Dec. 9 has a grim meaning for the Republic, the date in 2004 when investigative reporter Gary Webb, driven to ruin by vindictive press colleagues for reviving the Contra-cocaine scandal, took his own life, a demarcation as the U.S. press went from protecting the people to shielding the corrupt, writes Robert Parry.
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
If the American Dream depends on skyrocketing debt built on a weakening foundation of stagnant productivity and income, then it is indeed over.
As a species we have tremendous talents. Our scientific achievements are incredible; our advances in medicine and technology are stunning. So let us give our ingenuity and imagination a free rein to think beyond our borders. Let us work together to face climate change in a spirit of fairness and justice, guided by our shared humanity regardless of where we happen to live.
While we await the government's retail sales data on December 11, the last official economic report the Fed will see before its December 16 FOMC decision, Bank of America has been kind enough to provide its own full-month credit card spending data.
Washington's strategy so far is injecting the proverbial Empire of Chaos logic into Syria; feeding the flames of internal chaos, a pre-planned op by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the endgame being regime change in Damascus. An Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline is unacceptable in the Beltway not only because US vassals lose, but most of all because in currency war terms it would bypass the petrodollar.