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David Swanson, author of "War is a Lie", writes via CounterPunch:
The facts [of the Pearl Harbor story] do not support the mythology. The United States government did not need to make Japan a junior partner in imperialism, did not need to fuel an arms race, did not need to support Nazism and fascism (as some of the biggest U.S. corporations did right through the war), did not need to provoke Japan, did not need to join the war in Asia or Europe, and was not surprised by the attack on Pearl Harbor. For support of each of these statements, keep reading.
[...] Churchill's fervent hope for years before the U.S. entry into the war was that Japan would attack the United States. This would permit the United States (not legally, but politically) to fully enter World War II in Europe, as its president wanted to do, as opposed to merely providing weaponry and assisting in the targeting of submarines as it had been doing. On December 7, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt drew up a declaration of war on both Japan and Germany, but decided it wouldn't work and went with Japan alone. Germany quickly declared war on the United States, possibly in hopes that Japan would declare war on the Soviet Union.
Getting into the war was not a new idea in the Roosevelt White House. FDR had tried lying to the U.S. public about U.S. ships including the Greer and the Kerny, which had been helping British planes track German submarines, but which Roosevelt pretended had been innocently attacked. Roosevelt also lied that he had in his possession a secret Nazi map planning the conquest of South America, as well as a secret Nazi plan for replacing all religions with Nazism. The map was of the quality of Karl Rove's "proof" that Iraq was buying uranium in Niger.
And yet, the people of the United States didn't buy the idea of going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and--just 11 days before the "unexpected" attack, and five days before FDR expected it--he had secretly ordered the creation (by Henry Field) of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.
[...] On November 15th, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall briefed the media on something we do not remember as "the Marshall Plan". In fact we don't remember it at all. "We are preparing an offensive war against Japan", Marshall said, asking the journalists to keep it a secret, which as far as I know they dutifully did.
[...] Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin (R-MT), the first woman ever elected to Congress, and who had voted against World War I, stood alone in opposing World War II [...] found that the Economic Defense Board had gotten economic sanctions under way less than a week after the Atlantic Conference [of August 1941]. On December 2, 1941, the New York Times had reported, in fact, that Japan had been "cut off from about 75 percent of her normal trade by the Allied blockade". Rankin also cited the statement of Lieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson, U.S.N., in the Saturday Evening Post of October 10, 1942, that on November 28, 1941, nine days before the attack, Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., (he of the catchy slogan "Kill Japs! Kill Japs!") had given instructions to him and others to "shoot down anything we saw in the sky and to bomb anything we saw on the sea".
The article is very detailed and shows repeatedly the duplicity of those who have claimed that the strike on Pearl Harbor was a "surprise".
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by edIII on Friday December 09 2016, @06:59PM
You stated:
What I take issue with is the presentation of freedom and equality that doesn't exist in reality. It's like explaining a game, the playing field, the players, and the rules. Anybody complaining about cheating, and that the game is unfair, is referred back to the sacrosanct game and that no such cheating *reeaaalllly* exists, it's just our failure to understand and play the game properly. Yet, everyone can see that some fuckers simply aren't playing by the same rules and suffering the same consequences and received rewards. It's bullshit. Some of the them just make up new rules.
That incenses me a bit, to perhaps understate it, hence my response. I categorically deny that as actual truth, and at a minimum, there are extreme mitigating circumstances that need to be considered. In other words, there are too many people not able to do what you say.
Freedom and Duress are two different things. When you mix the two together, but still claim Freedom as the most primary and overwhelming attribute, you've completely ignored reality. Yet, you state it outright at the end.
1) you are free to quit at any time
Are you? Really? What about probation? Benefits? Contracts? I know somebody that quit because they couldn't take it, and were 2 weeks short of the government threshold to receive any disability benefits that they needed before they could quit. There exists plenty of manipulation to create severe consequences for quitting, and that was just one example.
When you say quit, you can only quit if your healthy enough to stand on your own two feet. Otherwise, it's just struggling to survive, get better, and then hopefully, one day, quit. It's stepping stones, and if there is extreme manipulation to make sure there are very few other "stones" to hop to, it's nigh impossible to quit one "stone" before having at least one foot on another "stone".
Where are all the jobs to go to? Where are the magical free fields of food to eat with commodity prices being so high as to make food almost unaffordable? Where are the open fields to grow your own veggies and raise small animals for subsistence farming? Quitting work is akin to quitting breathing. Unless you have a cultivated oxygen supply before doing so, it's absolutely fucking ridiculous to say you have the freedom to quit breathing around the rest of people.
2) free to move wherever you can afford
Ahhhh, where you can afford! Rent prices have gone up by 48% in 5 years here in Northern California. That means that avaricious hell bound investors are sucking up all the property from our Great Depression and JACKING UP THE FUCKING PRICES. So for every 100 miles away that you have to move, there are gas costs, food costs, travel costs, etc. AirBNB is just bringing this shit to a business model where all space is now sold at an ultra premium, and surprise, the American worker CANNOT FUCKING AFFORD to spend HOTEL/MOTEL prices every night just to sleep. We aren't on fucking vacation, but trying to live.
It's not just affording this new place, but affording the moving to it. Not to mention, 1st, last, and security deposit. When the Elites have jacked up the prices so fucking much, all of the sudden you are looking at near $7,000 FUCKING DOLLARS just to move in to a new HOVEL. Add everything up, and a *modest* move can be 10k-15k. Those moves of the past so enjoyably presented in movies like Richard Pryor's with huge tractor trailers cost THOUSANDS on their own. Do you think the average family just has 20-40k laying around to move? An average family in an average home, with an average life, needs that kind of help to move. It can't be done with two cars and cheap U-Haul unless you don't have anything to begin with, or are willing to abandon your cheap ass Ikea furniture.
So moving quite often means having to escape as refugees to fly-over country where their *might* be some cheaper land and housing. You DO NOT get to move as freely within one city, or even on whole fucking area like Northern California. Affordable housing is become extinct deliberately through the actions of some people that need to be brutally murdered in the streets, combined with the actions of people that couldn't pay a living wage to save their souls.
3) they can't legally beat you
No, but they can get the police to do it. They can get with corrupt politicians, good ol' boys, and send military equipped police to suppress you. They may not hurt you directly, but they can make your job very dangerous, give you the shit work assignments and shifts. I believe you mean to imply that there exists no methods of consequences and abuse against workers. That's false.
You have pieces of shit like Jmorris advocating that any protests or standing up for yourselves with employers is "economic terrorism" and you would need to be treated as a traitor. Pinkertons. Look them up.
4) they can't legally impregnate your wife
That's a bit of hyperbole, but they DO control your wife's pussy. It's not like we have equal votes or representation, and it doesn't directly come from employers per se, but your wife's pussy ain't free in America. For some reason, it *has* to be controlled by those in power.
5) it's a whole lot better.
Marginally better. Yes, the relationship between employer and employee is rather fucked, but that Freedom you claim is an illusion. We're free to be slaves.
So we agree that duress exists? Excellent.
We agree that only a few that are fortunate have the resources to stand up for themselves? Check.
In general Maximum resistance, Maximum Volume, Absolutely zero cooperation with the White Nationalist agenda including near constant work towards organizing additional resistance through education and discussion with the community.
I wear a safety-pin now to strongly indicate that I will beat the living fuck out of any White Nationalist piece of shit that dares attack somebody in my presence. They will pay in pain and blood before my feet. If one wants to beat up a "towel head" in front of me, they need to be prepared to have my foot surgically removed from their ass.
I attend Progressive and/or Libertarian meetings in my area and participate. I now vote Progressive, but my feelings haven't changed about voting. It's the most pointless thing we do, and when it finally got destroyed.... we didn't get anything but a fucking useless idiot that is the opposite of the American Worker's Great White Hope as heavily advertised.
I've slowed down some due to illness, but I'm pretty good at putting in 15-20 hours per weekend in the community via outreach programs to the homeless, soup kitchens, and grassroots organizations that work with and organize low-income and vulnerable populations such as those with disabilities. Where possible, I take them visits with their doctors, help them get food, things like that. When required, I execute limited power of attorney documents and strongly represent their interests to local government and the programs they must navigate.
I work with supporting and developing disruptive technologies and platforms such as zero-knowledge data backups and end-to-end encrypted communications. Additionally, I only support blob/binary free computing platforms and FOSS with some Open Source projects too.
I strongly support grassroot organizations and political ones like the EFF, and other pro-Democracy outfits this election. While poor (in Northern California where a meal costs more than 20 bucks before tax and tip), I donated to Bernie Sander's, and donated my time and effort to help push Progressive government.
I am writing a second Declaration Of Independence. I hope others will start to contribute to it, and once decent enough, start getting signatures on it. If this document was signed by the voting majority this election, that would be 50 million people at least declaring their grievances and what WILL be done about it.
I work towards creating a future where I can safely strike and stop working for at least 18 months, the entire time trying to teach others how to do so as well. The goal is for enough of us to become self sufficient with home grown food and cultivated supplies to initiate a MASSIVE GENERAL STRIKE WAVE ACROSS THE WHOLE USA. If greater than 40-50 million people in the work force went on strike all at the same time, we would have our living wages, and quite possibly, our entire country back from the Elites by putting in enough effort.
Yes, I quite loudly beat back the offensive vile bullshit coming out the mouths of hell bound pieces of shit like JMorris and Kallow. I do it in real life too. Every single opportunity I have to fight those ideals and expound upon the virtues of actual Freedom, I fight.
I'm constantly educating myself about history and pursuing an intellectual solution to the problems created by extreme avarice, political and regulatory capture, and the apathy and hopelessness of the American citizen.
What are you doing? Do you have any suggestions on how I can be working harder and more effectively towards the goals of actual Freedom for our people?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 10 2016, @12:46AM
MASSIVE GENERAL STRIKE WAVE ACROSS THE WHOLE USA
Sorry, I don't have time to completely read, much less respond to, your whole post tonight... workin' for the man, chasing renewal of my insurance and license to drive, you know the BS.
Goals like the above will ALWAYS be resisted by the powers that be, even if they are benevolent and good hearted toward all, they will never relinquish such power to control against disruption and chaos.
Keep up the good fight, try to keep reality in view. It is easier to move from the current reality to a nearby potential reality, hopefully moving in a net positive direction, than it is to attempt a leap direct to your picture of utopia. There will always be trade-offs, unforeseen consequences, and setbacks, but change that is attempting to go in the right direction is preferable to stagnation.
Also, as narrow minded as Khallow appears to be, he is an open and frank sounding board for the views that so many of my coworkers apparently hold, but are often guarded about revealing - there's value in hearing those views out to understand better what so many people think is evil about regulation and equality.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 10 2016, @03:12AM
Interesting how disruption and chaos are perceived by the execution of one's Constitutional rights.
Disruption? Absolutely not assuming you speak about technologies. That's what THEY bring. We have a right to privacy and anonymity as a fundamental human right. Period. Anything that takes that away is doing so with an argument for control and specific abrogation of our rights. Anything else that dramatically changes the game like "Mr. Fusion" is a disruptive technology to be fair, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with us gaining the strength to stand quietly on our own property, minding our own business, surviving of our own production, and choosing who and what we support with it.
We also have a human right to good food and clean water. Otherwise, what the hell are we doing with each other right?
If enough of us drop out of their economy, we can form our own economy. That initial 18 months will be filled with a lot of barter, but also Union like organization and resource distribution to survive a strike. That's what a general strike and even the 2nd DOI are, our act of leaving them behind without us.
It can be peaceful though, and I have a hard time seeing the sowing of disruption and chaos simply because we cooperated with each other and accomplished something 100% legal. Through Union like support of striking employees with food, water, and other supplies that chaos you state is THEIR CHAOS. That's how they feel about the loss of us dropping out of their economy. Not participating, not producing, not making obscene profits for the Elites. There isn't anything they can do because we became strong. It won't be the next morning filled with despondent, hungry, desperate workers with mouths to feed exhibiting that disheartening pragmatism of settling for the Owning Class's low ball offer. Instead it will be *crickets*. The workers are at home in their affordable housing, pantries stocked full of home canned food coming from local farms and good ol' backyard gardens, and warm and properly fed children still in their beds. Without duress, confident that they have at least a year before they have to tighten their belts, they figure out just how we got here, and what we can all create again together. The top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is opened, and everyone can experience a greater sense of self-actualization. It's worth stating that it includes morality, creativity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. It's hard to cultivate prejudice when sides are not being played against each other.
Through strength, not action, but just being strong enough again that we can choose not to work for awhile, not to buy products and services from the corporations, not purchase as much energy, and not provide any taxation revenue for the politicians to have lavish lunches with.
Yeah, I guess that would create real disruption and chaos in the Elites. All of us being in a good enough position to not need them for an extended period of time. They live, breathe, and play at our grace and mercy. Yeah, I would be scared too if the abused all of the sudden realized they could stand up and put a stop to it, if only they cooperated and worked together..
There is strength in numbers.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 10 2016, @05:40AM
Interesting perspective, and if you get enough buy-in it might be possible. Remember that others will view this "legal, peaceful" movement differently. Remember Waco. Remember the 1% protests. Your "right" to grow your own food will be challenged by those who would rather sell you food. Your "right" to barter will be challenged by those who would rather tax, control, and otherwise profit from commerce. Your "right" to home-school your children will be challenged by inspection and performance requirements, including new social learning curriculum targeted against the movement. The bigger the movement gets, the stronger the resistance to it will become.
It might be possible, you'd need tens of thousands committed to the cause and close enough to each other to make it really work long term. We had an "intentional living community" as neighbors for a few years, they had 15-20 people living on 80 acres, mostly off-grid, mostly out of the economy, somewhat outside county health and zoning codes, but nobody gave them trouble for that. The real-estate valuation boom seems to have gotten them to sell out and move on, they probably made $500K capital gain on the 80 acres they held from 2004 through 2008. They were growing their own food, but not enough for everyone without having to buy from the market too. They were part of a network of such communities, I didn't run the details to ground, but it felt like maybe 6 to 12 sites, maybe a couple of hundred people altogether. They seemed to come from mostly moneyed backgrounds - our particular neighbors were mostly from the Boston area, and mostly Jewish from their facial structures, but there weren't signs of the religion influencing the lifestyle. Nice people, in some ways I'd like to have joined them, in others I'm actually happier as high-mid level wage slave.
At one time, I entertained the thought of accepting a job opportunity at a similar intentional living community in Costa Rica on the Bahia de Ballenas. Live on the beach, grow your own food, do some electrical engineering and software development for solar power, get part ownership in the company and virtually zero salary. I was too afraid of going there and getting stuck with no financial capacity to get back. That was 2003, by 2006 or so the venture had folded up with little gain for the participants. At least as a wage slave, I was able to negotiate myself a 15% raise for work in a place I'd rather live, and a $5000 moving allowance (no, it didn't cover the cost, but it was at least something) after the economy recovered a bit in 2006. As an ex-commune member, I think the job hunt would have been more challenging.
🌻🌻 [google.com]