Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Cramer: "It's all fiction!"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/22706231

ITS ALL ABOUT THE COMMISSION

(We used to say) “The commissions on structured products are so huge let's JAM IT.” (note “jam it” means foist it on the customer) It's all about the 'commish'. The commission on structured product is GIGANTIC. I could make a fortune 'JAMMING THAT CRUMMY PAPER' but I had a degree of conscience---what a shocker!--We used to regulate people but they decided during the Reagan revolution that that was bad. So we don't regulate anyone anymore. But listen, the commission in structured product is so gigantic. (pause) First of all the customer has no idea what the product really is because it is invented. Second, you assume the customer is really stupid; like we used to say about the German bankers, 'The German banks are just Bozos. Throw them anything.' Or the Australians 'M O R O N S' Or the Florida Fund (ha ha ) “They're so stupid let's give them Triple B (junk grade) Then we'd just laugh and laugh at the customers and Jam them with the commission...That's what happened; that's what happened....Remember, this is about commissions, about how much money you can make by jamming stupid customers. I've seen it all my life; you jam stupid customers.


Transcription of portion near end of the video by Mike Whitney, in "Financial Meltdown: Is This The Big One?" Whitney asks whether this is "smart" or criminal.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7880

At one point, Cramer says we are in "late-stage rapacious capitalism."

He also talks about social pressure not to talk about false financials among the Wall Street crowd who golf together and send their kids to the same private schools.

9/11 FAQ by Ran Prieur

http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/911FAQ.html

Nosed Out by Simon Shack

Video analysis of the WNYW FOX5 "Nose-Out" shot aired live on 9/11, by maker of September Clues.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

The world press has quoted Yukisa Fujita dozens of times

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22yukihisa+fujita%22&btnG=Search+Archives&hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8

Just not this time, when he talked about 9/11 as the unproven premise for the government's refueling bill and the war on terror in general.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Japanese opposition party questions Prime Minister on 9/11 facts

On January 10, during debate on whether Japan should renew its law allowing the Marine Self-Defense Forces to provide refueling support to U.S. military vessels in the Indian Ocean, a member of Japan's largest opposition party questioned whether the Japanese government has sufficiently examined 9/11 as a premise for this law and for the 'war on terrorism." He repeatedly states that this was a crime and as such must be investigated properly.

Full speech, Japanese only:

http://www.webtv.sangiin.go.jp/generator/meta_generator_wmv.php?ssp=8478&on=1199958156&si=e1a1b6e76ae25e72c5877dfb56d49f143&ch=y&mode=LIBRARY&pars=0.23871368956457012


Here are videos with subtitles that are generally accurate but still need work, mainly for completeness.

http://www.911video.de/ex/jap111.htm


I'm hoping that in a week or so a full and accurate translation will be available.

Even if you don't speak Japanese, you will recognize some of the arguments being made when the Japanese Diet member uses visual aids.

The Foggy Dew - Frances Black

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAriag97l18

Legal-Illegal:

http://www.blackfamilyresources.com/frances/audio/Legal_Illegal.mp3

A Woman's Heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m03aJR1avcY&NR=1

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

"Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media"

Today, the media is in crisis, and a free and open society is at risk. Fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully filtered, dissent is marginalized, and supporting the powerful substitutes for full and accurate reporting. As a result, wars of aggression are called liberating ones, civil liberties are suppressed for our own good, and patriotism means going along with governments that are lawless.

"Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media"
Reviewing David Cromwell and David Edwards' book
by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, January 9, 2008

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7754

Case studies and ideas discussed:

Iraq - The Sanctions of Mass Destruction
Iraq Disarmed - Burying the 1991-98 Weapons Inspections
Iraq - Gunning for War and Burying the Dead
Afghanistan - Let Them Eat Grass
Kosovo - Real Bombs, Fictional Genocide
East Timor - The Practical Limits of Crusading Humanitarianism
Haiti - The Hidden Logic of Exploitation
Idolatry Ink - Reagan, the 'Cheerful Conservative' and 'Chubby Bubba' Clinton
Ultimate [Climate] Change - The Ultimate Media Betrayal
Disciplined Media - Professional Conformity to Power
Toward a Compassionate Media

and the conclusion of the book review:
Full Human Dissent

Corporations today manipulate society and our lives by harming the greater good for profits. Consider the cost: "individual depression, global environmental collapse, wars for control of natural resources" and global dominion. It happens because we're saturated in a "mass consumer culture" that ignores "our needs as human beings." To counteract this, we need "to find more humanly productive answers" mainstream culture calls "dissident" or "absurd," but the authors believe are possible and vital.

Approaches to "individual and social well-being (are) practiced in many traditional cultures (but have been) filtered out" of ours because they conflict with corporate goals already explained. The authors once worked for corporate employers and described their condition as "unrelieved boredom and stress....work....of no intrinsic interest (and) simply a means to the end of material acquisition." They concluded that life centered around money and status "becomes a depressing dead end, a kind of emotional wasteland."

They contrast that experience to their involvement today in "unpaid human rights and environmental work" that includes their Media Lens efforts. Compassionate dissent holds promise as a motivating force - "for media activism, peace activism, human and animal rights activism, and environmental activism." It's also "profoundly conducive to our own well-being." The authors end by stating political dissent must be combined with human dissent. The combination can be powerfully self-liberating and "all the motivation we need to act for the welfare of the world." Isn't that a goal worth working for? Isn't it what what we want for ourselves?


One of the authors, David Edwards, discussed the effects of our corporate society on our own well-being in his 1996 book "Burning All Illusions: A Guide to Personal and Political Freedom," where he argued that we should not change the actions and societal structures that lead to climate change for the benefit of people in developing countries or the future, but because these actions and structures are not making us happy.

http://books.google.com/books?id=AIe3Emh6rPcC&dq=%22burning+all+illusions%22&pg=PP1&ots=L9A84bWiHZ&sig=NpltF6bSs0Iqi6_hRwJxe4JdyuI&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22burning+all+illusions%22&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPR6,M1