Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Meet the Elites Inside the $4 Trillion Global Powerhouse Bank of JP Morgan Chase
AlterNet | Andrew Gavin Marshall | 07/04/13

JP Morgan Chase is one of the most powerful banks in the world, embedded within a transnational network of elite institutions and individuals.

In May, JPMorgan Chase was listed as the largest bank in the world with assets at roughly $4 trillion -- some $1.53 trillion of it in derivatives. This was reported a month after the announcement that the bank had posted a record first-quarter profit of $6.5 billion. ... Read more

Are Corporations Trying to Distract Us with Social Issues While They Take Control of Our Economy?
AlterNet | RJ Eskow | 07/04/13

Politicians are winning liberal hearts and minds on social issues, while at the same time embracing a corporate political agenda based on ever-greater wealth for the few and increasing austerity for the many.

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Chomsky: How Do We Defend Ourselves from the Corporate and Imperial Forces That Threaten Our Existence?
AlterNet | Noam Chomsky | 07/05/13

Almost all borders have been imposed and maintained by violence, and are quite arbitrary. The Lebanon-Israel border was established a century ago by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing up the former Ottoman Empire in the interests of British and French imperial power, with no concern for the people who happened to live there, or even for the terrain. The border makes no sense, which is why it was so easy to cross unwittingly.

Pashtuns, for example, have never accepted the legitimacy of the Durand Line, drawn by Britain to separate Pakistan from Afghanistan; nor has any Afghan government ever accepted it. It is in the interests of today's imperial powers that Pashtuns crossing the Durand Line are labeled "terrorists" so that their homes may be subjected to murderous attack by U.S. drones and special operations forces.

... The American/Mexican border was established by U.S. aggression during the 19th century. But it was kept fairly open until 1994, when President Bill Clinton initiated Operation Gatekeeper, militarizing it.   Before then, people had regularly crossed it to see relatives and friends. It's likely that Operation Gatekeeper was motivated by another event that year: the imposition of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is a misnomer because of the words "free trade."

Doubtless the Clinton administration understood that Mexican farmers, however efficient they might be, couldn't compete with highly subsidized U.S. agribusiness, and that Mexican businesses couldn't compete with U.S. multinationals, which under NAFTA rules must receive special privileges like "national treatment" in Mexico. Such measures would almost inevitably lead to a flood of immigrants across the border. ... Read more

NSA warrantless surveillance (2001--07)
Wikipedia | author | date

The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy (AKA "Warrantless Wiretapping") concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror. Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the "terrorist surveillance program",[1] part of the broader President's Surveillance Program, the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor, without search warrants, the phone calls, Internet activity (Web, e-mail, etc.), text messaging, and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S. ... Read more

Spies for hire: Money over privacy?
Aljazeera | author |06/15/13

Nations spend billions spying on their own citizens and people overseas - whether that is hacking, intercepting phone calls or just requests from governments to private companies.   In the US, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other non-military spy agencies will get $48bn next year. The UK is spending around $3.6bn on its spy agencies. And China's spending on "internal security" was $111bn last year.

The data industry in the US alone is worth $300bn a year and it employs some three million people. That is coupled with the online sales industry, which generates $10tn per year.   All of this is managed by the more than 2,000 so-called 'data broker companies'. Acxiom Corp is the biggest - with a profit of $77mn in 2011, coming from the largest commercial consumer database with 500 million active users worldwide. ... Read more

Afghanistan: The price of revenge
Aljazeera | author | 07/02/13

More than a decade ago - without consultation, without any debate - the United States launched the war against Afghanistan. The whole world was by its side, as soldiers rolled into the country in an act of self-defence after the attacks of 9/11. Today, the troops of the coalition are gradually packing up.

After years of violence and bloodshed, the lives of more than 3,000 soldiers have been lost, and the US leaves behind a country on the brink of civil war.   The official rhetoric has not stood up to the stark reality on the ground: Osama bin Laden was found and killed elsewhere - in neighbouring Pakistan; al-Qaeda and the Taliban may have been an ideological combination conveniently cooked up by the hawks in Washington; and the fate of Afghan women was just used as an excuse to sell the war to a Western public. ... Read more