Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Stunning Drone Clip Reveals Massive Size Of Hong Kong Protest
ZeroHedge | author | 09/29/14

Ferguson was for amateurs. For those curious why the Hong Kong protests over the weekend have sent shivers across the world's capital markets, pushed the Hang Seng 2% lower, and impacted both European and US futures, not to mention leading to worries that China may get involved any second and result in another Tiananmen square event, the following clip from HK's Apple Daily, taken by a drone, shows just how massive the demonstrations, which according to some estimates involved just why of 100,000 people, taking place in Hong Kong are. ... Read more
Massive Size Of Hong Kong Protest (09/28/14) [1:31]

Why the Showdown with Islamic Extremists Is the War the Pentagon Was Hoping For
AlterNet | Nicholas JS Davies | 09/28/14

As the U.S. escalates its bombing campaign against ISIS (or IS or ISIL), U.S. officials seem to have found an enemy we can all love to hate and fear. ISIS beheads hostages, conducts brutal ethnic cleansing and has links to Al-Qaeda. DC power players have eagerly embraced a small war made to order to restore America's wounded military pride after the first Iraq debacle.

The contrived nature of the narrative presented by U.S. officials was evident from the outset if one cared to look behind the propaganda screen. As the U.S. bombing campaign began, German Left Party MP Ulla Jelpke told a press conference in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) on August 11th that the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar were rescued by the Kurdish PKK, who the U.S. government classifies as "terrorists." Refugees told Jelpke that they were saved by "Allah and the PKK," not by U.S. bombing. ... Read more

The War Without End
AP & HP | author | 09/29/14

Afghanistan To Sign U.S. Security Agreement, Adviser Says

A senior adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday that Afghanistan will sign a deal Tuesday to allow American soldiers to remain in the country past the end of the year. John Podesta, speaking to a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said he didn't know if newly inaugurated President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai would be the official signing the deal for Afghanistan.

The deal will allow about 10,000 American troops to stay in the country after the international combat mission ends on Dec. 31. ... Read more

Dead kids and accidental shootouts: A September snapshot of gun violence in America
Salon | Joanna Rothkopf| 09/29/14

How's this for a bleak assessment? "For essentially the last 20 years, there has been almost no federal support for research on a health problem that kills upwards of 30,000 people a year," said Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, in an interview yesterday with NPR.

The health problem he's talking about is, of course, gun violence. Between 2000 and 2010, the rate of gun-related deaths in the United States was 10.21 per 100,000 people, according to a recent study in the journal BMJ Open. Over the 11 years covered by the study, at least 335,609 people were killed by guns in this country, and the researchers conclude that if trends continue, around 336,778 lives will be lost due to gun violence between 2011 and 2020. ... Read more

Naomi Klein: Fossil Fuels Threaten Our Ability to Have Healthy Children
MotherJones | author | 09/29/14

It's self-evident that embryos, fetuses, and babies are vulnerable. We have strict laws protecting children because they cannot fend for themselves. And yet, too often, we ignore the impact that environmental disasters have on the very earliest stages of life. In her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein examines the effect that our reliance on fossil fuels has on the most helpless members of the animal kingdom--as well as on our own children.

"In species after species, climate change is creating pressures that are depriving life-forms of their most essential survival tool: the ability to create new life and carry on their genetic lines," Klein writes. "Instead, the spark of life is being extinguished, snuffed out in its earliest, most fragile days: in the egg, in the embryo, in the nest, in the den." ... Read more