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The Geopolitics of World War III
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC3tINgWfQE

Sunday, April 29, 2018

The Drum Major Instinct

The Drum Major Instinct

By Expotera
April 29, 2018

Exactly fifty years ago on April 4, 1968 the U.S. Federal
Government, "Assassinated" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
while he was standing on the balcony outside his second
story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

On Sunday, February 4, 1968 Dr. King delivered his, “The Drum
Major Instinct” sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta,
Georgia exactly two months prior to his very untimely death.

Today, I would like to share a few words from Dr. King's sermon
because all of his words still ring, "True" to this very day, which
is why the U.S Federal Government, "Killed" him fifty years ago:

~~~

I would submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world
today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter
colossal contest for supremacy and if something doesn’t happen to
stop this trend, I’m sorely afraid that we won’t be here to talk
about Jesus Christ and about God and about brotherhood too many
more years.

If somebody doesn’t bring an end to this suicidal thrust that
we see in the world today, none of us are going to be around,
because somebody’s going to make the mistake through our
senseless blunderings of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere.

And then another one is going to drop.

And don’t let anybody fool you, this can happen within a matter
of seconds.

They have twenty-megaton bombs in Russia right now that
can destroy a city as big as New York in three seconds, with
everybody wiped away, and every building.

And we can do the same thing to Russia and China.

But this is why we are drifting.

And we are drifting there because nations are caught up with,
"The Drum Major Instinct."

“I must be first.”

“I must be supreme.”

“Our nation must rule the world.”

And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme
culprit.

And I’m going to continue to say it to America, because I love this
country too much to see the drift that it has taken.

God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now.

God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as
the war in Vietnam.

And we are criminals in that war.

We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the
world, and I’m going to continue to say it.

And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a
nation.

~~~

Dr. King concluded his sermon with the following words below and
I would now like to conclude my words by simply saying, I love you
Dr. King and I look forward to seeing and meeting you someday on
the other side of the Platonic Divide:

~~~

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want
a long funeral.

And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk
too long.

And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say.

Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that
isn’t important.

Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other
awards—that’s not important.

Tell them not to mention where I went to school.

I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr.,
tried to give his life serving others.

I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr.,
tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war
question.

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed
the hungry.

And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my
life to clothe those who were naked.

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those
who were in prison.

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a, "Drum Major" say that I was
a drum major for justice.

Say that I was a drum major for peace.

I was a drum major for righteousness.

And all of the other shallow things will not matter.

I won’t have any money to leave behind.

I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind.

But I just want to leave a committed life behind.

And that’s all I want to say.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

The Nuremberg Principles

The Nuremberg Principles

By The International Law Commission
Thursday, April 26, 2018

The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining
what constitutes a war crime.

The document was created by the International Law Commission
of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the
Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.

Principle I

"Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under
international law is responsible therefore and liable to
punishment."

Principle II

"The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act
which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve
the person who committed the act from responsibility under
international law."

Principle III

"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes
a crime under international law, acted as Head of State or
responsible government official, does not relieve him from
responsibility under international law."

Principle IV

Main article: Superior orders

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government
or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under
international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible
to him".

This principle could be paraphrased as follows:

"It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following
my superior's orders'".

Previous to the time of the Nuremberg Trials, this excuse
was known in common parlance as "Superior Orders".

After the prominent, high-profile event of the Nuremberg Trials,
that excuse is now referred to by many as the "Nuremberg
Defense".

In recent times, a third term, "lawful orders" has become common
parlance for some people.

All three terms are in use today, and they all have slightly different
nuances of meaning, depending on the context in which they are
used.

Nuremberg Principle IV is legally supported by the jurisprudence
found in certain articles in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights which deal indirectly with conscientious objection.

It is also supported by the principles found in paragraph 171 of
the Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee
Status which was issued by the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Those principles deal with the conditions under which conscientious
objectors can apply for refugee status in another country if they
face persecution in their own country for refusing to participate in
an illegal war.

Principle V

"Any person charged with a crime under international law has
the right to a fair trial on the facts and law."

Principle VI

"The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under
international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression
or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or
assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the
accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not
limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or
for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied
territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on
the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property,
wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not
justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other
inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions
on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done
or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection
with any crime against peace or any war crime."

Principle VII

"Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war
crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI
is a crime under international law."

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Myrmidons

Myrmidons

By Laurence M. Vance
Lew Rockwell.com
April 24, 2018

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what the word myrmidons means.

Until just a few months ago, I had never even heard of the word.

Here are some definitions of myrmidon from a few online
dictionaries that you might find helpful, as I did:

Myrmidon
[mur-mi-don, -dn]
noun, plural Myrmidons, Myrmidones [mur-mid-n-eez]
1 Classical Mythology. one of the warlike people of ancient Thessaly
who accompanied Achilles to the Trojan War.
2 (lowercase) a person who executes without question or scruple a
master’s commands.

Myrmidon
noun | myr·mi·don | \ ˈmər-mə-ˌdän , -dən \
1 capitalized : a member of a legendary Thessalian people who
accompanied their king Achilles in the Trojan War
2 : a loyal follower; especially : a subordinate who executes orders
unquestioningly or unscrupulously

Myr·mi·don
(mûr′mə-dŏn′, -dn)
1. Greek Mythology A member of a warlike Thessalian people who
were ruled by Achilles and followed him on the expedition against
Troy.
2. myrmidon A faithful follower who carries out orders without
question.

Myrmidon
(ˈmɜːmɪˌdɒn; -dən)
n, pl Myrmidons or Myrmidones (mɜːˈmɪdəˌniːz)
1.(Classical Myth & Legend) Greek myth one of a race of people
whom Zeus made from a nest of ants. They settled in Thessaly
and were led against Troy by Achilles
2.(often not capital) a follower or henchman

I think there is no doubt that you now understand exactly
what the word means.

I will return to these definitions later.

I can’t think of a better way to describe a member of the
U.S. military than a myrmidon.

That is the first thing I thought of when I stumbled across the word.

The United States has been at war in Afghanistan since 2002 and in
Iraq since 2003.

Thousands of U.S. troops have died in vain and for a lie.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis that most Americans
don’t care a whit about have died.

But that’s not all.

According to an unclassified White House report recently sent to
Congress, “The Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding
the United States’ Military Force and Related National Security
Operations,” the United States is officially fighting wars in seven
countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and
Niger.

Syria is in the crosshairs now.

And it seems like the military/industrial complex, the neocons
in the Trump administration, the Israel lobby, the Republican
warmongers in Congress, and the conservative Christian militarists
would like nothing better than a war with Iran.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel are deployed
in about 150 Countries or on U.S. Navy ships.

U.S. special forces are deployed to over 70 percent of the world’s
countries.

The United States has over 1,000 foreign military installations.

The United States has never been closer to real war at any time
since the Cold War ended.

Why?

Myrmidons, that’s why.

U.S. soldiers are myrmidons.

It is U.S. soldiers who fight foreign and offensive wars.

It is U.S. soldiers who invade and occupy foreign countries

It is U.S. soldiers who bomb, maim, and kill for the state.

It is U.S. soldiers who fight unjust, senseless, and immoral wars.

It is U.S. soldiers who act as the world’s policemen, firemen,
and security guards.

It is U.S. soldiers who make widows and orphans.

It is U.S. soldiers who destroy property and infrastructure.

It is U.S. soldiers who go to countries where they have no
business going.

It is U.S. soldiers who serve as the president’s personal attack
force.

It is U.S. soldiers who carry out an aggressive, reckless,
and belligerent U.S. foreign policy.

It is U.S. soldiers who mete out death and destruction overseas.

It is U.S. soldiers who fight without a constitutional declaration
of war.

It is U.S. soldiers who commit atrocities and war crimes.

It is U.S. soldiers who kill civilians and call it collateral damage.

It is U.S. soldiers who do the government’s dirty work.

It is U.S. soldiers who join the military, travel the world,
meet interesting people, and kill them.

U.S. soldiers execute without question or scruple a master’s
commands.

U.S. soldiers are subordinates who execute orders unquestioningly
or unscrupulously.

U.S. soldiers are faithful followers who carry out orders without
question.

U.S. soldiers are followers or henchman.

U.S. soldiers are myrmidons.

We are continually told to support the troops and pray
for the troops.

The bombing, maiming, and killing that they do around
the world is not their fault, they are just following orders.

Some blame the politicians; others fault the government.

Some blame the defense contractors; others fault the military-
industrial complex.

Some blame the president; others fault the Secretary of Defense.

Some blame the Pentagon; others fault the State Department.

Some blame Zionists; others fault the Deep State.

Some blame the Joint Chiefs of Staff; others fault the generals.

U.S. soldiers are just following orders. But that’s the problem.

They are following orders.

They are following orders that are immoral, unjust, unnecessary,
foolish, disgraceful, unconstitutional, unethical, senseless, bad,
and evil.

But they don’t have to.

They don’t have to be myrmidons.

First of all, U.S. soldiers were not drafted.

The draft ended in 1975, and no new draft orders were issued
after 1972—years before most current members of the military
were born.

No one had to join the military.

And as I have argued elsewhere, the draft is no excuse anyway.

Second, things are quite different now than at any other time
in history.

Any potential or current soldiers with a smartphone or a computer
can, in ten minutes, find hundreds of resources about the evils of
war and U.S. foreign policy.

Yes, literally hundreds.

No American has any excuse for being ignorant of the
fact that U.S. soldiers engage in offense, not defense.

U.S. soldiers are nothing more than the president’s personal attack
force; and U.S. soldiers merely carry out an aggressive, reckless,
and belligerent U.S. foreign policy.

And three, wearing a uniform is not a license to maim,
kill, or engage in other immoral activities.

Who can stop U.S participation in the wars in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger?

Who can prevent a U.S. war with Iran, Russia, China,
and North Korea?

Who can end U.S. invasions and occupations?

Who can end the U.S. global empire?

Who can end U.S. imperialism?

The ones that do the fighting, make the widows and orphans,
maim and kill, and die in vain and for a lie if something goes
wrong, that’s who: U.S. soldiers.

Current and potential U.S. soldiers: Don’t be a myrmidon.

Educate yourself.

Think for yourself.

Refuse to engage in immoral activity—no matter who tells you
to do so.

Civilians: Stop thanking the troops for their service.

Stop honoring the troops.

Stop encouraging young men to be myrmidons.


https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/04/laurence-m-vance
/myrmidons

Sunday, April 22, 2018

War Crimes

War Crimes

By Greenwolfe
April 21, 2018

It's time I stood and spoke of war,
A candid speech display.
To tell you things you used to know;
Forgotten, on the way.

I hear they plan to have a trial
Of criminal intent.
Displaying soldiers in a cage,
Who blessed this sad event?

They say they did a most foul deed
By killing innocents.
Just retribution, as they say;
An evil consequence.

Its time I lay to rest, at last,
A base canard of life.
That war is one more legal way
To deal with pain and strife.

I hate to put it bluntly now,
But most of you won't hear;
If I would only gently speak
These words you need not fear.

Some time ago, a wisdom born
Of death and man's intent;
Was fostered on the souls of men
To hasten their descent.

It said that there are crimes of war
That men must never do.
And perpetrated, in this way;
A values dream, or two.

By doing this, they justified
The basest deed of all.
And legalized, with mal intent;
Man's certain, deadly fall.

I'm here to tell you true at last,
What you already know.
The concept there are crimes of war,
Has never thus been so.

Whatever deed is done in war,
As jusified by man;
Is covered in the book of faith,
As per the Master's plan.

There is no deed a man may do
In war that's his intent.
The moral choice was duly made
The day that he was sent.

Man makes his choice when he decides
To yield his soul to man.
And joins them in the enterprise
Of evil deeds they plan.

When after yielding up his soul,
He then is sent to war;
It doesn't matter what he does,
He can't yield anymore.

There is no crime he can commit
Against his fellow man.
No grading of the deeds he does.
In Hell, there is no fan.

So let me bluntly tell you true.
And take this to your graves.
The only roads there are to Hell,
Are those which war sure paves.

It's war itself, that is the crime;
That dooms mens souls to Hell.
The laughs you hear, they come from me;
It's war, that needs a cell.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Propaganda

Propaganda

By Expotera
April 21, 2018

Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while
withholding some of the facts from them. — Harold Evans

Propaganda replaces moral philosophy. — Hans J. Morgenthau

Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially insofar as it might
bring out something favorable for the opponent. — Adolf Hitler

The power of propaganda is to say something enough times
that it becomes the big lie. — Andrew Breitbart

In time of war, truth is always replaced by propaganda.
— Charles Lindbergh

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them
to deceive themselves. — Eric Hoffer

Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are
confident they are acting on their own free will. — Joseph Goebbels

Propaganda is as powerful as heroin; it surreptitiously dissolves
all capacity to think. — Gil Courtemanche

Loud peace propaganda makes war seem imminent.
— D. H. Lawrence

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred,
comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
— George Orwell

Propaganda is the art of persuading others of what you don't
believe yourself. — Decimius Magnus Ausonius

One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support
of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and
other forms of propaganda. — General Douglas MacArthur

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
— Edward Bernays

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of
totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.
— Hannah Arendt

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
— William Blum

The oblique paradox of propaganda is that the lie in the throat
becomes, by repetition, the truth in the heart. — John Grierson

Propaganda invariably serves the long-term interest of the elite.
— John Berger

It is so easy to see propaganda work, and dissent to be mocked.
— Harold Pinter

All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.
— George Orwell

Propaganda is a sprinter, but truth is a long-distance runner.
— Ernest Partridge

The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda. — Robert Capa

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Crimes of a Monster

Crimes of a Monster

“Is ours a government of the people, by the people, for the people,
or a kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of
fools?”— James Russell Lowell, 19th century American novelist

By John W. Whitehead
Real Independent News & Film
April 19, 2018

Let us not mince words.

We are living in an age of war profiteers.

We are living in an age of scoundrels, liars, brutes, and thugs.

Many of them work for the U.S. government.

We are living in an age of monsters.

Ask Donald Trump.

He knows all about monsters.

Any government that leaves “mothers and fathers, infants
and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air” is evil
and despicable, said President Trump, justifying his blatantly
unconstitutional decision (in the absence of congressional
approval or a declaration of war) to launch airstrikes against
Syria based on dubious allegations that it had carried out
chemical weapons attacks on its own people.

“They are crimes of a monster.”

If the Syrian government is a monster for killing innocent civilians,
including women and children, the U.S. government must be a
monster, too.

In Afghanistan, ten civilians were killed—including three children,
one an infant in his mother’s arms—when U.S. warplanes targeted
a truck in broad daylight on an open road with women and children
riding in the exposed truck bed.

They had been fleeing airstrikes on their village.

In Syria, at least 80 civilians, including 30 children, were killed
when U.S.-led air strikes bombed a school and a packed
marketplace.

In Yemen, a U.S. drone bombed a caravan of vehicles on their way
to or from a wedding, leaving “scorched vehicles and body parts …
scattered on the road.”

As investigative journalist Tom Engelhart documents, that 2013
bombing was actually the eighth wedding party (almost 300 civilians
dead) wiped out by the U.S. military, totally or in part, since the
Afghan War began in 2001.

“Keep in mind that, in these years, weddings haven’t been the only
rites hit,” notes Engelhart. “US air power has struck gatherings
ranging from funerals to a baby-naming ceremony.”

Then there was a Doctors without Borders hospital in Kunduz that
had 12 of its medical staff and 10 of its patients, including three
children, killed when a U.S. AC-130 gunship fired on it repeatedly.

Some of the patients were burned alive in their hospital beds.

Yes, on this point, President Trump is exactly right: These are,
indeed, "The Crimes of a Monster."

Unfortunately, this monster—this hundred-headed gorgon that
is the U.S. government and its long line of political puppets
(Donald Trump and before him Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.),
who dance to the tune of the military industrial complex—is
being funded by you and me.

The blood of innocent civilians is on our hands whether we choose
to recognize it or not.

It is our tax dollars at work here, after all.

Unfortunately, we have no real say in how the government runs,
or how our taxpayer funds are used.

We have no real say, but we’re being forced to pay through the
nose, anyhow, for endless wars that do more to fund the military
industrial complex than protect us, pork barrel projects that
produce little to nothing, and a police state that serves only to
imprison us within its walls.

The only alternative to paying one’s taxes is jail, and there
are few people willing to go to jail for a principle anymore.

Still, while we may not have much choice in the matter of how our
taxes are used, we still have a voice and a vote, and it’s time the
American people made their voices and their votes heard about the
way our taxes are used and misused by this government of wolves
and thieves and liars.

Consider: we get taxed on how much we earn, taxed on what we
eat, taxed on what we buy, taxed on where we go, taxed on what
we drive, and taxed on how much is left of our assets when we die.

Indeed, if there is an absolute maxim by which the federal
government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer
always gets ripped off.

This is true whether you’re talking about taxpayers being forced
to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used against us, endless
wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms, or bloated
government agencies such as the National Security Agency with
its secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities.

Rubbing salt in the wound, even monetary awards in lawsuits
against government officials who are found guilty of wrong
doing are paid by the taxpayer.

Not only are American taxpayers forced to “spend more on state,
municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens
of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being
played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the
government.

With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called
representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American
seems to tighten just a little bit more.

Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you
look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided,
pick-pocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed
and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the
American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.

Yet as Ron Paul observed, “The Founding Fathers never intended a
nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn
to the government.”

The overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the
increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the
United States government are all around us.

Warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email
conversations by the NSA; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes;
shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted
out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking
to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending;
militarized police; roadside strip searches; roving TSA sweeps;
privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans;
fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’
private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles
of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Meanwhile, the three branches of government (Executive,
Legislative and Judicial) and the agencies under their
command—Defense, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security,
Justice, Treasury, etc. have switched their allegiance to the
Corporate State with its unassailable pursuit of profit at all
costs and by any means possible.

As a result, we are now ruled by a government consumed with
squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly
unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.

As with most things, if you want to know the real motives
behind any government program, follow the money trail.

When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who
profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched,
probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the
police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons
which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture
the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police
state.

It gets worse.

Because the government’s voracious appetite for money, power
and control has grown out of control, its agents have devised other
means of funding its excesses and adding to its largesse through
taxes disguised as fines, taxes disguised as fees, and taxes disguised
as tolls, tickets and penalties.

The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally
defraud Americans have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel
legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture schemes, the
modern-day equivalent of highway robbery, astronomical health
care “reform,” and costly stimulus packages.

Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for the
government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations,
military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated
workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons,
biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons,
and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the
fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of
those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the taxpayers.

Those football stadiums that charge exorbitant sums for
nosebleed seats?

Our taxpayer dollars subsidize them.

Those blockbuster war films?

Yep, we were the silent investors on those, too.

Same goes for the military equipment being peddled to local police
agencies and the surveillance cameras being “donated” to local
governments.

In other words, in the eyes of the government, “we the people,
the voters, the consumers, and the taxpayers” are little more
than indentured servants.

We’re slaves.

If you have no choice, no voice, and no real options when it comes
to the government’s claims on your property and your money,
you’re not free.

You’re not free if the government can seize your home and your
car (which you’ve bought and paid for) over nonpayment of taxes.

You’re not free if government agents can freeze and seize your
bank accounts and other valuables if they merely “suspect”
wrongdoing.

And you’re certainly not free if the IRS gets the first cut of your
salary to pay for government programs over which you have no
say.

It wasn’t always this way, of course.

Early Americans went to war over the inalienable rights described
by philosopher John Locke as the natural rights of life, liberty and
property.

It didn’t take long, however—a hundred years, in fact—before the
American government was laying claim to the citizenry’s property
by levying taxes to pay for the Civil War.

As the New York Times reports, “Widespread resistance led
to its repeal in 1872.”

Determined to claim some of the citizenry’s wealth for its
own uses, the government reinstituted the income tax in
1894.

Charles Pollock challenged the tax as unconstitutional,
and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor.

Pollock’s victory was relatively short-lived.

Members of Congress—united in their determination to tax
the American people’s income—worked together to adopt a
constitutional amendment to overrule the Pollock decision.

On the eve of World War I, in 1913, Congress instituted a
permanent income tax by way of the 16th Amendment to
the Constitution and the Revenue Act of 1913.

Under the Revenue Act, individuals with income exceeding $3,000
could be taxed starting at 1% up to 7% for incomes exceeding
$500,000.

It’s all gone downhill from there.

Unsurprisingly, the government has used its tax powers to advance
its own imperialistic agendas and the courts have repeatedly upheld
the government’s power to penalize or jail those who refused to
pay their taxes.

All the while the government continues to do whatever it likes—levy
taxes, rack up debt, spend outrageously and irresponsibly, wage
endless wars that make no one safer but fatten the bank accounts
of the defense contractors—with little thought for the plight of its
citizens.

Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy
has given way to kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves),
and representative government has been rejected in favor of a
kakistocracy (a government run by the most unprincipled citizens
that panders to the worst vices in our nature: greed, violence,
hatred, prejudice and war) ruled by career politicians, corporations
and thieves—individuals and entities with little regard for the rights
of American citizens.

The American kleptocracy continues to suck the American people
down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe in which the Constitution
is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry
is powerless to defend itself against government agents who steal,
spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow
madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.

This dissolution of that sacred covenant between the citizenry and
the government—establishing “we the people” as the masters and
the government as the servant—didn’t happen overnight.

It didn’t happen because of one particular incident or one
particular president.

It has been a process, one that began long ago and continues in the
present day, aided and abetted by politicians who have mastered
the polarizing art of how to “divide and conquer.”

By playing on our prejudices about those who differ from us,
capitalizing on our fears for our safety, and deepening our distrust
of those fellow citizens whose opinions run counter to our own,
the powers-that-be have effectively divided us into polarized,
warring camps incapable of finding consensus on the one true
menace that is an immediate threat to all of our freedoms:
The U.S. government.

We are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire
in which the vast majority of the citizenry work their hands
to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few.

Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused
and our so-called representatives bought and paid for by the
moneyed elite, the government then turns around and uses the
money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison
and entrap us, in the form of militarized police, surveillance
cameras, private prisons, license plate readers, drones, and
cell phone tracking technology.

All of those nefarious government deeds that you read about
in the paper every day: those are your tax dollars at work.

It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your
emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements.

It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst
into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists
on the side of the road, or shoot an unarmed person.

And it’s your money that leads to innocent Americans across the
country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as raising
chickens at home, growing vegetable gardens, and trying to live
off the grid.

Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes
your blood boil, whether it’s a child being kicked out of school
for shooting an imaginary arrow, or a homeowner being threatened
with fines for building a pond in his backyard, remember that it
is your tax dollars that are paying for these injustices.

So what are you going to do about it?

There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is
enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an
illegitimate government.

They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was
slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which
refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people.

Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would
follow.

Unfortunately, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America:
The War on the American People, in the 200-plus years since we
established our own government, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and
number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the
accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.

Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler
doing as they please.

Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights
under a government which demands that the people march in
lockstep with its dictates.

And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching
or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.

But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up
to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money?

What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned
dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how
it will be spent?

What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly
for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own
and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we
refuse to support?

If we don’t have the right to decide what happens to our hard-
earned cash, then we don’t have very many rights at all.

If the government can just take from you what they want, when
they want, and then use it however they want, you can’t claim
to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.

This was the case in the colonial era, and it’s the case once again.


http://rinf.com/alt-news/newswire/crimes-of-a-monster-lewrockwell

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Dear America

Dear America

By The Last Boy In Line
April 14, 2018

Dear America:


Sincerely,

Friday, April 13, 2018

The 13th Cycle

The 13th Cycle

By James M. Boyer
Friday, April 13, 2018

We are the demise of man, our own minds and hands have cursed
us to what seems like an unfortunate end.

A new beginning to an old story re-written throughout the ripples
of time, hours forward repeat hours passed as our Earth circles
the drain.

No different than the Dinosaurs - a forceful reign at the top of the
food chain except there's no comet to end our terror.

We are the most 'advanced' species on the planet but compared to
what are we so advanced?

Ourselves?

There is no other competition except other cultures from other
places but we are all still just men, Human, or more correctly -
animals.

Bigger brains don't make us more special or from different origins,
we all started from the same nothing; and that is where we will
all go back to.

We are a compelling bunch of intricately compressed molecules
claiming to be, "Lords" of the world that we are wasting no time
destroying.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Dear Russia

Dear Russia

By The Last Boy In Line
April 11, 2018

Dear Russia:


Sincerely,

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Heavenly Voices

Heavenly Voices

By Maysa Leak
April 8, 2018

My soul is crying out
For that magical mystical land

Where dreams are born
And peace is always at hand

My heart is reaching out for the place
Where it can't be torn

Where the sun always shines
And where happiness is born

Speak to me
Help me heal humanity

And when I've done the best I could do
Heavenly voices please guide me to you

Every time I open my heart I see
Heavenly voices are guiding me

Every time I close my eyes I hear
Heavenly voices speak to me

My love is looking out for a world
Where it stretch wide and long

And shower a protection
From every sad sad storm

My soul is hoping for a land
Where it can be free

Where peace is the norm
For everyone to see

Speak to me
Help me heal humanity

And when I've done the best I could do
Heavenly voices please guide me to you

Every time I open my heart I see
Heavenly voices are guiding me

Every time I open my eyes I hear
Heavenly voices speak to me

Heavenly voices speak to me
Guide me
Help me see

Heavenly voices speak to me
Guide me
Protect me

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.

In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.

By June Jordan
April 4, 2018

honey people murder mercy U.S.A.
the milkland turn to monsters teach
to kill to violate pull down destroy
the weakly freedom growing fruit
from being born

America

tomorrow yesterday rip rape
exacerbate despoil disfigure
crazy running threat
the deadly thrall
appall belief dispel

the wildlife burn the breast
the onward tongue
the outward hand
deform the normal rainy
riot sunshine shelter wreck
of darkness derogate
delimit blank
explode deprive

assassinate and batten up
like bullets fatten up
the raving greed
reactivate a springtime
terrorizing

death by men by more
than you or I can

STOP

they sleep who know a regulated place
or pulse or tide or changing sky
according to some universal
stage direction obvious
like shorewashed shells

we share an afternoon of mourning
in between no next predictable
except for wild reversal hearse rehearsal