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Inside the invisible government: war, propaganda, Clinton & Trump – Part 2

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

With this past elections behind us but still causing storm, we were able to see the true face of the mainstream media lies, but which the people believed blindly. Propaganda was the name used for government media in the Soviet Union; advertising or public relations is called in the US and the rest of the ‘free world,’ which at the end it is the same propaganda, used to make people believe what the elite want us to believe. PART 2 OF TWO.
(This article series was written before the election).

Inside the invisible government: war, propaganda, Clinton & Trump

John Pilger
Originally appeared at CounterPunch

Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education – Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia — and with careers on the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post.
These organiZations are known as the liberal media. They present themselves as enlightened, progressive tribunes of the moral zeitgeist. They are anti-racist, pro-feminist and pro-LGBT.

And they love war.

While they speak up for feminism, they support rapacious wars that deny the rights of countless women, including the right to life.
In 2011, Libya, then a modern state, was destroyed on the pretext that Muammar Gaddafi was about to commit genocide on his own people.  That was the incessant news; and there was no evidence. It was a lie.

In fact, Britain, Europe and the United States wanted what they like to call “regime change” in Libya, the biggest oil producer in Africa. Gaddafi’s influence in the continent and, above all, his independence were intolerable.

So he was murdered with a knife in his rear by fanatics, backed by America, Britain and France.  Hillary Clinton cheered his gruesome death for the camera, declaring, “We came, we saw, he died!”

The destruction of Libya was a media triumph. As the war drums were beaten, Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian: “Though the risks are very real, the case for intervention remains strong.”

Intervention – what a polite, benign, Guardian word, whose real meaning, for Libya, was death and destruction.

According to its own records, Nato launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads. Look at the photographs of the rubble of Misurata and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross. The UNICEF report on the children killed says, “most [of them] under the age of ten”.

As a direct consequence, Sirte became the capital of ISIS. Ukraine is another media triumph. Respectable liberal newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, and mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC, NBC, CBS, CNN have played a critical role in conditioning their viewers to accept a new and dangerous cold war.

All have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia when, in fact, the coup in Ukraine in 2014 was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and NATO.

This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington’s military intimidation of Russia is not news; it is suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war. Once again, the Ruskies are coming to get us, led by another Stalin, whom The Economist depicts as the devil.

The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The fascists who engineered the coup in Kiev are the same breed that backed the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Of all the scares about the rise of fascist anti-Semitism in Europe, no leader ever mentions the fascists in Ukraine – except Vladimir Putin, but he does not count.

Many in the Western media have worked hard to present the ethnic Russian-speaking population of Ukraine as outsiders in their own country, as agents of Moscow, almost never as Ukrainians seeking a federation within Ukraine and as Ukrainian citizens resisting a foreign-orchestrated coup against their elected government.

There is almost the joie d’esprit of a class reunion of warmongers. The drum-beaters of the Washington Post inciting war with Russia are the very same editorial writers who published the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

To most of us, the American presidential campaign is a media freak show, in which Donald Trump is the arch villain. But Trump is loathed by those with power in the United States for reasons that have little to do with his obnoxious behavior and opinions. To the invisible government in Washington, the unpredictable Trump is an obstacle to America’s design for the 21st century.

This is to maintain the dominance of the United States and to subjugate Russia, and, if possible, China.

To the militarists in Washington, the real problem with Trump is that, in his lucid moments, he seems not to want a war with Russia; he wants to talk with the Russian president, not fight him; he says he wants to talk with the president of China.

In the first debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump promised not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict. He said, “I would certainly not do first strike. Once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over.” That was not news.

Did he really mean it? Who knows? He often contradicts himself. But what is clear is that Trump is considered a serious threat to the status quo maintained by the vast national security machine that runs the United States, regardless of who is in the White House.

The CIA wants him beaten. The Pentagon wants him beaten. The media wants him beaten. Even his own party wants him beaten. He is a threat to the rulers of the world – unlike Clinton who has left no doubt she is prepared to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia and China.

Clinton has the form, as she often boasts. Indeed, her record is proven. As a senator, she backed the bloodbath in Iraq.  When she ran against Obama in 2008, she threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran. As Secretary of State, she colluded in the destruction of governments in Libya and Honduras and set in train the baiting of China.

She has now pledged to support a No Fly Zone in Syria – a direct provocation for war with Russia. Clinton may well become the most dangerous president of the United States in my lifetime – a distinction for which the competition is fierce.

Without a shred of evidence, she has accused Russia of supporting Trump and hacking her emails. Released by WikiLeaks, these emails tell us that what Clinton says in private, in speeches to the rich and powerful, is the opposite of what she says in public.

That is why silencing and threatening Julian Assange is so important. As the editor of WikiLeaks, Assange knows the truth. And let me assure those who are concerned, he is well, and WikiLeaks is operating on all cylinders.

Today, the greatest build-up of American-led forces since World War Two is under way – in the Caucasus and eastern Europe, on the border with Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, where China is the target.

Keep that in mind when the presidential election circus reaches its finale on Nov. 8,  If the winner is Clinton, a Greek chorus of witless commentators will celebrate her coronation as a great step forward for women. None will mention Clinton’s victims: the women of Syria, the women of Iraq, the women of Libya. None will mention the civil defence drills being conducted in Russia.  None will recall Edward Bernays’ “torches of freedom”.

George Bush’s press spokesman once called the media “complicit enablers”.

Coming from a senior official in an administration whose lies, enabled by the media, caused such suffering, that description is a warning from history.

In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor said of the German media: “Before every major aggression, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the attack. In the propaganda system, it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.”

Can these supplements reverse or prevent gray hair?

by Danna Norek

Many a man and woman have lamented those silvery, wiry sprigs of hair that seem to pop up overnight in the most obvious face-framing places on our head. Graying hair may not be so bad if it weren’t so often accompanied by other undesirable effects.

Often graying hair comes with a loss of elasticity and rougher texture which tends to make it stand out from the rest of your hair. Since it is more brittle, it also tends to break off more easily, which is why you often see those stray grays poking up rather obviously.

Rather than relying on hair dyes and tints that often are toxic and damaging, many wonder if there is a natural way to turn gray hair darker – to somehow internally change our body chemistry to help keep that pigment around longer. So, is there a natural way to help keep your hair smoother and darker for a longer period of time before Father Time inevitably extracts the color and vibrance from your hair?

Supplements Purported to Help Prevent and Reverse Gray Hair

There are actually a few supplements out there now that some people have reported are helping them to delay or even reverse the graying of their hair. There are no in-depth or conclusive studies yet that these actually work, but that doesn’t mean the anecdotal evidence and individual success stories don’t have some validity.

It may just mean there wasn’t enough interest or funding for studies.  Also, there may just not have been enough money to be made on something that’s fairly inexpensive to manufacture.

Fo-Ti Root (Also known as He Shou Wu)

This inexpensive Chinese medicinal herb is probably at the forefront of the anti-graying supplement buzz. There are numerous success stories out there of men and women who have experienced a reduction in their grays after taking this supplement regularly.

This herb has long been used to promote youth and vigor in traditional Chinese medicine, and has also gained a reputation as a natural remedy for graying hair. In fact, the Chinese name He Shou Wu translates into a statement about turning hair “black”. It also is purported to have a hand in overall longevity and vitality among many other beneficial traits.

Fo-Ti also mimics the female hormone estrogen in the body, hence its use by women to help replenish estrogen lost during and after menopause. However, men also use the herb as a youth-promoting tonic as well as an energy and endurance enhancer.

Wheatgrass

There are many stories about regular consumption of wheatgrass and a connection to fending off grays. Most of us know this as a healthy habit for many other reasons due to its high nutrition content.

According to traditional Chinese medicine theory, wheatgrass may help slow down the rate of graying or help reverse gray hair due to its effect on our blood. Healthy blood is tied to the health and vibrance of your hair. Wheatgrass is very rich in chlorophyll, which closely mimics human hemoglobin. Hemoglobin carries oxygen to all your vital organs and tissues.

Regular consumption of wheatgrass really helps oxygenate your blood, which is a huge benefit for many reasons. Well, now you might add another to that list of benefits – gray hair prevention!

Anti-gray supplement in the works from a major cosmetics company

There has also been some buzz about a huge cosmetics company working on an anti-gray supplement. They were recently reportedly still working to patent the idea, and it was supposed to have been released by now, but no further updates were available.

In the meantime, it sounds like there are some other options that it wouldn’t hurt to try. Even if they don’t turn your gray hair back to its youthful tone, they certainly have a plethora of other health benefits that may make it worth it!

Actor says: The police are ‘thugs’ being shielded by corporate media

by Claire Bernish

Award-winning actor and longtime environmental and animal rights activist, James Cromwell, held nothing back in an interview late last year, when discussing ongoing exploitation and brutalization of Indigenous peoples battling Energy Transfer Partners’ construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

To Cromwell, like innumerable observers, that the government would lash out violently against Standing Rock Sioux water protectors and their supporters to defend the construction of a pipeline for Big Oil profit evinces systemic racism and oppression practiced since the first Europeans arrived in these lands.

Months of a veritable blackout by mainstream media, he contends, shows the appalling complicity of reporters obligated to deliver a narrative acceptable to corporate backers.

In a typical protest, Cromwell told The Young Turks’ Jordan Chariton, “for the most part, the police arrest people, but they behave very rationally. When they come to the Indigenous community, they behave like thugs. And that shows the racism that sort of underpins the entire thing.

“It’s either environmental justice for people of color in the East, or for Indigenous people here, in the middle of this country, who always get the short end of the stick.”

To wit, Cromwell gave the interview from the Oceti Sakowin Camp, the largest of several encampments near the Lake Oahe reservoir on the Missouri River erected to peacefully block Dakota Access construction, and one of two which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intends to evict.

Led by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, unnecessarily-militarized law enforcement from at least nine states have unleashed the full fury of the Police State against the unarmed water protectors in a pattern of escalation and brute force. Tear gas, rubber bullets, Tasers, bean bag projectiles, concussion grenades, sound cannons, and weaponized water, have left hundreds injured, traumatized, and even maimed.

Vanessa Dundon, a Native American water protector better known as Sioux Z, faces permanent vision loss in one eye after police launched a tear gas canister at her head, severing her retina, during the most explicitly barbarous crackdown on water protectors on Nov. 20 on Highway 1806’s Backwater Bridge. Lacking health insurance, Sioux Z — who has acted as security and a first responder during such police offensives — has been forced to rely on crowdfunding for surgery necessary to save her sight. A non-Native supporter of the water protectors, Sophia Wilansky, had her arm blown to shreds by what might have been a Stinger grenade during the same skirmish as she delivered water to 400 people trapped on the bridge. Surgeons were still trying to save her arm and avoid the possibility of amputation — a medical effort also being partially funded with donations.

Eyewitnesses say both women appeared to have been intentionally targeted by police — an allegation reinforced by medics and first responders from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and the City of Bismarck, who observed the riot-cop army aiming for water protectors’ heads and legs.

As many as 300 people suffered various injuries during the over six-hour attack by law enforcement. One tribal elder twice went into cardiac arrest amid the fog of tear gas, hail of rubber bullets, and — most astonishingly dangerous and appalling of all — a near-constant soaking by icy water in sub-freezing temperatures, a la 1960s police use of fire hoses against black civil rights protestors.

Cromwell’s distinction between the Standing Rock Sioux’ fight to preserve clean water and typical anti-fossil fuel protests isn’t an arbitrary one — and he would know from firsthand experience.

In December 2015, Cromwell and others were arrested for disorderly conduct after attempting to block the entrance to a Competitive Power Ventures power plant. A second arrest came in June 2016 for blockading the entrance to the Crestwood Compressor Station — part of an expansion of fracked-energy infrastructure greenlighted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and ignored by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, despite vociferous condemnation by local residents.

Similar to actions at Standing Rock, both incidents involved physically obstructing the commerce of Big Oil — but, quite unlike police defense of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Cromwell, and the other arrestees weren’t physically brutalized or treated as enemies of the State.
That striking contrast is additionally evidenced in mainstream media coverage — or astonishing lack thereof.

As TYT’s Chariton notes, corporate media arrives instantaneously at the scene when protests, rioting, or violence occurs following a police killing — such as with Ferguson and Baltimore — but in the case of Standing Rock, because the peaceful battle is against Big Oil, there has been a dearth of coverage by the mainstream press.

Asked to describe what he sees as this dereliction of duty by the corporate-backed media, Cromwell responde:
“They have a divided allegiance, because their allegiance should be to their viewership or their readership — but it’s not. It’s to the corporations. It’s all about the bottom line. And, therefore, they have to protect not only those sponsors, [but] the people who control the corporations who are usually involved in this sort of activity because it represents profits. And they have lost their connection, which has shown in this election — nobody believed the mainstream media.”

Controversy about the Dakota Access Pipeline has been a prime example of this, as corporate presstitutes continue pushing the official police accounts of violent incidents via Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier — whose laughably-thin explanations for officer use-of-force have been wholly invalidated by independent and alternative media outlets time and time again. In fact, independent journalists on the scene in Standing Rock have collected physical evidence of and filmed law enforcement engaged in the exact activities Kirchmeier denies.

Inaccurate or utter lack of reporting on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s efforts to end pipeline construction have been the nail in the coffin for many already weary from horrendous mainstream coverage of the 2016 presidential election cycle. Online alternative media — which has been a font of thorough and accurate information for both issues — presents quite the tenable option for those seeking non-corporate, non-establishment-biased journalism.

“That’s where people go,” Cromwell continued. “People who want to know what’s happening go online and find it — and it is there. There is real journalism, but it’s certainly not the mainstream media.”

Shocking: Trump supports seizure of private property by the police without due process

by Dave Hodges
The Common Sense Show

The American economy is living on borrowed time through the infusion of massive amounts of “printed out of thin air” cash being printed by the Federal Reserve. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that the inevitable economic crash is looming on the horizon.

The deficit is $19 trillion dollars, and soon-t0-be $21 trillion dollars, and that is the good news. The unfunded liabilities debt (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, etc.) is estimated to be $240 trillion dollars.

Finally, the derivatives debt that average citizens have been saddled with the burden of paying off through the infamous bailouts is now estimated to $1.5 quadrillion dollars. With the most optimistic estimates that the world’s GDP is less that $100 trillion dollars, it does no t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the ability to pay off the debt through taxation and the endless bailouts is simply not possible.

Civilian Asset Forfeiture

President Trump is way off base. He is doing great harm with his proactive support of civilian asset forfeiture.

The Federal Reserve and their colleagues know that the crash is coming. Your home, your pension, your bank account are all at risk when, not if, the crash comes. The only obstacle in the way of the public theft of private assets is the United States Constitution and the Fifth Amendment. The practice of Civilian Asset Forfeiture is setting the precedent that the government can steal all of your property.

When this practice began in the 1990’s, the amount of property stolen without due process was in the millions. Today, this practice has grown to a $4.5 billion dollar governmental criminal enterprise.

That Little Thing Called the Constitution and the Fifth Amendment

The Fifth Amendment asserts that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. Given the intended narrow definition of the Fifth Amendment, this article will demonstrate that the concept of private property is on life support and that government is attempting to separate as many private assets from its citizens as possible. One of the primary ways that the government is accomplishing this goal is through the RICO statutes and this will be the exclusive focus of this article.

What Is RICO?

The new game in America is called theft by law enforcement and RICO is the name. Much of the growth of federal criminal procedures has been tied to the expanded use of RICO. RICO stands for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970. RICO has succeeded in blurring the lines between state and federal law enforcement and in overturning the protections inherent in the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, namely due process. As previously stated, the Fifth Amendment states that government cannot deprive citizens of life, liberty and property without due process of law. As the Patriot Act negates the Fourth Amendment protections, RICO does the same with the Fifth Amendment due process rights.

RICO is essentially the seizure of goods and assets obtained as a result of ACCUSED criminal activity.

Gangster Cops in Meridian MS.

During a traffic stop in Meridian, Mississippi, police found $360,000 tucked away in an obscure compartment of a man’s car. Certainly the amount of money in question would get our collective attention, however, the driver was let go. And if the Meridian city government has a problem with large amounts of cash, then pass a law forbidding the carrying of cash over a certain amount. Until then, this man committed no crime. In this case, the cops simply stole the man’s money.

Under RICO, law enforcement agency can seize your property, and it’s up to you to prove that the money isn’t connected to a crime. This is an obvious violation of the Fifth Amendment which requires the government to prove in court that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
This application of RICO is unconstitutional on its face and it is still being allowed. Why? Because RICO money is being used by the law enforcement agencies to enrich their department as well as to host lavish department/agency parties.

Your Property Is Not Safe

For those who think that the Meridian, MS. motorist got what he deserved because nobody should be carrying that kind of cash on them, consider the Russell Caswell case which demonstrates that, under RICO statutes, one can lose everything even when they have never been suspected of a crime.

Motives for RICO Enforcement

The money that law enforcement seizes, is money that goes towards the purchase of office equipment, new vehicles, larger expense accounts and the list goes on. However, agency assets are not the only destination for RICO obtained assets.

In a clear violation of the 10th Amendment, the Federal government has made local law enforcement partners in these crimes being perpetrated against the American people through the practice of “equitable sharing agreements” between the Department of Justice and local or state law enforcement. Just like a Mafia protection racket, the Feds typically are taking 10 to 20 percent of all profits connected to local seizures.

Re-instituting the Fifth Amendment

In only six states does the government assume the burden of proof that establishes the fact that the person is guilty in order to confiscate all types of property.  According to the Institute for Justice, in 38 states, the burden for all forfeitures, including one’s home, falls directly upon the owner.

The simple fix to this public theft of private assets is to simply follow the Constitution in which the government, before permanently seizing assets, must first establish guilt in a court of law.

On July 28, 2014, U.S. Congressman Timothy Walberg (R-Mich.) introduced a bill intended to reform federal asset civil forfeiture laws. In the Senate, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced S. 2644, the FAIR (Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration) Act, which similarly seeks to change the way the government seizes property suspected of being involved in criminal activity. The bills failed.

The chances of passage of these parallel bills in the House and the Senate are slim and none. The radical Marxist factions presently running the Democratic party will prevent passage in the Senate. And even if the bill passed in the Senate, does anyone have any doubt that President Trump will have his veto pen ready?

President Trump Approves

In a recently recorded interview, President Trump threatened to destroy the political career of a Texas legislator by introducing legislation that would require a court action to seize property.

The bill in question in Texas is SB156 from Sen. Juan Hinojosa (D-Dist. 20).

Japanese parts maker says adiós to Mexico

Donald Trump’s threats of retaliation trigger change of plans for Nisshinbo Holdings

by the El Reportero’s wire services

A Japanese automotive parts maker has abandoned plans to build a manufacturing facility in Mexico due to threats of economic retaliation by United States President Donald Trump.

Nisshinbo Holdings Inc. announced yesterday it was dropping plans to build a brake manufacturing plant, estimated to represent an investment of close to US $90 million, said a report by the Nikkei Asian Review.

The company is the first from Japan to change its investment plans in Mexico in response to the U.S. government’s threats of import tariffs.
The report said the parts that were to be manufactured in Mexico were destined for the U.S. market, and that the plant will probably be built in that country instead.

The news agency AFP quoted Nisshinbo spokesperson Kiyohiro Kida saying that “Mexico was the strongest candidate [to host the new plant], but we decided to backtrack.”

A day before the firm’s announcement, executive managing director Takayoshi Okugawa stated that “We’ve abandoned Mexico… we must chose a different place other than Mexico.”

Nisshinbo is a leader in brake friction materials, with 15 percent of the global market, and has investments in textiles and electronics production as well.

While Nisshinbo was saying goodbye to Mexico, Nissan was reaffirming its commitment.

Nissan Motor Company said yesterday it was moving forward with its plant in Aguascalientes, called Compas, a billion-dollar joint manufacturing facility it is building with German auto maker Daimler AG. The new factory will build next-generation premium compact vehicles for the Mercedes-Benz and Infiniti brands.

“[The project] is under way, on schedule, and by the end of our fiscal year, new Infiniti cars will be produced there,” said Nissan corporate vice-president Joji Tagawa.

But other manufacturers may yet bail on Mexico.

An economist with the Japanese cooperative bank Norinchukin told AFP that “similar movements [to that of Nisshinbo] are expected” from other firms.

Trump’s policies “could affect companies with plants in Mexico as well as those who were expecting to invest there,” he added.

Nonetheless, abandoning projects in Mexico will have a “negligible impact” on the Japanese economy as Mexico represents half a percentage point of that country’s foreign direct investment, said an economist with the Tokyo branch of the Credit Suisse bank. (Via Mexico News Daily)


US deported more than one million Mexicans in five years

In the last five years, 1 million 372 thousand 883 Mexicans were repatriated from the United States, according to data from the Interior Ministry (Segob) released today.

Segob statistics indicate that the annual number of deportations has been declining, although Mexicans occupy the first place of expelled people from that country.

The year 2012 registered the greatest number of returned Mexicans with 369 thousand 492; while for 2015 the figure fell to 207 thousand 398.
Segob said that in 2016, 219 thousand 923 Mexicans were deported, most of them from Michoacan, Guerrero, and Oaxaca.

PG&E Launches $500 Rebate for Electric Vehicle Drivers

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced the launch of the Clean Fuel Rebate for residential, electric customers who are electric vehicle (EV) drivers. The new Clean Fuel Rebate is part of California’s statewide Low Carbon Fuel Standard initiative, which aims to reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging the adoption of clean fuels like electricity. Transportation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in California at 40 percent.

Today, each mile driven using electricity reduces vehicle-related greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 70 percent, compared to gasoline-powered cars. The electricity fueling EVs in California comes from one of the cleanest energy mixes in the country – PG&E delivers more than 58 percent of electricity to customers from greenhouse gas-free resources.

“Electric vehicles are a critical part of creating cleaner air and meeting ambitious climate goals in California. Administering this rebate is part of our ongoing commitment to electric vehicles by supporting our more than 100,000 customers who are adopting clean fuels to significantly reduce their environmental impact and support the state’s clean energy future,” said Aaron Johnson, PG&E Vice President of Customer Energy Solutions.

Key facts about the Clean Fuel Rebate

• What is the rebate? The Clean Fuel Rebate is a one-time rebate of $500 starting in January 2017. For using electricity as a clean transportation fuel, eligible EV owners can receive one rebate per owned or leased EV.

• Where does the money for the rebate come from? By participating in the statewide Low Carbon Fuel Standard program, PG&E generates credits for the clean electricity it provides to customers who charge their EVs at home. After selling these credits to regulated parties, PG&E returns the revenue to customers driving EVs through the new Clean Fuel Rebate.

• Who can apply? PG&E residential customers with active electric service who own or lease a battery EV or plug-in hybrid EV can apply for the rebate. A PG&E account holder may also apply on behalf of a vehicle owner in their household or a tenant in a multi-unit dwelling with the vehicle owner’s permission. Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) customers are also eligible to apply.

Since the Clean Fuel Rebate comes from a statewide program, residents who have electric service from another provider in California may be eligible for a similar rebate from their electric utility.

• What do customers need in order to apply? Customers need their PG&E account number and vehicle registration documentation for their EV.

• When can customers apply? The rebate is available for EV drivers starting now. The amount of the rebate is subject to change after 2017 due to market conditions.
• Where can customers learn more and apply? Learn more about the rebate and apply via a simple online application at www.pge.com/cleanfuelrebate-ev.

PG&E’s ongoing commitment to EVs

PG&E is partnering with EV charging companies to further EV adoption by building out charging infrastructure across Northern and Central California. This program focuses on extending charging access to places where it has traditionally been limited including workplaces, multi-unit dwellings and disadvantaged communities.

PG&E offers resources to help customers driving EVs learn more and determine which rate makes sense for them. Customers can choose from rates that are equivalent to about $1.00 per gallon of gasoline for overnight charging. Additionally, PG&E helps EV drivers who add EV charging at their households manage their electricity bills.

For more information on the Clean Fuel Rebate, please visit www.pge.com/cleanfuelrebate-ev.
To learn more about EVs, rates for EV drivers and other resources, visit pge.com/ev.

San Mateo County Libraries host stellar of young novelists

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

San Mateo County Libraries are hosting their second annual YANovCon (Young Adult Novelist Convention) at the Millbrae Library on January 28, featuring exciting writers, breakout sessions and opportunities to meet the authors.

This year’s lineup includes prestigious award winners, New York Times bestsellers, and authors whose works will soon be on the big screen, including Neal Shusterman, Andrew Smith, Jessica Brody, Mariko Tamaki and many others.

YANovCon takes place on January 28, 1:00-5:00 pm, at the Millbrae Library, 1 Library Avenue, Millbrae, California.
For more information, visit www.smcl.org/YANovCon.

Vanishing Cultures Bushmen of the Kalahari

The San people, more commonly known as Bushmen, are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of southern Africa. They have lived for 80,000 years as hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari Desert, and are well-known for their expert survival skills in a harsh environment. Their unique clicking languages and their astonishing method of healing through trance dancing have made them a source of worldwide fascination to both curious Westerners and anthropologists.

Vanishing Cultures: Bushmen of the Kalahari visits the troubled San community whose once thriving culture is now facing extinction.

This documentary takes a never-before-seen look at the fascinating history, the brutal struggles, and the seemingly impossible challenges of the Bushmen of the Kalahari.

At the Tiburon Library located at 1501 Tiburon Boulevard in Tiburon, on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 a las 6:30 p.m.

100 Years Of Pro-Israel Activism: How a Special Interest Lobby Enabled the Colonization of Palestine

The creation of Israel in 1948 was the result of a worldwide movement called Political Zionism, active in the U.S. since the late 1800s. After Israel was created, this movement – now known as the “Israel lobby” – continued to work on behalf of Israel.

Today it is one of most powerful and pervasive special interests in the United States. Among its many achievements has been to re-define the term “anti-Semitism” to increasingly mean criticism of Israel and/or support for Palestinian human rights.

Another accomplishment has been to procure massive aid to Israel: on average, 7,000 times more per capita than to others around the world.

Drawing on her best-selling book, Against Our Better Judgment, former journalist Alison Weir will discuss this movement, its history and current reality, media coverage of Israel-Palestine, and the role of Israel partisans in promoting the Iraq War and in the continued demonization of Iran. The lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

At Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar Street, Berkeley (Corner of Cedar St. and Bonita Ave.). On Thurs, Feb 16 at 6:30 p.m. – Free and open to the public.

New SFMOMA contemporary art exhibitions

A Slow Succession with Many Interruptions: William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time, Runa Islam: Verso.

William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time: Making its West Coast debut at SFMOMA, artist William Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time (2012) is an immersive installation combining synchronized video projections featuring live action, animation and dance, with audio feeds that incorporate music and sound and a central kinetic sculpture called “the elephant,” which breathes a steady rhythm from the center of the gallery.

On View through April 2, 2017, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street, San Francisco.

Cuban group Música Antigua Ars Longa to perform in Austria

by the El Reportero’s news services

The Cuban group Musica Antigua Ars Longa will perform on January 23rd at the Concert Hall in Vienna, Austria, during the Resonanzen Festival, said its choral director Teresa Paz.

The group, founded in 1994 to work with music from Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque, with similar instruments, costumes and other features of those times, will premiere its work ‘Carnaval.’

Paz said in a press conference that the performance at the Groyer Saal of the Vienna Concert Hall is part of the Resonanzen Festival program, which will take place there from January 21st to 29th.

With ‘Carnaval’ Ars Longa will open, on Feb. 4 in Havana, the 12th Festival de Musica Antigua Esteban Salas, held in Cuba with the participation of artists from various countries and dedicated this year to the influence of dance.

Paul McCartney Tries to Recuperate Beatles Songs Copyrights

Los Angeles, Jan 19 – Famous British songwriter Paul Mc Cartney, one of the member of famous rock and pop group The Beatles, still alive, is trying to recuperate the copyrights of 267 songs of the famous rock and pop band, by means of a demand presented to the Sony Corporation before a federal court in New York.

US deceased pop music star Michael Jackson bought the copyrights on the large collection of songs of The Beatles in 1985, two decades before his premature death in 2009.

Last year, the heirs of Michael Jackson -nicknamed The King of Pop- sold the collection of songs, among other goods, to Sony Corporation, for 750,000 dollars, an insignificant amount, if compared to the 47.5 million dollars Jackson paid to own it.

Inside this collection, there are famous and successful tunes, such as ‘All You Need Is Love’ and ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’.

Paul McCartney’s demand states the right of the British songwriter to suspend the transfers of intellectual property over the songs of the collection, has not been rightfully respected, in virtue of the US legislation.

The autorship of the 267 songs corresponds to McCartney and his deceased partner and musician John Lennon (also a member of The Beatles), his colleague in the band, acclaimed by the critics, as the most successful pop-rock group in the history of popular music ever.

Afghan female orchestra wins Freemuse Award

The Afghan female orchestra Zohra, the first and only of its kind in the country, won the 2017 Freemuse Award edition, a recognition that promotes music as the driving force of freedom, Ariana News reported today.

During last decades, the Afghan music sector experienced a setback due to the war, the exile of the musicians and the Taliban-imposted policies who ruled between 1996 and 2001.

The case for being medically uninsured

by Jane M. Orient, M.D.

Republicans say they are going to “replace” ObamaCare, but they will come up with something very similar and at least as bad if they start with the same misguided objective: “universal coverage.”

There are necessities of life, but insurance is not one of them.

Just what good is that little card in your wallet? Once it has expired, it is good for absolutely nothing, even if you have paid $100,000 or more for it over a period of years.

It might be a ticket to get you into certain medical facilities, but in these days of narrow networks, it will keep you out of others. It by no means guarantees that the facility will provide you with the care you need or want—or even that you won’t get an outrageous bill, especially before you meet the deductible. It will guarantee that you will be paying for a lot of things you don’t need or want. Some will be other people’s medical care, or anti-tobacco lectures, or alcohol rehab (even if you are a teetotaler). You’ll pay for some things just because they are “quality” metrics—hospice evaluation is a newly proposed one. And you will definitely pay for administrators, managers, monitors, clerks, claims processors and re-processors, etc., all of whom get their paycheck or their pension even if your doctor doesn’t.

Many people choose to be uninsured, even if they are a good risk and can afford insurance, and more end up uninsured because they are a bad risk or can’t afford it, or simply choose to use their money for something else. In 1940, less than 10 percent of the population had health insurance.

You could go your whole life, and never miss that insurance card.

Most people, of course, do need medical care at some point. If they are uninsured, they can go to the doctor and whip out their checkbook, just like your mother or grandmother did, and just like you probably do at the veterinarian’s, the dentist’s, the massage therapist’s, or the mechanic’s.

The best reason for having insurance of course is the unexpected accident or catastrophic illness. Oh how I miss my AAA catastrophic policy that I had for years.
It cost about $250/year and had a $25,000 deductible but promised to pay about $1,000,000 above that. They changed the rules and started requiring a “basic” (or “comprehensive” policy), which would cost about $10,000. So I said no thanks, and increased my automobile policy to the maximum medical coverage.

There’s still the risk of an expensive medical illness. What then?

I have actually bought quite a lot of medical care and paid out of pocket, although I have never filed a medical insurance claim. For one reason or another, insurance probably wouldn’t have paid anyway. And if you ask, the cash price is often quite reasonable, and the service prompt and courteous.

But what about something really expensive, like surgery or cancer therapy? Options include medical “tourism” abroad or in the U.S. Look for a price online, for example on MediBid.com or Surgery Center of Oklahoma (surgerycenterok.com), or ask in advance at facilities of your choice.

One option is to do without. Sound terrible? Well, it would be the patient’s choice, not President Obama’s deciding the patient would be better off with the “pain pill.” Nor would it be the insurer’s decision that the care was “unnecessary,” “inappropriate,” “not prudent,” or “experimental.” And of course if you decided to do without, you’d still have your money, not having paid it to the insurer in advance in exchange for a worthless promise.

There’s the risk of a bona fide emergency, with no time to think about the cost. Fortunately, these days you’ll still get the care in the U.S. If you have assets, you might have to sell them to settle your hospital bill. But consider this: would you rather buy a nice car and risk having to sell it to pay a bill, or pay the insurance company the same amount and never get to drive the car? If you have to borrow money to pay a bill, the interest is likely less than the amount it costs to funnel the money through a third party. And charity or cost-sharing ministries help a lot.

If most bills were paid directly instead of through a third party, medical care would cost far less. Wouldn’t that be better for everybody?

Everybody—except those who profit from gaming the system.

Cancer patients’ stories are featured. But they would probably be worse off with universal third-party payment.

Too much “insurance” (third-party payment) is the problem—not the solution.

The right to be uninsured is a necessary safeguard—not a threat to the system.

(Jane M. Orient, M.D. has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989. Since 1988, she has been chairman of the Public Health Committee of the Pima County (Arizona) Medical Society. She is the author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare, and the second through fourth editions of Sapira’s Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis).

Inside the invisible government: war, propaganda, Clinton & Trump

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Dear readers:

With this past elections behind us but still causing storm, we were able to see the true face of the mainstream media lies, but which the people believed blindly. Propaganda was the name used for government media in the Soviet Union; advertising or public relations is called in the US and the rest of the ‘free world,’ which at the end it is the same propaganda, used to make people believe what the elite want us to believe. PART 1 OF TWO.

Inside the invisible government: war, propaganda, Clinton & Trump

by John Pilger
Originally appeared at
CounterPunch

The American journalist, Edward Bernays, is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda.

The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psycho-analysis, it was Bernays who coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions.
In 1929, he persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women by smoking in the New York Easter Parade – behavior then considered outlandish. One feminist, Ruth Booth, declared, “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!”

Bernays’ influence extended far beyond advertising. His greatest success was his role in convincing the American public to join the slaughter of the First World War.  The secret, he said, was “engineering the consent” of people in order to “control and regiment [them] according to our will without their knowing about it”.

He described this as “the true ruling power in our society” and called it an “invisible government.”

Today, the invisible government has never been more powerful and less understood. In my career as a journalist and film-maker, I have never known propaganda to insinuate our lives and as it does now and to go unchallenged.

Imagine two cities.

Both are under siege by the forces of the government of that country. Both cities are occupied by fanatics, who commit terrible atrocities, such as beheading people.

But there is a vital difference. In one siege, the government soldiers are described as liberators by Western reporters embedded with them, who enthusiastically report their battles and air strikes. There are front page pictures of these heroic soldiers giving a V-sign for victory. There is scant mention of civilian casualties.

In the second city – in another country nearby – almost exactly the same is happening. Government forces are laying siege to a city controlled by the same breed of fanatics.

The difference is that these fanatics are supported, supplied and armed by “us” – by the United States and Britain. They even have a media centre that is funded by Britain and America.

Another difference is that the government soldiers laying siege to this city are the bad guys, condemned for assaulting and bombing the city – which is exactly what the good soldiers do in the first city.

Confusing? Not really. Such is the basic double standard that is the essence of propaganda. I am referring, of course, to the current siege of the city of Mosul by the government forces of Iraq, who are backed by the United States and Britain and to the siege of Aleppo by the government forces of Syria, backed by Russia. One is good; the other is bad.

What is seldom reported is that both cities would not be occupied by fanatics and ravaged by war if Britain and the United States had not invaded Iraq in 2003. That criminal enterprise was launched on lies strikingly similar to the propaganda that now distorts our understanding of the civil war in Syria.

Without this drumbeat of propaganda dressed up as news, the monstrous ISIS and Al-Qaida and al-Nusra and the rest of the jihadist gang might not exist, and the people of Syria might not be fighting for their lives today.

Some may remember in 2003 a succession of BBC reporters turning to the camera and telling us that Blair was “vindicated” for what turned out to be the crime of the century. The US television networks produced the same validation for George W. Bush. Fox News brought on Henry Kissinger to effuse over Colin Powell’s fabrications.
The same year, soon after the invasion, I filmed an interview in Washington with Charles Lewis, the renowned American investigative journalist. I asked him, “What would have happened if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged what turned out to be crude propaganda?”

He replied that if journalists had done their job, “there is a very, very good chance we would not have gone to war in Iraq.”

It was a shocking statement, and one supported by other famous journalists to whom I put the same question — Dan Rather of CBS, David Rose of the Observer and journalists and producers in the BBC, who wished to remain anonymous.

In other words, had journalists done their job, had they challenged and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children would be alive today, and there would be no ISIS and no siege of Aleppo or Mosul.

There would have been no atrocity on the London Underground on 7th July 2005.  There would have been no flight of millions of refugees; there would be no miserable camps.

When the terrorist atrocity happened in Paris last November, President Francoise Hollande immediately sent planes to bomb Syria – and more terrorism followed, predictably, the product of Hollande’s bombast about France being “at war” and “showing no mercy”. That state violence and jihadist violence feed off each other is the truth that no national leader has the courage to speak.

“When the truth is replaced by silence,” said the Soviet dissident Yevtushenko, “the silence is a lie.”

The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country.

The same fate awaited Slobodan Milosevic once he had refused to sign an “agreement” that demanded the occupation of Serbia and its conversion to a market economy. His people were bombed, and he was prosecuted in The Hague. Independence of this kind is intolerable.

As WikLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked.

From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics – the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage.

Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: “We would feed journalists factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked.”

The West’s medieval client, Saudi Arabia – to which the US and Britain sell billions of dollars’ worth of arms – is at present destroying Yemen, a country so poor that in the best of times, half the children are malnourished.

Look on YouTube and you will see the kind of massive bombs – “our” bombs – that the Saudis use against dirt-poor villages, and against weddings, and funerals.
The explosions look like small atomic bombs. The bomb aimers in Saudi Arabia work side-by-side with British officers. This fact is not on the evening news.

Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education – Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia — and with careers on the BBC, The Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post.

These organizations are known as the liberal media. They present themselves as enlightened, progressive tribunes of the moral zeitgeist. They are anti-racist, pro-feminist and pro-LGBT.

And they love war.

WILL CONTINUE ON NEXT WEEK EDITION.

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