The fix is in: Mittens Romney (video)

Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

Just as we predicted: "The fix seems to be in. It is Romney all the way for Iowa, no matter what the voters say: Ron Paul has no chance to be certified the winner with the Republicans doing the counting" (Dec. 29, 2011).

Deserving or not, Mormon or not, eight votes up or not, Romney has been selected to compete when the people want Ron Paul. To ensure that Paul gets no opportunity to gum up the system, fanatical Rick Santorum has been elevated to runner up. Sanctimonious Santorum is the fall back guy to push Romney to the right.

What does a raucous caucus tell anyone? No black voters attend, none at all. It is by and large a conservative, Christian fundamentalist, all-white affair. Hispanics and Asians comprise 1%, which amounts to less than token status. Iowa's Republican straw poll process, caucus process, and primaries only set the tone for the selection.

As the dictator Joseph Stalin pointed out, "It doesn't matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes."

Elections (popular voting) have become a charade. We can say we elect people, but our electoral college systems shows that that was never the case even before Bush-Cheney instituted an easier way to manipulate elections. The Powers That Be (Wall Street bankers, Military-Industrial Complex officials, key figures in the shadow government, clandestine services directors, and occasionally movers and shakers) pre-select candidates, with money and through insider influence, and they control the counting of the votes.

• Rigging elections electronically: How it's done
  

Bush, for example, was not elected. He was selected, twice. The people had no real say, just an opinion to manipulate and miscount by design. Romney? Fine. His father almost made it to the White House. He has a net worth of nearly a quarter billion. And his underwear are magical.

Willard "Mittens" Romney is a far better choice than the unbearable hubris of Washington-insider Newt Gingrich. But the only candidate with a difference, despite his many flaws, is Ron Paul, who must have known the power brokers were not going to give him a fair shake.

• COMEDY: Jim Dore looks at the news
• VIDEO: Jews rush to stop Ron Paul (from former Jew)
• VIDEO: Bill O'Rielly debates Ron Paul on Iran
• VIDEO: Ron Paul on Israel and intervention abroad
• VIDEO: "Obama will be last president of US as we know it"
• VIDEO: Mass chipping of Americans has already begun
  

A Very Buddhist New Year (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

Noah Levine addresses a capacity New Year's eve crowd at Against the Stream, Hollywood.

It is said that what one is doing on New Year's eve/day is what one will be doing the entire year. The afternoon began at Shambhala Los Angeles for a six hour (4:00 pm-12:00 am, pictured below) marathon of meditation, dinner, celebration, and DVD watching.

(Duck4cover/Flickr.com)

This was followed by a procession to seven Pasadena-area Buddhist centers (Sri Lankan, Thai, Tibetan, Burmese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Chinese).

And then it was on to Against the Stream.

Against the Stream
The evening culminated in Hollywood on Melrose, across the street from Los Angeles Community College with 100 American Buddhists going for guidance and renewing vows to preserve the Five Precepts.

Author and founder Noah Levine arrived from the same ceremony in Santa Monica earlier in the evening. One hundred and one Hollywood Dharma Punx and hipsters of all stripes sat by candlelight. Along with Mary Stancavage, Noah welcomed the group now in its seventh year of meeting and meditating into the New Year.

He talked about the significance of the Five Buddhist Training Precepts and encouraged everyone to not take any (such as the fifth) they were not intending to keep. This is important to preserve integrity (and the fourth): I undertake the precept of...

1. not intentionally killing any living being.
2. not taking what is not freely given.
3. being wise and careful with my sexuality.
4. being wise and careful and timely with my speech.
5. refraining from the use of intoxicating drink and substances that lead to heedlessness.

Mary followed by talking about the three traditional "refuges" (sarana, guides) -- going for guidance to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which is tinged with more devotion than most American Buddhists are used to.

The traditional Pali language iteration was handed out, but only the English part was read out loud in unison and repeated thrice.

Namo Tasa Bhagavato Arahato Sama-sambuddhasa.

"Homage to the fully enlightened Buddha."

Buddham/Dhammam/Sangham saranam gachami.

"I go for guidance to (or take refuge in) the Three Gems."

We sat silently as loud explosives -- celebratory guns fired in the air and/or fireworks in one of the most densely packed parts of town and a rash of arson fires burning to the west -- went off. Then came the highlight of the evening, setting our intentions.

A hundred candles were spread on a white table altar in the center of the gathering. One by one people came forward to light a candle and utter their intentions, aspirations, and New Year's resolutions. It took a long time punctuated by many bouts of laughter.

Then at midnight everyone hugged and kissed and tore off black garments and made out on the floor and cushions and repeatedly violated the third precept we had just -- oh, but that only happened in our imaginations.

Instead, back on Earth, at 12:30 am on January 1st, 2012 there was the tolling of a small Tibetan bell and we silently went out into the night to be better Buddhists resolved to meditate more and be kinder to ourselves and to others.

As Noah pointed out, we would never tolerate being spoken to the way most of us speak to ourselves all the time. With the intention of right speech we can begin to cultivate loving-kindness, wisdom, and compassion for all.

Vanessa sets the intention to be even more genuinely generous so that no one need ever guess whether things are truly freely given (WQ)

Shambhala LA meditation hall, 2012New Year's Eve, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche DVD (WQ)

Meditation and the Brain (science video)

Kalyani and Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Integral Eric; Ven. Vimalaramsi
(LINK) PART II

Having made a New Year's resolution to "meditate more," it is probably a good idea to learn to meditate. Everyone already knows how. It is natural. But not knowing that we know is as good as not knowing. Kalyani, our resident meditation instructor taught us the way to success.

Sit comfortably. Comfort is far more important than perfection. Smile. Relax every part of the body. Generate loving-kindness in all directions to dispel the taint of ill will and anger. Gently, slowly take the attention to the breath just under the nose at the nostrils.

Don't breathe; allow breathing. Watch that breathing. Pay very close attention until it becomes fascinating, amazing, happening all by itself. There is no need to comment or control, lengthen or shorten, slow or speed up. Just watch. Imagine a tuft of cloud or cotton, morning mist or fog being dispersed, or any image of the breath. And pay very close attention.

• Mint Deva Technique (Peppermint Fairy Method): Kalyani innovated a brilliant masterstroke: Employ essential oil of peppermint (a bhumi-deva science calls Mentha piperita). Dab it under the nose to stay alert and remember to keep attention here. Its hot-cool sensation holds attention like training wheels hold balance on a bike. Mindful means wakeful, diligent, vigilant, remembering to bring the mind back to the breath. More than aromatherapy, it helps the mind hold an increasingly faint and subtle meditation object (the fine breath once the gross breath settles down).
  

The mind goes away, of course. It always has. It has lived in the forest of sensual pleasures, seeking here and seeking there for them. Bring it back. And bring it back again. Never getting annoyed or angry that it leaves. Just stay with it. BE HERE NOW. Now it is time to sit effortlessly still.

Silence is everything, externally and more importantly internally. There is only watching. Vigilant, wakeful, "mindful" (minding, being aware, not contemplating), the mind's eye observes.

"Concentration" (samadhi) is not struggling. It is almost the opposite. It is simply the mind cohering, collecting, optimally integrating. Jhana is "absorption." Jhana (or dhyana, zen, ch'an, seon, thien) is meditating. The mind is naturally relaxed, observing, luminous, and at ease.



Vipassana (insight practice) is the yang to jhana's (serenity practice) yin. It comes after one finds tranquility. Kalayani's anti-teacher, Asian-trained American monk Bhante Vimalaramsi, seems to at least understand that jhana is not about struggle and force but rather allowing and accepting.

Focusing on a single thing -- beginning with the breath until the mind makes a sign of the breath called the counterpart sign (nimitta). Then watch the sign, which is still watching the breath as far as the mind is concerned. It is all at the tip of the nose, the meditation spot.

Become absorbed, like water into a sponge, into that light. There is silence, there is peace, there is mental purification, a purifying of the heart accompanied by bliss (piti). It is a strange joy, more joyous than massage and cool water, more pleasing than sense pleasure, more refreshing than sleep. It is bubbly, effervescent, bouyant and unexpected. Allow it.

Eventually the mind/heart prefers peace. Previously, one was beset on all sides by:

1. craving (lust)
   
2. aversion (anger)
   
3. sleepiness (laziness)
   
4. restlessness (worry)
5. doubt (uncertainty)
   

Now, the meditating brain enjoys their opposites, the Five Factors of Absorption (jhananga):

1. initial application (placing attention)
2. sustained application (holding attention)
3. joy (píti, experienced in the body)
4. happiness (sukha, ease in the mind)
5. one-pointedness (laser focused mind)

The meditator brings the mind, the attention, to a meditation object, such as the breath. Arousing attention and applying it to a single object. And one keeps the mind on/at/with the object. Holding and remaining with that object. In doing so, an unexpected thing happens: Instead of boredom, , the common reaction to doing something that is too easy/difficult to do, one finds delight, keen investigation, joyful interest that is pleasurable but beyond the five senses. One becomes happy and contented with the object, even protective of it, until the mind unifies. It becomes fixed, fixated, effortlessly on the object. That is serenity meditation. Mastering it by allowing it to happen rather than struggling trying to force it, one is ready to develop liberating insight.

• Take a free test drive
• Learn how to meditate (audio and PDF course)
  
• Facebook.com/ProfoundMeditationProgram

New Year's Day in search of Buddhist LA

Wisdom Quarterly; Koyasan Buddhist Temple; PasaDharma.org

The Fire Ritual, Koyasan Buddhist Temple, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, Jan. 1, 2012 (WQ)

It was the first day of the new year. It was the last year of the age. For next year will be the first year of the New Age, the Age of Aquarius -- according to the modern world's limited understanding of ancient Mayan calendars.

The long count calendar does not, of course, correspond to the Gregorian (Christian) calendar. But the mainstream media feeds us a steady Doomsday Diet of Dec. 21st, 2012. Why stress? Live instead! The world is ending everyday. The world is being reborn everyday.

The unveiling, the revelation, the apocalypse may come this year. It can come sooner for seekers on a spiritual quest.

An Ancient Ritual
Our minds full, our hearts heavy with good wishes for all, we entered the mystic temple. Wisdom Quarterly joined PasaDharma Zen group to bring in the new year in spiritual Los Angeles. We were in downtown's Little Tokyo.

It was a sunny summer day in the middle of winter. California can be like that. The chemtrails over the Los Angeles basin dissipate in a day and contaminate the fields in the Central Valley, America's bread, fruit, and cattle basket.

Koyasan Buddhist Temple is not "Zen," as such. It is actually Shingon, a more esoteric Vajrayana-influenced tradition. (Vajrayana Buddhism is the Bon-influenced magic of Tibet). We arrived for the fire ceremony to welcome the Year of the Dragon, by Western reckoning.

Those making use of an Eastern calendar can welcome the "real" New Year's day on Jan. 21st, 2012 at 5:00 pm in the Main Hall. RSVP by Jan. 19, 2012 at rskoyasan@yahoo.com.

The fires rose, delightful incense wafted, and rice cakes (mochi) were handed out to dragons in the audience -- two in our group alone. The Heart Sutra was being chanted joining the chorus of singing bowls, resounding drums, and happy voices.

Need more devotional magic?
The temple invites all to its Hoshimatsuri Prayer Service on Feb. 5, 2012. Based on the movements of the Sun and stars (planets), a year of 365 days has been established, a week of seven days, a day of 24 hours -- all composed of moments that have no time at all.

We count time and our ages using these cycles, from aging to timelessness. The rise and fall of the tides and the phasing of the Moon are important signs used by people engaged in agriculture and maritime adventures. In ancient times calendars relied on lunar phases.

The movements of the "heavenly" bodies have been inseparably tied to our daily lives. Why? We year for god health and fortune. But what is influencing our lives? They are influenced by our lifestyle choices, customs, environment, relationships, and countless other conditions.

Having been born human, we are able to discern that we cannot escape the pain of (re)birth, illness, aging [oxidation and disintegration], and death. Health and happiness are what we wish for. How will we get them?

The historical Buddha said it was not by prayers and vows but instead by karma -- conducting ourselves in a manner that naturally results in these fortunate conditions.

For example, giving eventually yields receiving, when our deed ripens. If we receive right away, that is not that deed of giving coming to fruit. (The same may be said of unprofitable deeds). Nevertheless, Koyasan Buddhist Temple is selling prayers. A suggested donation of $5 (or $30 if one would like a special wooden Ofuda talisman). An application is required and must be received by Jan. 28, 2012.

The 2012 Hosihimatsuri Prayer Service will be held on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012 at 1:30 pm. A young and vibrant new abbot has taken over. The temple has activities every weekend of every month.

• Koyasan Betsuin
• 342 East 1st Street
• Los Angeles, CA 90012
• (213) 624-1267

Build willpower: Meditate on neuroplasticity

Daniel Goleman, Greater Good Magazine via Integral-Options Cafe; Sharpbrains.com

Brain cell (neuron) links are capable of connecting and disconnecting as we learn.

Yes, You Can Build Willpower (meditate on neuroplasticity!)
New research sug­gests we can build our willpower

Those of us who strug­gle to resist junk foods or oth­er­wise suf­fer a lack of willpower will be heartened by some good news from neu­ro­science. But there’s some bad news, too. First the bad news. A slew of stud­ies sug­gest that we each have a fixed neural reser­voir of willpower, and if we use it on one thing, we have less for oth­ers. Tasks that demand some self-control make it harder for us to do the next thing that takes willpower. In a typ­i­cal exper­i­ment on this effect, one group of peo­ple was made to watch a video of a bor­ing scene; another was not. More

• Daniel Goleman has a series of audio interviews including one with Richard Davidson on Training the Brain.

"Hurry up and Meditate: Starter Kit"

David Michie (bio for Snow Lion Press); DavidMichie.com

Hurry Up and Meditate: Starter Kit, Inner Peace, Better Health

"I believe that constant effort, tireless effort, pursuing clear goals with sincere effort is the only way" - the Dalai Lama.

A meditation practice can be likened to a river flowing through our lives. In the early stages, like a mountain spring, our practice is fleeting and undeveloped. There may be a fair few leaps and crashes before we settle into a more regular rhythm.

Little by little our practice continues to grow and mature until eventually it becomes like a vast river, attracting everything else to it, no longer a small trickle in our life, but the most compelling force of it.

The river may still encounter obstacles, but they are of little consequence. It will simply flow over or around them, having developed a smooth, calm, but unstoppable momentum.

It is a metaphor and an entirely appropriate one, judging from both my own personal experience as well as my observation of much more advanced meditators.

The question is, How do we get from the Andes to the mouth of the Amazon? How do we develop our own meditation into a calm and steady flow of unstoppable power?

"Through regular practice" is the simple, unspectacular answer. As much as we might wish for a short cut to the blissful state of a mind untroubled by anything it encounters, the reality is that such a mind arises only as a result of regular practice over time. More

Remembering Pepper Spray Pike (comedy)

Wisdom Quarterly; TheBurningPlatform.com

It just doesn't get old. Lt. John Pike brutalized peaceful college demonstrators at the University of California, Davis. He and one supervisor were suspended. Demands for the school's chancellor to step down became virulent. Such assault would be a felony if he were not wearing a police uniform and engaged in "excessive force" under color of law, which is rarely prosecuted and even more rarely ends in conviction. Pike is being paid and probably being congratulated by his fellows, while quietly being brought back to active duty. But artists have done a great service to humanity to keep the image alive in a mounting number of works of fine art. Here are just a few of our new favorites. See more great memes!

• VIDEO: The Buddha' Fire Sermon (sutra)
  

• InterOccupy.org (video)
  
• The Pepper Spray Girl (Occupy Wall Street)
• The Pepper Spray Cop Meme
• The Pepper Spray Pattern of Police Abuse
• Police turn Occupy Wall Street violent

To peaceably assemble and be violently attacked

Okay, now it's old and overdone.

China overtakes India in science (cartoon)

HindustanTimes.com; Wisdom Quarterly

(USNews.com)

Admitting to insufficient funding in research and development India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed the need for more sincere public-private-partnership (PPP) to meet objectives in the science and technology sector.

Inaugurating the 99th edition of the Indian Science Congress at KIIT University in Bhubaneswar, Singh said over the past few decades India's relative position in the world of science has been declining with countries like China overtaking it.

China and India strive jointly for world domination (GulfNews.com)

"Things are changing but we cannot be satisfied with what has been achieved. We need to do much more to change the face of Indian science."

On Tuesday [Jan. 3, 2012] the PM outlined a major increase in investment in research and development (R&D); expansion of basic science infrastructure; greater alignment of science and technology sector with the inclusive development needs of the nation; greater national and international research collaborations; and creation of a new innovation ecosystem as some of the broad objectives to achieve to change the face of Indian science. More

Both countries having exhausted most of their natural resources aim to exploit untapped Burma, but not if Hillary Clinton gets her way for the US empire (Shanland.org).

Who built the pyramids? Not slaves (video)

(AP)

Who built the pyramids of Egypt? Slaves working for the space-gods? Pharoahs were demigods, hybrids who mated with the space-gods who came down from the "heavens," mated, ruled, and from time to time brutalized humans. More than that they inspired awe, some fear, devotion, and reverence. This same was shown in Europe and India towards royals with the "divine right" (as regents for space aliens) to rule. Egypt and its former Indiana Jones-like Chief of Antiquities, deposed by the Arab Spring, says tombs discovered in the past few years provide more evidence that slaves did not build the pyramids. Skilled artisans (using unknown technology) did.

• VIDEO: The Vatican's take on space aliens
  

Occupy the Rose Parade (video)

OccupyTheRoseParade.org; Wisdom Quarterly; Occupy Los Angeles

Part 1: Rose Parade ends and Occupation begins. Police claim only "400" participants, organizers estimate between 4,000-5,000. Just as the last of the bland floats and marching bands from all over the country (and Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand...) passed, they came in the thousands: the 99%!

Laura Lee's rousing song-speech dressed as a jailed banker, Pasadena, Jan. 2, 2012 (WQ)

The great about living in Los Angeles, one of the great things about living in Los Angeles, one of the many great things about living in Los Angeles is the activism in the center of the MEDIA universe. We have mainstream and alternative outlets galore. There are still not nearly enough, but everyone comes here to gain access to coverage of the most important movements of our time.

Part 2: The sea of people flows to a planned and permitted rally at City Hall. Aerial spraying (chemtrails) began in earnest soon after to ruin a summer-like sky.

The Occupy Octopus, CodePink, and thousands of colorful celebrants following the path of the world-famous DooDah Parade and the older, more Disney-like Rose Parade (in its 123rd year).

• PHOTOS: The Other Parade (Huffington Post)

Hired guns, Sheriff's deputies in full riot gear help PPD intimidate peaceful parade goers, Holly St. between former Insight Yoga Buddhist studio and City Hall (WQ).

The Occupation turned on Marengo Ave. and parked in front of the Pasadena rotunda, protected by Police State troopers suited up for war, until 2:00 pm. Cindy Sheehan -- famous as the world's first American "occupier" with her small encampment at Occupy Crawford Ranch bringing media attention to Pres. George Bush's war crimes -- gave a rousing speech.

Sheehan holding photo of son Casey under chemtrails (WQ)

She was followed by Michele Shocked (now Michelle 99 seen above in ski mask), Laura Lee, Luminaries, and numerous speakers including attorney and the Occupy the Rose Parade founder Peter Thottam. All kept it brief to wild applause of a very enthusiastic protest movement. If anyone thought the Occupy Movement had faded away, these bright colors and creative costumes showed otherwise. These are the cultural creatives coming together in the "Benares of the West," Pasadena.

Occupy protest follows 123rd annual Rose Parade

PASADENA, California (AP) - The 2012 Tournament of Roses brought its flowery floats and strutting bands to a worldwide audience Monday under clear blue skies [that took on a strange haze as excessive crisscrossing contrails lingered contrary to aerial physics], and in its wake came a scruffier parade -- hundreds [an estimated 40 hundred] of anti-Wall Street protesters. The 123rd annual New Year's Day event, with the theme "Just Imagine," flowed along downtown Pasadena to the cheers of hundreds of thousands of sidewalk spectators. More

How to make an American angry

The "Empire" that needs more War (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

"Ring of Power: The Empire of the City"
The City (or District) of Columbia, the City of London, and the City of the Vatican (Holy See) are three independent "states within states" that comprise the Empire of the City.

The first is the military control over the planet (military-industrial complex), the second one is financial control over world's economy, the third is religious control over the Earth.

• Watch the entire Empire on YouTube
• Ring of Power: Empire of the City (full-length)
• Journal of 9/11 Research
  

Together they make a very unholy trinity, like the Egyptian pyramid appearing on the back of the world's most popular fiat currency issued by the privately owned Federal Reserve (Bank) used to trade in oil and maintain American imperial "colonies" in debt under the gun, the Queen, and the Pope.

Many realize the situation: Allegedly self-governing "democratic" nation states are actually controlled against the will of their people. It is a clear indication that there is a very powerful and well-financed occult ("hidden") organization that plans and directs world affairs.

This secretive organization is popularly referred to as the International Financiers, Banksters, Globalists, The Illuminati, the New World Order Cartel, or "The Crown Corporation."

This is not about Bush or Dick Cheney. It is about Obama and the US leader to come.

Ring of Power: Empire of the City

From the mystery religions of ancient Egypt to the Zionist role in 9/11, "Ring of Power - Empire of the City - 4,000 Years of Suppressed History" pieces together the missing pieces of our human story. An Illuminati network of international bankers and European royalty have turned the world's nations and citizens into debt slaves.

Part 1: 9/11 THE UNTOLD STORY
(38 min.) Half the world believes Muslims were responsible for 9/11. The other half believes it was Israeli Zionists. Who is right?

Part 2: HIDDEN EMPIRE
(22 min.) The world's most powerful empire is not the USA. It is an empire that insiders call "Empire of the City."

Part 3: TRAIL OF THE PHARAOHS
(25 min.) Did the Biblical Abraham really live to be 175? Did Moses really turn staffs into snakes and rivers into blood?

Part 4: GOD AND THE QUEEN
(30 min.) Genealogy charts show that British and French royalty are descendants of Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Is it true?

Part 5: ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN
(22 min.) How rich and powerful is Queen Elizabeth II?

Part6: THE GODFATHERS
(30 min.) They scammed control of the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve, then they found God-Gold, Oil and Drugs.

Part 7: CHEATING AT MONOPOLY
(52 min.) How many people would play a game of Monopoly if the banker were cheating and fixing the rules? Over six billion.

Part 8: ASSES OF EVIL
(29 min.) The New World Order mafia are invisible rulers who make puppets out of politicians and heroes out of villains.

Part 9: KING OF HEARTS
(22 min.) The ultimate goal of "insiders" is to disarm the world and create One World empire under one world ruler. Who is he?

Part 10: SOLUTIONS
(28 min.) Protesting and writing letters to deaf politicians does not work. What does work?

The producer is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. As a child she learned that her father was a Freemason. She recalls many arguments between her parents over her father’s secret meetings and the exclusion of women from their brotherhood. The Masonic ring her father wore had been passed down from father to son over the generations. When she asked him about the meaning of the letter “G” and the compass and square on his ring, he would not respond. So as an adult she decided to investigate. That grew into four years of intensive research to discover the identity and history of diabolical globalists she calls the “Ring of Power.” Their goal is a single world empire and one world ruler.

"Collapsing" up? It was not just a controlled demolition but a dustifi-
cation using Star Wars Strategic "Defense" beams (Dr. Judy Wood)

9/11 as Excuse for Endless War
Tom Hayden (Pasadena Weekly, 9-11-11)
But 9/11 produced a [planned, predictable] spasm of blind rage arising from a pre-existing blindness to the way much of the world sees us. That, in turn, led to the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Afghanistan (again), Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia [Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya...] -- in all, a dozen "shadow wars," according to The New York Times. In Bob Woodward's crucial book Obama's Wars, there were already secret and lethal counterterrorism operations active in more than 60 countries as of 2009.

From Pentagon think-tanks came a new military doctrine of "The Long War," a counterinsurgency vision arising from the failed Phoenix program of the Vietnam era, projecting [MIC in the name of] US open combat and secret wars over a span of 50 to 80 years, or 20 future presidential terms. The taxpayer costs of this Long War, also shadowy, would be in the many trillions of dollars and paid for not from current budgets, but by generations born after the 2000 [s]election of George W. Bush. The deficit spending on The Long War would invisibly force the budgetary crisis now squeezing our states, cities, and most Americans....

The military occupation of our minds will continue until untril many more Americans become familiar with the strategies and doctrines in play during The Long War. Not enough Americans in the peace movement are literate about counterinsurgency, counterrorism, and the debates about "the clash of civilizations" -- i.e., the West versus the Muslim world.... More

• Journal of 9/11 Research
  

World War III (video)

Peter Thottam, Christy Ernst, Wisdom Quarterly

Let's go... beyond the bankers' post WW II illusion of nation states, cheap natural resources and human labor to feed banking, corporate, and military interests.

beyond faux religions and ideologies demonizing the "other" to enable outsourcing of developing world slave labor circuits (China, Mexico, Indonesia, India, Russia, Brazil, Phillipines, Nigeria, etc.)

beyond failing bureaucracies, that is, illusory systems designed to encourage passive submission to class-based engineering (manufacturing consent) to elite (1%) authority structures.

According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, the top 1% of America now owns 56% of its financial wealth. In Mexico and India, the top 1% own over 80% of the national wealth.

Mainstream media everywhere has become a sea of manipulation and distraction aiding bankster owners and duopolies. What we are fed as "entertainment" is mostly nonsense to keep us spoonfed and foolish. Meanwhile, 16,000+ children die from starvation and malnutrition DAILY around the world. (See below). How does the military-industrial complex respond? Police states roll out military equipment for "peace" officers to use on peaceful, unarmed civilians.

Question: Has war coverage been minimized to the point that most Americans can easily forget that this is life during wartime? We started the wars we are in, and we are starting more of them.

It is us against the world, with Israel's help. But it is not the Americans and not our Department of War (DOD). It is actually the MIC (military-industrial complex) or shadow government that pulls the strings here and in the UK, Euro Zone, and elsewhere.

Where to turn? The BBC, its proxy agent National Pentagon Radio, "local" news from franchises owned by multinational corporations? Fortune 500 companies, with the help of the CIA and international capital, have taken over of CNN/FOX/WSJ, etcetera.

Worse yet, America's single party system is made of two co-opted wings, the Democratic and Republican. Let's stand up because we are easier to bulldoze sitting down. More

2011, The Year in Review (video)

(RTAmerica, Dec. 30, 2011) RT's Anastasia Churkina takes a look at events that shaped 2011 -- from Arab Spring, the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, the Wisconsin protests, to the Occupy Wall Street movement -- and much more.