“In God We Trust” Signs Going Up in Missouri Public Buildings

This morning I spotted this article on FriendlyAtheist.com and thought I should share. Apparently Dee Wampler, Christian Lawyer, is sending letters and drafts of proposals to every city administration in Missouri to officially declare allegiance to God and to post this motto on the interior and exterior of every City Hall. Go read the first link for all the details. The sad thing is that it is working. His method is to treat the issue as resolved, and to goad each city board into merely ratifying his contention that this is a Christian nation, has always been so, and every entity should visibly so proclaim. Several counties have already unanimously approved and signed into law his proposal. Theocracy, here we come!

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United States creates digital sock puppets to disseminate propaganda

This sort of headline must be a joke, a fake headline from The Onion, right? Wrong. Here's what the U.K. guardian has to say:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

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Fertilizing democracy at home

What follows is utterly precious, needing no further comment. Here's the opening sentence of some extraordinary information provided by the U.K. Guardian:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

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Hate-mongering against American Muslims

I saw this video late last night and then couldn't fall asleep for two hours. I lay awake in bed wondering what has happened to the America I thought I knew. Glenn Greenwald adds the commentary here. Waving an American flag is the furthest thing from my mind now that our formerly inclusive and honorable national symbol has been so thoroughly adopted by so many warmongers, and increasingly by abject bigots. I've personally heard several hideous broadbrush slams against Muslims over the past year, several times by people who (I thought) knew better. I'm afraid that it's getting much worse over the past year and the venom is aimed indiscriminately against all Muslims. Maybe someday the American flag will again widely symbolize unity and respect for individual rights.

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Military Psy-ops, this time illegally directed at Congress

Keep President Eisenhower's warning in mind as you read this post (see video below). The U.S. Department of Defense defines "Psychological Operations" or "Psy-Ops" as "Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign government, organizations, groups, and individuals." Such operations may be based upon truth or based upon deception, but the goal is the same: to alter perceptions and "ultimately the behavior" of others. As a matter of law, such actions are supposed to be directed against the "foreign hostile groups", or at least not against Americans. Unfortunately, this law is routinely ignored:

  • In 2009, the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) awarded a multi-million dollar contract to General Dynamics to wage a psy-ops campaign aimed at France and Britain. The goal of the campaign was to create "influence websites" to build support for the Global War on Terror.

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