Direct Democracy Is the Future of Human Governance – Part 1

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means.

– Lord Acton

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

– Buckminster Fuller

If you’ve read anything I’ve written over the past several years, you’ll be acutely aware of my belief that human civilization is currently in a major transition period between two great paradigms of world history. The old world we all grew up in no longer works for most people, yet is being relentlessly propped up by the powerful and their minions who benefit from its parasitic and destructive nature. Despite their best efforts, a system so poisonous, decrepit and corrupt cannot and will not last. At this stage, it’s little more than a Potemkin village fraud barely kept standing courtesy of increasingly intense deception, manipulation and the sheer will of those who profit handsomely from it.

By stating we’re in the transition period, I want to make it clear I believe things are very much already being disrupted and altered beneath the hood of a world which appears indistinguishable from what it was a decade ago on a superficial level. Specifically, I think there are two core aspects of human existence that will be completely transformed in the years to come. First, within the monetary and financial systems that define how commerce, savings and entrepreneurship function. The emergence and continued momentum of Bitcoin offers evidence that disruption in this realm is already very much underway, albeit still in its infancy. The second realm I expect will experience massive transformational change relates to forms of human governance. We’ve barely scratched the surface on this one, but nascent signs have started to appear, and I suspect a push towards political systems more defined by direct democracy will become increasingly common in the years ahead. I’ve spent many hours writing about the financial and monetary system, so today’s piece will focus on what appears to be coming with regard to human political evolution.

Direct democracy is something that’s been tried before, so there’s some history to it. Once you start exploring the concept you’ll be immediately confronted with a plethora of terms such as eDemocracy, liquid democracy, referendum, initiative, and recall to name just a few. The purpose of this post isn’t to dig into all of that, although it’s certainly a useful exercise and I’ll provide some helpful links at the end. The purpose of this post is to distinguish direct democracy from the most common form of democratic government functioning on earth today, representative democracy.

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Blackmail, Balderdash and the Brexit that Wasn’t

Tom Luongo

After a lot of drama, British Prime Minister Theresa May came back from Brussels with a breakthrough on Brexit.

Only it wasn’t. 

While the changes to the protocol that governs the implementation of the Irish Backstop are an improvement they are far fro enough to allay the rightful fears of Brexiteers and the Northern Irish.

From the beginning of this process, the EU has been in blackmail mode. They’ve made it clear that they would not negotiate in good faith or even at all. That much has been clear. 

The biggest question has been whether May herself was working in the British people’s best interest or was she simply a stalking horse for further EU integration of the entire continent of Europe.

Never forget that the EU has imperial ambitions. Those that have been its architects saw it as regaining the mantle of the center of the world as the U.S. bankrupts itself maintaining an empire around the world, fighting against the rise of Russia and China.

It sits in the weeds, making byzantine bureaucratic law and building both a fiscal and political union through these under-handed back doors.

And the people of Europe have woken up to it. The Brits voted to leave the EU because of this. 

Euroskeptic parties are rising across Europe. The latest rebuke of the EU came in Austria’s Salzburg, a traditional center-left stronghold just voted for a Lega-style nationalist/populist majority.

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Kindergarten on LSD: Sanctions, smoke and mirrors in Washington

The Saker
The Saker

The latest US sanctions and the Russian retaliatory response have resulted in a torrent of speculations in the official media and the blogosphere - everybody is trying to make sense of a situation which appears to make no sense at all. Why in the world would the US Senate adopt new sanctions against Russia when Russia has done absolutely nothing to provoke such a vote? Except for Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, every single US Senator voted in favor of these sanctions. Why?! This is even more baffling when you consider that the single biggest effect of these sanctions will be to trigger a rift, and possibly even counter-sanctions, between the US and the EU. What is absolutely clear is that these sanctions will have exactly zero effect on Russia and I don't think anybody is seriously expecting the Russians to change anything at all in their policies. And yet, every Senator except Paul and Sanders voted for this. Does that make any sense to you?

Let's try to figure out what is going on here.

First, a simple reminder: like all US politicians, from the county level to the US Congress, Senators have only one consideration when they vote - "what's in it for me?". The very last thing which any US Senator really cares about are the real life consequences of his/her vote. This means that to achieve the kind of quasi unanimity (98%) for a totally stupid vote there was some kind of very influential lobby which used some very forceful "arguments" to achieve such a vote. Keep in mind that the Republicans in the Senate knew that they were voting against the wishes of their President. And yet every single one except for Rand Paul voted for these sanctions, that should tell you something about the power of the lobby which pushed for them. So who would have such power?

The website "Business Pundit: Expert Driven" has helpfully posted an article which lists the 10 top most powerful lobbies in Washington, DC. They are (in the same order as in the original article)

• Tech Lobby
• Mining Industry
• Defense Industry
• Agribusiness Industry
• Big Oil
• Financial Lobby
• Big Pharma
• AARP
• Pro-Israel Lobby
• NRA

Okay, why not? We could probably rearrange them, give them different labels, add a couple (like the "Prison Industrial Complex" or the "Intelligence Community") but all in all this is an okay list. Any name on it jump at you yet?

One could make the case that most of these lobbies need an enemy to prosper, this is certainly true of the Military-Industrial Complex and the associated high tech industry, and one could also reasonably claim that Big Oil, Mining and Agribusiness see Russia as a potential competitor. But a closer look at the interests these lobbies represent will tell you that they are mostly involved in domestic politics and that faraway Russia, with her relatively small economy, is just not that important to them. This is also clearly true for Big Pharma, the AARP and the NRA. Which leaves the Israel Lobby as the only potential candidate.

"Israel Lobby" is, of course, a misnomer. The Israel Lobby has very little interest in Israel as a country or, for that matter, for the Israeli people. If anything, the Israel Lobby ought to be called the "Neocon Lobby". Furthermore, we also have to keep in mind that the Neocon Lobby is unlike any other lobby in the list above. For one thing, it does not represent US interests. Neither does it represent the interests of Israel. Rather, it represents the interests of a specific subset of the US ruling elites, in reality much smaller than 1% of the population, which all share in the one common ideology of worldwide domination typical of the Neocons.

These are the folks who in spite of their 100% ironclad control of the media and Congress lost the Presidential election to Donald Trump and who are now dead set to impeach him. These are the folks who simply use "Russia" as a propagandistic fulcrum to peddle the notion that Trump and his entourage are basically Russian agents and Trump himself as a kind of "Presidential Manchurian Candidate".

Keep in mind that the historical record shows that while the Neocons are fantastically driven, they are not particularly smart. Yes, they do have the kind of rabid ideological determination which allows them to achieve a totally disproportionate influence over US policies, but when you actually read what they write and listen to what they say you immediately realize that these are rather mediocre individuals with a rather parochial mindset which makes them both very predictable and very irritating to the people around them. They always overplay their hand and then end up stunned and horrified when all their conspiracies and plans come tumbling down on them.

I submit that this is exactly what is happening right now.

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The Election Has Been Hacked: The Dismal Reality Of Having No Real Electoral Choices

 John Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute

“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.” ?

- Herbert Marcuse

The FBI is worried: foreign hackers have broken into two state election databases.

The Department of Homeland Security is worried: the nation’s voting system needs greater protection against cyberattacks.

I, on the other hand, am not overly worried: after all, the voting booths have already been hacked by a political elite comprised of Republicans and Democrats who are determined to retain power at all costs.

The outcome is a foregone conclusion: the police state will win and “we the people” will lose.

The damage has already been done.

The DHS, which has offered to help “secure” the nation’s elections, has already helped to lock down the nation.

Remember, the DHS is the agency that ushered in the domestic use of surveillance drones, expanded the reach of fusion centers, stockpiled an alarming amount of ammunition, urged Americans to become snitches through a “see something, say something” campaign, oversaw the fumbling antics of TSA agents everywhere, militarized the nation’s police, spied on activists and veterans, distributed license plate readers and cell phone trackers to law enforcement agencies, contracted to build detention camps, carried out military drills and lockdowns in American cities, conducted virtual strip searches of airline passengers, established Constitution-free border zones, funded city-wide surveillance cameras, and generally turned our republic into a police state.

So, no, I’m not falling for the government’s scare tactics about Russian hackers.

I’m not losing a night’s sleep over the thought that this election might by any more rigged than it already is.

And I’m not holding my breath in the hopes that the winner of this year’s particular popularity contest will save us from government surveillance, weaponized drones, militarized police, endless wars, SWAT team raids, red light cameras, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, profit-driven private prisons, graft and corruption, or any of the other evils that masquerade as official government business these days.

What I’ve come to realize is that Americans want to engage in the reassurance ritual of voting.

They want to believe that politics matter.

They want to be persuaded that there’s a difference between the Republicans and Democrats (there’s not).

They will swear that Barack Obama has been an improvement on George W. Bush (he has not).

They are convinced that Hillary Clinton’s values are different from Donald Trump’s (with both of them, money talks).

Most of all, they want to buy into the fantasy that when we elect a president, we’re getting someone who truly represents “we the people” rather than the corporate state (in fact, in the oligarchy that is the American police state, an elite group of wealthy donors is calling the shots).

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Is Trump Deliberately Throwing The Election To Clinton?

Zero Hedge

"There is an adage in politics: Don't get in the way of a train wreck," said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, a top campaign aide to presidential candidates Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. And, as Reuters reports, Clinton's advisers say they see little benefit in her going toe-to-toe with Trump over every personal accusation, generating sound bites that would dominate cable news broadcasts. Rather, they are happy for him to be embroiled in controversy while Clinton focuses on policy.

Her national press pool, which seldom gets to question the candidate, often waits as she conducts interviews with local news outlets.

She has granted few recent interviews to national outlets and rarely holds press conferences, a strategy her critics say is calculated to avoid questions about her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state, and the relationship between her family's global charity, the Clinton Foundation, and the State Department.

If you haven't heard a lot about what Hillary Clinton thinks of a string of controversial comments by Donald Trump that have generated round-the-clock coverage on cable news broadcasts, there is a reason – it's by design.

Since becoming the Democratic nominee last month, Clinton has been touring toy manufacturers, visiting tie makers and dropping in on public health clinics, where if she mentions Trump at all, it is usually to contrast their policies.

Her swift condemnation at a Wednesday campaign rally of Trump's remark that gun rights activists could stop her from nominating liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices was a rare instance where she has directly engaged her Republican rival in the 2016 race for the White House.

Aides say Clinton's strategy is simple: let Trump be Trump.

 And perhaps there is more to that 'strategy' than means the eye. As Brent Budowsky asks at The Hill - Is Trump deliberately throwing the election to Clinton?

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Who should Bernie voters support now? Robert Reich and Chris Hedges debate tackling the neoliberal order (VIDEO)

Comment: Chris Hedges sees reality objectively. Robert Reich is well-meaning but hasn't a clue.

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House Delivers Clinton a Day from Hell: State Department Reopens Investigation

Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall St. On Parade

Just 18 days before the Democratic National Convention is set to convene in Philadelphia, where delegates and superdelegates will select the presidential candidate in one of the most critical elections in U.S. history — coming amidst signs of slowing economic growth and financial stresses where a strong, trusted leader will be needed to steer the country through major headwinds — the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee delivered Hillary Clinton’s campaign a day from hell yesterday.

On hand to raise alarming questions about Clinton’s fitness to handle classified national security material was FBI Director James Comey, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick and Charles McCullough, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

Here’s a cursory rundown of statements from the hearing that you are likely to see very shortly popping up in PAC ads for Donald Trump: FBI Director Comey added the word “negligent” to his previous assessment of “extremely careless” in describing how Clinton handled Top Secret material. Comey also revealed that two to ten people with no security clearance at all were given access by Clinton to her private basement server in her New York home that stored the Top Secret material in a non secure manner.

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Trump May Win Because His Populism Is in Line With Larger Elite Strategies

The Daily Bell

"Trump slams globalization, promises to upend economic status quo … Donald Trump on Tuesday trashed U.S. trade policies that he said have encouraged globalization and wiped out American manufacturing jobs in a speech in which he promised to herald a U.S. economic resurgence."  - CNN

We recently identified a growing global meme as one that is now pitting “populists” against “globalists.”

There has been, in fact, a populist consolidation with the passage of Brexit.

Trump represents populism in the US and Brexit presents a similar profile across the pond.

Trump has been identified as a “nationalist” because of his crusade to “Make America Great Again.”

But essentially, his positions are populist ones. While Hillary champions ways of making the system work more powerfully on behalf the poor and working class, Trump is apt to emphasize areas where he intends to confront the “system.”
More:

Speaking in the Rust Belt Pennsylvania as a change agent who would bring back manufacturing jobs and end the “rigged system,” … Trump promised sweeping changes if elected — including killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.
… “Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy. I used to be one of them. Hate to say it, but I used to be one of them.”

Trump’s speech casts Clinton as an insider who has “voted for virtually every trade agreement” – making the point that these trade deals have hurt average citizens.

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Italy's Anti-Establishment 5-Star Movement Delivers Dramatic Victories In Key Mayoral Races

Zero Hedge

Until now, Italy's 5-Star Movement has been viewed a protest and opposition party, however a second round of mayoral elections on Sunday changed that.

As we reported earlier this month, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement candidates in the key cities of Rome and Turin had advanced to the second round of voting in each mayoral race. In Rome, the largest stage for voters to show displeasure with politics as usual under Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, residents were seeking new leadership to put an end to the recent turmoil which included corruption allegations, poor management, and political upheaval. On Sunday, voters in Italy's capital decided quite definitively that it was time to move in a new direction.

5-Star Movement candidate Virginia Raggi, a 37-year old lawyer, was elected Rome's first female mayor by winning a stunning 67% of the vote in the second round. Raggi trounced Roberto Giachetti (Prime Minister Renzi's Democratic Party candidate) who took down just 33% of the vote the WSJ reports. The election of an anti-establishment 5-Star Movement candidate is a statement in itself, however by taking 67% of the vote over Renzi's candidate, a resounding message has been sent that the voters want change.

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Australian Electoral Commission Refuses To Allow Researchers To Check E-Voting Software

Techdirt 

 

The fact that Techdirt has been writing about e-voting problems for sixteen years, and that the very first post on the topic had the headline "E-voting is Not Safe," gives an indication of what a troubled area this is. Despite the evidence that stringent controls are still needed to avoid the risk of electoral fraud, some people seem naively to assume that e-voting is now a mature and safe technology that can be deployed without further thought. 

 

In Australia, for example, e-voting is being used for the elections to the country's Senate, but the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has refused to release the relevant software, despite a Senate motion and a freedom of information request. Being able to examine the code is a fundamental requirement, since there is no way of knowing what "black box" e-voting systems are doing with the votes that are entered. A story by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) explains why AEC is resisting:

The Australian Electoral Commission referred AAP to a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal [AAT] in December 2015.

In that decision, relating to a freedom of information request, the tribunal found the release of the source code for the software known as Easycount would have the potential to diminish its commercial value.

"The tribunal is satisfied that the Easycount source code is a trade secret and is exempt from disclosure," the AAT said.

Placing trade secrets above the public interest is a curious choice, to say the least. It seems particularly questionable given Australia's recent experience with e-voting software problems:

When the ACT Electoral Commission released its counting code, researchers at Australian National University found three bugs which were subsequently fixed before an election.

When the Victorian Electoral Commission made its electronic voting protocol available to researchers in 2010, University of Melbourne researchers identified a security weakness which was then rectified before the state election.

As Techdirt readers well know, bugs are commonplace, and there's no particular shame if some are found in a complex piece of software. But refusing to allow independent researchers to look for those bugs so that they can be fixed is inexcusable when the integrity of the democratic selection process is at stake.

Gardening More Meaningful than Voting in a Rigged Political System

Activist Post 

The most effective change-makers in our society aren’t waiting around for a new president to make their lives better, they’re planting seeds, quite literally, and through the revolutionary act of gardening, they’re rebuilding their communities while growing their own independence.

Every four years when the big election comes around, millions of people put their passion for creating a better world into an increasingly corrupt and absurd political contest. What if that energy was instead invested in something worthwhile, something that directly and immediately improved life, community, and the world at large?

The simple act of growing our own food directly challenges the control matrix in many authentic ways, which is why some of the most forward-thinking and strongest-willed people are picking up shovels and defiantly starting gardens. It has become much more of a meaningful political statement than supporting political parties and candidates.

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Sorry Hillary: Former Clinton Advisor Thinks Joe Biden May Be The Nominee

Douglas Schoen
Zero Hedge

There is now more than a theoretical chance that Hillary Clinton may not be the Democratic nominee for president.

How could that happen, given that her nomination has been considered a sure thing by virtually everyone in the media and in the party itself? Consider the possibilities.

The inevitability behind Mrs. Clinton’s nomination will be in large measure eviscerated if she loses the June 7 California primary to Bernie Sanders. That could well happen.

A recent PPIC poll shows Mrs. Clinton with a 2% lead over Mr. Sanders, and a Fox News survey found the same result. Even a narrow win would give him 250 pledged delegates or more—a significant boost. California is clearly trending to Mr. Sanders, and the experience in recent open primaries has been that the Vermont senator tends to underperform in pre-election surveys and over-perform on primary and caucus days, thanks to the participation of new registrants and young voters.

To this end, data from mid-May show that there were nearly 1.5 million newly registered Democratic voters in California since Jan. 1. That’s a 218% increase in Democratic voter registrations compared with the same period in 2012, a strongly encouraging sign for Mr. Sanders.

A Sanders win in California would powerfully underscore Mrs. Clinton’s weakness as a candidate in the general election. Democratic superdelegates—chosen by the party establishment and overwhelmingly backing Mrs. Clinton, 543-44—would seriously question whether they should continue to stand behind her candidacy.

There is every reason to believe that at the convention Mr. Sanders will offer a rules change requiring superdelegates to vote for the candidate who won their state’s primary or caucus. A vote on that proposed change would almost certainly occur—and it would function as a referendum on the Clinton candidacy. If Mr. Sanders wins California, Montana and North Dakota on Tuesday and stays competitive in New Jersey, he could well be within 200 pledged delegates of Mrs. Clinton, making a vote in favor of the rules change on superdelegates more likely.

Another problem: In recent weeks the perception that Mrs. Clinton would be the strongest candidate against Donald Trump has evaporated. The Real Clear Politics polling average has Mrs. Clinton in a statistical tie with Mr. Trump, and recent surveys from ABC News/Washington Post and Fox News show her two and three points behind him, respectively.

Then there is that other crack in the argument for Mrs. Clinton’s inevitability: Bernie Sanders consistently runs stronger than she does against Mr. Trump nationally, beating him by about 10 points in a number of recent surveys.

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Electronic Voting Machines & Why Voters Should Be Suspicious Of Every Election

Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity

 

Long an 'exporter of democracy' to the rest of the world, there is ample evidence that the United States lacks even the most rudimentary, basic protections necessary to preserve voting integrity within its own borders.

 Some of the evidence is circumstantial, some is statistical, and some is pretty direct and clear-cut. Taken together, a pattern that emerges strongly suggesting that ever since electronic voting machines were introduced in the United States,we’ve had a string of suspect election results that frankly are not consistent with a free and fair voting outcome. 

This week, we're joined by Brad Friedman, election integrity analyst to understand better the systems and practices currently in place to collect and tally votes in America. As we gear up to elect our next president, it's clear that numerous concerns exist about the state of 'free and fair' voting in our country:

Trust is different than 'verifiable'. Trust, frankly, has no place in elections. There is no reason to ever trust anybody. We need to be able to verify all of this.

There are basically two different types of electronic voting systems that are currently used today.

One is the touchscreen system that people know about. They’ve seen those votes flipping and so forth. Those machines are, in fact, 100 percent unverifiable -- period. I’ve asked the companies that make the systems many times, if they have any evidence whatsoever that any vote ever cast on one of those machines during an election, for any candidate or initiative on the ballot, if any of those votes have ever been recorded as per the voter’s intent, any evidence whatsoever. They have none -- they are 100 percent unverifiable. Thankfully, many states are getting rid of those and they’re moving to paper ballots.

The problem, however, with hand marked paper ballots is that most of them are run through optical scan computers to be scanned. The problem is, they often don’t work. You can’t tell whether they have worked properly, whether they have accurately recorded the vote, unless you actually hand count the paper ballots -- begging the question of why the hell are we using these optical scan systems in the first place. So when you have a paper ballot, at least it is verifiable if anybody bothers to do a hand count. But we don’t bother to do so in this country; almost never. When problems are found, often they are completely ignored.

So that’s why I’ve argued for years now that the most transparent and reliable way to run an election is to hand count the paper ballots at the precinct on election night publicly in front of everyone with the results posted at the precinct before those ballots are moved anywhere.

Short of that, it really is faith-based elections. We're trusting that they’re recorded accurately, even though we’ve got so much evidence that they often are not. I think it’s a crazy way to run a democracy if you ask me(...)

There is every reason to be suspicious of every election. There's a lot of money at stake, a lot of money, a lot of power at stake in these elections and so people should be suspicious about them.

No matter what you do, people will try to game elections. There's just too much at stake for people to not want to try to do that. That’s why you need a system that is as transparent as possible because people are going to try to game it. The trick is you have as many eyeballs looking as possible to make it as difficult as possible to game the election. That’s the trick; and when you begin to use security by obscurity and hide the way that votes are actually counted and the way that votes are actually cast and the systems that are used to tally them, we have no idea in the end.

I think that’s just absolutely crazy. Every time I come out and make that argument, it depends what election has just happened, but I'm then branded either a Democratic partisan, a Republican partisan, a Bernie supporter, a Hillary supporter -- whatever it is. People don’t like to hear these facts. So I’ve had to go to bat for a lot of candidates who I would have never ever even considered voting for. But I think that their supporters have the right to know whether they won or lost, and have the right to know that the election was tabulated accurately. That’s what we no longer have in this country and it’s ridiculous.

Clinton and Trump: Nuclearized or Lobotomized?

Comment: Or maybe Trump's much vaunted "maverick" status is just  a role he is playing - consciously or unconsciously - and another example of perception management aided and abetted by huge coverage from the media. The caricature of Trump and his pointed rhetoric would ensure the imposition of psychopath Hillary Clinton collecting much of the "horrified" moderates in the GOP. And this is indeed what is happening. 

The campaign to seat Obama followed a similar strategy by tapping into the horror that was Bush and Cheney and offering the electorate a "black Kennedy" with a winning smile. Yet, we all know what nightmare that turned out to be - a true wolf in sheep's clothing.

With Killary, we have the "first woman as president" strategy along with Trump acting as the counterpoint. But as Petras points out below, Clinton is far FAR more dangerous than Trump despite all his babbling about immigration and walls. Is Killary destined to have the throne? Or do the Zionist Establishment have Trump as the next prize chimp?

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Prof. James Petras

Over half the US electorate views the two leading candidates for the 2016 Presidential elections with horror and disdain.

In contrast, the entire corporate mass media, here and abroad, repeat outrageous virtuous claims on behalf of Hillary Clinton and visceral denunciations of Donald Trump.

Media pundits, financial, academic and corporate elites describe the prospects of her presidency as one of responsibility, national security, business prosperity and political normalcy.

In contrast, they paint billionaire Republican candidate, Donald Trump as a grave threat, likely to destroy the global economic and military order, polarize US society and destined to lead an isolated and protectionist US into deep recession.

The super-charged rhetoric, flaunting the virtues of one candidate and vices of the other, ignores the momentous consequences of the election of either candidate. There is a strong chance that the election of ultra-militarist Hillary Clinton will drive the world into catastrophic global nuclear war.

On the other hand, Trump’s ascent to the US Presidency will likely provoke unprecedented global economic opposition from the corporate establishment, which will drive the US economy into a profound depression.

These are not idle claims: The destructive consequences of either candidate’s presidency can best be understood through a systematic analysis of Mme. Clinton’s past and present foreign policies and Trump’s belief that he has the ability to transform the US from an empire to a republic. 

Clinton on the Road to Nuclear War

Over the past quarter century, Hillary Clinton has promoted the most savage and destructive wars of our times. Moreover, the more directly she has been engaged in imperial policymaking, the greater her responsibility in implementing foreign policy, the closer we have come to nuclear war.

To identify Hillary Clinton’s path to global war it is necessary to identify three crucial moments. Hillary’s bloody history can be dated initially to her de facto ‘joint Presidency’ with husband Bill Clinton (1993-2001).

Stage One: The Conjugal Militarist Presidency (1993-2001)

During Hilary Clinton’s joint presidency with William Clinton (the Billary Regime) the First Lady actively promoted an aggressive militarized takeover of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and Eastern Africa – often under her favorite messianic doctrine of ‘humanitarian intervention and regime change’.

This justified the relentless bombing of Iraq, destroying its infrastructure and blockading its population into starvation while preparing to carve its territory into ethnic and religious divisions. Over 500,000 Iraqi children were murdered as proudly justified by then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright (1997-2001) and lauded by the Clintons.

In the same manner, Yugoslavia was bombed by the US humanitarian coalition air forces and cruise missiles over 1,000 times from March 24 to June 11, 2009 in the course of sub-dividing the country into five backward ‘ethnically cleansed’ mini-states. Thousands of factories, public buildings, bridges, passenger trains, radio stations, embassies, apartment complexes and hospitals were devastated; over a million victims became refugees while hundreds of thousands were wounded or killed.

The Conjugal Presidency successfully carried out the bloodiest war of aggression in Europe since the Nazi invasion during WWII, in order to subdivide an ethnically diverse and industrially advanced federation whose independent foreign policies had angered the Western corporate empire.

The Clintons launched the military invasion of Somalia (in East Africa) to impose a vassal regime, leading to the death of many thousands and a regional imperial war. Faced with desperate popular resistance from the Somalis, the Clintons were forced to withdraw US troops and bring in thousands of Sub-Saharan African and Ethiopian mercenaries – whose death would pass unnoticed among the US electorate.

From 1992 through 2001 the Clinton war machine helped set up the Yeltsin kleptocratic vassal state in Russia facilitating the greatest peace-time pillage of state resources in world history.

In the post-Soviet breakup era, over 1 trillion dollars of former public assets were seized especially by US and British-allied Zionist gangsters, Clinton-affiliated officials and ‘academics’ and Wall Street bankers. Under Clinton’s vassalage the entire Soviet public health system was eliminated and Yeltsin’s Russia experienced a population decline of 4.3 million citizens, mostly due to diseases, alcohol and drug toxicity, suicide, malnutrition, unemployment and loss of wages, pensions and and an unprecedented epidemic of tuberculosis and infectious diseases once thought wiped out, like syphilis and diphtheria.

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U.S. Congressional staff member unmasks the charade: Voting is a waste of time

Riley Waggaman
Russia Insider

One of the more encouraging (?) developments in Acceptable American Discourse over the last five years or so has been the gradual acceptance, even among Serious Media Outlets, that American voters no longer have any real control over their own government, and more broadly, their collective destiny.

In April 2014, Princeton University published a study which found that "economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."

Then in October of the same year, a Tufts University professor published a devastating critique of the current state of American democracy, "National Security and Double Government," which catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term "double government": There's the one we elect, and then there's the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy. The Boston Globe's write-up of the book was accompanied by the brutal headline, "Vote all you want. The secret government won't change." Imagine a headline like that during the Hope and Change craze of 2008. Yeah, you can't. Because nobody's that imaginative.

Yes, people are beginning to smell the rot — even people who watch television in hopes of not having to confront the miserable reality that awaits them once they turn off their 36-inch flat-screens. In September, Jimmy Carter warned Oprah Winfrey:

"We've become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I've ever seen in my life," the 90-year-old former president told Winfrey.

The live audience were probably hoping for free Oprah cars. Instead, an ex-president told them that their democracy is in the gutter. What a bummer.

The latest canary in the coal mine is none other than ex-longtime GOP staffer turned best-selling author Mike Lofgren, whose new book, "The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government," confirms what is already painfully apparent:

The deep state has created so many contradictions in this country. You have this enormous disparity of rich and poor; and you have this perpetual war, even though we're braying about freedom. We have a surveillance state, and we talk about freedom. We have internal contradictions. Who knows what this will fly into? It may collapse like the Soviet Union; or it might go into fascism with a populist camouflage.

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Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush: two sociopaths competing to be the next US president

Matt Carr
Stop the War Coalition 

The two frontrunners for next year's US presidential election are both committed to the same war policies that have been so disastrous for America and the world.

If you take seriously the premise that US military power is a force for international stability and global good,  then a number of events over the last two weeks ought to give pause for thought.  

In Kosovo, nearly 16 years after NATO bombed Yugoslavia, UNCHR reported that 10,000 people had filed for asylum in Hungary in a single month, and as many as 20,000 Kosovars are leaving the country each month to escape poverty, corruption and unemployment.

In Libya, the executions of Coptic Christians carried out by ISIL raise the prospect of the disintegration of Libya into a ‘Somalia on the Mediterranean’.  

In Afghanistan the United Nations Assistance Mission (UNAMA) announced that civilian casualties last year reached a new record.  That’s on top of the still ongoing implosion of Iraq, and Syria, and Ukraine, where the US has pursued less visible ‘regime change’ policies with no less catastrophic results.

In a sane and healthy democracy this legacy of civil war, state collapse, chaos and violence ought at the very least to raise an urgent debate about the strategic viability of militarism as a foreign policy instrument.

But there is little evidence of any such criticism and self-analysis in the two frontrunners for next year’s presidential elections.   Astonishingly – and depressingly – America is facing the prospect of a contest between members of the two families that governed America from 1989 to 2009, and which also presided over some of the disasters we are now witnessing.

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Open Source, Transparent, Global Voting

 

 approvedvoices.org

Half Past Human

First a disclaimer...i don't vote. Can't stand the control mechanisms put into place over the voting system. It is the same in every country. The evil central banksters, officialdom, masons, and the 'party' system control the vote. So i don't. No point.

But, there are times i would like to be able to vote. Usually there are no personalities among the scum floating to the top of the political pond worth wasting breath cursing. Some though, such as Ron Paul, do say all the correct words, and may be the correct person for the karios of the moment. But, as i say, i do not vote....because it is rigged. Certainly here in the USA, and likely everywhere.

It was this last thought that brought forth the screwy idea....since they are trying to control voting by clamping down on the local through national level, why not 'occupy' the vote by taking the vote in Olympia, WA State, global? That is, if i knew that my vote could be tallied globally, by anyone, and everyone, would that make me trust the system more?

Well, in my case, yes. As a computer software designer, i would love to be able to reach out and tally/monitor the vote in any region/locality globally. Why? Well, probably just because i am nosy, but there is a real point to it. If i could determine that the vote in a parish in Louisiana had been locally (in Louisiana) reported inaccurately, they could be called on the crime. Now, as the saying goes, "if you ain't diebold, you CAN'T know". 

So, here is a screwy idea, released out into the wild....for all those legions of unemployed programmers... open source, transparent, global voting system.

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Mitt Romney Ties to Israeli Military Intelligence

cplanet

Romney's Israeli Handler Orit Gadiesh, former "War Room" assistant to Ezer Weizman and Moshe Dayan, is the daughter of Israeli Brigadier General Falk Gadiesh (born Falk Gruenfeld, Berlin, 1921) and his Ukrainian-born wife.

Gadiesh is chairman of the management consulting firm Bain & Company, the parent company of Bain Capital, and was the company's managing director under CEO Mitt Romney in 1992.

Bain Capital owns Clear Channel, the largest radio station group owner in the United States. Clear Channel owns the networks which air the most popular radio talk shows, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Glenn Beck Program, The Sean Hannity Show, America Now with Andy Dean, Coast to Coast AM, The Savage Nation, The Mark Levin Show, and The Dave Ramsey Show.

Mitt Romney was a co-founder of Bain Capital along with Bill Bain, seen here. Bain was ousted in 1991 and Romney served as CEO of Bain & Company in 1991-1992.

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ES&S Voting Machine Improves Vote Fraud in America

Computerworld

E-voting machine freezes, misreads votes, U.S. agency says DS200 optical scanner from ES&S doesn't meet federal standards, but remains certified, Election Assistance Commission says.

An electronic ballot scanning device slated for use in the upcoming presidential elections, misreads ballots, fails to log critical events and is prone to freezes and sudden lockups, the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission has found.

The little noticed EAC report on the DS200 Precinct Count Optical Scanner in the Unity 3.2.0.0 voting system built by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) was released late last month.

The 141-page Formal Investigative Report (download pdf) highlights multiple "substantial anomalies" in the DS200, including intermittent screen freezes, system lockups and shutdowns, and failure to log all normal and abnormal system events.

For example, the DS200 in some cases failed to log events such as a vote being cast, when its touch-screen is calibrated or when the system is powered on or off, the EAC said.

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Waiting for Clarity On the Brink of Oblivion

This is something Kevin Flaherty wrote over at cryptogon.com back in 2006 and closely follows my own views and that of many other commentators at the time. What he writes about is no less relevant with the Ron Paul hysteria:

-------------------

cryptogon.com

The tone of the emails I've been receiving has changed dramatically over the past several days.

People are now terrified about the events unfolding inside the U.S.

Panic is setting in, and for some silly reason, people think this upcoming election holds the key to the future.

Guys, wake the F up. This Republican/Democrat thing is beyond embarrassing.

Please understand: THERE ARE NO POLITICAL SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS THE U.S. IS FACING. The outcome of this election is meaningless, one way or the other. The more you keep grasping for glimmers of hope within the political system, the worse off you will be.

The appearance of choice, as a mechanism of control, has served the elite well for several decades in the U.S. Appearances broke down after the 2000 Presidential election. And the 2004 Presidential election... Excuse me while I spit out the window just thinking about the candidates. Never mind the endemic vote fraud.

Will a big Democratic win calm people down? Maybe that's what They'll allow. It might ease the panic, so the ship of fools can sail on for another few months. If They were smart, that's what They'd do. Hell, maybe it'll be Hillary in 2008, with the ability to designate any American as an enemy combatant... Sure. Tell me another one.

But then again, maybe not. Maybe it's time to rub your noses in the Freedom.

I hate to be making so many Magic 8 Ball references lately, but that's what the U.S. political system has become. Believe in that thing and it will give you the answers you're looking for. You're totally doomed and clueless, but your belief in the Magic 8 Ball is somehow comforting. By all means, vote.

Jeff Wells recently wrote:

American politics isn't just theatre; it's dinner theatre, on par with a Medieval Times franchise. It can put on a decent show: the way the white and black knights joust you'd think they meant it, and that the guy who falls off his horse really gets hurt and the champion wins something of meaning. Voters are "treated like royalty" - every man a king! - but their crowns are made of tissue paper. And while the menu is all you can eat, all you can order is bullshit.

So, let's dispence with the bullshit about U.S. elections.

What varies, with the passage of time, is the number of people who get it. As more people get it, the more dangerous the situation becomes. The Machine will destroy itself rather than lose control. As the appearance of choice fails to serve as an effective mechanism of control, more overt mechanisms of control, which have been under construction for years, will be used.

Nothing that is happening now should come as a surprise to any of you. The entire program has been spelled out on Cryptogon and other sites---never mind the thousands of books---for years. The collapse of the U.S. into overt fascism is following a fairly predictable series of events. While the exact timetable is more difficult to nail down, when the state begins to require citizens to obtain "CLEARANCE" in order to leave, you've pretty much arrived at the end of the line. And then what? What excuses will be made? When soldiers are breaking down your door, will you point your TV remote control at them and try to change the channel? Tell them you voted? Tell them you paid your taxes? Ask them to please stay away from your daughter, because she's not a terrorist?

This has all happened before (it's happening now, actually, in many parts of the world, especially where U.S. influence is pervasive). What's different is that the technologies of political control have vastly increased the strength of the iron fist. The options are: get out of the way of that thing, to the best of your ability, or be crushed by the grip of it around your neck. Some might try to attack it directly, but that option should be seen as a creative form of suicide. (Oh yeah, you can attempt to join the ranks of the regime.)

This is the warning I've been repeating for years: You do not want to try to reach the exit as millions of other people attempt to do the same thing. Waiting for clarity is not often rewarded.

Many Cryptogon readers think that they're going to hedge their bets, and stay put for as long as possible, before making a strategic move. I like all of you. I love some of you, as you are my family members and closest friends, but please hear me: To know what's coming and to think that you will be able to time your exit properly is the height of folly.

It is not easy to pull off a strategic move under "normal" circumstances. Having made a strategic move, I'm in a position to speak on this matter with authority.

It's not easy.

The path is lined with red tape and bullshit under the best of circumstances. And the window of opportunity is closing with each passing day. To think that you will be able to do it after an event, when borders are closed, or mostly closed, when internal passports may be required to travel across state lines, when the fascists must approve your exit plans, when your cash is not convertible into foreign currencies or maybe even worthless...

Friends and family, you're in a clinical state of denial.

Let's fast forward a week, a month or a year from today; nobody knows exactly when it will happen... When you could have made it to a better place, with relative ease, you sat by and waited, wished and hoped it wouldn't come to this. And now, the freeways are jammed, the airports are closed and soldiers are checking your "papers." Some number of people are being loaded onto trucks, but you can't really see past the spotlights shining at you from the checkpoint up ahead...

"Oh, God, why did I wait for it to come to this?" some of you will think as you look at your spouse and children, who will be looking back at you, wondering the same thing.