Chris Hedges Comments on the U.S. Security State and the DNC

Chris Hedges was recently on Glenn Greenwald's System Update offering a wide-ranging analysis of current events. I copied the following excerpts concerning the U.S. Security State and the disturbing transformation of the DNC:

G. Greenwald: Anyone covering foreign policy and covering wars as you did for so long, obviously has to deal with, in all sorts of ways, the U.S. security state, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and sort of how it influences a lot of these policies. There's no way to understand one without the other. After 9/11, we saw this series of whistleblowers from within the U.S. Security State, and people like William Binney, Thomas Drake, and, of course, culminating with Edward Snowden, all have the same grievance, namely, that the whole foundation of this secret part of our government that would act without democratic accountability and outside of any transparency would be the one taboo would ever be turning their power inward to manipulate the American population and domestic population. And a lot of that came forward primarily based on their grievance, that that was the thing that they thought would never happen. And they were seeing that more and more and more and more, that almost as much as these agencies were focused on foreign governments, they were focused on our domestic politics as well. I know there's been a lot of that since the creation of the U.S. Security State, but do you agree that that has gotten worse and more dire, more evident – the idea that the U.S. Security State now plays a bigger role than ever before in our domestic politics?

Chris Hedges: Yeah, it's completely unaccountable and you can't control it. That's the problem. And Arnold Toynbee when he writes about the decline of the Empire, talks about these rogue intelligence, military complexes, institutions that essentially can no longer be regulated, can no longer be constrained. All of the people who led us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, you know, there should be accountability there. Not only is there no accountability, but the same people are leading us into the disasters in Ukraine and funneling weapons to sustain the genocide in Gaza. And that's very dangerous because, at the beginning of an empire, empires are very judicious, usually about the use of force. What characterizes declining dying empires is military adventurism, where they seek to gain a diminishing or a loss to Germany through a military fiasco. And I think we can start with Vietnam and go basically right through just one military debacle after another. What we've done in the Middle East is probably the greatest strategic blunder, you know, in American history.

Continue ReadingChris Hedges Comments on the U.S. Security State and the DNC

George Carlin Bit on Assassination, Etc.

I don't think of Donald Trump as a big advocate for peace and harmony, but he has spoken out against U.S. warmongering far more than Kamala Harris, who now has the endorsements of Dick Cheney and his minions.  If you are a candidate who speaks out against U.S. warmongering, you are threatening the  jobs of the U.S. military and U.S. security state employees. It also appears that you are risking your own life.

Assassination. You know what's interesting about assassination? Well, not only does it change those popularity polls in a big fucking hurry, but it's also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. You ever notice who it is? Stop to think of who it is we kill. It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin, Luther King, Medgar Evers Malcolm X John Lennon, they all said, try to live together peacefully. Bam, right in the fucking head. Apparently, we're not ready for that. Yeah, that's difficult behavior for us.

Continue ReadingGeorge Carlin Bit on Assassination, Etc.

The Health State of the Nation

I'm currently reading Good Energy, a new excellent and horrifying book by Dr. Casey Means. Dr. Casey Means:

"I learned virtually nothing at Stanford Medical School about the tens of thousands of scientific papers that elucidate the root causes of why American health is plummeting.”

“I did not learn that for each additional serving of ultra-processed food we eat, early mortality increases by 18%.

This now makes up 67% of the foods our kids are eating. I took zero nutrition courses in medical school.

I didn’t learn that 82% of independently-funded studies show harm from processed food, while 93% of industry-sponsored studies reflect no harm.

I didn’t learn that 95% of the people who created the recent USDA food guidelines for America had significant conflicts of interest with the food industry.

I did not learn that one billion pounds of synthetic pesticides are being sprayed on our foods every single year. 99% of the farmland in the United States is sprayed with synthetic pesticides, many from China and Germany, and these invisible, tasteless chemicals are strongly linked to autism, ADHD, sex hormone disruption, thyroid disease, sperm dysfunction, Alzheimer’s, dementia, birth defects, cancer, obesity, liver dysfunction, female infertility and more.

I did not learn that the eight billion tons of plastic that have been produced just in the last 100 years … are being broken down into microplastics that are now filling our food, our water, and we are now even inhaling them in our air, and that very recent research … tells us that now about 0.5% of our brains by weight are plastic.

I didn’t learn that there are more than 80,000 toxins that have entered our food, water, air, and homes by industry, many of which are banned in Europe, and they are known to alter our gene expression, alter our microbiome composition and the lining of our gut, and disrupt our hormones.

I didn’t learn that heavy metals like aluminum and lead are present in our food, our baby formula, personal care products, our soil, and many of the mandated medications like vaccines, and that these metals are neurotoxic and inflammatory.

I didn’t learn that the average American walks a paltry 3,500 steps per day even though we know, based on science and top journals, that simply walking 7,000 steps a day slashes by 40-60% our risk of Alzheimer’s, dementia, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and obesity.

I certainly did not learn that medical error and medications are the third-leading cause of death in the US.

I didn’t learn that just five nights of sleep deprivation can induce full-blown pre-diabetes. I learned nothing about sleep, and we’re getting about 20% less sleep on average than we were 100 years ago.

I didn’t learn that American children are getting less time outdoors now than a maximum security prisoner, and on average, adults spend 93% of their time indoors, even though we know from the science that separation from sunlight destroys our circadian biology, and circadian biology dictated our cellular biology.

I didn’t learn that professional organizations that we get out practice guidelines from, like the American Diabetes Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have taken tens of millions of dollars from Coke, Cadbury, processed food companies and vaccine manufacturers like Moderna.

I didn’t learn that if you address these root causes that all lead to metabolic dysfunction and help patients change their food and lifestyle patterns … we could reverse the chronic disease crisis in America, save millions of lives and trillions of dollars in healthcare costs per year.

This is a spiritual crisis. We are choosing death over life, we are choosing darkness over light.

We need a return to courage. We need a return to common sense and intuition. We need a return to awe for the sheer miraculousness of our lives.

We need all hands on deck."

Source: Sen. Ron Johnson’s Roundtable on “American Health and Nutrition: A Second Opinion”

Continue ReadingThe Health State of the Nation

Minimal Media Coverage of Attempted Assassinations and The Dog the Didn’t Bark

If they were real journalists, the U.S. corporate media would be vigorously examining the many claims raised in this video (and many similar videos and posts on X (Twitter). It would be nonstop, 24/7. Similarly, if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris, the "news" media would stop at NOTHING to find out exactly and precisely what happened, how it happened and why.

Too many things simply don't add up regarding the two recent attempts on Donald Trump's life, but revealing the facts might not be convenient for the big media corporations. Vigorously investigating how these two allegedly unfunded and unconnected "renegades" came so close to killing Donald Trump might even impugn the operations and intentions of the U.S. security state. It is stunning to watch "journalists" doing the bare minimum, repeatedly taking the attitude: Just move on . . . nothing to see here. They are working hard to normalize the fact that people sometimes try to kill a major candidate for president. This lack of interest, the failure or journalists to care about major stories, is as disturbing as the blatant censorship and government funded propaganda we've seen over the past five years.

For those who think all of the questions and suspicions of this young woman on TikTok are far-fetched, that the U.S. security state would never do the terrible things that it does to other countries to our own country, consider that the ubiquitous censorship, government propaganda (including the claim of Russian collusion), the abject disinterest of our corporate media and perhaps much much more might be the most recent manifestations of a 60+ year work in progress.

If you think that the constant state of war promoted by the U.S. is the only option, your brain has been broken by sophisticated U.S. government psy-ops. You can't simply make these serious concerns magically disappear by uttering "conspiracy theory" as though this phrase were one of Harry Potter's incantations.

Continue ReadingMinimal Media Coverage of Attempted Assassinations and The Dog the Didn’t Bark