has been, however, a tremendous amount of courageous, well documented scholarship concerning the social, political, economic and ecological holocaust modernism and post-modernism (capitalism?) have brought. The only way I can explain how many of these works have been allowed to be published and their authors are still alive is perhaps because the oligarchy, plutocracy, kleptocracy or whatever is now so firmly in control the truth no longer is a threat. Also, I understand 60% percent of Americans now read at the 6th-grade level or below, and as high as 40% may indeed be functionally illiterate. Probably less than 1% of Americans are able to read and understand anything by Wolin or Zygmund Bauman.
I have read and can recommend all of these:
Histories and Analysis
The Party is Over by Mike Lofgren
The Deep State by Mike Lofgren
The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot
Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance deHaven-Smith
Gladio, NATO’s Dagger by Richard Cottrell
Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance by Paul L. Williams
The Politics of Heroin by Alfred McCoy
The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer
American War Machine by Peter Dale Scott
Deep Politics and the Death of JFK by Peter Dale Scott
Mary Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder JFK by Peter Jenny and Dick Russel
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King by William F. Pepper
Murder at Camp Delta by Joseph Hickman
America’s Secret Establishment by Anthony C. Sutton
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters by James Douglass
Brothers: the Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot
The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh
LBJ: Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination by Phillip Nelson
Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty by Russ Baker
House of Bush, House of Saud by Paul Unger
Power Beyond Reason: The Mental Collapse of Lyndon Johnson by Jablow Hershman
Gold Warriors by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave
Our Man in Mexico by Jefferson Morley
The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin
Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation by Alfred W. McCoy
The Global Minotaur by Yanis Varoufakis
Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
The Money and the Power by Sally Denton and Roger Morris
The Killing of Hope by William Blum
Blowback – the Consequences of the American Empire by Chalmers Johnson
The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson
Nemesis by Chalmers Johnson
Dismantling the Empire by Chalmers Johnson
Torture with Impunity by Alfred McCoy
Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peace Keeping by Frank Kitson
America’s Stolen Narrative by Richard Parry
9/11 Synthetic Terror by Webster Griffin Tarpley
Not in Your Lifetime by Anthony Summers
Democracy Inc. by Sheldon Wolin
War Stars by H. Bruce Franklin
M.I.A., Mythmaking In America by H. Bruce Franklin
Vietnam and Other American Fantasies by H. Bruce Franklin
Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz
God’s Banker: Money and Power at the Vatican by Gerald Posner
Google
LBJ-CIA Assassination of JFK Robert Morrow
Malcolm Wallace
National Security State Assassination of JFK Andrew Gavin Marshall.
Chip Tatum Pegasus Intimidation of Ross Perot 1992
Vincent Salandria “False Mystery Speech” and other writings by Vincent Salandria
Unanswered Questions as Obama Annoints HW Bush Russ Baker
Did the Bushes Help to Kill JFK Wim Dankbaar
The Holy Grail of the JFK story Jefferson Morley
The CIA and the Media Carl Bernstein
CIA Instruction to Media Assets 4/1/67
Limit CIA Role to Intelligence Harry Truman
Dwight Eisenhower Farewell Address
Jerry Policoff, NY Times, on CIA media cover up of the JFK assassination.
CBS News and the Lone Assassin Story “Roger Feinman”
Reasoning about Assassinations “James Fetzer”
“Murray Rothbard JFK Flap”
Preserving the Legacy “Mat Wilson”
Bertrand Russell 16 Questions on the Assassination
The Day Democracy Died in America” Tom Cahill
Spooks make life miserable for Ambassador Lodge “Richard Starnes”
The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam “Arthur Krock”
Movies
The LBJ Robot by Mack White
The Power of Nightmares by the BBC
American Gangster (Fiction but considered accurate in Vietnam drug-trade treatment)
Wikipedia (Wikipedia is carefully edited to make sure certain topics get “cleaned” regularly and the most damning parts are removed. Still, the basic facts are indisputable.)
Operation Mockingbird
Operation Gladio
Operation Underworld
United States House Select Committee on Assassinations The findings indicate at least two other gunmen were also involved and that 4 (not three) shots were fired, and that the Secret Service, FBI and Dallas Police lied and covered up. This is now the official Government view, and since 1974 makes Congress guilty of conspiracy theory.
Cointelpro

Posted by: Ken Nari | Apr 30 2016 17:50 utc | 98

From the Angry Arab blog:
Not in US press: A Qatari regime newspaper admits that Free Syrian Army is shelling civilians in Aleppo
It says: Tens of dead and injured from Aleppo civilians were killed by gunfire from units of the Free Syrian Army and the “gas canisters”, which are called “blind shells”, for its inaccuracy, and it–despite killing and injuring tens of civilians–has not killed or injured one regime soldier”.
source: http://www.alquds.co.uk/?p=524157

Posted by: Les | Apr 30 2016 18:10 utc | 100