Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Truthdigger of the Week: Greg Palast
TruthDigger | Alexander Reed Kelly | 09/22/13

... Summers is undeniably right. More direction from the man whose performance in Clinton's Treasury department helped create the 2008 economic crisis and the ongoing horrors that followed runs directly against the interests of all Americans, including those in the ruling and owning class. But I and many others were looking forward to a hearing to confirm Summers. Why? Because as the Indian news service Niti Central may have been the first to point out, Summers could have been asked to publicly explain the meaning of a secret 1997 Treasury memo (viewable here) reminding him to pick up a phone and reassure the most powerful CEOs in the world that plans to tear apart laws protecting the economies of 156 nations from predatory bankers were going ahead as scheduled. ... Read more

AIG CEO Compares Anger At Wall Street Bonuses To The Lynching Of Black People In The South
ZeroHedge | Michael Krieger | 09/24/13

Over 360,000 Gun Deaths Since 9/11 -- From the Outside It Looks Like America Is a Country Gripped by Civil War
AlterNet | Henry Porter | 09/24/13

... The annual toll from firearms in the US is running at 32,000 deaths and climbing, even though the general crime rate is on a downward path (it is 40% lower than in 1980). If this perennial slaughter doesn't qualify for intercession by the UN and all relevant NGOs, it is hard to know what does. ...

... That's America, we say, as news of the latest massacre breaks -- last week it was the slaughter of 12 people by Aaron Alexis at Washington DC's navy yard -- and move on. But what if we no longer thought of this as just a problem for America and, instead, viewed it as an international humanitarian crisis -- a quasi civil war, if you like, that calls for outside intervention? As citizens of the world, perhaps we should demand an end to the unimaginable suffering of victims and their families -- the maiming and killing of children -- just as America does in every new civil conflict around the globe. ... Read more

The government is watching you

The Shadow Commander
NewYorker | Dexter Filkins | 09/30/13

Qassem Suleimani is the Iranian operative who has been reshaping the Middle East. Now he's directing Assad's war in Syria.

Last February, some of Iran's most influential leaders gathered at the Amir al-Momenin Mosque, in northeast Tehran, inside a gated community reserved for officers of the Revolutionary Guard. They had come to pay their last respects to a fallen comrade. Hassan Shateri, a veteran of Iran's covert wars throughout the Middle East and South Asia, was a senior commander in a powerful, élite branch of the Revolutionary Guard called the Quds Force. The force is the sharp instrument of Iranian foreign policy, roughly analogous to a combined C.I.A. and Special Forces; its name comes from the Persian word for Jerusalem, which its fighters have promised to liberate. Since 1979, its goal has been to subvert Iran's enemies and extend the country's influence across the Middle East. Shateri had spent much of his career abroad, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, where the Quds Force helped Shiite militias kill American soldiers. ... Read more