“Two U.S. Securities and Exchange enforcement officers released nonpublic SEC information to a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a short seller who were convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy in 2005, an SEC watchdog’s report said Tuesday. One SEC officer on several occasions talked with the FBI special agent about the progress of agency probes of companies, Inspector General David Kotz said in his semi Continue reading
Author Archives: Lila
Spilling The Wrong Blood
From Lynda Brayer, a human rights lawyer living in Haifa, Palestine, who is an active participant in the One State in Palestine movement and supports the Return of Palestinian Refugees to Palestine.
“Furthermore, what exacerbates the image problem for the Israeli government is that it is no longer Arab blood that has been spilt, but nice “white” or “European” blood that, in the West, is different from Arab or Muslim blood. The international reverberations and the trial against Israeli officials in the case of Rachel Corrie, who was deliberately murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver for attempting to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home, should have provided sufficient warning to the Israeli regime of what is now about to unfold. Having chosen to confront the flotilla, it has now fallen into the proverbial biblical pit of its own making! Continue reading
Strategies Of Tension
The Daily Bell on the tensions between Israel and the world as an elite manipulation:
“The creation of the tiny theocratic state of Israel was not something that came about because of an upsurge in sentiment that such a state was needed. Even Dr. John Coleman, who has written a recent (fairly vituperative) history of the Rothschilds, explains that the Jewish state was an invention of the elites – especially the Rothschilds – not a movement that bubbled up from Jewish populations around the world. The book, written in 2007, certainly makes a case for the Rothschilds as the driving force in the political developments and wars of the 19th and 20th century, especially. The motivating idea – the goal – is one-world government, though Dr. Coleman does not spell out the linkage between the state of Israel itself and the larger issue of global governance. Continue reading
Money – The Root Of All Good
“Money, The Root Of All Good,” Atlas Shrugged, (1957) by Ayn Rand:
“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? Continue reading
Gaza Flotilla Like Jewish Refugees In Exodus Says Former Mossad Agent
Victor Ostrovsky in SpyTalk at The Washington Post:
“The Israeli commando attack on a civilian flotilla was “so stupid it is stupefying,” says former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky. Ostrovsky spent six years in the Israeli navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander before Mossad recruited him in 1982. He quit after four years and in the 1990s he wrote two highly critical, first-person books about the intelligence service. Continue reading
Albert J. Nock On The Criminality Of The State
Albert J. Nock in The Criminality of the State, March 1939:
“In this way, perhaps, our people might get into their heads some glimmering of the fact that the State’s criminality is nothing new and nothing to be wondered at. It began when the first predatory group of men clustered together and formed the State, and it will continue as long as the State exists in the world, because the State is fundamentally an anti-social institution, fundamentally criminal. Continue reading
Rudolf Steiner On Why Plutocrats Love Democracy
“It is interesting that the excellent statement was made in 1910 [by Francis Delaisi, La Démocratie et les Financiers, 1910]: ‘… that big capital has succeeded in creating out of democracy the most wonderful, the most effective, the most flexible instrument for the exploitation of the population as a whole. Continue reading
The Cosmic Serpent And DNA
More on the symbolism of the serpent in various forms (dragon, caduceus, kundalini) and its parallel to the DNA structure in “Shopping for Spirit: The Search for Truth” (Equilibra.com):
“In Jeremy Narby’s excellent book “The Cosmic Serpent – DNA and the Origins of Knowledge” – he investigates shamanism and the indigenous peoples uncanny biochemical knowledge of the plant kingdom. Whilst studying Ashaninca ecology, Narby discovered that these honest people living almost unheard of in the Amazon forest insisted that their extensive botanical knowledge came from plant induced hallucinations. 26 These hallucinations happen in a trance state during which, Narby found shamans talked of a ladder or vine, a rope, a spiral staircase, or a twisted rope ladder that connects heaven and earth which they use to gain access to the world of spirits. These spirits present themselves to the Ayahuasquero (shamans) when they drink their special plant brew.27 Continue reading
Kleptocrat Megabanks, Municipalities In $2.8 Trillion Bid-Rigging Fraud
Bloomberg reports on the nation-wide bid-rigging fraud in the municipal bond-market that accompanied the credit crisis:
“A telephone call between a financial adviser in Beverly Hills and a trader in New York was all it took to fleece taxpayers on a water-and-sewer financing deal in West Virginia. The secret conversation was part of a conspiracy stretching across the U.S. by Wall Street banks in the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market.
The call came less than two hours before bids were due for contracts to manage $90 million raised with the sale of West Virginia bonds. On one end of the line was Steven Goldberg, a trader with Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd. On the other was Zevi Wolmark, of advisory firm CDR Financial Products Inc. Goldberg arranged to pay a kickback to CDR to land the deal, according to government records filed in connection with a U.S. Justice Department indictment of CDR and Wolmark.
West Virginia was just one stop in a nationwide conspiracy in which financial advisers to municipalities colluded with Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Wachovia Corp. and 11 other banks. Continue reading
Why Not Build Barrier Reefs To Protect Coast From Oil Spill?
AP reported on May 17 that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and others want to build barrier reefs to protect the coast from the BP oil spill. Sounds like a good idea at this point, now that pumping the well with mud hasn’t worked:
“Gov. Bobby Jindal and leaders from several coastal parishes are pushing a $350 million barrier island repair plan as a way to protect Louisiana’s coast from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and reduce the ultimate cleanup and its costs.
Sand dredged from the gulf’s floor would be built up in 86 miles of the gaps between islands, returning land eaten away by decades of storms and slower erosion.
Jindal said Monday that the project could start within days after the Army Corps of Engineers approves it. He is asking for quick approval, and says he has been told that a decision could come in days.
Jindal says the price tag is much less than it would cost to try to remove oil from marshlands.