Friday, June 27, 2014

"Everyone, Except the Brainwashed American public, Knows that the «Crisis in Ukraine» is Entirely the Work of Washington." Paul Craig ROBERTS

A New Recession and a New World Devoid of Washington’s Arrogance?

Paul Craig ROBERTS | 27.06.2014 | 14:00

June 25, 2014.  A final number for real US GDP growth in the first quarter of 2014 was released today. The number is not the 2.6% growth rate predicted by the know-nothing economists in January of this year.  The number is a  decline in GDP of -2.9 percent.
The negative growth rate of -2.9 percent is itself an understatement.  This number was achieved by deflating nominal GDP with an understated measure of inflation. During the Clinton regime, the Boskin Commission rigged the inflation measure in order to cheat Social Security recipients out of their cost-of-living adjustments. Anyone who purchases food, fuel, or anything knows that inflation is much higher than the officially reported number.
It is possible that the drop in first quarter real GDP is three times the official number.
Regardless, the difference is large between the January forecast of +2.6 percent growth and the decline as of the end of March of -2.9 percent.  
Any economist who is real and unpaid by Wall Street, the government, or the Establishment knew that the +2.6 percent forecast was a crock.  Americans’ incomes have not grown except for the one percent, and the only credit growth is in student loans, as those many who cannot find jobs mistakenly turn to «education is the answer.»
In an economy based on consumer demand, the absence of income and credit growth means no economic growth.  
The US economy cannot grow because corporations pushed by Wall Street have moved the US economy offshore. US manufactured products are made offshore.
Look at the labels on your clothes, your shoes, your eating and cooking utensils, your computers, whatever. US professional jobs such as software engineering have been moved offshore. An economy with an offshored economy is not an economy.  All of this happened in full view, while well-paid free market shills declared that Americans were benefiting from giving America’s middle class jobs to China and India.
I have been exposing these lies for a decade or two, which is why I am no longer invited to speak at American universities or to American economic associations. Economists love the money that they receive for lying. A truth teller is the last thing that they want in their midst.
An official decline of -2.9 percent in the first quarter implies a second quarter GDP decline.  Two declines in a row is the definition of recession. 
Imagine the consequences of a recession.  It means that years of unprecedented Quantitative Easing failed to revive the economy.  It means that years of Keynesian fiscal deficits failed to revive the economy.  Neither fiscal nor monetary policy worked.
What then can revive the economy?  
Nothing except to force the return of the economy that the anti-American corporations moved offshore.
This would require credible government.  Unfortunately, the US government has been losing credibility since the second term of the Clinton regime.  It has none left.
Today no one anywhere in the world believes the US government except the brain dead Americans who read and listen to the «mainstream media.»  Washington’s propaganda dominates the minds of Americans, but produces laughter and scorn everywhere else. 
The poor US economic outlook has brought America’s two largest business lobbies--the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (or what is left of them) into conflict with the Obama regime’s threat of further sanctions against Russia.
According to Bloomberg News, beginning tomorrow (June 26), the business groups will run advertisements in the New York Times, Wall St Journal, and Washington Post opposing any further sanctions on Russia. The US business organizations say that the sanctions will harm their profits and result in layoffs of American workers.  
Thus, America’s two largest business organizations, important sources of political campaign contributions, have finally added their voice to the voices of German, French, and Italian business.
Everyone, except the brainwashed American public, knows that the «crisis in Ukraine» is entirely the work of Washington.  European and American businesses are asking: «why should our profits and our workers take hits in behalf of Washington’s propaganda against Russia.» 
Obama has no answer.  Perhaps his neocon scum, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Powers, and Susan Rice can come up with an answer.  Obama can look to the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Weekly Standard to explain why millions of Americans and Europeans should suffer in order that Washington’s theft of Ukraine is not endangered.
Washington’s lies are catching up with Obama. German chancellor Merkel is Washington’s complete whore, but German industry is telling Washington’s whore that they value their business with Russia more than they value suffering in behalf of Washington’s empire.  French businessmen are asking Hollande what he proposes to do with their unemployed workers if Hollande goes along with Washington. Italian businesses are reminding that government, to the extent that Italy has one, that uncouth Americans have no tastes and that sanctions on Russia mean a hit to Italy’s most famous and best recognized economic sector--high style luxury products.
Dissent with Washington and Washington’s two-bit puppet rulers in Europe is spreading.
The latest poll in Germany reveals that three-quarters of Germany’s population reject permanent NATO bases in Poland and the Baltic states. The former Czechoslovakia, currently Slovakia and the Czech Republic, although NATO members, have rejected NATO and American troops and bases on their territory. Recently, a Polish minister said that pleasing Washington required giving free oral sex for nothing in return. 
The strains that Washington’s morons are putting on NATO might break the organization apart.  Pray that it does. NATO’s excuse for existence disappeared with the Soviet collapse 23 years ago.  Yet, Washington has increased NATO far beyond the borders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  NATO now runs from the Baltics to Central Asia.
In order to have a reason for NATO’s continued expensive operation, Washington has had to construct an enemy out of Russia.
Russia has no intention of being Washington’s or NATO’s enemy and has made that perfectly clear.  But Washington’s military/security complex, which absorbs about $1 trillion annually of US hard-pressed taxpayers’ money, needs an excuse to keep the profits flowing.  
Unfortunately the Washington morons picked a dangerous enemy. Russia is a nuclear armed power, a country of vast dimensions, and with a strategic alliance with China.  
Only a government drowning in arrogance and hubris or a government run by psychopaths and sociopaths would pick such an enemy.  
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has pointed out to Europe that Washington’s policies in the Middle East and Libya are not merely total failures but also devastatingly harmful to Europe and Russia.  The fools in Washington have removed the governments that suppressed the jihadists. Now the violent jihadists are unleashed.  In the Middle East the jihadists are at work remaking the artificial boundaries set by the British and French in the aftermath of World War I.  
Europe, Russia and China have Muslim populations and now must worry if the violence that Washington has unleashed will bring destabilization to regions of Europe, Russia and China.
No one anywhere in the world has any reason to love Washington.  Least of all Americans, who are being bled dry in order that Washington can parade military force around the world.  Obama’s approval rating is a dismal 41 percent and no one wants Obama to remain in office once his second term is complete.   In contrast, two-thirds of the Russian population want Putin to remain president after 2018.
In March the poling agency, Public Opinion Research Center, released a report that Putin’s approval rating stood at 76 percent despite the agitation against him by the US financed Russian NGOs, hundreds of fifth column institutions that Washington established in Russia during the past two decades.
On top of US political troubles, the US dollar is in trouble. The dollar is kept afloat by rigged financial markets and Washington’s pressure on its vassal states to support the dollar’s value by printing their own currencies and purchasing dollars.  In order to keep the dollar afloat, much of the world will be inflated.  When people finally catch on and rush into gold, the Chinese will have it all.
Sergey Glazyev, an adviser to President Putin, has told the Russian president than only an anti-dollar alliance that crashes the US dollar can halt Washington’s aggression. That has long been my opinion.  There can be no peace as long as Washington can print more money with which to finance more wars. 
As the Chinese government stated, it is time to «de-Americanize the world». Washington’s leadership has totally failed the world, producing nothing but lies, violence, death, and the promise of more violence.  America is exceptional only in the fact that Washington has, without remorse, destroyed in whole or part seven countries in the new 21st century.  Unless Washington is replaced with more humane leadership, life on earth has no future.

Paul Craig ROBERTS
The Honorable Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. As a presidential appointee to a secret committee, he played a role in the Reagan / Gorbachev negotiation of the end of the Cold War. In 1961 Roberts was a member of the US/USSR student exchange program.  In 1989 and 1990, Roberts addressed the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow on the subject of liberty. His book, Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971 and 1990) is widely accepted as the explanation of the ideological origin and failure of the Soviet economy. Roberts was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and Scripps Howard News Service.   He has had many university appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University where his colleagues were Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and James R. Schlesinger.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/06/27/new-recession-and-new-world-devoid-washington-arrogance.html

    Can Putin’s Diplomacy Prevail Over Washington’s Coercion? Paul Craig Roberts

    | 27.06.2014 | 00:01

    June 24, 2014.  Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is trying to save the world from war.  We should all help him. 
    Today Putin’s presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov reported that President Putin has asked the Russian legislature to repeal the authorization to use force that was granted in order to protect residents of former Russian territories that are currently part of Ukraine from the rabid Russophobic violence that characterizes Washington’s stooge government in Kiev.  
    Washington’s neoconservatives are jubilant. They regard Putin’s diplomacy as a sign of weakness and fear, and urge stronger steps that will force Russia to give back Crimea and the Black Sea naval base.
    Inside Russia, Washington is encouraging its NGO fifth columns to undercut Putin’s support with propaganda that Putin is afraid to stand up for Russians and has sold outUkraine’s Russian population. If this propaganda gains traction, Putin will be distracted by street protests. The appearance of Putin’s domestic weakness would embolden Washington. Many members of Russia’s young professional class are swayed by Washington’s propaganda. Essentially, these Russians, brainwashed by US propaganda, are aligned with Washington, not with the Kremlin.
    Putin has placed his future and that of his country on a bet that Russian diplomacy can prevail over Washington’s bribes, threats, blackmail, and coercion.  Putin is appealing to Western Europeans. Putin is saying, “I am not the problem.  Russia is not the problem. We are reasonable. We are ignoring Washington’s provocations. We want to work things out and to find a peaceful solution.”
    Washington is saying: “Russia is a threat.  Putin is the new Hitler. Russia is the enemy. NATO and the US must begin a military buildup against the Russian Threat, rush troops and jet fighters to Eastern European NATO bases on Russia’s frontier. G-8 meetings must be held without Russia. Economic sanctions must be put on Russia regardless of the damage the sanctions do to Europe.”  And so forth.
    Putin says: “I’m here for you. Let’s work this out.”
    Washington says: “Russia is the enemy.”
    Putin knows that the UK is a complete vassal puppet state, that Cameron is just as bought-and-paid-for as Blair before him.  Putin’s hope for diplomacy over force rests on Germany and France.  Both countries face Europe’s budget and employment woes, and both countries have significant economic relations with Russia. German business interests are a counterweight to the weak Merkel government’s subservience to Washington.  Washington has stupidly angered the French by trying to steal $10 billion from France’s largest bank. This theft, if successful, will destroy France’s largest bank and deliver France to Wall Street.
    If desire for national sovereignty still exists in the German or French governments, one or both could give the finger to Washington and publicly declare that they are unwilling for their country to be drawn into conflict with Russia for the sake of Washington’s Empire and the financial hegemony of American banks.
    Putin is betting on this outcome.  If his bet is a bad one and Europe fails not only Russia but itself and the rest of the world by accommodating Washington’s drive for world hegemony, Russia and China will have to submit to Washington’s hegemony or be prepared for war.
    As neither side can afford to lose the war, the war would be nuclear.  As scientists have made clear, life on earth would cease, regardless of whether Washington’s ABM shield works.
    This is why I oppose Washington’s policies and speak out against the arrogance and hubris that define Washington today.  The most likely outcome of Washington’s pursuit of world hegemony is the extinction of life on earth.
    Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, globalresearch.ca

     
    Paul Craig ROBERTS
    The Honorable Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. As a presidential appointee to a secret committee, he played a role in the Reagan / Gorbachev negotiation of the end of the Cold War. In 1961 Roberts was a member of the US/USSR student exchange program.  In 1989 and 1990, Roberts addressed the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow on the subject of liberty. His book, Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971 and 1990) is widely accepted as the explanation of the ideological origin and failure of the Soviet economy. Roberts was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and Scripps Howard News Service.   He has had many university appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University where his colleagues were Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and James R. Schlesinger
    Zum Diskurs um die Montagsmahnwachen: Friedens“bewegung“ versus Friedensbewegung?

    Ein Kommentar zum einem völligen schiefen Diskurs von Irene Eckert am 27. Juni 2014

    Es ist zum Steinerweichen:
    S'ist Krieg, s'ist Krieg und ich begehre, dass  mein Land  dagegen sich  erwehre.

    Deutschland bleiche Mutter

    Wie jedes gute Land, so leidet auch meine bleiche Mutter, mein gutes deutsches Land unter den kriegerischen Verheerungen, die um sie herum stattfinden. Nicht nur, weil diese Zerstörungsprozesse wieder einmal von seinem Führungspersonal mitgetragen, mitverantwortet, ja sogar angeheizt werden. Nicht nur, weil kein Volk sich seiner Errungenschaften freuen kann, um deretwillen andere Völker darben. Nein, unsere Menschen fühlen darüber hinaus eine manchmal noch diffuse Bedrohung auf sie zukommen: Flüchtlingströme drohen in unsere „Wohlstandsinsel“ vorzudringen. Der sagenhafte Wohlstand unseres, für seinen Fleiß berühmten Landes, schwindet täglich sichtbar und fühlbar dahin. Die schleichende Inflation frisst den ungeliebten Euro und die Ersparnisse für schlechtere Tage. Diese rücken näher. Das Damoklesschwert 'Arbeitslosigkeit' zwingt zur Akzeptanz von Niedrigstlöhnen. Gut ausgebildete Jugendliche werden mit Almosen abgespeist. Kinderlos warten sie auf bessere Zeiten. Altersarmut droht. Eine indessen gut geschmierte Rüstungsindustrie schafft wenig Arbeitsplätze, weil hochtechnisiert. Steuergroschen schluckt sie dennoch munter. Diese fehlen anderswo.
    Niemand nimmt sich der Bürgersorgen wirklich an. Die Bürger werden stattdessen abgespeist mit 'Public Viewing' . Noch lassen sich solches begeistert bieten.

    Was aber geschieht unter dessen und was kommt am Tag danach?

    Ein blutleere Friedensbewegung

    Eine längst blutleere gewordene Friedens“bewegung“ beißt jeden weg, der ihnen den Platz streitig machen könnte, ganz wie in der großen Politik: Alternativen unerwünscht. Große Antikriegsmanifestationen brachte diese FB schon lange nicht mehr auf die Beine. Das ist so, weil sie den Friedensgegner nicht klar zu benennen weiß. Dies ist so,  weil sie immer schön ausgewogen, nach allen Seiten hin austeilt und weil sie die Antikriegsstimmung der Deutschen keineswegs aufzugreifen  und in Bewegung umzusetzen versteht. Ihre alternden Platzhirsche, sprich selbsternannten Sprecher und Sprecherinnen, fühlen sich gleichwohl berufen, eine nicht mehr existente Friedensbewegung großkotzig zu repräsentieren.

    Kein Wunder, dass angesichts dieser Umstände und angesichts der 80% igen Weigerung der Deutschen  der Kriegshetze von oben Folge zu leisten, etwas bewegungsmäßiges geschehen musste.

    Montagsmahnwachen treten auf den Plan

    Seit einiger Zeit machen Montagsmahnwachen für den Frieden von sich reden. Möglich, dass gewisse Kreise daran gedreht haben. Möglich, dass sie künstlich inszeniert wurden, um der Friedenssehnsucht der Menschen unseres Landes ein Ventil zu verschaffen. Möglich, dass einige ihrer plötzlich aufgetretenen Organisatoren und Sprecher, der Sache nicht mit ganzem Herzen verpflichtet sind, für die sie  rethorisch geschickt agitieren. Aber die Mahnwachen bringen immerhin ein echtes Anliegen zum Ausdruck und vieles, was da publikumswirksam vorgetragen wurde und wird, ist einfach sachlich richtig und wichtig und muss artikuliert werden. Man sehe sich nur einmal das Interview an, das Ken Jebsen  am 9. Juni mit Willy Wimmer 90 Minuten lang geführt hat. KenFM im Gespräch mit: Willy Wimmer - YouTube

    Nun wird eine künstliche, mediale Debatte angefacht, um den Diskurs auf Abwege zu bringen. Die Sprecher der „neuen Friedensbewegung“ werden öffentlich verbrannt, als „Antisemiten“ oder „Neurechte“ gebrandmarkt und die „alte Friedensbewegung“ hat endlich wieder ein Thema. Sie kann sich als echte FB und als vor allem als waschechte 'Antifa' ins Spiel bringen. Es wird munter von allen Seiten her wieder Debattenkultur gepflegt und das eigentliche Thema ist aus dem Blickfeld verschwunden. Das Thema, das da lauten müsste:  Eindeutige Positionierung gegen Faschismus und Krieg! 
    Da wir dieses Thema meiden, gleiten wir nach 100 Jahren, nach 81 Jahren, nach 75  wieder einmal   „schlafwandlerisch“, nein  diesmal fußball-wandlerisch in das Verhängnis hinein.

    Freunde des Friedens, der Demokratie und des Menschenrechts wacht endllich auf.

    Begehrt auf dagegen, dass man euch wieder einmal an der Nase herum und in ein diesmal noch größeres Verhängnis führt. Nehmt Stellung:

    Gegen das Zwillingsmonster Faschismus und Krieg und vor allem wisst es zu erkennen, da wo es auftaucht.