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Showing posts from October 11, 2009

Is Obama's Nobel Peace Prize for "Carrying on" Two Wars and "launching" a Third in Pakistan?

http://www.truthout.org/101009A Nobel Prize for Promises? Saturday 10 October 2009 by: Howard Zinn, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace. Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations - that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he also bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War - surely, among stupid and deadly wars, at the top of the list.

Who Created the Current Economic Mess?

-"Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve," writes Texas Congressman Ron Paul in his latest book hitting shelves this week, titled "End the Fed." -"It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class." -"The Fed is using all its power to drive the monetary base to unprecedented heights, creating trillions in new money out of thin air ." -"From April 2008 to April 2009, the adjusted monetary base shot up from $856 billion to an unbelievable $1.749 trillion." -"Was there any new wealth created? New production? No, this was the Ben Bernanke printing press at work. If you and I did anything similar, we would be called counterfeiters and be sent away for a lifetime in prison." -"But, when the Fed does it, complete with a scientific gloss, it is seen as the perfectly legal and responsible conduct of monetary policy." h