How The "Syrian Rebels" Really Feel About "Friendly" US Airstrikes

Late yesterday, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, disclosed what in a nutshell US strategy in Syria would be.

For one, he announced that the US would require some 12,000-15,000 armed, trained and paid for boots on the ground, i.e., mercenaries to do Obama’s dirty work on the ground because the Nobel peace prize winner is unwilling to go all the way with his belligerent pivot. As a reminder, the last notable time the US engaged in wholesale arming and funding of offshore mercenaries was the Afghan war, when the CIA got involved with the Mujahideen “freedom fighters” whose funding began with $20–$30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987, culminating with the terrorist action of Osama Bin Laden, once a close friend of the US and the CIA (read more about Operation Cyclone here).

More importantly, as Reuters reported, Dempsey said that the endgoal is “to recapture lost territory in eastern Syria”. Territory, which as we reported in July, amounts to 35% of Syria’s landmass and includes most of its oilfields. And sure enough, the territory would be preserved for the exclusive use of the “rebels”, or the group of Islamists from whose ranks none other than ISIS arose over the past year. And since the rebels couldn’t care one way or another, this is merely a way for the US to say that whatever Syrian territory is “liberated” from ISIS presence, it will be disposed of as the US sees fit, with the only decisions being whether to grant it to Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

In the meantime, things on the propaganda front are going form bad to worse. Recall the Nusra front – the extreme wing of the “rebels” that the US is allegedly supporting? Well as Haaretz just reported, “”the al Qaida-linked Nusra Front on Saturday denounced U.S.-led air strikes on Syria, saying they amounted to a war against Islam and vowing to retaliate against Western and Arab countries that took part.

Er, that doesn’t help the official party line that Syrian rebels are greeting the US with open arms. “We are in a long war. This war will not end in months nor years, this war could last for decades,” the group’s spokesman Abu Firas al-Suri said.

Funny, because earlier today, Syria’s foreign minister Walid al-Muallem was informed, by the US mind you, that the war against ISIS will continue for three years, or just after until the end of Obama’s second, and hopefully final term.

“It’s not a war against Nusra Front, it’s a war against Islam,” he added in an audio message published on the group’s social media network, its first reaction since the launch of the U.S.-led strikes on Tuesday.

As an amusing aside, Site reports about a Dutch jihadist and member of al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, who reacted to the Netherlands revoking his passport by publishing a diatribe against the Western concepts of capitalism and democracy, and criticizing the Netherlands for joining the U.S.-led military coalition.

But while the extreme Syrian “rebels” are allowed to have a minority report opinion – after all they are ISIS in all but name – one would think that at least the “moderate” Syrian rebels, whatever that means (and since the entire US strategy in Syria is based on weeding out the moderates from the, well, non-moderates we eagerly look forward to finding out just how the Pentagon distinguishes one from the other) are far more positively inclined toward the US. One would be wrong.

Here are some three dozen YouTube videos released over the past two days, showing just how the Syrian “rebels”, those which the US is supposedly  helping, feel about America, and US-led airstirkes “on their behalf.”

All the 36 videos of Syrian rebels protesting against US-led airstrikes, which apparently are hitting rebels alongside ISIS forces, can be found in the compendium below:

But nothing captures the total confusion among the US offensive line than this poster held by a “rebel” child protester.




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Ed Krayewski on the Role of Media in the Drug War

The war on drugs would have been impossible for
the government to wage for the last 40 plus years without support
from the media. Earlier this month, a DEA agent shot a
grandmother reaching for her child during a raid that found no
drugs. In the summer, a SWAT team in Georgia threw a
flashbang into a baby’s crib, critically injuring it. There
are more than 150 such raids each day in America, so there are a
lot of horrifying stories that come out of that, on a regular
basis. Rarely, if ever, do such stories break out of the local news
and into the national news cycle. But, writes Ed Krayewski, that’s
changing.

View this article.

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Syria, Neo-Cons, And The Attempted Infiltration Of The Liberty Movement

Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com,

There is nothing worse than a die-hard neoconservative. Of all the socialist horrors wrought against the American public by the Obama administration and its small but impressively insane group of followers, the neoliberals are at least relatively open about their disdain for the Constitution as well as their intentions to reduce our country to a Third World communist enclave. Neoconservatives, on the other hand, have the audacity to pretend as if they adore the Bill of Rights, posing as freedom fighters and champions of liberty while working intently to administer the same exact despotic policies and socialist infrastructure.

As most readers are aware, the false left/right paradigm has been the primary control mechanism used against the American people for decades. The idea being that in order for establishment elites to maintain control of a population with a heritage of independence, a facade of choice must be created to placate the dim-witted masses while the system itself is dominated from behind the scenes. The people of a republic must be conned into participating in the process of their own enslavement, at least until the oligarchs are ready to unleash full-blown totalitarianism. The concept of free elections becomes a grand theatrical display when most candidates, regardless of party affiliation, are bought, bribed, blackmailed or philosophically allied with the elite. The actions of these candidates speak far louder than their rhetoric for those with the sense to pay attention. But for many people, the attachment to the sports team mentality of politics is just too much to resist. For them, the circus is reality.

The birth of neoconservatism is clouded by what some claim to be the “incidental” relationship between neocon adherents like Irving and William Kristol, Abram Shulsky, Paul Wolfowitz, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush, among others, and a little-known political science professor by the name of Leo Strauss. Strauss’ work culminated in the University Of Chicago as many of his students and followers went on to engineer the rise of an insidious bureaucratic machine that gave us the Patriot Acts, the fake War on Terror, rationalized torture procedures and numerous other constitutional disgraces.

Strauss was at least publicly opposed to the formation of communism; but at the same time, he held a reverence for a pre-Weimar Germany brand of authoritarian oligarchy. To fight the rise of “liberalism,” Strauss maintained that the use of “noble lies” was preferable to surrender. That is to say, the left was so devilish that an “any means necessary” approach became acceptable. This approach, interpreted by Strauss’ students, was meant to include the creation of false unity in the face of a fabricated enemy.

Strauss himself argued that enemies were vital in the unification of man:

“Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed. Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united — and they can only be united against other people.”

It is important to note that the “noble lie” concept was also a primary pillar in the philosophical methods of another political gatekeeper by the name of Saul Alinsky, a gatekeeper who just happened to become prominent during the same era as Strauss and who influenced the same generation, but on the left end of the spectrum, giving birth to what we now call neoliberalism. Much in the way internationalists simultaneously funded the rise of fascism in Europe and communism in Russia during the 20th Century, I do not believe it is simple coincidence that these gatekeepers would both go on to successfully galvanize two sides of American society against each other based on false premises while both of them were promoting nearly identical forms of moral relativism.

Both ideologies argue in speech for either “liberal values” or “conservative values.” But the tactics they use can end only one way, regardless of which side wins out: with despotism being the ultimate result. The identical policy measures taken by the administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama in terms of war, executive powers, personal privacy (FISA and NSA domestic surveillance), torture, indefinite detention (including U.S. citizens as per the NDAA), assassination (including U.S. citizens), etc., clearly illustrate that there is truly no discernible concrete difference between Republican leadership and Democratic leadership.

The brilliance of the false left/right paradigm is that it mesmerizes the public with two cosmetically separate but inherently identical political movements, and it distracts Americans away from the more plausible third option: namely, personal liberty and responsibility, also known as classical liberalism, practiced by the Founding Fathers. Neoconservatism in particular is highly destructive to our constitutional heritage, because it poses as constitutionalism while seeking to erode liberty from within. The neoliberal side of the paradigm uses the stark viciousness of neocons to convince the public that socialization is a necessary measure to humanize government. The neoconservative side of the paradigm uses the foreign policy “weakness” of neoliberals to then argue for a return to greater militarization and force of law. Both methods result in a perpetually growing government and inevitable tyranny.

In the near term, I believe it is possible that we are about to see the left/right game switch gears once again.

The rise of ISIS and the increased threat of economic war with Russia have highlighted the old “weak liberal” talking points in conservative circles, while conveniently ignoring the fact that all our current problems were created by elites on both sides of the aisle.

What I see simmering under the surface of the geopolitical cinema conjured to distract us is a burgeoning trend toward a return of the neoconservative narrative.  With the sudden and apparently "inexplicable" rise of the ISIS caliphate, not to mention the debut of a new cartoon villian, Khorasan, it is only a matter of time before America is smattered with terror attacks.  The anger of the general public towards the Obama Administration is already at a peak; with war at our doorstep, people may demand immediate changes.

In my last article, 'When War Erupts Patriots Will Be Accused Of Aiding "The Enemy"', I warned of the underlying propaganda trend used by the establishment to falsely associate the Liberty Movement with foreign aggression.  A clear tactic is being developed to hijack the Liberty Movement's identity by labeling patriot dissension as treason, and marginalizing our efforts as merely a mercenary extension of Russian and/or ISIS subversion.  This is not the only dangerous method threatening liberty activism, however.  Co-option of the movement by elements of the neoconservative side of the globalist coin is also ever present…

While it is true that America has been made weaker with each passing year, both defensively and economically, it is important that we question what exactly our response should be. Is the solution to swing the pendulum right back to the neoconservative standards of centralized military-industrial might and trading freedom for security? Or how about a military coup to unseat Obama and put the country "back on track"? Would the removal of a middle-management puppet like Obama by a group of patriot-posers among the mili
tary brass really change anything in the long run? The coup idea is being floated everywhere the past two years, in some cases by neocon talking heads presenting themselves as liberty movement leaders.

There are always the old standby neocon peddlers like John McCain and Lindsay Graham, who are both avid supporters of greater executive power, including the defense of torture, indefinite detention, and assassination of American citizens. But when such politicians use ISIS as a villainous prop to frighten the citizenry with visions of masked gunman and mushroom clouds, liberty proponents remember that ghouls like McCain were involved in the funding and training of the same extremists that now make up the core of the ISIS threat.

The so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army, a group entirely created by Western covert intelligence agencies, has been interweaving with the Islamic State (aka ISIS or ISIL) for some time.  Meanwhile, neocons like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) argue that FSA members are the “good guys.”

Once again, I have to go back to the neoconservative ideology, which holds that unification requires the creation of enemies in order to galvanize peoples and nations around a centralized leadership. We have seen mounting evidence that ISIS is a fully fabricated monstrosity. We see fake Republicans like McCain involved from the very beginning of the process, admonishing President Obama for his participation while HELPING Obama with his mission. And now we see these same instigators coming to the American people with promises of utter terror if we do not rally around their governance.

An important point to grasp here is that all political leaders are ultimately expendable in the view of the internationalists.  A shift to the left, or a shift to the right, makes no difference to them, as long as they control the momentum.  Obama is a puppet whose public image could easily be sacrificed in order to gain a power advantage.  It is important to understand that if the Liberty Movement cannot be destroyed, the elites may attempt to insert it's own "leaders" into our midst in classic Cointelpro fashion and rally us in a misguided battle to unseat Obama and replace him with yet another globalist stooge.

We do have infiltrators who, in my view, are seeking to co-opt our initiative and divert the efforts of constitutional proponents away from the true enemies of our republic (namely, internationalist financiers calling for total globalization) using the looming threat of an extremist Islamic terror campaign.

One such example (one of many) is Fox News contributor Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, who has been skulking around my neck of the woods in Montana, attempting to sell his version of the final liberty “solution” to the large community of patriots in the region. Vallely’s answer to the problem appears to be an extension of the Operation American Spring project, which he has been promoting every year for as long as I can remember and has been relabeled over and over, and which has failed every year to produce the million-man armed march on Washington, D.C., that it calls for. The strategy has now evolved into what essentially amounts to a military coup led by neoconservative brass.

Vallely’s suggestions are certainly enticing to some, and his rhetoric sounds rather similar to what many in organizations like Oath Keepers believe. However, there is a distinct difference. Oath Keepers and other legitimate patriot groups do not focus only on middlemen like Obama, and any organization that claims Obama is the source of all our ills is either rife with ignorance, or is controlled opposition.  By extension, a military coup led by politicized generals who may very well be controlled by the same globalist interests as Obama is not an expression of constitutional revolution. It is, in fact, a warped and twisted facsimile of revolution. The idea is alluring because many Americans want to take direct action to remove corrupt government, but they do not want to risk their lives to do it.  That is to say, they would much rather the "professionals" handle their rebellion for them.

Military coup takes the responsibility of constitutional revolution away from the people and places it the hands of a select few. What this means is that a military coup led by Washington-bred generals is actually advantageous to the elites because it allows them to undermine legitimate rebellion without directly confronting it at the risk of energizing it. Two birds are thus killed with one stone: The revolutionary momentum is derailed, and the establishment maintains control through military puppets who have more room to impose greater totalitarianism through overt force.

But what if those generals were rock-solid constitutionalists, some might ask? We can only guess at the result, but I can say with certainty that pretenders like Vallely are NOT constitutionalists.

Before Vallely settled in Montana to become a “freedom fighter” he was most famous for co-authoring a Department of Defense white paper called “From Psyop To Mind War,” published in 1980.

The paper devises fourth-generation warfare methods to paralyze entire nations with complex propaganda, turning the population against itself and its own interests so that controllers do not have to expend vast military resources to defeat them conventionally. This strategy was deemed preferable, as it would reduce destruction of resources while still establishing dominance and/or destabilization. It is also a strategy that was recommended for use against the American people (not to mention the utilization of “ESP” as a weapon, but we don’t have time to get into that garbage). The Arab Spring, funded and directed by covert intelligence agencies, is a perfect example of Mind War in action. And in light of this, I find it interesting that Vallely would champion a project labeled "Operation American Spring", as if the joke on us is right out in the open.

The other author of “From Psyop To Mind War” is a man by the name of Michael Aquino, who has a foggy career history beyond his status as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. military and allegedly an employee of the NSA. What is not a mystery is Aquino’s religious orientation. The man is an open Satanist, a former member of the Church of Satan, and a current member of his own Temple of Set. (Aquino founded the Temple of Set five years before working with Vallely, meaning his darker theological leanings were well known to any of his peers). Whether or not one has a Christian orientation, one should still be compelled to question the moral intentions of a man who curls his eyebrows to look like horns, worships either the myth or the actual embodiment of the prince of darkness, and tries to present such activities as a mere expression of rationalism. One should also be compelled to question the moral and mental compass of anyone who would willingly maintain a working relationship with such a person and then suddenly fight the good fight as a "Christian patriot". I have not found a single instance in which Vallely has stood in public opposition to Aquino or denounced the methods of “From Psyop to Mind War.” And to this day, Aquino thanks Vallely for his efforts on the white paper.

After retiring from the military, Vallely became a client of Benedor Associates, a neoconservative public relations firm. And he continues to ally closely with neoconservative political elites. It should come as no surprise then that just like McCain, V
allely also took a trip to Syria, on the same day as the infamous sarin gas attack — the same gas attack that was most likely perpetrated by Muslim extremist groups as a false flag against the Syrian government, and which almost led America into World War III. In response, Valley called for increased U.S. government support for the FSA insurgents, the same insurgents that are joining ISIS in droves.

So why is a retired neoconservative U.S. general who wrote a psychological warfare paper with a DoD Satanist supporting extremist insurgency in the Middle East while suggesting military coup in the United States? I can only suggest that the Hegelian dialectic is in full force. The elites conjure a frightening enemy in the form of ISIS, attacks occur that distract the masses away from the internationalists, and the chaos that follows — whether it results in revolution or military coup — is then sold to the world as a natural by-product of a crumbling Western world due to the misguided zealotry of “conservatives.” After the dust settles, the men who made the collapse possible move forward with the global centralization they always wanted, using America as a horror story to teach future generations of children in Common Core-style classrooms about the barbaric attachments to national sovereignty and individualism.

A fanciful conspiracy theory? Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s a very real possibility if the liberty movement and conservatives in general are suckered into the neocon fold once again.  The U.S. is back in Syria, this time to commit air strikes on the same terror groups OUR GOVERNMENT created to fight Assad.  ISIS elements have called for attacks on U.S. citizens in response.  The Neocon sharks are in a frenzy, ready to offer false leadership once again.  The only question left is, will the citizenry follow, will they stick with establishment muppet, Barack Obama, or, will they finally cast off the false left/right paradigm, and choose to lead themselves?




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Watch: Banned Books Week and the History of Comic Book Censorship

“Banned Books Week: Comic Books and Literary Censorship”
was originally released on Sept. 24, 2014. The original text is
below. 

“Comic books are being challenged with greater frequency than
they ever have been,” says Charles Brownstein, executive director
of the Comic Book Legal
Defense Fund
. “We are still fighting age-old stigmas that
comics are low value speech.”

Reason TV’s Tracy Oppenheimer sat down with Brownstein at San
Diego Comic-Con to discuss challenges to comic books today, and the
history of censorship over the medium.

“Sixty years ago, this year, the United States government
actually placed comics on trial in Senate subcommittee hearings
around a moral panic that said that comics were a leading cause of
juvenile delinquency,” says Brownstein. “When you look back at that
history, you see that it mirrors what has happened with video
games, heavy metal, and other aspects of popular culture in recent
years.”

Comic books are the focus of this year’s Banned Books Week, which runs
from Sept. 21-27. The website describes the event as the
following:

Banned Books Week is the national book community’s annual
celebration of the freedom to read. Hundreds of libraries and
bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of
censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a
variety of events. The 2014 celebration will be held September
21-27.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden
surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores
and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since
1982 according to the American Library Association. There were 307
challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2013,
and many more go unreported. The 10 most challenged titles of 2013
were:

  1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav
    Pilkey
    Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group,
    violence

  2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
    Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age
    group, violence

  3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
    Indian
    , by Sherman Alexie
    Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism,
    sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

  4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
    Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually
    explicit, unsuited to age group

  5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
    Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

  6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee
    Stone
    Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language,
    sexually explicit

  7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
    Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age
    group

  8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen
    Chbosky
    Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit,
    unsuited to age group

  9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
    Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint,
    sexually explicit

  10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
    Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

About 7 minutes. Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer. Camera by Zach
Weissmueller and Alexis Garcia. Music byEric Skiff, “All of
Us.”

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Is ISIS Using Alibaba To Buy Mobile Refineries From Turkey?

It all started with a Pentagon tweet showing a before and after picture of a “modular oil refinery” used by ISIS:

By “modular” the Department of Defense meant “mobile.” CNN had more: 

U.S. and coalition warplanes pounded ISIS positions in eastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting what a Pentagon official described as mobile oil refineries being used by the so-called Islamic State terror group to help finance its operations.

 

The latest round of airstrikes were aimed at cutting off money flowing to ISIS, which makes up to $2 million a day from oil produced by the mobile refineries, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, told CNN.

So the US is targeting ISIS’ mobile refineries as a way of “halting” the organization’s funding? Great. But where does ISIS buy these refineries: after all while the US provided all the weapons, arms and munitions ISIS has and is using against, well, the US, one assumes not even America was deploying mobile refineries in Iraq and Syria: after all Haliburton and Bechtel get paid much more when they make the “fixed”, CapEx-soaking versions.

Well, one place is, drumroll, everyone’s favorite biggest IPO of all time. That’s right, Alibaba:

 

Wait, is the US implicitly subsidizing Alibaba which is collecting massive commissions on sales of illegal arms to a terrorist group, which has to order even more such mobile refineries as the US blows them up one after another?

Stranger things have happened.

And, the punchline, is that the supplier is none other than a Turkish Company named NCER:

 

Turkey, of course, is the one (NATO) country that has so far refused to join the US grand “alliance” against the Islamic State, has refused to grant the US use of its airspace for counter-Islamic State strikes, and whose 49 hostages were released by ISIS a week ago in gratitude for Turkey’s unwillingness to fold to the US.

So are all of these events related?

We don’t know. One place to look for answers is Mr. Karem Ekrem Merter, the contact for NCER, who was kind enough to put up the following YouTube clip of a mobile refinery on YouTube in November 2012…

And has conveniently listed his contact info as follows:

contact: + 90 542 440 07 03
web: http://ift.tt/1vg6ECf
email: sales@mobile-refinery.com

As for whether Alibaba is the euphoria, just-IPOed “marketplace” used to illegally provide Islamic State terrorists with the tools they need to generate millions in profits each day, we are confident the regulators will answer that question shortly.

h/t Barry




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This Riot Is Not In Ferguson, It Is In Hong Kong

No, this is not Ferguson: it is, according to many, the world’s most capitalist city, Hong Kong, where over the past few hours, around 50,000 students are said to have massed on late Saturday, demanding more democracy, as tensions grew over Beijing’s decision to rule out free elections in the former British colony.

According to Reuters, the crowds swelled less than 24 hours after riot police used pepper spray to disperse protesters around government headquarters, arresting more than 60 people opposed to the Chinese government’s tightening grip on the city. The unrest underscores the obstacles China faces in Hong Kong as a restive younger generation challenges its influence over the densely-populated financial hub.

More:

Tempers flared and there were scenes of chaos before dawn on Saturday when protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from the pepper spray. Those who got hit used water to rinse their eyes. “I paid my highest respect to every soldier who defends till the last moment… Civil disobedience – it continues to happen,” said student leader Lester Shum on his Facebook page.

 

Hong Kong’s Education Bureau appealed to parents and teachers on Saturday not to allow underage children and students to take part in unlawful activities to avoid risking their safety.

 

Leaders of the local Occupy movement arrived to show their support for the protests. They plan to blockade the financial district on Oct. 1, a holiday, hoping it will escalate into one of most disruptive protests in Hong Kong for decades.

 

The latest clashes were the most heated in a series of anti-Beijing protests. Police arrested six people overnight, including teenage student leader Joshua Wong, who was dragged away by police, kicking, screaming and bleeding from his arm, after he called on the protesters to charge the government premises.

 

“Hong Kong’s future belongs to you, you and you,” Wong, a thin 17-year-old with dark-rimmed glasses and bowl-cut hair, told cheering supporters before he was taken away.

One thing is certain: the youth protest movement can hardly be any more ineffectual than America’s own OccupyWallStreet farce.

One protester said she had joined the protests to secure a better future for her five-year-old son, who was by her side wearing swimming goggles to protect him if the police fired more pepper spray.

 

“If we don’t stand up, we will be worried about his future,” said the 33-year-old woman named Li. “He can’t choose his own future.”

 

The demonstrators broke through a cordon late on Friday and scaled perimeter fences to invade the city’s main government compound in the culmination of a week-long rally to demand free elections. The Hospital Authority said 34 people had been treated in hospital by Saturday evening as a result of the clashes.

 

The protesters were removed one by one on Saturday afternoon, some of them carried away.

 

“The police have used disproportionate force to stop the legitimate actions of the students and that should be condemned,” said Benny Tai, one of the three main organizers of the pro-democracy Occupy Central movement.

 

Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 under a formula known as “one country, two systems”, with a high degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China. Universal suffrage was set as an eventual goal. But Beijing last month rejected demands for people to freely choose the city’s next leader in 2017, prompting threats from activists to shut down the Central financial district in a so-called Occupy Central campaign. China wants to limit elections to a handful of candidates loyal to Beijing.

Which, maybe just maybe, could explain our post from May showing “Stunning Images Of Chinese Riot Police Training For A “Working Class Insurrection.” Here is a sampling, via Ifeng.com, captions google translated:

May 11, heavy rain, the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau
carried out emergency disposal operations training activities.
Participating in the training team for a variety of different
emergencies riot synthesis disposal training.

“Demonstrators” prepare to impact SWAT.

“Demonstrators” armed with sticks toward the SWAT

“Demonstrators” conflict with the SWAT occur.

“Demonstrators” ignite gasoline SWAT throwing bottles.

Special police armed with riot shields are ready, surrounded by “demonstrators.”

SWAT are quick to reach “emergency scene.”

“Demonstrators” rushed SWAT.

SWAT are quick to reach “emergency scene.”

Shenzhen police using ground and air linkage way to quickly reach “emergency scene.”

More “thugs” armed with machetes out of the bus.

“Demonstrators” ignite gasoline bottles toward the bus.

SWAT team members quickly surrounded the bus.

Emergency mobile teams to participate in emergency disposal operations team training sudden rain rushed to the scene

Emergency mobile teams to participate in emergency disposal operations training team.




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Not Even a Dead-Cat Bounce: Russia Sanctions, Whiff of Reality Sink ‘Economic Expectations’ in Germany

Wolf Richter   www.wolfstreet.com   http://ift.tt/Wz5XCn

Germany is expected to pull the Eurozone out of its funk by stimulating internal consumption. It is expected to allow the ECB to print money and stir up inflation so that other Eurozone countries like Spain or France can leverage that inflation to cut real wages, impoverish their people, devalue mountains of debt, make exports cheaper, and push imports beyond the reach of the poor.

The Eurozone is mired down, and it’s holding back the global economy. Germany would have to do its job. Not German exporters, for crying out loud – they’re causing all the problems, the official thinking goes. But German consumers, the same ones whose dour mood can last for years. They’d have to pull the Eurozone, and by extension the global economy, out of their funk.

But those consumers are getting cold feet, after businesses and investors have gotten cold feet months ago.

The Ifo Business Climate Index fell to its lowest level since April 2013. Business Expectations fell to their lowest level since December 2012. In manufacturing, expectations dropped into the negative for the first time since January 2013, dragged down by flagging exports. Construction hit the lowest level since December 2012, and wholesaling hit the lowest level since March 2010. The Ifo Employment Barometer backed off as well. The German economy is sputtering.

The sentiment of “financial experts” has been diving for nine months in a row. The ZEW Indicator, whose the long-run average is 24.6, now sits at 6.9, the worst level since December 2012, when markets were climbing out of the debt crisis debacle (ugly chart). The report blamed the “sanction spiral with Russia” and “disappointing” economic activity in the Eurozone.

For months, German consumers had been blissfully oblivious to the fretting by businesses and financial experts. “Extremely optimistic economic outlook,” is how GfK, which conducts the monthly consumer survey, described it at the time. But now, for the second month in a row, their mood soured. In the forward-looking GfK survey, the overall index fell to 8.3 for October, from 8.6 in September and from 8.9 in August – after a spectacular uninterrupted rise going back to January 2013. So on the surface, they’re still feeling pretty good.

But beneath the surface, oh my!

In late 2007, another one of those rare periods when Germans were feeling high, the index had hovered above 9. A year later, during the financial crisis, the index plunged below 2. And it took until early 2014, to get it back above 8.

Then last month, GfK reported that the sub-index for economic expectations, “in light of the intensified state of international affairs, completely collapses.” It had plunged over 35 points to 10.4, the worst plunge since the beginning of the survey in 1980. GfK cited the escalation of unrest around the world, particularly in Ukraine, and “the faster rotating sanctions spiral with Russia,” which have hit exports and could become “a real danger for the German economy.”

After that historic plunge last month, you’d expect some sort of bounce. Things don’t deteriorate that fast. It must have been an overreaction. Not even the financial crisis had come close. Or maybe it was a statistical fluke. At least, you’d expect a dead-cat bounce.

But heck no. Consumers’ economic outlook dropped again, this time by six points to 4.4, the lowest level since July 2013. GfK explained the phenomenon this way:

Consumers feel that the ongoing tense geopolitical situation and the economic weakness in a number of Eurozone countries will have a greater impact on the German economy. The economic development is showing the first signs of skid marks.

In Q2, GDP fell 0.2%. In Q3, the economy is expected to stagnate or, according to wishful thinkers, improve slightly. Consumers rode through the Q2 debacle without pause, but now they’re worried.

In the wake of swooning economic expectations, income expectations, after hitting an all-time record high in August, fell 4.6 points for September and 6.7 points for October to 43.3. The “continued high level,” as GfK called it, was a reflection of the “stable” labor market and the fact that “real income is rising as a result of very low inflation. These are decisive pillars for income expectations.”

The all-important phrase in Germany: “real income is rising as a result of very low inflation.” Very low inflation is keeping income expectations from heading south even faster! More on that in a moment.

The willingness-to-buy indicator dropped 6.8 points to 42.4, now below the level of a year ago, beaten down by plunging economic expectations and deteriorating income expectations. Last month, GfK called the level “relatively robust.” Now it’s less so, but it is still propped up by rising real wages, low inflation, and low interest rates. For the moment, consumers are still “more inclined to consumer rather than save their money.”

Someone should tell ECB President Mario Draghi and inflation mongers in the French government and elsewhere what German consumers, on whom the salvation of the Eurozone apparently depends, will do with their wallets when they see inflation eating into their wages and scarce savings. They’ll close that wallet! And they’ll go on one of their infamous buyer strikes that can last for  years.

GfK blames the international crises that are “slowing down the consumer climate.” Consumers are already showing “the signs of uncertainty.” And there is “a danger that private consumption could no longer play its role as an important pillar of the economy.”

And that would be the final nail. Investor sentiment has been tanking for nine months. The business climate has been deteriorating for six months. GDP in Q2 fell. Q3 doesn’t look promising. And this is the vaunted economy whose consumers are supposed to pull the Eurozone, and by extension the global economy, out of its funk. Prost!

And now a true debacle is unfolding, just when we thought the euro was finally safe. Read…. Standard & Poor’s Warns on Germany Triggering the Next Debt Crisis, Investors Would Lose their Shirts




via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nk645C testosteronepit

Goldman Sachs Moral Compass

 

Courtesy of the SlealthFlation Blog

 

There is no question that some of the most astute and ambitious individuals on the planet are attracted to the wealth generation which takes place on Wall Street.  On that score, those that stake their claim at the hub for global capital formation are no different than any of us in their thirst to make money.  After all, the craving to quench parched lips has always been precisely what drives the American success express.

The desire to better one’s lot in life is the fuel that advances the free market locomotive.  The primal quest for cash greases the skids which make the capitalist wheels go round and round, without that deep embedded human need to succeed the free market express would slow to a comatose crawl.

The unapologetic harnessing of man’s innate ambition and aspiration is fundamental to what makes America the most dynamic and prosperous nation to have ever lifted humankind.  So no, I have no problem with enterprise motivated by personal gain, I vigorously applaud it!

However, unlike Wall’s Street’s perennial poster board, Gordon Gekko, I do have a distinct problem with avarice and greed.  To privately succeed from one’s hard fought achievements in the private sector is to be commended and a great triumph to be proud of.  On the other hand, to be part of a firm which conspicuously and relentlessly siphons funds off of the public trust is a deplorable disgrace and decidedly un-American.

Friday’s revelation’s by the internal tape recordings of Carmen Segarra, a Goldman Sach’s embedded Fed regulator who was simply doing her job, once again demonstrates for all to see just how far we have fallen down the ravenous rabbit hole.  Ask yourselves. Why was her viable investigation thwarted by the Federal Reserve itself?  The institution who’s stated mission is to monitor Wall Street simply scuttled the very notion of legitimate inquiry.

The country requires change. We demand the enlightened capitalism that our forefathers manifested, not the crony capitalism that Goldman Sach’s espouses and deploys with ruthless duplicitous abandon.  And no, it certainly can not be characterized as doing God’s work.  The time for substantive change beckons………….haven’t you seen and had enough yet?




via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1uQxnTs Bruno de Landevoisin

Russia Discovers Massive Arctic Oil Field Which May Be Larger Than Gulf Of Mexico

In a dramatic stroke of luck for the Kremlin, this morning there is hardly a person in the world who is happier than Russian president Vladimir Putin because overnight state-run run OAO Rosneft announced it has discovered what may be a treasure trove of black oil, one which could boost Russia’s coffers by hundreds of billions if not more, when a vast pool of crude was discovered in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean, showing the region has the potential to become one of the world’s most important crude-producing areas, arguably bigger than the Gulf Of Mexico. The announcement was made by Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s chief executive officer, who spent two days sailing on a Russian research ship to the drilling rig where the find was unveiled today.

The oil production platform at the Sakhalin-I field in Russia,
partly owned by ONGC Videsh Ltd., Rosneft Oil Co., Exxon Mobil
Corp. and Japan’s Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co. on June 9, 2009.

Well, one person who may have been as happy as Putin is the CEO of Exxon Mobil, since the well was discovered with the help of America’s biggest energy company (and second largest by market cap after AAPL). Then again, maybe not: as Bloomberg explains the well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today.”

Which means instead of generating billions in E&P revenue, XOM could end up with, well, nothing. And that would be quite a shock to the US company because the unveiled Arctic field may hold about 1 billion barrels of oil and similar geology nearby means the surrounding area may hold more than the U.S. part of the Gulf or Mexico, he said.

For a sense of how big the spoils are we go to another piece by Bloomberg, which tells us that “Universitetskaya, the geological structure being drilled, is the size of the city of Moscow and large enough to contain more than 9 billion barrels, a trove worth more than $900 billion at today’s prices.

The only way to reach the prospect is a four-day voyage from Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic circle. Everything will have to shipped in — workers, supplies, equipment — for a few months of drilling, then evacuated before winter renders the sea icebound. Even in the short Arctic summer, a flotilla is needed to keep drifting ice from the rig.

Sadly, said bonanza may be non-recourse to Exxon after Obama made it quite clear that all western companies will have to wind down operations in Russia or else feel the wrath of the DOJ against sanctions breakers. Which leaves XOM two options: ignore Obama’s orders (something which many have been doing of late), or throw in the towel on what may be the largest oil discovery in years. 

And while the Exxon C-suite contemplates its choices, here is some more on today’s finding from Bloomberg:

“It exceeded our expectations,” Sechin said in an interview. This discovery is of “exceptional significance in showing the presence of hydrocarbons in the Arctic.”

 

The development of Arctic oil reserves, an undertaking that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take decades, is one of Putin’s grandest ambitions. As Russia’s existing fields in Siberia run dry, the country needs to develop new reserves as it vies with the U.S. to be the world’s largest oil and gas producer.

 

Output from the Kara Sea field could begin within five to seven years, Sechin said, adding the field discovered today would be named “Victory.”

Duh.

The Kara Sea well — the most expensive in Russian history — targeted a subsea structure named Universitetskaya and its success has been seen as pivotal to that strategy. The start of drilling, which reached a depth of more than 2,000 meters (6,500 feet), was marked with a ceremony involving Putin and Sechin.

 

The importance of Arctic drilling was one reason that offshore oil exploration was included in the most recent round of U.S. sanctions. Exxon and Rosneft have a venture to explore millions of acres of the Arctic Ocean.

But what’s worse for Exxon is that now that the hard work is done, Rosneft may not need its Western partner much longer:

“Once the well is plugged, there will be a lot of work to do in interpreting the results and this is probably something that Rosneft can do,” Julian Lee, an oil strategist at Bloomberg First Word in London, said before today’s announcement. “Both parties are probably hoping that by the time they are ready to start the next well the sanctions will have been lifted.”

And here is why there is nothing Exxon would like more than to put all the western sanctions against Moscow in the rearview mirror: “The stakes are high for Exxon, whose $408 billion market valuation makes it the world’s largest energy producer. Russia represents the second-biggest exploration prospect worldwide. The Irving, Texas-based company holds drilling rights across 11.4 million acres in Russia, only eclipsed by its 15.1 million U.S. acres.”

Proving just how major this finding is, and how it may have tipped the balance of power that much more in Russia’s favor is the emergence of paid experts, desperate to talk down the relevance of the Russian discovery:

More drilling and geological analysis will be needed before a reliable estimate can be tallied for the size of the oil resources in the Universitetskaya area and the Russian Arctic as a whole, said Frances Hudson, a global thematic strategist who helps manage $305 billion at Standard Life Investments Ltd. in Edinburgh. Sanctions forbidding U.S. and European cooperation with Russian entities mean that country’s nascent Arctic exploration will be stillborn because Rosneft and its state-controlled sister companies don’t know how to drill in cold offshore conditions alone, she said.

 

“Extrapolating from a small data sample is perhaps not going to give you the best information,” Hudson said in a telephone interview. “And because of sanctions, it looks like there’s going to be less exploration rather than more.” In addition, the expense and difficulty of operating in such a remote part of the world, where hazards include icebergs and sub-zero temperatures, mean that the developing discoveries may not be economic at today’s oil prices.

Maybe. Then again perhaps the experts’ time is better suited to estimating just how much longer the US shale miracle has left before the US is once again at the mercy of offshore sellers of crude.

In any event one country is sure to have a big smile on its face: China, since today’s finding simply means that as Russia has to ultimately sell the final product to someone, that someone will almost certainly be the Middle Kingdom, which if the “Holy Gas Grail” deal is any indication, will be done at whatever terms Beijing chooses.

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via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1uQxnTq Tyler Durden

Passion = Profits

By: Chris Tell at http://ift.tt/146186R

Most of the really big returns made by investors and entrepreneurs come from companies which seem to have one unmistakable element.

We look at a mountain of deals and consequently the filtering process is very rapid. In fact over 90% of the deals that hit our respective desks are pre-filtered deals coming from our colleagues and internal networks. We look for some specifics in a deal; I’ve spoken repeatedly before about management, ideas, and execution. What I’ve not spoken about before, and for this I realise I should be chastised, beaten, ridiculed, and forced to watch an episode of the Kardashians, is PASSION.

Passion is the single fastest way to spur yourself to massive success. This is what makes it is possible to get up early, stay up late, remain inspired and engaged and to forgo other pleasures. It’s what keeps you going when from the outside looking in, the decision appears foolish.

Founders who see a problem and then build a business to solve that problem are very different from founders who simply say to themselves, “Hey, I want to be an entrepreneur so I don’t have to work for someone else.” The former are likely entering an industry which they may know something about. The latter may do OK, they may even do well, but they will rarely build a legacy, a titan, a formidable company which changes the way things are done or the way people act.

In other words, typically the “Unicorns” come from passion. What are unicorns? They are the investments that run thousands or tens of thousands of percent… Companies like Uber, Facebook, LinkedIn, The Body Shop… They are investments where a $10,000 stake changes your life, and your kids, kids lives…

Most every entrepreneur finds out that creating something is hard. You’ll work harder and longer than you’ve ever worked in your life.

Years ago when still in the corporate world, working for the man, I used to hate “mission statements”. They were, or seemed like a complete bunch of baloney trumpeted by empty suits. I think for the most part that’s still true in many large corporate organizations.

In a start-up or small company however that “vision”, that “mission statement” can be much more powerful. The mission, not the mere statement of it, is what makes a company great. It may not be written on a wall or even on any corporate documents, websites or the like but it is known by the company and those running it.

This may all sound cliché but bear with me. Man’s search for meaning and purpose is answered by a “mission”. Passion is the accelerator to that mission.

Meaning is an incredibly powerful thing. Without it we die. Literally. Many people die at age 25 and simply inhabit their bodies until they’re 80 or more at which point they slide into a box. It’s no way to live. Persistence is the stepchild of passion. It requires persistence to become great at anything. Persistence in anything will make you good but persistence together with passion can make you great.

It’s easy to see the start-ups where the founders are really passionate about what they’re doing. The energy created inspires those around them to help them.

Passion

Have you ever been in a room where you felt inspired about someone or some idea and were willing to help?

This is it. This is where a “mission” is important. This is where passion is important. A mission is also important because it is the what keeps those involved, involved when they could easily be doing something else which will likely pay them more, cause less headaches and be more “comfortable”.

Passion however is not enough. The idea needs to be sound, the team needs to be capable and the execution needs to be great. Put all of these factors together and you have a crack at a Unicorn.

Like him or loathe him Steve Jobs clearly had massive passion. His success is legendary. He was put up for adoption at an early age, dropped out of college after 6 months (something I recommended in these pages a few times), slept on friends floors, returned Coke bottles to collect the 5 cent deposits to buy food, then went on to start Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studios.

“Find your true passion and do what you love to do,” said Steve Jobs. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.”

Another rouge… Tiger Woods success in golf is unparalleled. He calls his love for the game and “obsession, an addiction”. Sounds like the words of passion to me.

In every successful business person, athlete or generally happy person you will find passion. What’s your passion?

– Chris

 

“If you love what you do, there are no difficult tasks, only interesting ones.” – Adim Kotelnikov




via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1uQxkXV Capitalist Exploits