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(NaturalNews)The European nation of Greece appears to be sliding ever so progressively into the abyss of total collapse, as illustrated by a recent government measure aimed at feeding the growing hordes of hungry, unemployed Greeks across the nation. A report translated into English from Voz Populi explains that, under the new law, Greek merchants will now be permitted to sell expired foods at a reduced rate to the nation's poorest citizens, who are becoming increasingly unable to afford basic necessities.
Since price control efforts have largely failed thus far, as have austerity measures aimed at reviving the nation's economy, the Greek government is grasping at straws to maintain some illusion of normalcy in a country where the unemployment rate has now breached 25 percent overall, and more than 54 percent among the youth population aged 15 to 24.
"We are sinking in a swamp of recession and it's getting worse," Dimitris Asimakopoulos, Head of the Greek small business and industry association GSEVEE, is quoted as saying by phillyBurbs.com. "180,000 businesses are on the brink and 70,000 of them are expected to close in the next few months."
As far as the expired food situation is concerned, products with both a month and day expiration date will be permitted to sell for an additional week, while products with a "best before" date that contains only a month and year marker will be permitted to sell for an additional month. Food products with only a year indicator will be allowed to sell for an additional quarter year, under the new law.
Because virtually all aspects of the Greek economy are unraveling, though, the measure is unlikely to make much of a difference in reducing overall food costs, as demand will still likely outpace supply. And repeated efforts to bail out the nation at the EU level continue to spark massive protests and labor strikes, which is only exacerbating the problem even further.
In defiance of proposed austerity measures that would further increase taxes on Greece's already-struggling private business sector, 70,000 protesters in Athens and at least 17,000 protesters in the town of Thessalonika recently took to the streets. The protests resulted in massive public service shutdowns, grounded flights, hospital and business closures, and public transport failures.
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic…”
So begins the Oath of Enlistment for the U.S. military, but in an
explosive interview with a National Guard whistleblower shown below,
soldiers are now being advised they will be ordered to break that oath
should civil unrest erupt across the country.
Referred to only as “Soldier X” under promise of anonymity, an Army National Guardsman spoke via phone with Infowars Nightly News Producer Rob Dew regarding a recent briefing his unit underwent on actions the military would take in the event that an Obama election loss sparked rioting in America’s streets.
Citing not only recent widespread threats to riot if Mitt Romney were to become the next U.S. president, but threats to actually assassinate him should he win, Soldier X’s superiors dispensed plans of how the National Guard would be responsible for “taking over” and quelling such unrest.
The soldiers were reportedly told “Doomsday preppers will be treated as terrorists.”
In addition, guns will be confiscated.
“They have a list compiled of all these doomsday preppers that have gone public and they plan to go after them first,” Soldier X said. He claimed those in charge are acting under the belief that preppers will be “the worst part” of any potential civil unrest.
Soldier X was also told that any soldiers in the ranks who are known as preppers will be deemed “defects.” He explained the label meant these soldiers would be treated as traitors. “If you don’t conform, they will get rid of you,” he added.
Unit members also warned not to associate with any fellow soldiers who are preppers.
Not only does the military reportedly plan to target preppers should mass chaos break out, but Soldier X also voiced his concerns regarding civilian gun confiscation.
Soldier X admitted, “Our worry is that Obama’s gonna do what he said he’s gonna do and he’s gonna outlaw all weapons altogether and anybody’s name who is on a weapon, they’re gonna come to your house and try to take them.”
It would not be the first time the National Guard has been used to unconstitutionally disarm law-abiding citizens, robbing them of their Second Amendment right to bear arms. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, police and military took to the streets disarming lawful gun owners, including those who were on dry land and had plenty of stored food and water.
Fast forward to this past summer when a leaked Army manual dated 2006 entitled, “Civil Disturbance Operations” surfaced outlining plans not only to confiscate firearms domestically during mass unrest, but to actually detain and even kill American citizens who refuse to hand over their guns.
This manual works in conjunction with “FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations,” another Army manual leaked this year, which instructs troops on how to properly detain and intern Americans into re-education camps, including ways that so-called “psy-op officers” will “indoctrinate” incarcerated “political activists” into developing an “understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions.”
Add these manuals to the plethora of Executive Orders Obama has signed during his term which have dismantled our Constitution piece by piece, including the martial law implementing National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order which gives the president the power to confiscate citizens’ private property in the event of any national emergency, including economic.
Add all that to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in which Obama granted powers to disappear and indefinitely detain American citizens without any due process, and it is easy to see the tyrannical big picture our government has painted.
When asked if he would go along with gun confiscation, Soldier X replied he and his fellow like-minded guardsmen planned to stand down — not answer the phone or show up to post.
“I’m sorry but I don’t believe in suicide,” he said.
Preppers are becoming regular government targets these days, most recently when a Missisippi prepper group member with a clean record was suddenly taken off his flight halfway to Japan and informed he was on the no-fly list, an FBI terrorist watchlist, stranding him in Hawaii. Other preppers have been denied their Second Amendment rights without legitimate cause.
It is beyond glaringly obvious at this point the U.S. government is gearing up for mass civil unrest. Not only has the DHS sparked controversy by purchasing billions of rounds of ammo, but the department even went so far as to begin classifying further purchases, blacking out bullet figures it is using taxpayer money to buy.
In addition, while FEMA can procure a billion dollars in bulk food supplies, the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism project released a flier instructing military surplus store owners to report any customers who “make bulk purchases of items” including “meals ready to eat”.
Should society as we know it collapse following the election, it would seem the ultimate prepper and the ultimate terrorist is, indeed, the U.S. government.
(NaturalNews)Though it barely received any media attention at the time, a renowned British biochemist who back in 1998 exposed the shocking truth about how genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) cause organ damage, reproductive failure, digestive dysfunction, impaired immunity, and cancer, among many other conditions, was immediately fired from his job, and the team of researchers who assisted him dismissed from their post within 24 hours from the time when the findings went public.
Arpad Pusztai, who is considered to be one of the world's most respected and well-learned biochemists, had for three years led a team of researchers from Scotland's prestigious Rowett Research Institute (RRI) in studying the health effects of a novel GM potato with built-in Bt toxin. Much to the surprise of many, the team discovered that, contrary to industry rhetoric, Bt potato was responsible for causing severe health damage in test rats, a fact that was quickly relayed to the media out of concern for public health.
But rather than be praised for their honest assessment into this genetically-tampered potato, Pusztai and his colleagues were chastised by industry-backed government authorities, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose office was discovered to have secretly contacted RRI just hours after Pusztai and his team announced the results of their study on television. For speaking the truth, Pusztai was immediately fired from his position, and his team dismissed from their positions at the school.
Research out of Egypt finds similar results - GMOs cause severe, long-term health damage As reported recently in Egypt Independent, similar research by Hussein Kaoud from Cairo University's Faculty of Veterinary Hygiene also made some fascinating, though politically incorrect, discoveries about the effects of GMOs on the body. After feeding nine groups of rats varying combinations of GM soy, corn, wheat, and canola, Kaoud and his team observed that these genetic poisons clearly obstructed the normal function of the animals, affirming Pusztai's research.
"I recorded the alteration of different organs, shrinkage of kidneys, change in the liver and spleen, appearance of malignant parts in the tissues, (and) kidney failure and hemorrhages in the intestine," said Kaoud about the effects of GMOs as observed in the test rats. "The brain functions were touched as well, and the rats' learning and memory abilities were seriously altered."
In Kaoud's case, his groundbreaking findings will soon be published in the respected journals Neurotoxicology and Ecotoxicology. But it remains to be seen whether or not the scientific community at large, which is heavily influenced by biotechnology interests, and the political structures that control it will accept the results as valid, or pull a similar character assassination on Kaoud and his team as punishment for defying the status quo.
What all this clearly illustrates, of course, is that modern science can hardly be considered the independent, truth-seeking, "gold standard" of interpreting and understanding reality that many people mistakenly think it is. The truth about GMOs, as uncovered by mounds of independent research, is that they are inadequately safety tested, at best, and deadly at worst. But this fact remains shrouded in deception, thanks to the corporatized, pro-GMO culture of mainstream science.
Activist Post - The subject of insiders — or “whistleblowers” — is somewhat tricky; anyone on the inside is often presumed to be compromised by their former allegiance.
Nonetheless, the nature of government work is rooted in compartmentalization.
So, perhaps the best indication as to whether whistleblowers have something valid to say is the level of persecution they have endured.
The following whistleblowers have endured a varying degree of pushback from the system, but are still around to reveal key points of information that make us all question what we are being told by our government and the corporate media.
Please listen to the video presentations of the following insiders who have used their positions to educate those on the outside about the machinations of people far more devious than ourselves.
They follow in the footsteps of people such as Daniel Ellsberg, and are not the criminals that the U.S. government increasingly charges them as. Rather, these whistleblowers represent the highest level of activism and courage.
Jesselyn Radack – Radack is a former ethics attorney and adviser to the Justice Department. She had been presented with the first case of a detainee in Afghanistan following 9/11.
That detainee was John Walker Lindh, an American citizen labeled “The American Taliban.” Lindh was set to be interrogated (tortured) without council.
Her advice not to pursue that direction went unheeded to the point where her e-mails to the court were deleted, which she had to then resurrect from her computer and present to the media.
She subsequently was put on the No-Fly list and was targeted for investigation.
Rather than fold, she fought back and wound up going to work for the premier whistleblowing advocacy group, the Government Accountability Project at whistleblower.org, founded in 1977.
After everything we have come to know about the torture apparatus overseas, and the subsequent arrival of that apparatus onto American shores embodied in the NDAA, Radack’s work is more important than ever.
She discusses in the video below her background and the intensified war on whistleblowers.
Thomas Drake, (NSA) – The world got an historical overview that shed quite a bit of light on the NSA through a former ABC News reporter, James Bamford, when he released two books The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, which lifted the veil and revealed a massive spying structure that far surpasses the capabilities of the CIA.
The apparatus Bamford revealed was comprised of programs like Echelon that were suspected of not only massive international spying and data collection, but also domestic operations.
Now those suspicions are being confirmed by high-level insiders such as Thomas Drake, who appeared in a Baltimore Sun article that highlighted a $1.2 billion program called “Trailblazer” which Drake submitted was a program of “fraud, waste, and abuse.”
He was subsequently charged under The Espionage Act and was facing 35 years in prison. Drake’s defense team actually hired James Bamford as an expert witness.
The case for 10 felony charges against Drake could not stand up, and he reached a misdemeanor plea deal.
Drake was the first to come forward under a new climate of aggressive formal indictment for whistleblowers that equates their truth-telling with real espionage such as selling state secrets.
William Binney (NSA) Former top NSA mathematician and code breaker, William Binney, has gone on record to publicly reveal the scope of a top-secret surveillance program that has directly targeted everyday Americans following 9/11.
He is sounding an alarm about the massive scope of this project that engages in 24/7 warrantless wiretapping of the American population.
Thomas Drake’s testimony was revealing, but Binney was a 32-year, top-level veteran of the NSA who reveals in the video below the domestic component of a program code named “Stellar Wind.”
With the NSA working to complete its $2 billion fortress of surveillance by September 2013, which can store 100 years worth of electronic information, Binney’s concerns that we are heading down the road to totalitarianism ring true.
Mark Klein (AT&T) A veteran of twenty-two years as an AT&T technician, Mark Klein left no doubt about the veracity of an NSA domestic spying program when he revealed how he found secret rooms at a switching center in San Francisco.
And he had the documents and blueprints to prove it:
Klein says he collected 120 pages of technical documents left around the San Francisco office showing how the NSA was installing ‘splitters’ that would allow it to copy both domestic and international Internet traffic moving through AT&T connections with 16 other trunk lines.
‘It’s gobs and gobs of information going across the Internet,’ Klein says.
President Bush has acknowledged he authorized the NSA to intercept the communications of people with known links to terrorist organizations ‘into or out of the United States,’ but that ‘we’re not trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.’
Intelligence experts say the NSA has the means to filter out suspect communications with sophisticated machines that spot key words, names, addresses or patterns.
Eventually, Klein says he decided to take his documents to the Los Angeles Times, to blow the whistle on what he calls ‘an illegal and Orwellian project.’ (Source)
Yet, the LA Times‘ editor Dean Baquet killed the story after speaking with Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and Director of the NSA Gen. Michael Hayden.
The story later appeared at the New York Times. Mark Klein recounts his version of events below and how he came to realize that he was “being forced to connect the Big Brother machine.”
It is worth noting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has spearheaded lawsuits to reveal just what is being done to the American people, but courts recently ruled that warrantless wiretapping can continue.
Sibel Edmonds (FBI / 9/11) In the wake of 9/11, Edmonds was enlisted as a translator in the FBI language division to interpret wiretaps conducted inside the United States, having been born in Turkey and speaking several key languages.
She describes the language division as “the highest security unit in the FBI.”
She has since become the most classified woman in history, and her efforts to uncover FBI criminality that included, “money laundering, narcotic activities, and nuclear black market converg(ing) with terrorist activities” led her to be pursued and persecuted to an incredible degree by the Justice Department under John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller invoking “state secrets.”
Her story is harrowing, to say the least; however, she sparked serious doubts among the general population regarding the 9/11 Commission Report – and she hasn’t stopped.
To get a glimpse of the energy and tenacity of Sibel Edmonds, see the video trailer below for the whistleblower documentary “Kill The Messenger” which can be viewed in 5 parts starting HERE.
More of her work can be found at Boiling Frogs. She also set up the National Security Whisleblower Coalition. And what is The American-Turkish council?
Susan Lindauer (CIA / 9/11) Susan was a former CIA asset who worked with the Libyan and Iraqi embassies prior to 9/11. Following that day, she began to reveal CIA complicity in Middle East heroin trafficking.
Lindauer also talked candidly about how Israel tried to buy U.S. Intelligence officers and Assets. For the first time on record, she revealed that a known Mossad agent tried to bribe her into handing over Iraq’s collection of banking records on Al Qaeda’s financial pipeline by phoning her home in Maryland while she was traveling in Baghdad, and promising to deliver a suitcase full of cash to any city in the world in exchange for the papers. (Source)
Susan subsequently became the second non-Arab citizen to be arrested under the Patriot Act, which culminated in a five-year indictment and near total prison lockdown for one year.
While in prison Susan was subjected to harsh conditions that would be considered torture in multiple countries. Contrary to what most Americans think, Susan and the other inmates in solitary confinement were only allowed outside once every TEN days and even then the actual amount of time outside was closer to thirty minutes. (Source)
In the video below she discusses her revelations about pre-9/11 warnings and all that followed, which eventually got published in her book Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover-ups of 9/11 and Iraq.
Col. Anthony Shaffer (Military) – Shaffer is an intelligence agent who claimed that there was deliberate stonewalling of information prior to 9/11 as part of what came to be known as Able Danger.
Beyond that, he revealed a culture of infighting between intelligence agencies that, even taken at face value, is concerning for the American taxpayer. Shaffer published his account inOperation Dark Heart.
The Department of Defense responded by purchasing the book’s first, uncensored, 10,000 copy print run (with U.S. taxpayer dollars, by the way). He might have had something important to say. The video below touches upon what that might have been.
Joe Banister (IRS) – In our article 10 Ways to Stop Being a Slave and Bring Down The Pyramids of Control, IRS resistance was presented last. Here are the questions we asked:
How can a machine be built without the funding to build it? The entire prison system we see around us has been built with our own money. Did you authorize it? Did you authorize the preemptive wars, bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, the high-tech surveillance grid that enslaves you?
Special agent, Joe Banister, exposed the mechanics of what the IRS is and how fundamentally illegal and unconstitutional their tax collection policies and methods are.
The system came down HARD on one of its own. His story is instrumental in understanding what happened to the next IRS whistleblower, Sherry Peel Jackson, who took exposure to a whole new level and was pursued ruthlessly for her revelations.
The income tax we have been told to believe is a patriotic obligation is itself a complete fraud. The current tax code is 72,000 pages. It is complicated for a reason.
If we can wake up to the foundations of this nightmare coercive system, we stand a great chance of restoring power into the hands of the people instead of a tiny few at the top of the pyramid.
Caution is warranted, however: the IRS is ready, willing and able to lock you up for a longer term than human trafficking and child porn. So, proceed with caution, but keep courage close at hand. You can see Joe Banister with Ron Paul, below.
Bradley Manning (Military) – Manning allegedly transmitted state secrets to WikiLeaks:
Manning was arrested at forward operating base Hammer outside Baghdad on 27 May 2010 on suspicion of being the source of the biggest leak of confidential state documents in US history. He faces 22 charges relating to the transferal of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, videos and war logs to the whistleblowing website.
Under the US military rule book, a soldier must be arraigned and his trial officially started within 120 days of him being put into captivity.
(…)
Should the trial kick off on 4 February next year, as it is currently scheduled to do, he will have been held for 983 days. (Source)
Bradley Manning’s case and treatment is at the heart of a new U.S. government mission that equates the revealing of truth as aiding an abetting the enemy, which should serve as an indictment upon the system which pursues truth-tellers like Manning so vehemently.
He only sought to expose the horrific “collateral damage” of the war in which he was enlisted, which has been properly retitled into “Collateral Murder.”
Due to his total lockdown, there is no video we can present of Bradley Manning speaking for himself, but the video he brought out to the public through WikiLeaks says it all:
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks – Assange is in a category all his own due to heading up the whistleblower repository of WikiLeaks.
It has been argued that Assange and WikiLeaks are controlled opposition, much the same as Anonymous; or is it just a global chess game?
Given the subsequent persecution of Assange that continues on without relent by the establishment, he seems to have more likely been a patsy who has served to demonize all manner of whistleblowing and intimidate anyone who would take center stage in an effort to bolster people such as those documented above.
Very well-respected alternative news voices such as Max Keiser and Paul Craig Roberts insist that Assange is legitimate and should be given the Nobel Peace Prize rather than warmongers and corporate financiers.
Despite whistleblowers’ explosive disclosures, the surveillance state has been normalized, as the House has voted to reauthorize the 2008 FISA Amendment Act. And, sadly, many whistleblowers who might have had even more to say have been assassinated by the system they were employed to serve.
That alone should serve as a warning to those who have chosen to enter such employment, knowing the level of evil they contract with. The control structure is massive, and growing, so we must listen to the voices who courageously come forth to issue their concerns, especially when those of good conscience are being persecuted as never before.
Mitt Romney's Auto Bailout Bonanza by Greg Palast.
How Romney made millions and his big donors made billions off the auto bail-out.
Based on Palast's Nation Magazine Cover story and adapted from his current New York Times bestseller: Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps. Greg Palast investigates Karl Rove, the Koch Gang, and Their Buck Buddies.
Rebel fighters fire from the rooftop of house against Syrian government forces in the Bab el-Adid district in Aleppo on 23 October 2012
A senior Russian general has said Syrian rebels now have anti-aircraft weapons, including US-made Stingers.
Gen Nikolai Makarov was quoted by the Interfax news service as saying the origin of the surface-to-air missiles should be "cleared up".
Russia is the biggest supplier of arms to its Syrian government ally.
Aerial bombardment of rebel-held towns continued on Wednesday, as the UN's Syria envoy prepared to brief the Security Council on ceasefire efforts.
Lakhdar Brahimi has been trying to arrange a ceasefire between rebels and government forces over the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Friday. Weapon supplies
"We have reliable information that Syrian militants have foreign portable anti-aircraft missile systems, including those made in the USA... it should be cleared up who delivered them," Gen Makarov told journalists in Russia.
There have been earlier unconfirmed reports of the Syrian opposition having shoulder-mounted missiles, but the West has been reluctant to openly arm the rebels.
In August, Syrian rebels said they had shot down a fighter jet near the border with Iraq.
Syrian warplanes have stepped up their bombardments of rebel-dominated areas in recent months, particularly in the north of the country. Deadly air raids are now daily events in towns around the city of Aleppo.
Recent footage has emerged of Syrian opposition fighters using old Soviet SA-7 heat-seeking missiles, which can destroy a plane flying at up to 14,000ft.
US-made Stinger missiles are shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft weapons designed to target low-flying planes and helicopters.
A US decision to supply them to the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Russians proved to be a turning point in the war.
The UN says that more than 18,000 people have died so far in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad's government, which began in March 2011, but activists and opposition groups put the figure closer to 30,000.
Bank of America is being sued for $1bn (£624m) for alleged mortgage fraud.
The civil lawsuit has been brought by the US Attorney Preet Bharara, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, New York.
He accuses Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America bought in 2008, of selling thousands of toxic home loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government agencies that support the US mortgage market.
Bank of America has yet to comment.
Countrywide is accused of running a trading scheme from 2007 to 2009 that was deliberately designed to process loans at high speed without checks on their quality.
Mr Bharara said: "This lawsuit should send another clear message that reckless lending practices will not be tolerated."
He added that Countrywide's practices were "spectacularly brazen in scope." Similar cases
The legal action against Bank of America follows similar moves by the US government earlier this month against Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase.
On 2 October, JP Morgan was sued for allegedly defrauding investors who lost more than $20bn on mortgage-backed securities sold by Bear Stearns.
JP Morgan, which bought the investment bank in March 2008, said the allegations related to actions at Bear Stearns prior to its takeover.
Meanwhile, on 10 October, Wells Fargo was also sued by federal authorities for alleged mortgage fraud.
The US government alleges that Wells Fargo lied about the quality of mortgages it handled, leading to huge losses for the Federal Housing Administration.
