Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States S01E01 – World War II

Intro by Papier Speelt

Published on Nov 17, 2012

“Narrated by Oliver Stone, this new one-hour series features human events that at the time went under reported, but crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history. The first chapter explores the birth of the American Empire by focusing on Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Through examination of key decisions during World War II, discover unsung heroes such as American Henry Wallace and explore the demonization of the Soviets.” (source: http://www.sho.com)

Susan Rice’s Conflict of Interest – Major Holdings in Tar Sands Oil, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Canadian Financiers

By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC 11/29) United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice will face serious and blatant conflicts of interest if nominated and confirmed as United States Secretary of State.  Rice has major financial interests in the company extracting oil from the Canadian tar sands, the company building the pipeline that will carry the oil across the U.S., and the Canadian banks financing this deadly project. (Image)

As Secretary of State, Rice would be responsible for the key recommendation to President Barack Obama on lifting the president’s ban on construction of the Keystone XL pipeline imposed in January.  She would make the decision knowing that there would be major impact on nearly one third of her (and her husband’s) investments.

Argentina Court Freezes Chevron’s Assets: Penalty for Polluting the Amazon in Ecuador

By Pratap Chatterjee
Global Research

Adrian Elcuj Miranda, a judge in Buenos Aires, has ordered the seizure of Chevron’s assets in Argentina, to force the company to pay a $19 billion penalty for polluting the Amazon in Ecuador. The plaintiffs are seeking similar legal action in Brazil, Canada, Colombia and other countries.

Chevron – a Northern California-based oil and gas company – merged with another company named Texaco in 2001 whose actions are the basis of the lawsuit. Between 1964 and 1992 Texaco admitted to dumping more than 16 billion gallons of toxic “water of formation” into the streams and rivers of the Ecuadorean Amazon that were used by local inhabitants for their drinking water sickening indigenous tribespeople and farmers.

Some 900 open-air toxic waste pits still dot the area, where approximately 9,000 people are expected to contract cancer unless it is cleaned up, according to a study by Dr. Daniel Rourke, former of the Rand Corporation.

9/11: The Myth and the Reality – David Ray Griffin

“A devastating expose’ of the myths and lies in the official conspiracy theory about 9/11, Griffin scrutinizes the timeline and physical evidence of September 11 for  unresolved inconsistencies.”                         – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Hurricane Sandy and What Heals Hurts

By Betsy L. Angert

Human beings are a fascinating bunch.  We gather information through observation, and the reading of facts, figures, and formulas.  We draw inferences and deduce. Granted conversations too play a role in what we conclude; however, mostly humans rely on the readable. What we cannot see is thought less significant.  Take Hurricane Sandy for example.

Meteorologists  saw the signs.  Citizens, who merely glanced at the papers understood what was visible in print; Sharp Warnings as Hurricane Churns Inc People began to do as people do when warned of an impending storm. They prepare for the worse.  Individuals and families evacuated the area.  Transit Authorities shutdown the system.  Cities and counties hunkered down.

Now, after the tempest took its toll, young ones do as the adults had done. An eight-grader’s account  looks at what appears on the surface. As do most, she too attends to material concerns.  Rarely, do we know what else to do. Society and school curriculums that reflect a standardized surface reality do not give us the critical thinking tools needed to assist persons who have experienced an emotional trauma.  Today, we have one. We have Psychological First Aid. This relief is not as a “kit” filled with bandages, cotton balls and antiseptic; nor is a box full of funds or quick-fix tricks. No, this Aid is much like cake you bake or the casserole you might make for family or friends in distress.  Either is a gift of love.  Each opens the door for conversations that reveal feelings.  So what is this Aid?

Election Fraud, November 6 – Watch for Vote Flipping and Fixed Exit Polls

By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC) Our elections are officially privatized.  They are hidden from our view by design.

On November 6, your votes will be cast and tallied on voting machines manufactured and serviced by private companies.  The computerized voting machines run on software that is closely held as a trade secret by these companies.  Our elections officials are barred from examining the most important aspects of the software.  Why?  Because those same officials signed away our right to open access and inspection of the voting systems that tell us who won and who lost each and every election.  (Image: WikiCommons)

This is the most profound election fraud imaginable.  It affects every citizen, all 311 million of us.

Part II – Rigged Elections for Romney?

Michael Collins

Part I of this series suggested that there may well have been massive vote flipping for candidate Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries (Rigged Elections for Romney (10/22/12)  The article and the initial research analysis were received broadly.  In addition, highly motivated citizens across the country and a team of high school students contacted the authors for help replicating the research in their states.  The researchers, Francois et al., point out that this can be done with their open source techniques.

The basic argument is straightforward.  If you look at precinct level voting data arranged from the smallest to the largest precincts, you will see Romney’s gains increasing substantially as the cumulative vote increases.  For example, Ohio and Wisconsin show this clearly as do eleven other states presented here.  This extraordinary vote gain from smallest to largest precincts is so out of line, that the probability that this would happen by chance alone is often less than 1 out of a number represented by 1 preceded by 100 zeros and a decimal point, a value beneath the statistical package’s lower limits.  As a result, the researchers termed the suspected vote flipping for Romney the “amazing anomaly.” (The Amazing Statistical Anomaly)

Rigged Elections for Romney

By Michael Collins

A group of independent researchers caught a pattern of apparent vote flipping during the 2012 Republican primaries that consistently favored Mitt Romney. A form of election fraud, vote flipping occurs when votes are changed from one candidate to another or several others during electronic voting and vote tabulation.  (Image:  Dean  Terry)

Vote flipping is difficult to detect because the vote totals remain the same for each precinct. In one of several possible scenarios, an instruction is given to a precinct level voting machine or to a county-level central tabulator. The corrupted totals from precincts are sent from county election officials to state elections board and published as final results. (Primary documents for this article: Republican Primary Election 2012 Results: Amazing Statistical Anomalies, August 13, 2012and2008/2012 Election Anomalies, Results, Analysis and Concerns, September 2012).

The Moral Equivalent of Nuremberg

By Robert C. Koehler
COTO Report

My favorite quote was from the British government spokesperson, who assured us: “All ammunition used by UK armed forces falls within international humanitarian law and is consistent with the Geneva Convention.”

Tears come to my eyes as I think about the kindness of coalition bullets, the empathy of coalition bombs — unlike, I’m certain, the ammo used by terrorists, which is cruel, which hates our way of life and wants only to destroy it.

Forgive me the sarcasm. Another study has come out, this one underwritten by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan, linking the U.S.-British war in Iraq with a hideous, heartbreaking and “staggering” increase in birth defects in areas of the country where bombing and heavy fighting occurred.

Comprehensive Survival Food Storage Guide

By Rady Ananda
Activist Post

Survival food storage practice doesn’t require Mormon membership, but the tradition, wrought from their first Utah winter, is worth emulating should disaster strike or technology fail, two survival books by Mat Stein. This guide, Part 2 of my survival series, relies on Stein’s books, and websites dedicated to survival preparedness.

Just One More Thing….

By Volaar

I understand that Native Americans resent our imperial relish over Christopher Columbus’ discovery of what he wanted his padrones to believe was Asia; I also understand that we, an imperial army of herded sheep, ran the ancestors of our indigenous people into near-extinction by being more in number, racked by pestilences of flesh and blood too putrid to be considered wholly human and by being less conscious of our surroundings and more willing to commit atrocities for the sake of putting one in the “W” column.  Thanks for pulling us through those first couple of Winters, gang.

Unions, Education and The Chicago Teachers Strike

By Betsy L. Angert

The Chicago Teachers Union strike, and the recent rallies held in conjunction, speak to a problem larger than the conventional meme of pay increases, tenure, or pensions. Chicago Teachers want better working conditions. They realize as no other employees might; the environments in which they work fashion the future of our nation. Our children’s education is at-risk.

Twenty-five years have passed since Chicago Teachers Union members have gone out on strike. These Educators realize as do all workers ¬Unions today are not the powerhouses of yesteryear. According to a study by Sociologist Jake Rosenfeld, unionization among private-sector full-time employees fell by 40% between 1984 and 2002. Indeed, as cited in Unions, Norms, and the Rise in American Wage Inequality, “From 1973 to 2007, private sector union membership in the United States declined from 34 to 8 percent for men and from 16 to 6 percent among women. Inequality in hourly wages increased by over 40 percent in this period.”

The reasons are stark.

The Innocence of U.S. Foreign Policy

 

By Robert C. Koehler
COTO Report

The Saturday headline in the Wall Street Journal was: “Anti-U.S. Mobs on Rampage.”

The next day, a NATO airstrike killed eight women collecting firewood in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, an event that garnered virtually zero mainstream U.S. headlines.

Somewhere in the gap between these two phenomena — the overheated news about our violent, irrational enemies in the Middle East and the silence surrounding our war and occupation of the region — lies American politics, values, the presidential race, the national identity. Beyond that gap lies the truth about who we are, and only when we have access to it does the future turn into creative possibility and peace become possible.

Organic Food Debunker was Tobacco Institute Researcher in 1976

By Michael Collins

A widely publicized study claiming that there is no demonstrated difference in nutritional value between organically and conventionally grown foods just appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Broad mainstream media coverage produced headlines like Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce. The media failed to mention one point that may be of major interest.

The study relied on a statistical technique called meta-analysis. Over 200 plus scientific journal articles were combined as the data set for the study. The article co-author with recognized expertise in meta-analysis, Ingram Olkin, applied for a grant from Council of Tobacco Research (CTR) in 1976.

Totalitarianism in the US: An Accident Waiting to Happen

By Numerian
First appeared in The Agonist

Listening to Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention, I couldn’t place where I had come across something quite like this before. Then it struck me – Pravda! I used to subscribe to Pravda in high school and college, first to learn Russian, and second, to pursue a college program in Soviet studies. Pravda was a newspaper that specialized in the Big Lie – the Five Year Plan was always ahead of schedule, Soviet industrial capabilities exceeded that of any other country, people were starving on streets all across America. The newspaper was a non-stop stream of lies, just as Paul Ryan’s speech was studded with Big Lies – lies that were easily disprovable, such as Barack Obama did nothing about the Simpson-Bowles recommendations to reduce the budget deficit (Paul Ryan didn’t mention he voted against these recommendations when the House killed any chance of enacting them); or that Obama made it easier for people to live off welfare (the President altered the enrollment rules of welfare at the request of Republican governors); or the Romney favorite – Obama cut over $700 billion of Medicare benefits for individuals (the cuts were imposed on hospitals and insurance companies, not beneficiaries, and Romney has the same cuts in his economic plan). (Image: Wikipedia)

New Orleans is braced for Isaac

By Rady Ananda
Activist Post

New Orleans has battened down the hatches, filled the gas tanks, and stocked up on survival gear in preparation for Tropical Storm (soon-to-be Hurricane) Isaac, which is expected to make landfall Tuesday afternoon or evening, one day shy of the 7th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Rape, Patriarchy and the Bomb

By Robert C. Koehler
COTO Report

“Every sperm is sacred . . .”

Todd Akin could have worked on the script for the 1983 Monty Python movie, The Meaning of Life: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

But wait, there’s more. “But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something,” the Missouri Senate candidate said in his recent, now infamous TV interview. “You know, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be at the rapist and not attacking the child.”

This is where I heard the bell toll. He hypothesizes that the rape is “legitimate” but the woman manages to get pregnant anyway. So punish the rapist, he says, not “the child” (i.e., embryo) by, presumably, allowing it to be aborted. Who hovers in utter irrelevancy in this scenario? The woman. She’s no more than a fertile medium for the rapist’s “child” and has no say in what should happen next.

Romney’s Albatross

Michael Collins

The public is just beginning to pay attention to the key issues of the 2012 presidential campaign. Even at this early stage, there is a clear trend in opinion against vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher program. On this and other key issues, Ryan’s very explicit positions and legislative proposals spell doom for the Romney campaign. Ryan’s record and a Republican platform endorsing those extreme views are Romney’s albatross.

A Pew Research poll, August 23, exposes the impact of one key campaign. Medicare Voucher Plan Remains Unpopular captures the impact of timing for Ryan’s exposure as a hard core, right wing extremist.

A Return to Humanity

By Chris Pratt
COTO Report

Our inaction, our passivity, our naivety and the ease with which we can be manipulated has fueled the forces of fear, power, greed and suppression. Most U.S. citizens now walk around in self-induced comas, too ignorant to question, too afraid to ask and too numb to feel.

Is our government capable of killing its own people?  Look … at what we have done to the environment and the poor for oil.  Look … at the brutal dictators we have brought to power and continue to fund.  Look … at the wars we have manufactured.

How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps

Reblogged from The Homeless Adjunct:

A few years back, Paul E. Lingenfelter began his report on the defunding of public education by saying, "In 1920 H.G. Wells wrote, 'History is becoming more and more a race between education and catastrophe.' I think he got it right. Nothing is more important to the future of the United States and the world than the breadth and effectiveness of education, especially of higher education.

Read more… 4,191 more words