Peace Is Not An Option (In A For-Profit World)

Peace Is Not An Option 
(In A For-Profit World)

by C.A. Matthews

I'm fighting a war for peace. --John Lennon

I'm always amazed at how short human memory can be. Dozens of progressive pundits and journalists such as Lee Camp and Jimmy Dore immediately noted the similarities in our pattern of action. Heck, even Tucker Carlson of the Fox News channel and Libertarian-Republican Sen. Rand Paul labeled it as a "false flag" event. When both the left and the right agree on something, you know there's gotta be some truth in it.

Here's the pattern--Step one: Plant a false flag, a fake shocking/horrific image planted into the minds of the American public. The recent go-to false flag seems to be gas/chemical attacks against civilians (particularly children). Step two: Parade this false flag on all mainstream media outlets over and over again, burning the horrible image into said public's mind. Step three: Have the president say the US government is justified in dropping bombs and starting a war against said country for said heinous crime.

Mission accomplished! We are now at war with another country and its allies, and we can drop bomb after bomb, missile after missile, and then add a little drone warfare and/or physical invasion until we get our oil access--I mean, we have saved the innocent gassed civilians (or "incubator babies killed by Saddam Hussein") from their evil, despotic regime.

The name of the country and president can change from the George Bushes in Iraq/Kuwait to Barrack Obama in Afghanistan/Yemen to Donald Trump in Syria. The names of the presidents and countries are immaterial. Our heroes of the American Military Machine are always ready to come to the rescue of "democracy" and install a puppet-dictator government loyal to us "friendly, democracy-loving" Americans. Huzzah!

If both right and left-wing journalists and politicians haven't caught on to this

pattern of false flags, deceit and violence by now, they're probably dumber than a box of rocks, or (much more likely) they're making a mint of money from their Raytheon and Boeing stocks.

While there's no excuse for Trump's latest escapade in Syria, there was no excuse for the Bushes' or Obama's "feed the hungry military-industrial complex" actions, either. It's more of the same, and it's high time We the People spoke up and demanded those in authority put an end to this charade of making unethical excuses to bomb other countries for their resources.

Peace is not seen as an option in our for-profit world. Our nation's soul is bought for with the blood of innocents worldwide as well as the innocence of the American public duped into supporting these immoral excursions. These murderous lies generate trillions of dollars in profits for the robber barons of the International Military-Industrial Complex. Perpetual war makes the capitalistic economy go round and around and around until we're all dizzy from the sheer inhumanity of it all.

Is there anything We the People can do to shut down this all-consuming greed and senseless violence? Perhaps the only thing we can do is to get off the merry-go-round of our capitalist economy and shut it down entirely. We must make warfare unprofitable. 

How? We can use the tried and true methods of the BDS movement--boycott, divest and sanction. For instance, we can divest our savings from banks that deal with arms manufacturers and stop using fossil fuel-powered vehicles. We can ask for sanctions against countries that seem hell-bent on keeping the MIC alive and well, but that would be primarily the USA and its NATO allies. Would We the People be willing to suffer sanctions for the sins of our war-mongering leaders?

Of course, the bomb-building billionaires will find a way to keep their heads above water and their factories pumping out weapons of moderate and mass destruction (that actually exist). The one-percenters will convince their employees that it's the only way for workers to keep a roof over their families' heads and food in their stomachs. Haven't we seen enough of this scare tactic by the NRA? "Making guns creates jobs. More guns equals more wealth for the peasants. Who really cares about gun deaths, especially of the poor, persons of color, or uppity women and children? It's all about the money--uh, we mean freedom and the right to bear arms!"

Short of a massive spiritual revival and a return to clear-headed thinking in this country, the Military-Industrial Complex will continue to manufacture death and insist that it doesn't go stale sitting on a shelf in a warehouse. After all, weapons were meant to be used and not simply stockpiled. Thanks to our paid-off mainstream media outlets, ordinary Americans will continue to fall for false flag ruses to use these instruments of terror against other human beings for the sake of filling the one-percent terrorists' bank accounts with even more blood money.

Until We the People make the entire notion of war unprofitable and

unfashionable the fashion of the day will remain camouflage and khaki--or anything that hides blood stains. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general in the US Army and leader of the Allied Forces in WWII, no less, warned us about the dangers of the military-industrial complex in his farewell address. It's high time we heed his words.

More insights and memes on the US strike on Syria--
Raytheon Stock Skyrockets with Tomahawk Airstrikes:
http://fortune.com/2017/04/07/syria-airstrikes-tomahawk-missile-boeing-raytheon-stock/

There's a Good Chance We're Being Lied to About the Chemical Attack in Syria:
http://theantimedia.com/syria-chemical-weapons-attack-lied/

From the Associated Press earlier in the year -- US has no evidence of Syrian use of Sarin gas, Mattis says:
https://apnews.com/bd533182b7f244a4b771c73a0b601ec5

Canadian journalist David Doel makes some very strong points on The Rational National--U.S. Makes Outrageous Claims Following Strike on Syria:
https://youtu.be/JHtkf6YdoXw

7 Questions About the Syria Airstrikes That Aren't Being Asked: https://ourfuture.org/20180416/7-questions-about-the-syria-airstrikes-that-arent-being-asked
 
Tim Black TV --Trump is Making Money for the Military Industrial Complex
https://youtu.be/HF0AI4ixduk
Oil pipelines the world over are a source of conflict. Big Oil wants them, and it's not afraid to gas civilians to get them. Remember Standing Rock?

https://www.ecowatch.com/syria-another-pipeline-war-1882180532.html

Trump tweet from August 30, 2013:  "The president must have Congressional approval before attacking Syria--big mistake if he does not!" 

Has the military-industrial complex convinced Trump otherwise and made him change his stance from  five years ago? What did they promise him in return?

"[Assad] may be a tyrant, but he's not an idiot. The US leaving his country is good for him, and a gas attack prevents the US exit," says Steve Cox.  Lee Camp points out the false flag  and the likely cover story mere days before the actual bombing of Syria in the following short video:

 
"Empathy doesn't pay very well." -- Lee Camp

https://youtu.be/reuQAoXM8bE
Straight up facts about the Syria strikes with Lee and journalist Max Blumenthal.

From The Humanist Report-- In spite of what he said in 2013, Trump now says targeting civilians is a good thing:
   
https://youtu.be/XVeFJMD5hbw 

And now, we take a hard look at the numbers behind our MIC...

Boondoggle and Bloodletting
by Coast Watcher

In November ten years ago the US Navy commissioned what it hoped was the first of fifty-five new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), shallow-draft vessels specifically designed to fight in coastal waters such as those in the Arabian Gulf. Intended as a versatile all-singing, all-dancing warship, it turned out to be tone deaf with two left feet. Plagued by systemic failures, the program was cut to thirty-two hulls.

Of the eleven ships completed so far, the first four were relegated to undeployable training duties, others as test beds for new weapon systems – which have not made much progress. The whole program also resulted in a hot mess of problems arising from the deployment of personnel. To quote USNI News' Megan Eckstein:

Within each division, the first ship has a more experienced crew that is responsible for training and certifying the rest of the crews, and the other three ships are deployable assets. Due to this model, not only does the deployable ship have to be in the water and ready for operations, but so does the training ship.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) cited the LCS as an example of botched contracting, driving up costs unnecessarily. Shipbuilding politics and the need to protect a diversified industrial shipbuilding base are some of the main arguments as to why the program still exists. At the cost of $220 million each, the LCS has already cost over $2.42 billion. It's no wonder that the LCS class was nicknamed "Little Crappy Ship."

The Navy recently announced it may not deploy any LCS this year, citing "a confluence of maintenance availabilities." Last year they effectively admitted the LCS program is a bust when they issued a requirement for a new guided missile frigate.

So, what else could've been bought with that cash? To renovate or build a new high school averages around $110 million. That's two new or refurbished schools for the cost of just one of the eleven LCS delivered so far. A new hospital costs between $800 million and $1.3 billion. That's two major medical facilities for the equivalent cost of those eleven ships.

Instead of adding more war material to the general bloodletting going on in the Middle East, why doesn't the US government put the money toward building facilities that actually help the citizens it's there to serve? With a military machine already twice the size of all other national military forces in the world, it would hardly weaken the might of the United States to do so.

Related articles:
https://news.usni.org/2018/04/11/navy-may-not-deploy-littoral-combat-ships-year

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20088/little-crappy-ship-none-of-the-navys-littoral-combat-ships-may-deploy-in-2018?xid=fbshare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship#Budget_overruns_and_deployments

http://www.wcsdbuilding.com/how-much-do-new-schools-cost/

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-hospital

https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-trump-strikes-damascus/

BIO: Coast Watcher is tallying the numbers, and they're not adding up. Our governments are spending time and wealth on endless wars for oil instead of helping human beings. It's time We the People speak out and stop the insanity. #NoMoreWar #HandsOffSyria

***

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Power to the people and not the military-industrial complex!

Hillary Clinton's Blood Money

Crouching Bernie, Hidden Hillary by Jaeil Cho
www.jaeilchoart.bigcartel.com

Hillary Clinton's Blood Money

by Cindy A. Matthews

In the first Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton asserted that Bernie Sanders wasn't tough enough on guns and claimed she was an "enemy" of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Sanders correctly replied that he'd received failing marks from the NRA and was no friend of theirs. Bernie Sanders was rated F by the NRA, indicating a pro-gun control voting record, while Hillary Clinton has flip-flopped on the topic of gun control as this video demonstrates:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33906-focus-hillary-clinton-should-apologize-to-bernie-sanders

After recent mass murder events in California, Georgia and Colorado, Senator Sanders spoke from Capitol Hill about these recent tragedies and gun safety legislation that should be passed. The following short video gives a good overview of his gun control proposals:

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4564606/sanders-calls-common-sense-gun-safety-legislation
 
Bernie Sanders proposes ten ways to eliminate gun violence in America, including expanding background checks, renewing the assault weapons ban, closing the "terror gap" and insuring mental health treatment for those who need it when they need it. (To read more about his proposals, please click on this link or click on the "Bernie Sanders on Gun Control" page link listed on the sidebar.)

Mrs. Clinton has been fairly quiet since the latest shooting in San Bernardino. She issued the standard Twitter statement like most political candidates do, but she's not made any particular big fuss over the recent massacres or denounced the NRA and demanded more stringent gun control laws. Why is that? She claims she isn't a friend of the NRA--and they probably agree with her-- but could Hillary Clinton's silence indicate guilt over her family's foundation taking money from other countries and groups which have killed indiscriminately?

The following links and article quotes show a worrisome pattern of behavior. They indicate that the former secretary of state has readily accepted large sums of money from foreign powers and others with blood on their hands.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/04/29/report-clinton-foundation-failed-to-disclose-1100-foreign-donations-n1992042

…the Clinton Foundation failed to report tens of millions in foreign donations in their tax documents, a revelation that has forced the organization to re-file at least five years' worth of returns. … Some of those many undisclosed donations (which violated Hillary's transparency pledge) were related to a troubling transaction in which (a) the Russian government obtained the rights to a large chunk of US uranium interests, (b) investors and magnates connected to the deal profited handsomely, (c) the Clinton Foundation (and the Clinton themselves) pocketed millions, and (d) Hillary's State Department signed off on the whole thing -- before "repeatedly breaking" promises to mitigate national security concerns.

Particularly troublesome is that the Clinton Foundation--a charitable organization created by Hillary and Bill Clinton--isn't always forthcoming as to the names of their supporters.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/247336-report-clinton-foundation-keeping-trump-money

Trump states that Clinton Foundation not very open about who actually does give it money. Trump has also repeatedly criticized Clinton for the lack of public transparency on her charitable foundation’s dealings.

“If this was a Republican sitting right there, this would absolutely be considered illegal,” Trump said in April of the organization’s activities...

During Mrs. Clinton's time as secretary of state, several Middle Eastern countries with abysmal human rights records were very generous supporters to the Clinton Foundation--and rewarded in turn with lucrative arms deals.

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/04/wapo-say-those-qatari-donations-to-the-clinton-foundation-seem-suspect/

The Qataris denied the Guardian report, while the Clintons said that philanthropy shouldn’t sit in judgment on its benefactors. That’s probably what they hope voters will think about politics too, but the problem for the Clintons is that all of these corrupt relationships cross traditional liberal constituencies. It’s tough to be pro-LGBT if you’re enabling regimes that throw gays off of rooftops, and it’s tough to be pro-worker when you’re shaking hands with people who are killing them by the dozen to build sports stadiums as monuments to their rule.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/hillary-clinton-foundation-state-arms-deals

In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, Saudi Arabia had contributed $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, and just two months before the jet deal was finalized, Boeing donated $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to an International Business Times investigation released Tuesday.

The Saudi transaction is just one example of nations and companies that had donated to the Clinton Foundation seeing an increase in arms deals while Hillary Clinton oversaw the State Department.

If you're hoping against hope that foreign governments and big corporations donating large sums to the Clinton Foundation can't possible influence Mrs. Clinton's decisions while  in office, this Washington Post article will put that hope to rest:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html

The Washington Post reported last week that foreign sources, including governments, made up a third of those who have given the foundation more than $1 million over time. The Post found that the foundation, begun by former president Bill Clinton, has raised nearly $2 billion since its creation in 2001.

Foreign governments and individuals are prohibited from giving money to U.S. political candidates, to prevent outside influence over national leaders. But the foundation has given donors a way to potentially gain favor with the Clintons outside the traditional political limits.

Hillary Clinton also claims that she is an "enemy" of Big Pharma and the Health Insurance Industry, and yet health insurance and drug companies have been some of her biggest financial supporters. Who's to say her "enemy" the NRA and related gun lobbyists aren't donating to her campaign or to the Clinton Foundation as well? As previous article links demonstrate, the Clinton Foundation isn't always forthcoming about the name of their donors and their accounting practices.

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/democratic-debate-2015-hillary-clintons-enemies-pharmaceutical-insurance

In 2008, Clinton was among the three biggest recipients of campaign cash from pharmaceutical-related companies, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics... The center reports that Clinton also raised more than $1.2 million from the insurance industry -- which includes health insurers.

On top of those campaign contributions, the Clintons and their family foundation have benefited from their ties to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

In 2011, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) -- the primary trade association representing drug companies -- paid Bill Clinton $200,000 for a speech, as the organization was lobbying the Hillary Clinton-led State Department. Last year, the Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies Association, a trade group whose members include major pharmaceutical companies, paid her a $250,000 speaking fee.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/10/14/hillary-takes-millions-in-campaign-cash-from-enemies

Since her first bid for Senate in 2000, Clinton has accepted nearly $1 million from drug and health companies and more than $2.7 million from the insurance field and its related sectors, according to an analysis of public records from the Center for Responsive Politics. 

More recently, the Clinton Foundation has also benefited from these groups’ donations. Donors and grantors who have given between $1 million and $5 million include Pfizer, the Procter & Gamble Co., Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina and Humana Inc.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/most-firms-that-gave-to-clinton-foundation-also-lobbied-state-department/article/2564553

A handful of the Fortune 100 corporations were missing lobbying disclosures from one or more years of Clinton's tenure, suggesting more may have lobbied the agency during that time. The Clinton Foundation did not return a request for comment.

How do we know the NRA or other gun lobbyists weren't among these corporations? We don't. We must take Hillary and Bill Clinton's word for it. We can trust them, right?  It's not like the Clintons have made millions from their foundation and their lobbying efforts, right? Oh, yes, they have... They have made millions. Hundreds of millions of dollars.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31474-hillary-clinton-s-wall-street-address

 ...While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, her department “approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data…

Those nations include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar, each of which “gained State Department clearance to buy caches of American-made weapons even as the department singled them out for a range of alleged ills, from corruption to restrictions on civil liberties to violent crackdowns against political opponents.”

Further, American defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed who sold those arms and their delivery systems also shelled out heavily to the $2 billion Clinton Foundation and the Clinton family. According to Sirota, “In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records. The Clinton Foundation publishes only a rough range of individual contributors’ donations, making a more precise accounting impossible.”
 

Is it any wonder Hillary Clinton never spoke out against Citizens United until after she'd received large sums of money for her Super PACs? The Clintons' support of Big Business over the best interests of ordinary Americans has been well documented. She may pretend to be a "progressive" and attempt to imitate Bernie Sanders' positions on the issues, but her actions prove otherwise. Further evidence of her pro-Big Business/pro-Wall Street agenda can be found in these articles:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33869-hillary-clinton-s-ghosts-a-legacy-of-pushing-the-democratic-party-to-the-right

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/33875-clinton-super-pac-donor-is-former-goldman-exec-and-foreclosure-crisis-profiteer
 
How "progressive" of you, Mrs. Clinton!

 
So much money--so many lives lost or permanently harmed by wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. So much money--so many lives cut short because health care isn't a universal right in the US and pharmaceutical companies are free to charge astronomical prices. Remember Martin Shkreli's recent 5000% price hike of an AIDS drug? We'd likely see more of this abhorrent activity in a Hillary Clinton administration.

Donations for arms deals... Donations for legislation favoring the billionaires over the working poor... All this "blood money" has touched the hands of Bill and Hillary Clinton through their Clinton Foundation.

To quote Sen. Richard Lugar, a ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while Hillary was secretary of state: “The Clinton Foundation exists as a temptation for any foreign entity or government that believes it could curry favor through a donation."  Sen. John Kerry, current secretary of state and the committee's chairman at the time, called Lugar's concerns over the Clinton Foundation a "legitimate question." (Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html)

Hillary Clinton accuses Bernie Sanders of not being tough enough on gun control?  It's laughable when you consider how much money she's taken from cold-blooded killers.

Vote for a candidate you can trust to put ordinary Americans' health, safety--our very lives--before pleasing billionaires and instead of lining his own pockets with immoral multi-million dollar "donations" from foreign governments and Wall Street to a family-owned foundation with questionable accounting practices. Vote Bernie Sanders.


(Special thanks to Denise Silva, Scott Galindez and A.J. Matthews for providing links, video and memes.)