Man On Fire: 10/07/14

7 Oct 2014

Leon Panetta, Head of Pentagon and C.I.A. Under Obama, Says Brace for 30 Year War with ISIS

“I vividly recall how, in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s killing, Obama partisans triumphantly declared that this would finally usher in the winding down of the War on Terror. On one superficial level, that view was understandable: it made sense if one assumes that the U.S. has been waging this war for its stated reasons and that it hopes to vanquish The Enemy and end the war.
But that is not, and never was, the purpose of the War on Terror. It was designed from the start to be endless.”
- Glenn Greenwald, in his latest piece for the Intercept

By Michael Krieger: Leon Panetta is pretty much the epitome of a status quo insider. Someone, who due to his influence and mainstream veneer of respectability, is capable of inflicting an almost inconceivable amount of damage to freedom and prosperity in America. In fact, you could say that Mr. Panetta is as responsible as almost anyone else for the banana republic laughing stock that this nation has been transformed into over the past several decades. Why? Because he served in top positions for several of America’s Presidents over that time.
He started out working for Richard Nixon, before switching parties and serving nine terms as a Democratic Congressman from California. He then served the Clinton Administration, including as Chief of Staff. Most recently, he was head of the Department of Defense and the CIA under Obama. This is an extremely political animal.
His ties run deepest with the Clintons, and while he criticizes Obama heavily in his new book, he excitedly proclaims that Hilary Clinton would be “great president,” and that “one thing about the Clintons is, they want to get it done.”

By Noah Murphy: People say feminism is a religion—what they mean by that is the blind faith by which feminists cling to feminist dogma. I agree, but feminism is more religion-like than even that. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of religion, which is pretty much what you’d learn in a philosophy of religion course:

A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle.
Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration of a deity, gods or goddesses, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services,meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.

Feminism is about the belief in a nebulous, all-powerful entity known as the patriarchy.

U.S.A.: Traffic Stop Turns Into A Fascist Drug Investigation + Pedophile Teachers Shelley Dufresne & Rachel Respess Charged In Threesome

Tommy Sotomayor

Paradise of Fools! - Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert with Neil Mitchell

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the fact that you can, indeed, fool all of the people all of the time thanks to hyper-financialized neoliberal capitalism. To prove this, they look at the windfall economy in the UK and the 1099 economy in the US where the populations are fooled into accepting no benefits and/or certain poverty.

By Marin Katusa: First Russia, and now China.
US politicians aren’t doing themselves any favors getting involved in foreign disputes, especially with their track record of failed foreign policy.

“Hong Kong affairs fall entirely within China’s internal affairs,” Chinese Embassy spokesman Geng Shuang states. “We hope that some countries and people can be prudent in their words and deeds, refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Hong Kong in any way, do not support the illegal activities such as the ‘Occupy Central,’ and do not send any wrong signals.”

Don’t make any mistake about this official statement: this was China’s way of telling the US politicians to zip it and mind their own business.
How did all this start?
With US Senator Menendez.
New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez sent a letter to Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying asking that he respect the rights of his people (Hong Kong citizens), and condemning the Hong Kong government’s “excessive” use of tear gas under his watch.
Tomorrow, US Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. With China already having passed along its “butt out” message to the US, it will be interesting to see if Kerry tries to push his country’s misguided agenda, and if the lame-stream media pick up on any of it.

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Yesterday it was German manufacturing orders which cratered 5.7% in August following a freak, 4.9% rebound in July, prompting Goldman to warn that "the underlying dynamic has weakened further at the end of Q3" ...

... And then a few hours ago we finally got undeniable confirmation that Europe is once again in recession, its third since Lehman, only this one is worse: it is led by the "core" countries, with Germany in the forefront, a Germany which just reported industrial output which suffered its biggest monthly decline in more than five years in August. Specifically, German IP tumbled 4%, led by capital goods which crashed 8.8%; consumer goods sliding 0.4%, and basic goods dropping 1.9%, with the headline plunge far below the consensus of -1.5%, and below even the worst forecast of -3.0%, the biggest drop since February 2009, a result which according to the FT rose "fears that Europe’s biggest economy might be heading for recession and prompting renewed concern about the economic health of the eurozone."
Oh, don't be afraid: the world's largest economic block is now without doubt in a triple-dip recession, which will in turn drag both the US and China down with it.