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A very high profile win for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BSD") movement as the Gates Foundation divests.  Despite the bravado in this article, G4S announced today that it will not renew any of its contracts to provide security services not only in Palestine but also in Israel. http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/g4s-end-israel-prison-contracts-pressure-mounts-over-torture-complicity After the Gates Foundation announced its divestment, the UK government announced that it was launching an investigation of G4S activities in Israel.  The BSD movement, modeled on the BSD campaign that brought down the apartheid government of South Africa, has been racking up more and more wins lately, in each week.  BSD activists are in guarded optimism mode because, they say, G4S has previously lied about its plans in regard to Palestine. In addition to providing prison security services, G4S also operates a series of border checkpoints between Israel, Israel settlements in Palestine, and areas of Palestine still occupied by indigenous Palestinians, including checkpoints along the border of the largest open air prison in the world, the Gaza Strip. The BSD movement has also targeted American companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation and colonization of Palestine, including Caterpillar Corp. The ultra-high profile divestment by the Gates Foundation just might have been a watershed moment that unleashes a torrent of related actions by other investors around the world.   

As the occupying power, it is Israel's responsibility to care for the people in Gaza. But Israel refuses to do so, maintaining a blockade that completely surrounds Gaza, making it the largest open air prison in the world.  

In a desperate but successful eleventh-hour media campaign, Benyamin Netanyahu during the recent Israeli election campaign peeled off enough votes from other ringt-wing political parties to keep his Likud Party in power and to continue Netanyahu as Israel's prime minister. He accomplished that by promiosing that there would never be an indepndent state of Palestine and by a racist false claim that  Palestinians with Israeli ciitzenship were transporting voters to the polls by the busload to gain more seats in the Parliament. But those statements got Netanyahu in very hot water with European government leaders and the Obama Administration because Netanyahu had publicly repudiated the 2-state solution that has been the supposed object of U.S. diplomacy since the Carter Administration. Netanyahu promptly walked back his statements.  But now he has done it again because East Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian territory that Israel seized during its 1967 Six Day War, and has illegally retianed it since. Under the 4th Geneva Convention, Israel was required to promptly relinquish the occupied territory upon the cessation of hostilities but still retains it today. Netanyahu's latest statement is sure to set off fireworks again in European governments and in the Obama Administration. Watch for further sanctions from Europe and more pressure from the Obama Administration. See also similar statements by Netanyahu at http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-jerusalem-only-ever-the-capital-of-the-jewish-people/  

see also http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4667914,00.html I'd love to see this wind up in the WTO Dispute Resolution Process. The Israeli production of goods and services in the Occupied Territories is a war crime under international law. Dealing in such goods is also a war crime. It is actually illegal for European nations to allow their import. Moreover, the right to participate in a boycott is protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. The judges at the WTO are very good and have previously held that trade agreements have to give way to human rights established under international law. And of course boycotts are also protected as human rights under international law. The WTO judges would have a field day with this situation. That is no guarantee that the EU will not succumb to US pressure but this will guarantee lots of press coverage for the U.S.A.'s continued support for Israeli war crimes. And that is publicity that Israel's right-wing government does not want.

Turkey has been pushing for this strategy for over a year. Now the neocons in the U.S. have joined in. The propaganda in favor of the strategy is coming to a crescendo. But I'll wait for further evidence of implementation before calling it an invasion, albeit U.S. Special Forces have been working with Al Qaeda forces inside Syria since 2011.

This isn't a radical change in U.S. foreign policy. The legislation itself is likely unconstitutional; boycott, divestment, and sanctions movements are protected by the First Amendment. And the U.S. violates several treaties by permitting the import of goods from Israeli settlements in Palestine and by permitting U.S. companies to profit from the Israeli occupation. The occupation itself is a war crime and crime against humanity.

Israelis have been seriously escalating their violence against Palestinians over the alst couple of months. In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli mobs accompanied and protected by soldiers have declared open season on Palestinians. It's pouring gasoline on a fire that was already lit decades ago. But there is no longer any moderating influence in Israeli government. Watch for things to blow sky-high again soon. 

"SOURCE: SIGMUND FRAUD, WAKING TIMES "In prison, illusions can offer comfort." - Nelson Mandela For a magician to fool his audience his deceit must go unseen, and to this end he crafts an illusion to avert attention from reality. While the audience is entranced, the deceptive act is committed, and for the fool, reality then becomes inexplicably built upon on a lie. That is, until the fool wakes up and recognizes the truth in the fact that he has been duped. Maintaining the suspension of disbelief in the illusion, however, is often more comforting than acknowledging the magician's secrets. We live in a world of illusion. So many of the concerns that occupy the mind and the tasks that fill the calendar arise from planted impulses to become someone or something that we are not. This is no accident. As we are indoctrinated into this authoritarian-corporate-consumer culture that now dominates the human race, we are trained that certain aspects of our society are untouchable truths, and that particular ways of being and behaving are preferred.  Psychopaths disempower people in this way. They blind us with never ceasing barrages of suggestions and absolutes that are aimed at shattering self-confidence and confidence in the future.  "

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with U.S. Resident Village Idiot, and World renown Marxist, President Barack Obama on March 23. The meeting follows the explosion in U.S.-Israeli relations after Israel announced it was licensing construction of homes in East Jerusalem while U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel. The United States wants Israel to stop all construction of new Jewish settlements. The Israelis argue that East Jerusalem is not part of the occupied territories, and hence, the U.S. demand doesn't apply there. The Americans are not parsing their demand so finely and regard the announcement - timed as it was - as a direct affront and challenge. Israel's response is that it is a sovereign state and so must be permitted to do as it wishes. The implicit American response is that the United States is also a sovereign state and will respond as it wishes...... Stratfor analyst George Friedman explains, in geopolitical terms, the tensions between Israel and a Socialist America.  Good history lesson.  For instance, american support for Israel didn't commence until 1967, when someone had to replace France and Britain.  Interestingly, in 1956, when Britain and France seized the previously nationalized Suez Canal during another Israel triumph against it's Arab enemies, Eisenhower forced Britain and Franc to return the canal to Egypt!    Yet, anti American sentiment surged throughout the middle east.

Empire of Debt was published in 2006. It stated bluntly that the housing market occupied the center of an inflated bubble. The authors asserted the bubble would pop, leaving a sticky residue everywhere. They were right. The authors stated that Alan Greenspan's policies were detrimental to the U.S. economy. They were right. Empire of Debt not only identified the problems, but it provided a solution. Invest in gold or the Japanese yen. It would appear that once again they were right. The yen is strong and gold has made a phenomenal run, selling for over $1000 per ounce.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is a circus, with every political stripe known showing their colors, making their arguments, and yes, making demands.   Chris Savvinidis is holding the ground in front of the New York Federal Reserve Bankster building, patiently arguing for the Constitution, the rule of law, the end of fiat money, and the end of the Federal Reserve. Best of all, he's not alone.  The libertarian/conservative movement is anchored and growing.  Thanks Chris. 

The secret 1% revealed at last. Using advanced "complex systems heuristics", a group of mathematicians and scientist studying the stability of complex systems has applied their techniques to study the interlocking relationships driving the global economy. They claim to have identified the inner architecture of global economic power, and hope to make it more stable. Incredible stuff! A list of the top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies cross references nicely with the question, "Who Owns the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel?" The focus is on global "Transnational Corporations" (TNCs) and how the interlocking ownership/cross-director-relationships has affected the global economy. The study discovers a "super-entity" comprised of a core 147 companies that control over 40% of the world's wealth and productivity capacity. Most of these are global banking and financial operations. Yes, Wall Street Banksters! "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says James Glattfelder, head of the Zurich research team. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group. Collectively this 1% control a further 60% of global revenues. excerpt: AS OWS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global econo

Important work but perhaps too immature to base decisions on with confidence. I was struck by this statement: "Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk." My relevant question is, who would be the recipients of the postulated tax? Anytime you create a revenue stream, the recipients acquire a vested interest in maintaining and expanding that revenue stream and the folks who pay the revenue acquire a vested interest in minimizing or eliminating the expense. While the payers incentives are consistent with the article's statement, the identities of the recipients and their incentives to tweak the tax to produce more revenue needs more thought and discussion with a strong focus on: [i] who makes that decision; [ii] who has the the power to decide whether that authority is abused; and [iii] who has standing to initiate actions to correct abuse. On the latter, the U.S. Constitution would seem to require that those who pay the taxes are entitled to Due Process. But at the same time, the individual consumer can also be injured by abuse. However, a hallmark trait of most trade agreements is that only government and regulated corporations are granted standing to challenge regulatory decisions, which has skewed their interpretation heavily to the corporate side. Universal standing is the cure.

Chris Savvindis followup interview, the day after his infamous End the Fed youtube video. If Chris is in any way representative of America's future, there are better days coming. In the interview he explains how his views and opinions were shaped. He's a libertarian steeped in the Austrian School of economics, his education beginning with Peter Schiff. Not surprisingly, Chris is a supporter of Ron Paul, and he takes the time to explain why. Yeah, he is a rockstar and deservedly so.

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting weighs in on mainstream media's reluctance to call for banksters to be issued horizontal striped suits, noting that the excuses used ignore that there are real victims and that real crimes were comitted. 

The article might have mentioned that during the entire time he lived in the U.S., Haftar lived very near the largest office building in Langley, Virginia, occupied by an agency that has a three-letter acronym.