Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

'Dirty Wars' Is Our Responsibility
HP | Dawn V. Woollen | 06/14/13

... Since 9/11 we have largely trusted the government to keep us "safe" with actions in plain sight, including invading Iraq and airport body scanners. But mostly we have trusted the government with actions we don't know about, actions that exist in the shadowy no-man's-land of "Top Secret" and "National Security." We have been largely content with this arrangement as long as we are kept safe from the "bad guys."   But at what cost to us, to the people targeted and to our shared humanity? Who exactly determines who the bad guys are? And is there such a thing as a "clean" war, as President Obama claims?

These are some of the questions I left the movie theater asking myself after seeing Dirty Wars, the incredible documentary by Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley. Dirty Wars is a detective story that unfolds in countries we know in name only, places we hear about but will likely never visit, and from the people who populate these faraway lands from which we are so disconnected. In the movie we discover what our government is doing covertly, without our knowledge, while glimpsing the impact on those affected... and on our future. ... Read more

'Dirty Wars' uncloaks U.S. forces
SF Examiner | Anita Katz | 06/14/13

In "Dirty Wars," journalist Jeremy Scahill examines the ascent and actions of the Special Joint Operations Command, the super-secret military force that performs drone strikes, targeted assassinations and other lethal operations in its function as a paramilitary arm of the U.S. president.

It begins in Gardez, Afghanistan. A night raid has killed a police commander and two pregnant women.   Interviews with the family, plus some sleuthing, reveal that American fighters performed the attack and the victims were not terrorists. Scahill discovers that the then-unknown SJOC conducted the raid. The attack was one of about 1,700 such incidents.

A picture emerges of SJOC as a deadly force that acts with approval from the U.S. government and NATO without accountability or congressional oversight. It operates in 75 countries, including many where no war exists. ... Read more

Atmospheric carbon dioxide reaches 400 parts per million concentration milestone
WashingtonPost | Jason Samenow | 05/10/13

For the first time in human history, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million (ppm). The arrival at this threshold represents a powerful symbol of the growing human influence on the Earth’s climate.

Manmade emissions of carbon dioxide have increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2 from around 270 to 280 ppm in the late 1700s to today’s record high level of 400 ppm. Measurements of CO2 trapped in air bubbles from ice cores in Antarctica indicate today’s levels are unsurpassed in at least 800,000 years. Read more
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How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Power
TheNation | Lee Fang | 06/11/13/span>

I reread this article again yesterday... it is really reveling on how contractors are misusing the information they are gathering

Colorado Is Burning Even Worse Than Last Year
MotherJones | James West | 06/13/13

The Black Forest fire is the most destructive fire in the state's history, and has completely destroyed at least 379 homes, according to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. At least two people have been killed.

... Is climate change making wildfires worse? Big wildfires like Colorado's thrive in dry air, low humidity, and high winds; climate change is going to make those conditions more frequent over the next century. We know because it's already happening: A University of Arizona report from 2006 found that large forest fires have occurred more often in the western United States since the mid-1980s as spring temperatures increased, snow melted earlier, and summers got hotter, leaving more and drier fuels for fires to devour. ... Read more

US spy operation that manipulates social media
TheGuardian | Nick Fielding | older 03/17/11

Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

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.   A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world. ... Read more

'Top Secret America': A look at the military's Joint Special Operations Command
WashingtonPost | Dana Priest | 09/02/11

The CIA's armed drones and paramilitary forces have killed dozens of al-Qaeda leaders and thousands of its foot soldiers. But there is another mysterious organization that has killed even more of America's enemies in the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

CIA operatives have imprisoned and interrogated nearly 100 suspected terrorists in their former secret prisons around the world, but troops from this other secret organization (JSOC) have imprisoned and interrogated 10 times as many, holding them in jails that it alone controls in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since 9/11, this secretive group of men (and a few women) has grown tenfold while sustaining a level of obscurity that not even the CIA has managed. "We're the dark matter. We're the force that orders the universe but can't be seen," a strapping Navy SEAL, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said in describing his unit. ... Read more