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by Eric Bl­air

Activist Post

Dozens of people march for economic equality.

­­NEWS ANALYSIS – Why is it when the rich super class speaks about class warfare, the downtrodden applaud? When billionaire Warren Buffett said, “There’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning,” the struggling middle class treated him like one of them, as if he’s on their side.

More recently, billionaire investor George Soros warned of a coming class war in the U.S. as reported by the Daily Beast, where he proudly points out that his prediction of riots in the streets has already begun.

With the Occupy movement’s beginnings having ties to funding by Soros, many believe him to be stoking this so-called class warfare. ­Although Soros denies directly funding the movement’s beginnings, his vast philanthropic contributions have far-reaching tentacles into many revolutions around the globe.

Even if we are to naively take Soros’ word that he was not involved in spurring these global revolutions, despite the evidence to the contrary, he clearly promotes the idea of class warfare with the political left cheering him as a crusader for good. Conveniently, the Occupy movement has adopted the catchy but brainless “us versus the 1%” mantra as the rallying call for everyone in the 99% to blame their problems on the so-called rich 1%. It sounds a lot like stoking class warfare to me.

However, in order to instigate warfare there must be a crisis to cause enough pain to force people to arms, and the sides of good and evil must be defined. Soros does just that in the Daily Beast article where he says people “have reason to be frustrated and angry” at the cost of bailing out the financial system, and that “the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern  history—a period of evil.”

Of course, those statements are hard to argue with and calling the ruling class “evil” will resonate with the masses. But again, Soros is clearly in the ruling class 1%, so why would he, like Buffett, pretend they’re outsiders while stoking hatred toward themselves?

It seems they are using the crisis and class warfare paradigm to move the masses to support what the global elite have been striving for all along: less competition and more consolidation of power. “In the crisis period, the impossible becomes possible.” And by impossible he explains the Occupy movement has “put on the agenda issues that the institutional left has failed to put on the agenda for a quarter of a century.”

To further explain the nature of unintended “evil” in the financial markets, Soros is quoted as saying in the same Daily Beast article “Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.”

To many people, this echoes John D. Rockefeller’s infamous quote “Competition is a sin.”

Rockefeller ran the monopoly oil company Standard Oil, which still exists to this day but goes by different names: Standard Oil of New Jersey became Esso, later to be renamed Exxon – which became a key part of ExxonMobil, currently the most profitable company in the world — earning 30 billion, 460 million dollars.

Standard Oil of California became Chevron – currently the third most profitable company in the world at 19 billion, 24 million dollars per year. Continental Oil Company became Conoco, now a part of ConocoPhillips – currently the sixteenth most profitable company in the world at 11 billion, 358 million dollars. BP Amoco is a conglomerate of several Standard Oil splinter companies. Yahoo Finance currently lists BP Amoco’s gross profit at 16 billion, 28 million dollars.

Therefore, four out of the six “supermajors” in the oil industry are direct Rockefeller spinoffs – BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. (Source) Competition has been replaced by the appearance of competition. And this includes the apparent differences between Soros and Buffett on the left versus the Koch brothers on the right. Those stuck in the left-right paradigm love to hate them, while they all seek to eliminate genuine competition hidden behind their respective brands of ideology.

Additionally, Soros promotes a single European Treasury with the authority to impose and collect taxes from all member nations as the solution to the Eurozone crisis. In America, he agrees with Buffett that the rich should pay more in taxes to strengthen the institution of government, as if it hasn’t given enough power to itself despite its failings.

Furthermore, the notion that taxing the “rich” will solve any of America’s or Europe’s financial problems may be the biggest false paradigm of all. America officially has a national debt of around $15 Trillion with another $26 Trillion in financial bailout costs and double that amount in upcoming liabilities. There is literally not enough wealth in the world to fix that problem.

What’s more, the real elite will never have to pay taxes as they move their money globally and play on loopholes within the borders. Anyone remember General Electric paying no taxes on $14.2 billion in profits; in fact they got a $3.2 billion tax credit from Americans? Need I say more about the silliness of this ever working in the current political environment? So what does Soros say will be the next immediate battle of this rising class war?

“As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he (Soros) says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself.

It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

As he says “gleefully.” Still want class warfare?

How about supporting the opposite: decentralization, competition, supporting local commerce, local governance, and local self-suff­iciency?

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­by the El Reportero’s news services

César Zamora

The U.S. Embassy today confirmed what many already suspected: the U.S. fiscal-transparency waiver for Nicaragua—and the $3 million in bilateral aid attached to it—will not be renewed this year.

The suspension of the transparency waiver—a more symbolic than financial blow to the Sandinista government—now sets the stage for Washington’s decision on the property waiver, and the whopping $1.4 billion in multilateral loans that’s tied to it. Given the tense campaign season in Washington, some analysts say it’s not unlikely the U.S. will cancel the second waiver as well—a move Nicaraguan businessmen have likened to an “atomic bomb” dropped on the country’s budding economy.

Business leaders are urging the U.S. government to let Nicaragua sort out its own internal problems without turning the screws on the country’s economy, as it did with the trade embargo in the 1980s.

“We have the capacity to resolve our own institutional issues, but it’s going to take some time,” says Nicaraguan businessman César Zamora, vice president of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America (AACCLA). “In the meantime, the U.S. can’t drop a nuclear bomb on Nicaragua and say, “You pick up the pieces and then you’ll win back the support from U.S. government.”

José Adán Aguerrí, president of COSEP, Nicaragua’s largest federation of business chambers, agrees. “American authorities aren’t going to make Nicaragua more democratic by impoverishing the country even more,” he says. “It’s not the Nicaraguan government that is going to be the big loser from the loss of the waivers.”

The cancelation of the property waiver would jeopardize Nicaragua’s ability to get much-needed development and budget assistance loans from multilateral institutions where the U.S. has a strong voice and vote. The possible cancelation of those loans could mean the loss of $1.4 billion in rural electrification, health and infrastructure projects that are fundamental to the government’s plans to combat rural poverty over the next five years, Aguerri says.

Human Rights group reports over 400 arbitrary arrests in Cuba last May

The opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported Thursday that at least 423 arbitrary arrests were made for political reasons in May of this year.

In a communiqué released in Havana, the group led by activist Elizardo Sanchez said that the growing trend to make arbitary political arrests continues to be “disturbing.”

In its customary monthly report, the commission said that in May, for the first time in 50 years, the Cuban government offered figures on the island’s prison population, putting the total at 57,337.

The rights commission, however, estimates the number of inmates at between 65,000 and 70,000.

­“The Cuban government has among the highest number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in the world,” the commission said, and asked that Cuban jails be opened to inspection by international organizations like the Red Cross.

The Communist Party daily Granma reported in May that Cuba has 57,337 prisoners, of whom more than 31,000 are locked up and almost 26,000 are in “open facilities.”

In the last six months, according to these official figures, 10,129 inmates have been set free for different reasons, including the more than 2,900 who where pardoned last December by the Raul Castro government.

The federal government’s criminal Hegelian plan to create crime along the U.S. border an then ride in as the savior with new gun restrictions – is now in retreat­

by Patrick Henningsen
Infowars.com

The House Oversight Committee hearings have put both Eric Holder and the White House on their back heels this morning, further fueling a scandal which has now forced the White House into a rear-guard action.

In a move that is certain to fuel speculation about Barack Obama’s knowledge of the Federal government’s clandestine gun-running operation into the Mexican black market, the President has moved to claim ‘executive privilege’ regarding any documents relating to the notorious “Operation Fast and Furious.”

The case has reached a critical juncture as the House panel has finally moved to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in criminal contempt after he failed to comply with official Congressional requests to hand over thousands of cables and documents relating to the scandal.

According to reports this morning from the Washington Post: “In a letter sent to Obama late Tuesday, Holder urged Obama to exert executive privilege, because sharing internal documents with lawmakers could “have significant, damaging consequences.”

Sharing the documents “would inhibit candor of such Executive Branch deliberations in the future and significantly impair the Executive Branch’s ability to respond independently and effectively to congressional oversight,” Holder wrote to Obama.

Last night, the embattled US Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to cut a deal with the House and Senate committees, hoping to walk free in exchange for handing over missing documents – but Holder’s offer was rejected by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) who plans to move ahead with a motion for contempt.

The Washington Post details Holder’s attempt at a backroom escape from suffering contempt charges:

The attorney general met Tuesday night with leaders of the House oversight committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee in hopes of reaching an agreement that would have Justice hand over requested documents in exchange for the House panel dropping its plans to vote on contempt charges Wednesday.

If the House committee cites Holder for criminal contempt, it would open a process that would require House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to schedule a floor vote. If passed by the full House, the matter would then move to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen Jr., who is an employee of the Justice Department.

Holding an Executive Branch official in contempt of Congress is rare, having occurred just four other times in the last three decades.

Since the scandal surfaced back in early 2011, commentators had warning that the gravity of the arms trafficking crimes in question could make ‘Fast and Furious’ this White House’s Watergate moment, and a potentially devastating blow to the flagging Obama during the run-up to this November’s US Presidential election.

During a in-depth ­Infowars.com investigation into Fast and Furious, it was discovered that ATF, DEA and FBI agents working under the direction of the US Department of Justice, were illegally acquiring firearms through straw purchasers in states like Arizona, and then intentionally flooding the black market around the Mexican border regions with thousands of illegal guns – in order to demonize and regulate gun sellers in US border states. As a result, multiple lives were lost at the hands of gangs using Fast and Furious weapons including federal agents in the line of duty. The operation was ultimately designed to set the stage for further restrictions on the Second Amendment and increased gun restrictions in the near future.

Obama’s latest retreat towards executive privilege may be construed by the public and some media as an indirect admission of guilt by association, and will most likely lead to an increase in damage control from White House spin doctors – hoping to avert a similar fate suffered by Richard Nixon, whose cover-up went from bad to worse and eventually led to his humiliating resignation.

Ultimately, Fast and Furious could be the straw which breaks this administration’s grip on the strings of power in the White House.

Watch this Infowars.com mini-documentary on ‘Fast and Furious’ from early May 2012: http://youtu.be/tT-ZDaZ0xmo.

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­by Louis E.V. Nevaer

New America Media News Analysis

Students members of movement Yo Soy 132, march in Mexico.

When Mexico held its first presidential debate on May 6, it was caricatured publicly as a contest between a “Pretty Boy” (Enrique Peña Nieto), a “Quinceañera Doll” (Josefina Vázquez) and a “Has Been” (Andres López Obrador).

At the time, Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was the candidate to beat, leading both Vázquez, of the incumbent National Action Party (PAN), and López Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), by more than double digits in opinion polls.

Of the three, López Obrador was considered the long shot, largely written off in Mexico’s mainstream media as a tired leftist stalwart. López Obrador was the old man, the sore loser – he lost the presidential election by a controversially slim margin in 2006 – and the candidate with a head full of socialist ideas that had long ago been discredited.

But today, with only three weeks of campaigning to go before Mexicans elect a new president, López Obrador – known in Mexico by his initials, AMLO – has moved into a statistical tie for first place with Peña Nieto. The political resurrection of AMLO has stunned observers, with the prospect of a leftist government being elected in Mexico now a real possibility.

The sudden ascendance of AMLO is the unintended consequence of a grassroots and mostly student-led protest and social media campaign that sprung up more than two weeks ago as a reaction to and condemnation of Mexico’s “old media” – the major television stations like Televisa and newspapers that have long represented Mexico’s elite – and their perceived role in pandering to the interests of the PRI.

After being booed off the stage by students at a university appearance two weeks ago, Peña Nieto did little to help his case when he belittled the uproar in the media, proclaiming it to be the product of “131 malcontent” students. That comment resulted in spontaneous street protests in Mexico City that utilized the slogan, “Yo Soy #132” (I Am #132), a catch phrase that quickly went viral on YouTube, Twitter and FaceBook.

“It was about time that Mexico woke up, that it stopped watching television,” Leonardo Mata, a student at Mexico City’s Metropolitan Autonomous University who participated in a rally that grew to almost 45,000 participants on May 24, told CNN Mexico.

The protester’s allegations of favorable coverage by the largest television network, Televisa, on behalf of the PRI’s Peña Nieto, were confirmed on June 7 when The Guardian published a budget and schedule of payments by the PRI to Televisa totaling more than $22 million USD.

The revelations created a major crisis for Peña Nieto and the PRI, with only three weeks left before Mexicans head to the polls. With The Guardian report, the Yo Soy #132 student movement was vindicated, and there is even some speculation that Peña Nieto may have to withdraw from the election. Rallies and demonstrations are being planned for this weekend and next week to force Peña Nieto to withdraw.

The student uprising, which has been called Mexico’s version of the “Arab Spring,” is actually something altogether different: Where the Middle East demonstrations sought to overthrowunpopular regimes from power, in Mexico they are designed to prevent a political party – the PRI – from re-gaining power. That’s quite a difference. Yet the important role of social media in each movement is undeniable. Students in Mexico took to social media to spread a simple message using Enrique Peña Nieto’s initials: “Este Pendejo No,” meaning “Not This Asshole.”

In other words, any other asshole would do. It was just the opening that AMLO needed. While Peña Nieto and the PRI have been paralyzed by the student uprising – Nieto recently withdrew from the third presidential debate scheduled for June 19 — AMLO’s campaign has seized on the opportunity. AMLO’s strategy has been two-fold. First, he proposed the creation of a “República Amorosa,” or “Loving Republic,” that would restore the moral values of Mexican society to solve the nation’s ills.

Presented as “AMLOVE,” the idea was to create a national conversation among business, religious leaders, and academics to find sustainable solutions to Mexico’s problems based on humanistic ideals.

Second, AMLO has focused his relentless criticism on the “state of insecurity” and “corruption” in Mexico, as a consequence of the War on Drugs. Playing to Mexican’s fatigue over the daily body count splattered on the front pages of newspapers and television news reports, AMLO has found tremendous resonance among a public that is exhausted by the emotional stress of the War on Drugs.

Indeed, Mexico, for the first time, is confronting the reality of a large number of people showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, known as TEPT in Spanish. Since 2008,studies have documented TEPT in Mexican children as young as 8 years of age.

In Spain, the largest newspaper, El País, has hailed “the resurrection” of AMLO, and the most recent opinion polls by the Mexican newspaper Reforma put Peña Nieto at 38 percent, with AMLO at 34 percent, within the margin of error. This represents a surge of 10 percentage points in less than two weeks after the Yo Soy #132 student movements began.

AMLO’s rise has rattled Mexico’s business class, which fears he would follow through on his promises – or threats – of imposing a Venezuela-style economic program of nationalization ­and social engineering. AMLO has had to reassure the public he is not intent on pursuing a Hugo Chavez-style government in Mexico if elected.

None of this has been reassuring, and the students who are part of the Yo Soy #132 movement are not sure of what to make of the fact that their protests against the PRI’s Peña Nieto are paving the way for what has become the most highly-contested presidential election in a generation.

As recently as April, Mexicans were resigning themselves to the PRI’s return to power, but now all bets are off. Mexican students may get their wish – Not This Asshole (Peña Nieto) — after all, but it’s still not clear how Mexico will fare should AMLO ride the coattails of their uprising to the presidency.