The Zombie Shopping Empire Maintains "It Can't Happen Here"

By Jan Lundberg, Culture Change

Listening to Thunderclap Newman, a revolutionary rock band of 1969-1971, it's clear that then, as now, we didn't know where we were going. Their number-one song in the UK, "Something In The Air," proclaimed "the revolution's here." In those heady days there was far more optimism for the revolution, defined variously in Marxist terms or what came to be lumped into "New Age" consciousness. The Movement and its revolution did not succeed in changing society's course, as The Movement soon fragmented into submovements which survive today (feminist, environmental, peace, gay rights, etc.).

The answer to the question "Why not now" (for a revolution) has to do with (a) the worsening state of the Earth, saddening and depressing many, and (b) the power of what we can call the monumental greed machine and its police state. The U.S.'s and mega corporations' long suppression of people's movements is well-known, and is ongoing. Turn on any electronic media, and you get frivolity rather than revolutionary content (e.g., "Something in the Air"). Unfortunately, youth seem to believe that techno-toys are liberating -- until they can really have it all with a nice new car.

Some young adults and oldsters believe a revolution is in store more than ever today, but conditions have changed since the old-style 20th century social-justice and political revolutions. Did those revolutions really succeed, or were they only a changing of the guard? Is redistributing the economic pie outmoded, when it is a toxic pie?

Revolution can come, but it may accompany much more chaos than ever seen before, such as epic food riots with no relief. The population size in the U.S. since 1970 has jumped by over 50% from 203 million to over 310 million today. Demographically, far fewer people have direct access to land and water. Moreover, their skills to subsist are steadily poorer, despite the hippies' Back to the Land movement and the present efforts of the Transition Town movement. 

Globally in 1970 there were 3.7 billion people, and now we are hitting 7 billion. The strain on the ecosystem may mean it's too late to get our political house in order while Gaia waits. For she does not wait, as she seems to be sloughing off a fever or infestation by non-self-disciplined humans.

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For the U.S., "It can't happen here" is a fantasy perhaps first questioned by Sinclair Lewis in 1935, whose novel of that name explored American fascism. Then Frank Zappa and The Mothers in 1966 satirically suggested "freak out in Kansas... Minnesota..." to hint that suburbia may not endure.

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Pilot of 'Cocaine One' DC 9 is Re- Re- Re-Arrested

"His story ended, not with a bang, but a Twitter."

By Daniel Hopsicker, Mad Cow News

One of the greatest escapes since the Great Houdini was locked in handcuffs and leg-irons, nailed inside a crate, and lowered to the bottom of New York’s East River reached its conclusion two weeks ago, when a drug pilot who has escaped from custody in three different countries and eluded an international manhunt was arrested in a van with 70 kilos of cocaine in a parking lot at the Radisson Hotel in Caracas, Venezuela.

Carmelo Vasquez-Guerra, the pilot on two of the most famous and controversial drug flights of the past decade, was taken into custody by Venezuelan police without incident, along with two other men, ending an incredible five-year long saga featuring repeated arrest, but little detention.

During that time Vasquez-Guerra was arrested, and then inexplicably released from custody, in not one...not two... but in three different countries, located on two separate continents.  His astounding ability to slither out of serious trouble raises disturbing questions about who's winning—and losing—the war on drugs.

Carmelo Vasquez-Guerra—in global drug trafficking—is The Great Houdini II.

Even so, when his time ran out, and his run from the law finally ended, he went out, not with a bang…

But a Twitter.

A Tweet from the Minister of Funny Walks

"Stopped in Caracas by the CICPC: Carmelo Guerra Vásquez," twitted Tarek El Aissami, Venezuela’s Minister for the Interior and Justice. "Wanted by Interpol with a Red Notice for drug trafficking."

Fans of El Aissami on Twitter presumably know the significance of an Interpol “Red Notice.”
But even the uninitiated can make a good guess.

Carmelo Vásquez-Guerra, the most notorious drug pilot in the world, was in custody. It was an important event in a crucial struggle, because, when he talks, what he has to say will be of crucial importance in a larger arena.

Two combatants are locked in a death match: the American Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA... and a man whose red beret has prompted more heartburn in the U.S. than anyone since Che Guevara.

Hugo Chavez is either Venezuela’s “President,” or Venezuela’s “strongman,” depending on your—or your native country’s—point of view.  He was democratically elected, but is highly controversial, even feared, in his own country, and by large segments of his own people.

The 'kingpin of kingpins' in a global jihad?

Now, under the intense glare of a worldwide media spotlight, some big questions about Hugo Chavez are about to receive answers.

Is Hugo Chavez, through cronies like countrymen Vasquez-Guerra and Walid Makled—recently called the ‘kingpin of kingpins’ by the U.S. Attorney in New York—a major global drug trafficker?

Is he collaborating in drug trafficking with elements of Al Qaeda, as the DEA charges, creating a drug pipeline from Venezuela through West Africa and the Sahara to Europe?
With the arrest of Carmelo Vasquez-Guerra (who, the government of Venezuela would like you to know, is the 60th drug trafficker being sought by Interpol caught in Venezuela since 2005), the  possibility even exists that answers may be forthcoming.

If Venezuela extradites him to any of a number of countries in where he is wanted for drug trafficking, Chavez will be throwing down the gauntlet—as well as his red beret—in front of the American DEA.

What the world wants to know from the captured pilot are a few of the slippery secrets, which no one doubts he possesses, to help illuminate the real politick of the global drug trade to those of us who have not been initiated, or "read into," what might be called the "clandestine mysteries.'

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Debtmocracy for Greece - FKN Newz

A Pipeline of Injustice: Greek consular official admits that natural gas pipeline drives complicity in Gaza siege

By Charlotte Kates, Gaza TV News

It has been widely reported and speculated that the reason for Greece’s participation in the suppression of Freedom Flotilla Two may be found in its own economic situation – that the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou, pushing a devastating IMF/EU austerity plan on the Greek people against their will, is so desperate for international financial and economic support that it is willing to serve as the enforcement arm for Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza.

Yesterday, in Vancouver, Canada, a Greek consular official, Georgios Ayfantis, confirmed that this is indeed the case.

In a conversation with a delegation of activists supporting the Tahrir, the Canadian Boat to Gaza, who entered the consulate demanding a meeting about the Freedom Flotilla, Ayfantis asserted that Greece’s economic interests were at stake in stopping the Flotilla, saying that an undersea natural gas pipeline and a natural gas liquidizing plant in Crete were at stake.

The offer Netanyahu made followed on Papandreou’s visit to Israel in July 2010 - the first visit of a Greek Prime Minister in decades - and is sharply at odds with both the growing movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions from Israel, and Greek public opinion, which even the World Jewish Congress concedes is “clearly pro-Palestinian.”

Ayfantis further asserted that the Papandreou government’s enforcement of the Israeli siege was about “interests,” that Greece was afraid of Israel, and that the U.S. – and the Canadian government of Stephen Harper – is backing Israel completely.

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Phone-hacking scandal: Jonathan Rees obtained information using dark arts

By Nick Davies, Guardian

Freemason set up network of corrupt police, customs officials, taxmen and bank staff to gain valuable information

Years ago, Jonathan Rees became a freemason. According to journalists and investigators who worked with him, he then exploited his link with the lodges to meet masonic police officers who illegally sold him information which he peddled to Fleet Street.

As one of Britain's most prolific merchants of secrets, Rees expanded his network of sources by recruiting as his business partner Sid Fillery, a detective sergeant from the Metropolitan Police. Fillery added more officers to their network. Rees also boasted of recruiting corrupt Customs officers, a corrupt VAT inspector and two corrupt bank employees.

Other police contacts are said to have been blackmailed into providing confidential information. One of Rees's former associates claims that Rees had compromising photographs of serving officers, including one who was caught in a drunken state with a couple of prostitutes and with a toilet seat around his neck.

It is this network of corruption which lies at the heart of yesterday's claim in the House of Commons by Labour MP Tom Watson that Rees was targeting politicians, members of the royal family and even terrorist informers on behalf of Rupert Murdoch's News International. The Guardian's own inquiries suggest that Watson knows what he is talking about.

Much of what the police sources were able to sell to Rees was directly related to crime. But Rees also bought and sold confidential data on anybody who was of interest to his Fleet Street clients, to which the police often had special access. The Guardian has confirmed that Rees reinforced his official contacts with two specialist 'blaggers' who would telephone the Inland Revenue, the DVLA, banks and phone companies and trick them into handing over private data.

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