U.S. use of chemical weapons

  

CounterPunch / By Jeffrey St. Clair

America Has Deployed Chemical and Biological Weapons on the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and More

Laying bare the total hypocrisy of a 'principled' attack on Syria.
September 3, 2013  |

  

This essay is excerpted from Jeffrey St. Clair’s book Grand Theft Pentagon. As Washington deliberates about a 'principled' response to an alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, the history of the US's own use of chemical and biological weapons should be read widely.

The United States, which has deployed its CBW arsenal against the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Haitian boat people and Canada, plus exposure of hundreds of thousands of unwitting US citizens to an astonishing array of germ agents and toxic chemicals, killing dozens of people.

The US experimentation with bio-weapons goes back to the distribution of cholera-infect blankets to American Indian tribes in the 1860s. In 1900, US Army doctors in the Philippines infected five prisoners with a variety of plague and 29 prisoners with Beriberi. At least four of the subjects died. In 1915, a doctor working with government grants exposed 12 prisoners in Mississippi to pellagra, an incapacitating disease that attacks the central nervous system.

After World War I, the United States went on a chemical weapons binge, producing millions of barrels of mustard gas and Lewisite. Thousands of US troops were exposed to these chemical agents in order to “test the efficacy of gas masks and protective clothing”. The Veterans Administration refused to honor disability claims from victims of such experiments. The Army also deployed mustard gas against anti-US protesters in Puerto Rico and the Philippines in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1931, Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, then under contract with the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, initiated his horrific Puerto Rico Cancer Experiments, infecting dozens of unwitting subjects with cancer cells.At least thirteen of his victims died as a result. Rhoads went on to headof the US Army Biological Weapons division and to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission, where he oversaw radiation experiments on thousands of US citizens. In memos to the Department of Defense, Rhoads expressed his opinion that Puerto Rican dissidents could be “eradicated” with the judicious use of germ bombs.

In 1942, US Army and Navy doctors infected 400 prisoners in Chicago withmalaria in experiments designed to get “a profile of the disease and develop a treatment for it.” Most of the inmates were black and none was informed of the risks of the experiment. Nazi doctors on trial at Nuremberg cited the Chicago malaria experiments as part of their defense.

At the close of World War II, the US Army put on its payroll, Dr. Shiro Ishii, the head of the Imperial Army of Japan’s bio-warfare unit. Dr. Ishii had deployed a wide range of biological and chemical agents against Chinese and Allied troops. He also operated a large research center in Manchuria,where he conducted bio-weapons experiments on Chinese, Russian and American prisoners of war. Ishii infected prisoners with tetanus; gave them typhoid-laced tomatoes; developed plague-infected fleas; infected women with syphilis; performed dissections on live prisoners; and exploded germ bombs over dozens of men tied to stakes. In a deal hatched by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Ishii turned over more than 10,000 pages of his “research findings”to the US Army, avoided prosecution for war crimes and was invited to lecture at Ft. Detrick, the US Army bio-weapons center in Frederick, Maryland.

In 1950 the US Navy sprayed large quantities of serratia marcescens, a bacteriological agent, over San Francisco, promoting an outbreak of pneumonia-like illnesses and causing the death of at least one man, Ed Nevins.

A year later, Chinese Premier Chou En-lai charged that the US military and the CIA had used bio-agents against North Korea and China. Chou produced statements from 25 US prisoners of war backing him his claims that the US had dropped anthrax contaminated feathers, mosquitoes and fleas carrying Yellow Fever and propaganda leaflets spiked with cholera over Manchuria and North Korea.

From 1950 through 1953, the US Army released chemical clouds over six US and Canadian cities. The tests were designed to test dispersal patterns of chemical weapons. Army records noted that the compounds used over Winnipeg, Canada, where there were numerous reports of respiratory illnesses, involved cadmium, a highly toxic chemical.

In 1951 the US Army secretly contaminated the Norfolk Naval Supply Centerin Virginia with infectious bacteria. One type was chosen because blackswere believed to be more susceptible than whites. A similar experiment was undertaken later that year at Washington, DC’s National Airport. The bacteria was later linked to food and blood poisoning and respiratory problems.

Savannah, Georgia and Avon Park, Florida were the targets of repeatedArmy bio-weapons experiments in 1956 and 1957. Army CBW researchers released millions of mosquitoes on the two towns in order to test the ability of insects to carry and deliver yellow fever and dengue fever. Hundreds of residents fell ill, suffering from fevers, respiratory distress, stillbirths, encephalitis and typhoid. Army researchers disguised themselves as public health workers in order photograph and test the victims. Several deaths were reported.

In 1965 the US Army and the Dow Chemical Company injected dioxin into 70 prisoners (most of them black) at the Holmesburg State Prison in Pennsylvania. The prisoners developed severe lesions which went untreated for seven months. A year later, the US Army set about the most ambitious chemical warfare operation in history.

From 1966 to 1972, the United States dumped more than 12 million gallonsof Agent Orange (a dioxin-powered herbicide) over about 4.5 million acresof South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The government of Vietnam estimate the civilian casualties from Agent Orange at more than 500,000. The legacy continues with high levels of birth defects in areas that were saturated with the chemical. Tens of thousands of US soldiers were also the victims of Agent Orange.

In a still classified experiment, the US Army sprayed an unknown bacterial agent in the New York Subway system in 1966. It is not known if the test caused any illnesses.

A year later, the CIA placed a chemical substance in the drinking water supply of the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in Washington, DC. The test was designed to see if it was possible to poison drinking water with LSD or other incapacitating agents.

In 1969, Dr. D.M. McArtor, the deputy director for Research and Technologyfor the Department of Defense, asked Congress to appropriate $10 millionfor the development of a synthetic biological agent that would be resistant” to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease”.

In 1971 the first documented cases of swine fever in the western hemisphere showed up in Cuba. A CIA agent later admitted that he had been instructed to deliver the virus to Cuban exiles in Panama, who carried the virus into Cuba in March of 1991. This astounding admission received scant attention in the US press.

In 1980, hundreds of Haitian men, who had been locked up in detention camps in Miami and Puerto Rico, developed gynecomasia after receiving “hormone” shots from US doctors. Gynecomasia is a condition causing males to developfull-sized female breasts.

In 1981, Fidel Castro blamed an outbreak of dengue fever in Cuba on the CIA. The fever killed 188 people, including 88 children. In 1988, a Cuban exile leader named Eduardo Arocena admitted “bringing some germs” into Cuba in 1980.

Four years later an epidemic of dengue fever struck Managua, Nicaragua.Nearly 50,000 people came down with the fever and dozens died. This was the first outbreak of the disease in Nicaragua. It occurred at the height of the CIA’s war against the Sandinista government and followed a series of low-level “reconnaissance” flights over the capital city.

In 1996, the Cuba government again accused the US of engaging in “biological aggression”. This time it involved an outbreak of thrips palmi, an insect that kills potato crops, palm trees and other vegetation. Thrips first showed up in Cuba on December 12, 1996, following low-level flights over the island by US government spray planes. The US was able to quash a United Nations investigation of the incident.

At the close of the Gulf War, the US Army exploded an Iraqi chemical weapons depot at Kamashiya. In 1996, the Department of Defense finally admitted that more than 20,000 US troops were exposed to VX and sarin nerve agentsas a result of the US operation at Kamashiya. This may be one cause of Gulf War Illness, another cause is certainly the experimental vaccines unwittingly given to more than 100,000 US troops.


This article appeared at Alternet and is used with permission.

Mr. Colbert's Smile File + Suicide by Eric Bolling

Good News from Moveon.org

Sometimes there is good news which needs to be shared.  Moveon.org is dedicated to making this country live up to its promise, to righting the wrongs and the unjustices that are pervasive and detrimental to so many of our fellow citizens.

One of the ways the Moveon organization does this is by helping people start petitions to bring something that is wrong into public view.  This video explains, in dramatic fashion, what can happen when one person decides to take a stand.  Enjoy!

Islamic Society files grievance in Tampa Bay

Down Tampa Bay way in Florida, the Islamic Society of the Tampa Bay Area has filed a grievance with school administrators to allow children of Muslim parents to leave school early once a week for religious services.

We've heard before that this is the kind of thing we can expect to happen when an area's Muslim population increases beyond a certain level.  The larger the number of Muslims the greater the demands.

In England, Muslims have demanded a variety of special privileges for their children in public schools; indeed they've insisted that taxpayers fund Muslim schools.  In Sweden, Muslims have gone so far as to demand that the Islamic faith be taught in public schools.  France has experienced similar problems.

And now it's happening here.

According to Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist blog, the Islamic Society, referencing Florida laws regarding respecting the religious beliefs of students, are demanding that Muslim students be allowed to leave school at 12:30 every Friday to attend "mandatory Khutbah (sermon) and prayers."  According to Islamic teaching, such attendance is required and failing to attend is a sin.

It is true that other religions receive recognition at different times during the year for religious observance.  But not once a week.  As Mr. Mehta notes, the time involved in this request means Muslim students would miss about 20% of their educational requirement.


Let us hope that the school officials in the Tampa Bay Area gracefully but firmly deny this request!  Unfortunately, I'll bet this is just the beginning.  It won't be long before there will be other demands, perhaps even the demand, on the grounds of "fairness," that Islam in all its glory, be presented to public school students by local Imams.


Final comment:  I see no reason why public schools need to "accommodate" any student's religious beliefs.  And it is probably unconstitutional to shut down public schools so that students may observe religious celebrations.  If not, it should be.  Religion is about indoctrination.   Education is about inculcating a desire to know what is real and true as opposed to what is unreal and merely pious rubbish. 


Read Mr. Mehta's complete post here.

The GOP Clinging to God and Guns in Caldwell County, Texas.

Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if at least parts of Texas seceded from the Union.  Those good ol' boys could redo the U.S. Constitution so it's more to their liking, and they could fix the Bible with an 11th Commandment:  "Thou shalt cling to both your God and your guns lest you git shot in the ass by a Democrat." 

Thanks to Christian Nightmares.

For Mr. Kerry, the right war just came along!

From Kapshen.nethttp://kapshen.net/september-4-2013/

Shanah Tovah - Happy New Year

Rosh Hashana being celebrated in Berlin, 1945.

Rosh Hashana began at sundown, September 4.

Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: ראש השנה‎, literally "head [of] the year"), is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora'im ("Days of Awe") which usually occur in the early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah is a two-day celebration, which begins on the first day of Tishrei. The day is believed to be the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve or Adam and Lilith, the first man and woman, and their first actions toward the realization of mankind's role in God's world. Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram's horn) and eating symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to evoke a "sweet new year".

-- Wikipedia

An alternative way to deal with the Syrian crisis

"A grassroots progressive in Oklahoma, Tom Guild, is an independent thinker and is going to have an open mind. 'Syria is a basket case,' he told us, 'with heartbreaking tragedies piled one on another. The [Assad] government is evil and much of the opposition is affiliated with enemies of the United States. We should tread carefully and make sure we are not drawn into another war without end. American cannot be the world’s policeman, and we have paid a heavy price trying to do so.'

"Nick Ruiz, a professor who once ran as a Green, is the progressive Democratic candidate in the Orlando area running against GOP warmonger John Mica, also gave us a position just before Obama announced he would ask for a congressional vote before attacking.

'Why not conference and engage the Syrian leadership and factions-- and Iran, along with Russia and China for good measure? Before drones and Tomahawks, bombs and killing; as an alternative to the stereotypical language of violence that the world is so tired of hearing. Let's talk about it; not naively, but intensely; let's argue about what's happening in Syria, with the Syrian leadership and rebellion, their neighboring ally Iran, and advocates of sovereignty: Russia and China. We get it. We understand boundaries and sovereignty. And we ought to thoroughly understand rebellion, having been borne of it... The world's interests are better served with an eye toward de-escalation, rather than aggravation and aggrandizement... My vote would be NO on assaulting Syria.

'As Democrats we know better than to fight unjust wars; we do not leave the poor defenseless, nor erode civil rights or ignore social injustice. We helped to define these vital, democratic concepts in the modern era. When our leaders change for the worse, and seek to lead us toward the lowest common denominator, then we should thank them for whatever good they've done in the past-- but must tell them 'No, we will not follow you there, and further, you will not lead us any longer.' It is a crucial time when one must have the good sense to choose new leaders. But it's now true: that time is upon us.'"

From Crooks & Liars here.

Stupid people in large groups

Could it be...

   there is a correlation...

      between the message on this sign...

         the U.S. Congress...

            and the need to punish

               Bashar al-Assad of Syria?

The Ten Commandments - by NonStampCollector

One wonders if the wingnuts who want to post this nonsense on the halls of our judicial palaces have even read them!

Here's more of these delicious satires on YouTube - the NonStampCollector's creations.

The Arab world ignores Syrian pleas for help.

From:  Today's News.  Captioned.

Jon Stewart - Obama, Syria and The Red Line

Jon Stewart was back from his summer vacation with a vengeance this Tuesday and he let the Obama administration have it for the push for military intervention in Syria. Stewart, like a lot of us, wanted to know why the push now to go in there when we've already seen a hundred thousand Syrians slaughtered by other means than chemical weapons, and thinks he found his explanation.
After pointing out the sheer hypocrisy of the United States making an issue of another country using chemical weapons, Stewart showed several clips of pundits and Sen. Ted Cruz saying we're going to look weak, and "that bullies and tyrants don't respect weakness," Stewart responded:

STEWART: Oh right! We have to bomb Syria because we're in seventh grade! And the red line... the red line that they crossed is actually a dick-measuring ribbon.

Why does holding back look like weakness? Isn't it maturity? It's like when a guy's picking on Clark Kent and he doesn't do anything, even though he knows he could throw that guy into the sun.

I'll tell you what would be real weakness, Clark Kent laying waste to a town because someone called him a pussy.

You know what else is weakness? Asking the advice of a plague of idiots who got the same issue completely wrong in Iraq -- or as those people are known on cable... experts.

Cue Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld and Bloody Bill Kristol doing just that.

STEWART: Hey everybody! The idiot parade is in town! Shut the f**k up! Shut the f**k up!....

And on he went. My thoughts exactly any time I see one of them on the television. Welcome back Jon.

Thanks to Crooks & Liars.  The above commentary by Heather.

So what's changed?

Nine years ago, Uncle Rummy spoke of the need to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.

So, what's changed?

The names.  Today it's Syria that needs our intervention to rid Syria of Bashar al-Assad and his chemical weapons and it's Uncle Kerry preaching the same old crap.

Let's be damned for not blowing up the world!

One of the surest signs we ought to step back and reconsider Obama's desire to send the American military to blow Syria apart is the fact that Boehner and Cantor and McCain approve.  There's something seriously wrong with this picture!

The picture got even more dismal when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her support for Obama's plan of military action.  It darkened some more when Ms. Pelosi also climbed aboard the military juggernaut! 

When I read of these things a creepy realization dawned:  there's no hope.  When push comes to shove, there's not much difference between the Democrats and Republicans.  They both follow the path of least resistance -- morality or goodness or just plain common sense be damned.

We are told by Democrats in whom we have believed that if we do not send rockets into Syria the consequences will be horrific!  Shades of Iraq.  Again, we're not told what those consequences will be--just that they will be bad, very bad.  We must start shooting now!  Fire up those missiles!


We've heard all these rationales before.  Kerry says it's not like Iraq.  Why not?  How not?  It's not like Afghanistan, he said.  Again, he didn't, so far as I know, explain the difference.  We're not going to war he said.  Well, when the hell did bombing another country not constitute a state of war?

And then later today, he hemmed and hawed about putting boots on the ground.

This is the way it always begins.  And it always ends with our young American men and women dying in the trenches while the rich and the powerful and the mighty sit home sipping martinis, getting deferments for their kids, collecting bonus checks from the companies that provide the resources to fight the war.

[Here's a thought:  Follow the money!  Who or whom will benefit from military action in Syria.  It won't be the American taxpayer!!!!]

Well, where the hell is the money coming from?  We've got a sequester going.  All kinds of necessary things, like education, are suffering from that particular bit of stupidity which was the "gift" of Boehner, Cantor, McCain and other nogoodniks in our Congress.  We haven't begun to pay China for the Iraq war!  Isn't it strange that all these folks in our government who have been weeping and whining about our debt, claiming it is strangling us and will be the death of us, can somehow find the money to go off on military misadventures but never can find a cent rebuild a few bridges that are falling down, or hire more teachers or put more cops on the beat?


Norm Chomsky says that if we do what Obama wants we will be guilty of committing war crimes.  Of course, that fact doesn't get a lot of traction seeing as how there isn't anyone or any country powerful enough or stupid enough to try to stop us.  And we remember too clearly how the Bush-Cheney gang got off scot-free even though there was no question under the law that our militaristic adventures in Iraq were illegal and based upon a series of lies and evasions which means that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al., are clearly war criminals. 


But let's turn this around.  Let's say our treatment of "illegal" immigrants and our treatment of minorities was thought to be horrendous by another country, Mexico, for example.  So, Mexico, in its sovereignty, decided to shoot a few rockets into Border Patrol stations along the Rio Grande to teach us a lesson

We would scream bloody murder and bomb Mexico into little bitty tacos. 

Now perhaps our treatment of minorities and "illegals" does not measure up to the same standard of dastardlyness that Assad's chemical weapons do, but that really isn't the point.  The point is encompassed this way: 

By what right does an American president and an American Congress, against the majority will of the people of these United States, shoot rockets or missiles or whatever the hell they've got planned into another country to "punish" the leader? 

There is no such right, even though George W. Bush attempted to create one. 


But there's more.  Why did we not intervene when 100,000 people were killed by Assad's forces?  Is it OK to kill by automatic weapons, bombs, grenades, etc., but not by using other weapons we find particularly distasteful?  A few hundred Syrians killed by "chemical" weapons justifies American intervention?  What nonsense! 

And more.  We don't even know who the "good" guy rebels are and who the "bad" guy rebels are?  We do know, however, the al Qaeda wants Assad gone and other terrorist groups are actively present in Syria!  So, will our military might assist them in reaching their goals, whatever such goals might be?

And more.  If we really cared about the Syrian people, we should find some creative ways to assist the thousands upon thousands of refugees who have fled the country and are now living in despair and misery.

And finally:  It's a no-win situation for the United States.  We are hated in the Middle East for our interventions and not one Arab anywhere gives a damn about our good intentions.  Whatever we do or don't do we will be damned. 

So let's be damned for not blowing up the world for a change!

After The Rapture

Is the US working with al Qaeda against Assad?

 [World War I gas masks]

According to an article appearing in the Daily Beast "Cheat Sheet," U.S. spies intercepted various phone calls and other communications in Syria immediately following the attacks which killed so many people and these communications gave indication that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons.  Our spies were unable, however, to accumulate any physical evidence of such use.

Furthermore, there is some indication that the one responsible for using the chemical weapons was Assad's brother and not Assad himself.

This use of chemical weapons has angered al Qaeda and the terrorist group has vowed to hit the Syrian government with a "volcano of revenge".

What an interesting scenario.  In this instance, we are now on the same side as Al Qaeda and if we attack Syria with rockets or other weapons, we have become al Qaeda's accomplice and partner in "crime" as that organization instigates it's revenge volcano!

Read the entire article here.

Climate Name Change

A good friend in France brought this video to my attention.  It is a perfect retaliatory response to those dunderheads in the U.S. who continue to deny the facts of Global Warming.

Chemical Weapons Used In Syria

Knowing the value our government puts on "truth," I'm not ready to accept Secretary of State John Kerry's assertion that chemical weapons were used in Syria.

But giving Senator Kerry the benefit of the doubt - so what?

Why does this become our problem?  Chemical weapons may kill in a different way, but are we mostly concerned with the mode of murder or with the fact of murder?  People have been dying in horrendous ways for many weeks in Syria.  If their dying is the concern of the United States, then it makes no difference how they died. 

If we believe that killing civilians is cause for American intervention, we should have intervened a long time ago.

But if the method of killing civilians, e.g., chemical weapons, is the determining factor, then the United States once again becomes a miserable model of hypocrisy! 

Recently disclosed CIA files have exposed another of "The Gipper's" moral failures.  During the Iraq/Iran war, we supported Iraq!  How ironic is that?  Not only so, but Reagan knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran and approved such use, or, at the least, did nothing to discourage it!

Fast-forward to 2001.  G. W. Bush, appointed president by the U.S. Supreme Court, led our country to war against our former ally based upon the big LIE that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, i.e., chemical weapons. 

It all stinks.  Our hands are dripping blood.  Let's not add to the flow by military action in Syria. 

Enough of our young men and women have died for no good cause by our leaders' dalliance with stupidity in the Middle East.  Enough of our country's treasure has been destroyed by the American war machine's misadventures around the world.  

Enough, already!
 

Plutocrats' New Pitch: Let Us Rob You Now So You Can Plan Ahead for Poverty

(Note:  This article is reprinted from Alternet and is used with permission.)

Pete Peterson & Co. kindly want to take your Social Security away to prevent you from imagining a dignified future.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

August 22, 2013  |

Somehow, I’ve wound up on the mailing list for a group of oligarchs campaigning to swindle Americans out of their hard-earned retirement insurance. Hedge fund billionaire Pete Peterson, the budget buffoons Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, and the rest of their merry band of hustlers over at the hilariously named Committee for a Responsible Budget have asked me to consider their latest proposal.

So I thought I’d oblige them, what the heck.

Judging from the shrill headline in their mailing [full text here], these men (and a token woman or two) wish to sell me on the idea of “Social Security Reform and the Cost of Delay.”

The cost of delay? Boys, I hear you on that. Any delay in ripping me off must be very costly — for you.

Social Security, the most prudently managed and economically sound retirement program the country has ever seen, and with the very lowest costs, is preventing you from piling up even more money in your bank accounts. Trust me, I really do understand how you feel:  Financiers desperately wish to get their mitts on American retirements so they can charge all sorts of outrageous fees. And you hate the prospect of having to pay higher taxes in the future if you don’t “fix” Social Security.

I know how diligently you've tried to privatize America's best-loved program in order to get this show going. You must be bone tired! And I also fully get that as rich people interested far more in the size of your bank accounts than anything so trifling as, say, the strength and health of your country, you hate paying taxes of any kind. You deeply resent such citizen responsibilities, and so you want to cut Social Security as quickly as possible (calling your cutting “reform,” you clever marketing devils!) because doing so will lessen your already minuscule tax burden. Your aim is to hurt America’s retirement program to the point where you can bring up your privatization hustle again.]

Does that about sum it up?

The thing is, though, cutting Social Security does not make any economic sense for the other 99 percent of the country. The program is in very good shape, hard-working Americans have paid into it, and if (and that’s a big if) any adjustments need to be made a decade or two down the road, we can talk about it then. For now, the only real justification for cutting seems to be the prospect of fattening your bank accounts. Sorry, not sold. I know that's one less yacht for you but I think you can live with it.

Your fear-mongering pitch to me is filled with all sorts of extraordinary economic predictions, which are all the more amazing as none of you had so much as the ghost of an idea that the financial crisis was coming. But never mind, you in your infinite wisdom know that based on your calculations, if you don’t rob me by cutting Social Security now, I will lose benefits in the future. You may not realize I actually read economic projections written by legitimate economists, who inform me that your predictions are worth about as much as those of a carnival fortune-teller. Probably less.

In their paper, “Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession,” Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson, both of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, write:

“Current discussions of Social Security [fall] into two groups: One rails on about how ‘runaway entitlements’ are leading to a deficit explosion; while the other advises patronizingly that Social Security can be saved in the long run by timely changes, typically involving a mix of taxes and benefit cuts, including, notably, yet another rise in the age of eligibility for the program. Neither point of view is persuasive.”

The authors explain how the “deficit explosion” story can be immediately dismissed, but you’re probably aware that that particular line isn’t really working anymore, since more Americans have figured out that 1) Social Security has nearly nothing to do with the deficit; and 2) the deficit is rapidly shrinking. Bummer for you!

So you’ve turned to the old lie about Social Security solvency. Unfortunately for you, economists who have looked closely at the issue do not buy it. Ferguson and Johnson write:

"It is true that Social Security tax receipts declined during the Great Recession, so that for the first time since 1983, the program’s outlays exceeded revenues by a small amount. But this in no way threatens the program’s basic solvency. In 1983, Congress enacted into law recommendations of the Greenspan Commission to raise Social Security taxes to cover the retirement bulge coming from baby boomers. Since then, the program has piled up enormous surpluses. These have been invested in government bonds, thus helping to finance the rest of the government.

As the baby boomers mature, the surplus funds will be drawn down. The 2010 Report of the Trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund projects that the Trust Fund and interest earnings from it will suffice to cover all benefit payments until 2037. Even then, the Fund will not be empty – the Trustees Report projects that the Trust Fund would still cover 75% of all benefits due.” [The latest report from 2012 says more or less the same thing].

So listen up, fellas, if we do need to make a little tweak down the road, let’s make a deal. Since taxpayers like me funded the bank bailouts, how about raising the cap on earnings subject to the Social Security tax, which is currently just a little over $100,000? Wait, what’s that you say? You don’t like that because it means that you would pay your share and I would not get screwed. Well, that's not very sporting of you, is it? Seems like the 1 percent has done pretty well over the last few decades.

Overall, though, I must say I am impressed by the consistency of your crystal-ball reading, because your predictions always point miraculously to the same conclusion: “We’ve got to take your money now, because the future is going to be very bad!”

I appreciate your concern. Mugging me now allows me to better plan ahead for a bleak and ill-funded future. Thanks to your consideration, I could go ahead and start purchasing cat food now and perhaps develop a taste for it. But I think I’d rather just hold on to my Social Security if it’s all the same to you. I kind of think that robbing me of a dignified retirement (which, frankly, looks pretty paltry compared to the rest of the civilized world) is not going to do much for the health of the economy or the cohesion of society.

I have this funny feeling that young people forced to take time away from their jobs to care for poverty-stricken parents and more strain on disability rosters (which you are always complaining about, remember?!?) and less money in the pockets of elderly consumers to pay for healthcare and food doesn’t really sound like a good idea.

Let’s be real, boys. You already got away with murder with your swindles leading up to the Great Recession, and you’ve sucked a lot more money out of the pockets of regular folks in the years since then, spreading your embarrassingly discredited austerity messages (how funny was that Stephen Colbert bit on your favorite debunked economists, Reinhart and Rogoff!). You've triumphed in getting teachers laid off and pensions stripped and whatnot. You have been very successful, and you can raise a glass of bubbly to the financial coup you’ve pulled off. There’s not really much more left to rob, in case you haven’t noticed.

But there are limits. A look at history might suggest to you that pillaging too many people of too much for too long may actually result in said people deciding they have had enough of you. Occupy was a hint.

Yet despite the fact that survey after survey reveals Americans do not want to see cuts to Social Security, and in the face of studies by political scientists who prove that such policy views as yours only reflect the designs of the wealthy, you are undeterred. Time, you warn me, is running out if I don’t start playing your tune and ask policy makers to enact these “changes” you insist upon to make you richer.

Here’s a warning from me: With profits for the wealthy at Gilded Age levels, the population looks to be waking up. Time may be running out for you.

Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet senior editor. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of 'Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.' She received her Ph.d in English and Cultural Theory from NYU, where she has taught essay writing and semiotics. She is the Director of AlterNet's New Economic Dialogue Project. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.

On Intervention in Syria - by Art Woodstone

A  Republican senator figures the President will retaliate "in a very surgical and proportional way"  against Assad, sometime in September.

Would that delayed military response be to stop further chemical attacks by the Syrian head man  or simply to get even by killing his supporters too?

Are we so forgetful that we cannot remember where U.S. military intervention in the Middle East  has led us so far? Sure, Assad's  dangerous, a dictatorial madman, but so was Saddam Hussein.   And look where our armed response to that bastard led us: twelve years of warfare in Iraq and thousands of American dead.  Oh, yea, you might argue that we nailed  Saddam, hiding in a hole, surgically and  after months of  delay.  Big satisfaction from small pickin's,

You will be right if you say that we also surgically removed that other madman, Osama bin Laden. We did. He's dead and gone, but his gang of landless live assassins  grows and remains a constant threat from  all points on the globe.

I can find no rational reason we took him out by sending American soldiers to kill him in his Pakistani mansion, unless it was to satisfy  our own  lust for blood and revenge.  We did not lose a single American soldier and that's wonderful but didn't we put them at great risk in order to kill one creep? Where's the logic?

Is it America's job to go around killing symbols?

I can find  no rational reason [unless you trust our military and political leaders to be rational all, or even half, the time] why we are still fighting and dying in Iraq. 

Can you?

We cannot argue [correction: many of you will argue, despite overwhelming evidence of head-on failure and  futility] that  by "policing" villains we gained ground in our quest for the safety and  freedom of Arabs anywhere.  Bush's declared purpose in invading Afghanistan was to stop Taliban cruelty and suppression against its own countrymen and women;   we never did stop the Taliban and the  cruelty  and suppression and murder continue,  yet we're still there, fighting and dying.

What makes Obama so different in that respect from Georgie? Suppose he gets surgical on or after September 9, as the Republican senator expects, what will a surgical strike accomplish? Will that destroy Assad's chemical weapon capability?  Maybe, yes. 

Will it stop the elusive Assad himself, will it end the killing?  On both counts: maybe--probably--no.

Will it give the rebels the push they need to  bring down Assad?  Can we even trust victorious Syrian rebels to align themselves  with the west, or will they, as many reportedly already have, join forces  with terrorists and repay our help  with intensified and expanded hatred and terror against  Americans and our allies?

I exclude our defenses against Al Qaeda and fellow terrorists. Searching out terrorists is not  foolish.  The difference between attacking an Arab country and those  savages is those savages are spread everywhere; their primary aim is to kill us any way and from anywhere they can inhumanly devise.  Will surgery kill them before they kill us?

So I have one last question: what do we have to gain by  militarily taking sides in a single country,  in another uncivil Arab war, for the third time in twelve years,   when the first two prolonged attempts have failed miserably to halt death in Afghanistan and Iraq or the increasingly deadly export  of Muslim  fanaticism?

Art

Larry Summers and the Secret "End-Game" Memo - by Greg Palast

By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine
Thursday, 22 August 2013

When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy:  that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet.  When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers.  Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank.  If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

The memo is authentic.

To get that confirmation, I would have to fly to Geneva  and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy. I did.  Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalization, told me,

“The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people…. We don’t have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating.” 

Then I showed him the memo.

It begins with Summers’ flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the then most powerful CEOs on the planet and get them to order their lobbyist armies to march:

“As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs….”

To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed their private lines.  And here they are:

Goldman Sachs:  John Corzine (212)902-8281
Merrill Lynch:  David Kamanski (212)449-6868
Bank of America, David Coulter (415)622-2255
Citibank:  John Reed (212)559-2732
Chase Manhattan:  Walter Shipley (212)270-1380 

Lamy was right: They don’t smoke cigars.  Go ahead and dial them.  I did, and sure enough, got a cheery personal hello from Reed–cheery until I revealed I wasn't Larry Summers.  (Note:  The other numbers were swiftly disconnected. And Corzine can’t be reached while he faces criminal charges.)

It's not the little cabal of confabs held by Summers and the banksters that’s so troubling. The horror is in the purpose of the "end game” itself.

Let me explain:
The year was 1997.  US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks.  That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks.  It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.

Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game:  “derivatives trading.”  JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as “assets.”
Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.

But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?

The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five:  eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet – in one single move.    It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.

How could they pull off this mad caper?  The bankers' and Summers' game was to use the Financial Services Agreement, an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organization. 

Until the bankers began their play, the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods–that is, my cars for your bananas.  The new rules ginned-up by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in "bads" – toxic assets like financial derivatives.

Until the bankers’ re-draft of the FSA, each nation controlled and chartered the banks within their own borders.  The new rules of the game would force every nation to open their markets to Citibank, JP Morgan and their derivatives “products.”

And all 156 nations in the WTO would have to smash down their own Glass-Steagall divisions between commercial savings banks and the investment banks that gamble with derivatives.

The job of turning the FSA into the bankers’ battering ram was given to Geithner, who was named Ambassador to the World Trade Organization.

Bankers Go Bananas
Why in the world would any nation agree to let its banking system be boarded and seized by financial pirates like JP Morgan?

The answer, in the case of Ecuador, was bananas.   Ecuador was truly a banana republic.  The yellow fruit was that nation’s life-and-death source of hard currency.  If it refused to sign the new FSA, Ecuador could feed its bananas to the monkeys and go back into bankruptcy.  Ecuador signed.

And so on–with every single nation bullied into signing.  

Every nation but one, I should say.  Brazil’s new President, Inacio Lula da Silva, refused.  In retaliation, Brazil was threatened with a virtual embargo of its products by the European Union's Trade Commissioner, one Peter Mandelson, according to another confidential memo I got my hands on.  But Lula’s refusenik stance paid off for Brazil which, alone among Western nations, survived and thrived during the 2007-9 bank crisis.

China signed–but got its pound of flesh in return.  It opened its banking sector a crack in return for access and control of the US auto parts and other markets.  (Swiftly, two million US jobs shifted to China.)

The new FSA pulled the lid off the Pandora’s box of worldwide derivatives trade.  Among the notorious transactions legalized: Goldman Sachs (where Treasury Secretary Rubin had been Co-Chairman) worked a secret euro-derivatives swap with Greece which, ultimately, destroyed that nation.  Ecuador, its own banking sector de-regulated and demolished, exploded into riots.  Argentina had to sell off its oil companies (to the Spanish) and water systems (to Enron) while its teachers hunted for food in garbage cans.  Then, Bankers Gone Wild in the Eurozone dove head-first into derivatives pools without knowing how to swim–and the continent is now being sold off in tiny, cheap pieces to Germany.

Of course, it was not just threats that sold the FSA, but temptation as well.  After all, every evil starts with one bite of an apple offered by a snake.  The apple:  The gleaming piles of lucre hidden in the FSA for local elites.  The snake was named Larry.

Does all this evil and pain flow from a single memo?  Of course not:  the evil was The Game itself, as played by the banker clique.  The memo only revealed their game-plan for checkmate.

And the memo reveals a lot about Summers and Obama.

While billions of sorry souls are still hurting from worldwide banker-made disaster, Rubin and Summers didn’t do too badly.  Rubin’s deregulation of banks had permitted the creation of a financial monstrosity called “Citigroup.”  Within weeks of leaving office, Rubin was named director, then Chairman of Citigroup—which went bankrupt while managing to pay Rubin a total of $126 million.

Then Rubin took on another post:  as key campaign benefactor to a young State Senator, Barack Obama.  Only days after his election as President, Obama, at Rubin’s insistence, gave Summers the odd post of US “Economics Tsar” and made Geithner his Tsarina (that is, Secretary of Treasury).  In 2010, Summers gave up his royalist robes to return to “consulting” for Citibank and other creatures of bank deregulation whose payments have raised Summers’ net worth by $31 million since the “end-game” memo.

That Obama would, at Robert Rubin’s demand, now choose Summers to run the Federal Reserve Board means that, unfortunately, we are far from the end of the game.

 * * * * *

Our thanks to Greg Palast for permission to reprint this article!  Please click on the link to Vice Magazine at the top of the page to get additional links and information.  You may also wish to support Greg Palast in his investigative work.  You won't find this information at our usual media outlets.

Religion and crap

The problem with much of what passes for religion is that there are no filters to tell the crap from non-crap. And when people are filled with crap they become obnoxious, noxious, odious, stinky, hypocritical, stupid, and their brains melt into some kind of spiritual soup.

In Fresno, California recently, a crepe myrtle tree began oozing fluid. The poor tree had the misfortune to be located near the Roman Catholic St. John's Cathedral. As you might surmise, some of the parishioners from the cathedral immediately saw this as evidence of a miracle. This juicy stuff is God's tears claimed at least one woman.

Did the cathedral prelates confront the women to tell them this was not a miracle, and the liquid they saw was not God's tears, because even according to Roman Catholic doctrine, God is a spirit and spirits have no physical flesh or form and therefore cannot "weep"?

So far as I know, the prelates in charge of the cathedral did not do that. And we all know why: They may believe such nonsense themselves and/or are aware that such nonsense drives simple folks deeper into the fold of Roman Catholic piety which usually means they give more of their money to the Church so the Church can continue to peddle its odious doctrines while offering a haven for pedophiles and other abusers.

So what is this fluid oozing from the crepe myrtle? According to an article in The Huffington Post by Cavan Sieczkowski, "an arborist says the liquid is not 'tears' at all, but excrement from aphides, small, soft-bodied insects that suck the juice from plants."  It's excrement or crap!

Contrarily, a Jesuit priest, James Martin, doesn't want to let go of the "miracle" thing so while he notes that this kind of phenomena can be "easily explained by science" he also believes "that God can speak to us through natural means, as a way of reminding us of God's presence. Sometimes God gives us a little nudge -- explicable or inexplicable - as if to say, 'I'm here.'"  Like maybe by weeping "tears" from a crepe myrtle.

As I wrote initially, religion is often a problem where there are no filters to siphon the crap from the non-crap. The filters in this case ought to be the cathedral poohbahs and people like the editor-at-large of America magazine, Fr. James Martin.

But, unfortunately, that isn't the case. The prevailing philosophy in this and in too many other similar situations is "Let the people live with their delusions and ignore reality because we need them to continue to believe in our own special delusions thereby keeping the Roman Church afloat and thereby saving our jobs."

What all of this does prove, however, is that too often religion is simply crap!

And here ends the lesson for the day.

Rick Perry's legacy in Texas

The above from Timeline Photos, Daily Kos Facebook.

Today's Republican Party does not believe in democracy, freedom or our Constitution.

It is a sad fact but true, that the Republican Party in the year 2013 C.E. is hard at work shredding our democracy, our freedom, and our Constitution.

It is no secret that the Republican Party is the party of the rich, the very rich and the super rich. It is also the party of the powerful. While some Democrats have fallen victim to the theory that might makes right or the ends justify the means or those with the most money win, it is by and large the Republicans in Congress who are routinely bought and paid for by the corporations, Wall Street, and other pooh-bahs who control and manipulate our system. Freedom, democracy and our Constitution are all at risk when this corrupt state of affairs prevails.

From the first day President Obama stepped into the Oval Office, the Republican Party, open and unabashedly, stated their goal for his first term was to do everything possible to bring him down. They would not cooperate. They would use whatever smear tactics worked best. Their would be no compromise for the good of the country. Their goal, above the good of the country, was to destroy Mr. Obama and ensure he would not be re-elected.

Although Mr. Obama was re-elected, they are continuing their desperate attacks on his person, his ideas, and his programs. Looking ahead to the Congressional elections of 2014, the Republicans have redoubled their efforts to cast aspersion on the leader of the Democratic Party and the leader of our Country in order to serve their need for power.  Senate Republicans continue, through the threat of the filibuster among other things, to refuse to confirm the president's nominees for many important positions in the government.  In recent weeks, various prominent Republicans have threatened to shut down the government if they are unable to defund or otherwise destroy Obamacare!

Democracy can work only when opposing sides treat each other with respect and when they recognize that compromise is not only important but crucial. Ideology must be abandoned in favor of pragmatism. The important things are not philosophical or religious beliefs for these most often have no basis in fact or in science and can change at a moment's notice. What's important is that which works, which functions, which has proven value. Furthermore, while majority "rules" in our system, our system cannot work unless the rights of the minorities are upheld and respected. The prize upon which each of us must keep his or her eye is what's best for the country.

Because the Republican Party openly disavows such an approach they are destroying our democracy in a display of arrogant partisanship more reminiscent of the Roman Church in the Middle Ages than a political party in the 21st Century! The Republican Party speaks much of freedom, but they're not talking about freedom for those with whom they disagree. What they want is the freedom to impose their belief system upon the rest of us. Thus, on a national level and on state levels we are experiencing unprecedented attacks on Roe v. Wade, on a woman's right to choose, on the right to use contraceptives and on the Constitution principle of separation of church and state.

In state after state, well-funded right-wing groups with Republican legislators in their pockets are forcing through attempts to privatize our schools, to demand that religious nonsense such as creationism be presented as a valid alternative to evolution, to pass draconian gun laws that would make the outlaws of the Old West quake in fear! We have seen the United States Supreme Court, dominated by conservative Republicans appointed by conservative Republican presidents, openly side with those factions that would take over control of our government. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates relative to campaign funding by allowing secret corporate/political organizations to infuse huge amounts of cash into our election process thereby controlling the message and electing their candidates. The Supreme Court has also seen fit to do away with one of our Constitutional controls which functions to ensure that every eligible person is allowed to vote.

Again, moneyed entities are leading this attack on democracy in our state legislatures by gerry-mandering state districts to ensure that conservatives are most likely to win; and by passing draconian voter ID laws which effectively deny the vote of persons likely to vote Democratic.

But perhaps the most egregious example of the Republican Party's hatred for freedom and fear of democracy, is the recent threat by the Republican National Committee to withhold the right to film the 2016 GOP primary debates if CNN and NBC does not cancel a documentary movie in the works dealing with the life of Hillary Clinton. CNN is intending to show this documentary in theaters and on TV. NBC is developing a miniseries on Clinton's life starring Diane Lane.

Evidently, the GOP is afraid that these programs will help Ms. Clinton should she decide to attempt a run at the presidency in 2016. The Republicans are afraid, very afraid. Ms. Clinton could be a formidable candidate and would probably make any Republican running for presidency look like a complete fool which would most likely be the case.

What the chairman of the RNC, Mr. Priebus, would have us forget is the fact that the GOP has its own television network - FOX News. FOX News promotes the Republican line all down the line and has done so for years! Do you think he would object if FOX News was to show a documentary about a possible Republican candidate? Would the RNC threaten FOX News if it planned a miniseries on Chris Christie?

Of course not. But then the Republicans are not about freedom or democracy or the right of free speech - they work against the good of the country every day to gain a partisan advantage! And mark my words, in the coming election cycle the RNC and Republicans throughout the country will do anything, literally anything, to try to gain a political advantage in the White House and in Congress. The RNC's threat is just the tip of the iceberg.

They're afraid; they're very afraid

I hope CNN and NBC do not cave to the GOP.  It is highly unlikely that the RNC would follow through on their threat.  They want people to see those primary debates.  Which is quite funny, actually, for it is very likely that watching those primary debates might just cause most people to vote Democratic! 

Human sacrifice and appeasing God

The ancient Hebrews, like their neighboring tribes in the Fertile Crescent, practiced human sacrifice in order to appease their god.  But they eventually quit.  The story of Abraham being ordered to sacrifice his son on the mount is reflective of that fact but was also told as an explanation why human sacrifice was no longer needed. Animal sacrifice was deemed to be sufficient to satisfy God's blood lust.


At the time of the legendary Jesus, animal sacrifice was practiced in Israel. The various "Christ"
groups of the time also believed in the efficacy of animal sacrifice. For example, in Mithraism, a bull became the "sacrificial lamb" and in some cases initiates stood in a reservoir beneath the bull to be baptized in its blood thereby becoming a full member of the sect.

The Christ sect, as promoted by the apostle Paul, reverted to a belief in the efficacy of human sacrifice and Christians have honored that tradition in various ways up to the present day. Although the theology is inconsistent and confusing it basically evolved in this manner: Yahweh, the Hebrew god, sent himself in the form of a human, who was his "son," conceived by the Holy Spirit in a young Israelite girl who was already betrothed to a man named Joseph.

[How a "spirit" could produce human or human-like sperm is not usually addressed. A spirit is a spirit is a spirit, without flesh and form and could not impregnate a pomegranate much less a teenage girl.]

The "son" who later theologians insisted was actually Yahweh (God) in human form, is reported in the Gospels (which are not historical records but evangelical tracts created to give Paul's "Christ" a foundation in history, for Paul's "Christ" lived not on earth but in the first of his seven heavens) to have lived between one and three years, teaching and preaching, acting as a prophet, sometimes exercising Zealotry, inconsistent and often angry, petulant (killing the fig tree even though it wasn't the season for figs), and contradictory.

The story is a familiar one to most people in the western hemisphere, telling how the Jesus figure is hauled before an illegal Jewish court and condemned and then brought to the Roman governor, Pilate, who orders him crucified. None of this is historical, either, but the point is that before long the "Christ" people who evolved in the sacrifice-rich culture of the Mediterranean in the first and second centuries (C.E.) under the guidance and gradual dominance of the "orthodox" accepted the doctrine that Jesus (called now the Christ or Messiah or Anointed One) who was crucified by the Romans was the sacrifice the Hebrew god demanded for the sins of human beings. This notion was based on the prior belief (assuming also that Adam and Eve were real historical figures) that because Adam and Eve (the progenitors of the human race) had sinned, everyone was tainted with what was called "original sin." This, in spite of the fact, that even the ancient Jews had tossed the belief that the children are responsible for the failings of their fathers/mothers.

To sum up:  Orthodoxy taught that everyone is a sinner and destined to spend eternity being tortured by fire in a place called Hell. [The development of the doctrine of hell is also interesting but that's for another time.] The ONLY way that God can forgive our sins is by a human sacrifice, ergo the sacrifice of Jesus on the Roman cross.

In the later view developed by protesters in the Middle Ages known as Protestants, that sacrifice is a one-time thing, its efficacy made available by those who believe this story and accept God's love and forgiveness and try to live holy lives. The Roman Catholic Church, disagreed vehemently, for they from early on had developed (probably borrowing from Mithraism) an act of worship which was known as the Eucharist and then the Mass in which Christ is offered up for sacrifice each time the mass is performed. Followers of Romanism receive the benefits of that sacrifice each time they partake of the bread and wine in the mass, for the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ when the priest says the magic words.

The point is this: human sacrifice is still the central salvatory act for the human race in the Christian religion in whatever form that religion is practiced. Without the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross there is no Christian religion.

Again the theology behind all this is incredibly murky and can be swallowed only with a huge dose of mythical castor oil. Jesus is not just God's son, says the writer of the Gospel of John, he is God himself, the creator of all that exists. So, the so-called human crucified on the cross was not a human at all but God himself. [God, of course, is without gender but is usually referred to as a "he".]

Furthermore, if God was on the cross, then he couldn't die because God can't die, nor can he experience pain as that is beyond God's purview and he would not need to be raised from the dead for he never died in the first place. In the end, the circle closes here: God sent himself into the world by being born from the womb of a Jewish teenager after being artificially inseminated by God himself (for the Holy Spirit is also God). He walked around the ancient ground of Palestine for a few years, healed a few people, did some other miracles, told some interesting stories, but sometimes ignored the needs of people and was downright mean to his mother and family. Evidently he made the Jewish leaders angry and they hauled him to the Roman ruler who ordered him crucified which was done, but shortly thereafter God appeared again on earth only in a more mystical form and then was whooshed up to heaven after promising he'd come again and make everything right, something he failed to do on his first trip.

That mythology still reigns. Christians of whatever stripe insist that Jesus' death on the cross was and is essential for salvation (getting into heaven). In Christianity, people would go to hell without the sacrifice of God's son on the cross, and will go to hell if they do not acknowledge this sacrifice and live by the rules God laid out so many years ago. Roman Catholics take all of this a step further by re-enacting that sacrifice at every mass and offering the opportunity for believers to participate in that sacrifice by the ritual eating and drinking of the actual body and blood of Christ.


Today there appeared in the Huffington Post an article telling about the finding of a skull which was probably from a human sacrificed according to the beliefs and rituals practiced by the Aztecs of Mexico some 500 years ago.

The article concludes with this sentence: "A formidable people, the Aztecs believed the sun god Huitzilopochtli required human blood in order to move the sun across the horizon [...] Sometimes volunteers would give themselves up for the honor, and other times prisoners were sacrificed.

Well, it is important that the sun moves across the horizon and if it takes human sacrifice to do that, so be it. A perfectly reasonable conclusion considering the fundamental beliefs of the people.

But I would be willing to bet that millions of Christians today would read that story and think of how awful human sacrifice was and what nonsense it was to think that the Aztec gods could be appeased by the offering of human blood.

Obama's Accreditation Reforms on Higher Education

It is my understanding that there are a number of so-called colleges in our country that are making big bucks by participating in student federal aid programs.  Some of these colleges are little more than diploma mills and the education they provide is far from satisfactory.  This is not surprising, of course, for federal money attracts all sorts of unsavory folks.

A way to correct this situation is to make federal aid dependent upon a school's proper accreditation.

The following article was written by Irene White, a contributor to Accredited Online Colleges; the original article can be found by clicking here.  In it she outlines President Obama's "proposals to reform and improve higher education ... "  I believe that because higher education is so important, this article deserves a wider audience.  Obama's proposals are reasonable and attainable.

Another reason I am publishing this article is because it shows that we could and should be doing many fine things in this country but the President is stymied by a Congress that is openly hostile and as one Republican representative said the other day, the Republicans would rather shut down the government than let any Obama program, such as The Affordable Care Act stand.  From day one, Republicans have chosen partisan politics aimed at gaining power rather than governing the land.  From day one, these Republican traitors (I use that term purposely for what else are they when they choose to deliberately harm the nation in order to serve their own agenda?) have fought every attempt by the President to move forward on numerous issues.


                                                                 * * * * *


July 12th, 2013

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama outlined several proposals to reform and improve higher education, including putting the brakes on the spiraling costs of college tuition. One method for achieving this, an initiative that has resonated with students and parents alike, is to make a school’s participation in certain federal aid programs dependent on it being affordable and effective. This new form of accreditation, linked hand-in-glove with the Department of Education’s College Scorecard has received broad public support.

How Accreditation Works Now Accreditation is a process through which private associations evaluate either an entire school or a particular program to ensure the education provided meets a high standard. The complicated process involves peer evaluation and significant data reporting by the institution to ensure necessary standards are met.

Criteria for accreditation differ depending on whether an entire college is seeking accreditation or just an individual program. Typical standards that must be met for an entire institution include:

* A well-articulated mission that guides the entire institution’s operations

* Integrity and responsibility in the administration of the institution

* High-quality education, guided by well-articulated goals Sufficient faculty, staff and resources to ensure a high-quality education

* Sufficient student support, in terms of infrastructure, technology, advising and guidance to ensure a high-quality education

* A well-functioning continuous improvement system of evaluation and assessment of teaching and learning

*Sufficient institutional resources and planning to ensure effective education


Depending on the field, the criteria for accreditation of a particular program may vary widely.

Nonetheless, any program will require the following standards to be met:

*A clear mission and plan for governing and administering the program fairly and effectively

*  Curriculum that teaches core competencies and values to enable students to develop requisite knowledge and succeed in the field

*Diversity is fostered and the program is inclusive

*Sufficient faculty are employed to achieve the unit’s mission for teaching

* Faculty do scholarly research and engage in professional activities that contribute to advancement of the field

* Sufficient services are provided to ensure students complete the program in a timely fashion

* Sufficient resources are employed to achieve the unit’s mission

*Faculty engage in public service for the alumni and community

* Ongoing assessment and continuous improvement are woven into the program

Some are surprised to learn accreditation in the United States is performed by dozens of private associations, each specializing by type of institution, region or field. The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) does not accredit any institution, but remains involved. It publishes a list of reliable accrediting agencies and also maintains a database of accredited programs and institutions.

You may have noticed that financial responsibility and helping students reach their goals are both typically included in criteria for accreditation. In fact, institutions that wish to participate in federal financial aid programs must meet certain financial benchmarks. Schools that fail to meet and maintain these standards cannot offer their students federal aid.

Obama’s Proposal to Increase Efficiency 

The president’s plan to increase access to high-quality, affordable education can be broken down into three major strategies. They involve granting more money to efficiently-run schools and improving access to education for high-needs and underprivileged groups.

1  Reward Efficient Schools- Building on the requirements for financial responsibility, the President’s new accreditation plan takes the process a step further. The initiative would tie a school’s access to federal aid programs to its capability to provide an affordable and complete education. Criteria the administration has already identified as relevant to this determination may be found on the College Scorecard; the scorecard ranks schools and programs on graduation rates, costs, average amount borrowed, employment and student loan default rates.

This plan to hold institutions of higher education more accountable is part of the President’s plan to strengthen the middle class.

President Obama believes that this starts early – in preschool; studies have shown, in fact, that spending dollars on education early in life saves money in the long run. Acknowledging that most American four-year-olds do not attend a high-quality, free, public preschool, and only 10 states and Washington, D.C. provide free, full-day kindergarten, the President has proposed programs to provide this early education for low, moderate and middle-income children.

Later in the education process, the President believes that we have not been adequately preparing students with the skills they need to obtain the available, high-quality jobs. It was recently reported that in 2012, nearly 600,000 high-quality manufacturing jobs went unfilled because unemployed workers lacked the skills to do them. To eliminate this discrepancy, the President has proposed that we fund a program to create a STEM Master Teacher Corps to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in the public schools.

The President has also proposed modernizing high schools with real-world learning through partnerships with employers and colleges to offer more vocational, technical and career opportunities.


2  Reform Immigration Policies- Another piece of the President’s plan involves common sense immigration reform. Today’s system of uneven enforcement effectively allows companies to hire undocumented workers at low wages. This pulls down wages for everybody and hurts the employment opportunities of legal residents.

While at the high end of the employment spectrum, complex immigration requirements prevent necessary talent from entering and remaining in the U.S. to work. These hurdles often cause high-tech businesses to move part or all of their operations overseas – depriving Uncle Sam of necessary jobs and revenue. The President proposes we crack down on the hiring of undocumented workers, strengthen border security, establish a path to citizenship for millions of hard-working immigrants and streamline the immigration process for workers and families, particularly those with the high-level skills our economy needs.


3 Prioritize Veteran Reintegration- Finally, the President has again called for strong action to help our veterans reintegrate into American society. Wounded veterans need to have better access to physical and mental health care and military families need stronger support. In particular, programs which help veterans obtain sustainable, fulfilling employment need to be bolstered, perhaps with tax credits and public-private partnerships. Shamefully, the unemployment rate among veterans who served since 2001 was 9.9% in 2012 – 46% higher than the average unemployment rate for all Americans, which was only 6.8%.


The President’s proposals are relatively new and little if any headway has been made on implementing these initiatives. However, if enacted, these programs could bring about major changes not only in the way colleges and universities are accredited, but to U.S. higher education as a whole. Prospective students researching colleges and universities should look into President Obama’s initiatives, which will make choosing a college and starting a career just that much easier.