In 2002 when neo-cons within the U.S. military and inside the Bush White House worked hard to deceive Congress and the American people into cheering for an unprovoked attack against the non-threatening nation of Iraq, steady and repetitive neo-connish messaging cleared the pathway to aggressive war.

Not only was Saddam Hussein's Iraq not a threat to the U.S. in 2002-2003….after a decade of harsh sanctions mainly affecting non-military Iraqis….but Hussein's military capabilities had never returned to pre-Iraq War I levels. The con by the…umm….neo-cons was to convince Americans who didn't know any better, and were still filled with vengeful hate from 9-11, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were about to devastate the east coast of the U.S., as well as Israel and Europe…or all three simultaneously.

In 21st century America, it's all about the messaging. Veracity has nothing to do with any of it.

The Iraq Sequel.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that sanctions so far had not caused Iran's leaders to change their pursuit of nuclear capabilities.

But he said some Iranian officials appear more willing to conduct an attack in the United States if they feel threatened, citing last year's alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime," Clapper said in his Senate testimony.

"We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas," he said.

Insert 2002 Bushie claim here. "Smoking gun-mushroom cloud", "grave and gathering danger", "there's no doubt Saddam is reconstituting blah, blah effing blah"…..you know how it works, or should by now. But Americans in the beginning of the 21st century have become a caricature of a "short attention span theater" skit…..can't recall what happened last week, let alone what happened almost a decade ago.

And so the deceptive and duplicitous neo-con message machine cranks up again. This time in order to dupe U.S. citizens into accepting yet another military assault on yet another middle eastern sovereign nation.

How it's done.

In October of 2011, U.S. officials launched a new propaganda message against Iran claiming that Iran planned an assassination attempt of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Why Iran would risk nuclear annihilation at the hands of the U.S. and/or Israel over some cockamamie Mexican drug cartel/Quds Force story of clusterf*ckness…..was never explained.

Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corporation, found it "difficult" to believe that Khamenei or Suleimani would order such an attack that "would put all of Iran's objectives and strategies at risk".

Reza Sayyah from CNN questioned the plausibility of the claim by asking, "Did an elite branch of Iran's military handpick a divorced, 56-year-old Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas to hire a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the ambassador to Saudi Arabia by blowing up a bomb in a crowded restaurant in Washington?"

Sure it's ridiculous…but then Saddam Hussein plotting to spray anthrax down on the eastern seaboard of the U.S….was a ridiculous notion as well…and yet that deceptive and ridiculous story reached the homes of millions of post-9-11, still-feeling-vengeful Americans.

See how DNI Chief James Clapper carefully constructs his misleading message meant to gin up support for a U.S. attack of Iran?

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,"

Using the laughable, really, claim that a used car salesman from Texas, allegedly hiring a Mexican drug-cartel hitman, was about to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S…..and that the highest leaders in Iran were behind the laughable story….using that as his springboard of disinformation, Clapper then implies that Iranian leaders are…"probably", "more willing"…to do what?

"conduct an attack in the U.S."

See? Just like Saddam was about to do in 2002.

Of course, when disinformation…like Saddam spraying anthrax over New York using small prop planes…. doesn't carry quite the deceptive punch neo-cons are looking for…any DNI can always fall back on the old American standby….

"We're doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them. And of course for them, this is, as they have characterized, is an existential threat," Clapper said.

I wonder if Iran considers the 200 nuclear-tipped warheads the Israeli government has pointed in their direction to be, you know, "an existential threat"?

The WTF-ness of this latest propaganda salvo ginning up support for an eventual military attack against Iran is found in this Clapper comment….

"We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so," he said in written testimony. "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."

Iran does not have a nuclear weapon right now and Clapper admits that he and his smart guys don't know if Iran will "eventually decide" to make one or not, but those wily Iranian leaders are, you know, keeping their "options" open…..so who knows, right?

All I can conclude about this clumsy, juvenile attempt to rah-rah the nation into another act of pre-emptive military aggression….is that the militaristic neo-cons who work so hard to deceive us into slaughtering more Muslims…..are in need of better script writers.

There has been quite a bit of noise surrounding the U.S. Marines urinating-on-Taliban-corpses story. Most of the noise has been of the polite disapproval type. You know, 'I support our soldiers killing the terrorists over there, but those brave boys shouldn't be making videos of themselves desecrating dead bodies….that's just not right.'

The typical "condemnations" were issued by all the proper government folks. Kings of Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton both condemned the urinary actions by our fighting-for-freedom Marines and did what these proper government folks always do….announced that there would be an investigation.

Defense Secretary, Kings of Leon Panetta didn't just condemn the urination patrol….

“I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.” Panetta has ordered an investigation into the matter.

"in the strongest possible terms." Well, that makes all the difference in the world then.

Nothing much will come of any "investigation" into this incident…..and that is the exact reason there will be an investigation….so that nothing much will be done about this embarrassing situation.

Or is it an embarrassing situation? At least one CNN contributor thought it was a situation to be very proud of….

Dana Loesch: OK, stop this right here. Stop this right here.

Can someone explain to me if there's supposed to be a scandal that someone pees on the corpse of a Taliban fighter? Someone who was — as part of an organization murdered over 3,000 Americans? I'd drop trou and do it, too. That's me, though. I want a million cool points for these guys. Is that harsh to say?

Come on, people. This is a war.

The one thing which has changed about the American people since 9-11 is our willingness to embrace the inhumane treatment of those we call our enemies. Our first offshore gulag, Guantanamo, is still proudly open for business, indefinite detention of whomever the president claims is an enemy combatant is now the law in the free country of the U.S., government's warrantless eavesdropping on all U.S. citizens electronic communications continues every single day, the numerous incidents of U.S. military personnel conducting criminal acts of savagery, and the bipartisan enthusiasm for launching hellfire missiles from robotic drones down onto Muslim "militants", including infant, child and mother "militants" in 7 different countries.

Anyone embarrassed by any or all of those realities? Any celebrity Leaders rushing to microphones to declare any or all of those realities "inconsistent with our values?" Of course not. Why not? Because those realities accurately reflect our post 9-11 values. And that explains why Leaders like the conservative darling, Allen West (R-FL) can say to those who might question the urination circle jerk on Taliban corpses…."unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell"……he is only patriotically giving voice to the new American reality.

That new reality claims that America, alone, is entitled to do anything we want, to anyone we want, in any country we want to do it in. Anyone who complains about this new reality, whether it's complaining about U.S. soldiers executing, at pointblank range, an entire family including an infant, mother and grandmother, and then calling in an airstrike to cover their savagery….or it's complaining about U.S. soldiers stalking, and then raping an underage Muslim girl and then killing her and her family…or it's moaning and bitching over funtime videos of fellow U.S. freedom fighters urinating on the corpses of Taliban members…..anyone who complains about any of it is automatically acting unpatriotic just by complaining.

Other Leaders, say, like Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, do what they do best in a post 9-11 American values period…..feign outrage at U.S. Marines circle-urinating on Taliban corpses….by reminding us that such circle-urination, or at least taking videos of said fun, is very much "inconsistent with our values". Which "values" is Hillary referring to, ya' think?. Would urinating on Taliban corpses be inconsistent with our Guantanamo "values?" How about the hundreds and hundreds of Muslim women and children we have blown or burnt up since 9-11? How is urinating on dead Taliban bodies inconsistent with the "values" represented in slaughtering Muslim women and children in multiple countries?

You might think that Endless War in Muslim countries, where Muslim women and children are routinely killed by U.S. actions….you might think that offshore gulags where detainees have been rotting without due process for almost a decade….would prevent people like Hillary Clinton from bringing up anything about American "values"….if only for the sake of self-embarrassment at the obvious dissonance. But you would be mistaken. In post 9-11 America we are also post-hypocrisy, post-shame.

America is a lesser nation post 9-11. We have accepted new values. In this, Bin Laden, though dead, has won out. An insignificant Muslim man has been responsible for changing America for the worse, perhaps permanently. That's how weak America really is. It's a weakness of character, leadership and integrity. We've become a narcissistic nation in love with our own perceived-values reflection. We have become so un-self aware that we refuse to even consider the fact that the rest of the world sees post 9-11 America as an imperialistic, aggressor nation which has lost it's sense of decency and justice, yet continues to sermonize them on the so-called superiority of "American values".

Our nation's new values are the values of savages and tyrants. They are the values of the cowardly and the weak. They are the values of a nation which has fully endorsed the doctrine of "might means right."

What's worse, even though I'm typing this on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a day that celebrates hope, I don't see anything changing for the better anytime soon.

Many times I've heard Village spokespeople rhetorically ask…why did we go into Iraq? Why the Iraq war? These Village talking heads know the answer to that question, but in typical Village fashion, cannot explain it to the unwashed masses because then people like Bill Kristol, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the rest of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) gang….all respected Villagers themselves…would be embarrassed, put on the spot, perhaps even arrested. Village members simply can't be treated that way.

So Village media personnel act as if the reason the U.S. attacked the non-threatening nation of Iraq is still a mystery….something better left to future historians. Sure, Villagers will tell us that WMD were not found there, lots of people died, Saddam was killed and so forth….but corporate media, to this very day, still refuses to explain the real reason why we invaded Iraq.

Perhaps corporate media Villagers missed this from General Wesley Clark in 2007…..

After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:

Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”

He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Clark went on to relate a conversation he had with Paul Wolfowitz in 1991….

Clark said the aim of this plot was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

The answer to the question, why did we attack and occupy Iraq beginning in 2003?…is found in the long wishlist of a handful of hyper-hawks who make up the membership of PNAC, and apparently, much of the leadership of our military-industrial complex.

The following people signed on to PNAC's "statement of principles" in the 90's…..recognize any of the names?

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
Richard B. Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Norman Podhoretz
J. Danforth Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

After 9-11, with so many PNAC members working for the Bush administration, it doesn't take a Mensa member to figure out what happened. PNAC members took 9-11 as the opportunity they had been praying for….a "new Pearl Harbor event"….and the rest, as they say, is history.

The obvious problem with all of this is that no one bothered to explain to the American people why the PNAC'ers inside the Bush administration were leading us into what they were leading us into. Instead, the Bushies made stuff up to scare us with….WMD, al-Qaeda affiliation, etc. And the reason is obvious. The American people were rightfully exercised over 9-11…..but would the American people agree to accept a "long war" of middle east conquest and domination meant to pre-empt any future enemies from controlling the shipping lanes and valuable resources under the sands of the middle east?

The Bushies decided to make stuff up rather than explain what the PNAC Brotherhood was really up to. They calculated that they would have a better chance of getting what they wanted by tricking the American people and Congress using fear and lies…..and it worked.

This all helps in explaining recent comments by John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman over President Obama's removal of U.S. military forces inside Iraq. To the neo-cons who understand and embrace the principles of U.S. Empire as outlined by PNAC….leaving Iraq is, like W. said, "the only reason we could lose Iraq is if we leave"

The purpose of invading Iraq was to initiate the PNAC middle east policy of endless war. It was to begin with Iraq and spread, as Wolfowitz clearly told Wesley Clark, to at least 7 countries there. According to the PNAC outline, the U.S. was to dismantle regimes, set up U.S. military bases and proceed to project U.S. power throughout the region.

Neo-conservatives still dominate our foreign policy and defense departments. And now they have set their sights on Iran.

According to the U.S. Senate in a vote of 93-7….the U.S. president has the power to declare any U.S. citizen an "enemy of the state", order the indefinite detention of that U.S. citizen, order the assassination of that U.S. citizen, or place that U.S. citizen in Guantanamo to never be heard from again.
All of these new found presidential powers violate the 5th and 6th amendments…..

"No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

These claims of extra-constitutional powers of the presidency have all been justified since 9-11 on the basis of: "the Constitution is not a suicide compact"…or something similar. Which is supposed to mean that the Constitution, with all its prohibitions on presidential power and guarantees of rights for citizens, is a nice, quaint document and all….but we really can't afford those rights and prohibitions right now. If those rights and prohibitions are continued as outlined by the Framers, it has been claimed repeatedly by our Leaders since 9-11, then those leaders will not be able to guarantee our safety.

Other more cynical and jaded Leaders, like Don Rumsfeld for example, have instructed us that freedoms and constitutional rights are basically meaningless, you know, if you're dead. Translation: constitutional rights and presidential prohibitions are optional during "the long war", "the endless war."

How long will "the long war" continue? How long will Americans be deprived of their rights? How long will the executive branch claim extra-constitutional powers to assassinate U.S. citizens? How long will the U.S. president claim that it's necessary to indefinitely detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, in offshore gulags without rights to due process?

No one knows. That's the benefit of "a long war."

Our permanent military state has arrived….and it's never going away. 10 years and counting and there are no signs that "the long war" is anywhere near over…..Iran, obviously, is our next target. There's much more to destroy in the middle east. There are many more regimes which need changing.

Along similar lines, I was not shocked…but a little surprised….to learn from this Max Blumenthal article that Israeli Border Police and "a unit from the military of Bahrain" assisted the training of U.S. SWAT teams during Urban Shield 2011 held in October in California.

Why were trainers from Israel and Bahrain assisting our civil law enforcers?

At the time, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department was preparing for an imminent confrontation with the nascent “Occupy” movement that had set up camp in downtown Oakland,…

Although this "training" went on just a few weeks ago….it was not reported anywhere in U.S. media….

Training alongside the American police departments at Urban Shield was the Yamam, an Israeli Border Police unit that claims to specialize in “counter-terror” operations but is better known for its extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian militant leaders and long record of repression and abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Urban Shield also featured a unit from the military of Bahrain, which had just crushed a largely non-violent democratic uprising by opening fire on protest camps and arresting wounded demonstrators when they attempted to enter hospitals. While the involvement of Bahraini soldiers in the drills was a novel phenomenon, the presence of quasi-military Israeli police – whose participation in Urban Shield was not reported anywhere in US media – reflected a disturbing but all-too-common feature of the post-9/11 American security landscape.

I'm not quite sure why the U.S. would want civil law enforcement agencies to imitate the storm trooper tactics of intolerant states, but apparently, we are. Blumentahl calls this "the Israelification of America's security apparatus."

Interestingly enough, even the new torture tactics used by U.S. intelligence officials at the direction of George W. Bush after 9-11 came from Israeli influences…

Karen Greenberg, the director of Fordham School of Law’s Center on National Security and a leading expert on terror and civil liberties, said the Israeli influence on American law enforcement is so extensive it has bled into street-level police conduct. “After 9/11 we reached out to the Israelis on many fronts and one of those fronts was torture,” Greenberg told me. “The training in Iraq and Afghanistan on torture was Israeli training. There’s been a huge downside to taking our cue from the Israelis and now we’re going to spread that into the fabric of everyday American life? It’s counter-terrorism creep. And it’s exactly what you could have predicted would have happened.”

Yes, and The Reverend did predict just such counter-terrorism creep. If constitutional prohibitions on our Leaders can be discarded so easily, if constitutional guarantees to U.S. citizens can be denied so quickly and so easily after 9-11……how can this blatant sense of lawlessness NOT creep into civilian law enforcement.

And so it has.

Not sure about others, but I, for one, do not have any desire to see the U.S. turned into Israel. While Israelis have every right to live in peace in the middle east, as well as elsewhere in the world…..America has no need of Israel's guidance in acting intolerably. And America sure as hell does not need a closed society like Israel's with secretive assassination squads roaming the land in search of enemies. America has no need for occupations of our neighboring countries, America has no need for apartheid.

But it looks like our civilian law enforcers think we do.

Agreement between congressional Republicans and Democrats, authentic bipartisanship, is rarely witnessed today. But there is one part of U.S. policy where the D's and the R's completely agree. Endless war and indefinite detention…even of U.S citizens. Yesterday the Senate passed a $662 billion defense bill 93-7. Nothing passes the Senate by such a wide margin any more. The Senate action is a clear illustration of what our Leadership holds dear. Unquestioned bipartisan approval to fund America's Worldwide Empire…..and to continue, indefinitely, our worldwide "war" against a tactic.

American Leadership stands united on one thing and one thing only….waging endless war against radicalized Islam. "The Long War." A doubling of defense spending has not been enough to bring the unsophisticated and stateless extremists to justice. Ten years of killing, ten years of bombing, ten years of expanding the Empire into many middle eastern nations has not been enough for our Leaders. We must press on to finally destroy the tactic of killing one's self in order to kill and terrify others. An accomplishment that is entirely impossible to attain.

Inside the lengthy defense spending bill, in section 1031, Congress has laid out new detention of detainee guidelines which include indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens without the muss and fuss of constitutional guarantees against depriving U.S. citizens of due process. Guantanamo is not just for foreigners anymore…..

Sen.(Rand) Paul: “My question would be under the provisions would it be possible that an American citizen then could be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Bay and detained indefinitely.”

Sen. McCain: “I think that as long as that individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat.”

Here’s what Sen. (Lindsey) Graham said in the Senate on Nov. 17:

“1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

For those who actually still believe that our government Leaders are prohibited from depriving citizens of their constitutional rights….as Ron Paul and I do….here's the Doc's take…

Rep. Ron Paul calls this bill “one of the most anti-liberty pieces of legislation of our lifetime.” He says it’s “destructive of our Constitution.”

And Ron's son…

His son Sen. Rand Paul says, “There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state – our constitution, and the checks we put on government power. Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.”

Well, Rand…the "terrorist have won". But really…hasn't that been clear for a long time now? Box cutter wielding international criminals have forced the U.S. to take once-guaranteed rights away from every American citizen. Our Leaders over the last 10 years have convinced us that sacrificing our rights is part and parcel of the way we'll "defeat the enemy."

The Pauls, especially Ron, have given the neo-cons in his party and in the Democratic Party a fit. He's a thorn in the side of Empire Expanding Neo-Cons because he keeps bringing up that "goddamn piece of paper" which used to be the American contract, the American charter. But as yesterday's vote proves, our Leaders no longer view the Constitution as binding.

If the Senate bill is reconciled in the House and signed by Obama (he has threatened a veto, probably won't)….any U.S. citizen, on U.S. soil, who the President deems an enemy combatant, and only on his say so….can be taken into custody and transferred to Guantanamo prison and possibly never heard from again. And that's if the President at the time doesn't order that citizen's assassination first. No trial, no charges, no lawyers, no due process…..nothing. Indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen and without any thread of due process as guaranteed under the "goddamn piece of paper."

So while the Village continues to stoke the bogus argument every day that Obama and the Democrats are orchestrating a huge government takeover of all things involving economics…..Democrats and Republicans are working together to…well…orchestrate a huge government takeover of our Constitutional rights.

If TEA Party supporters were as diligent at protecting citizens from the threat of indefinite detention without due process…as they are about protecting citizens from the threat of taking responsibility for their own health insurance…..maybe the TEAs, the ACLU and OWS could have stood together to fend off yesterday's huge governmental power grab.

It should be transparent to anyone who has been paying attention….but I'll say it anyway…. the United States is descending further into an authoritarian militarized country which features separate and distinct forms of justice for the haves…and the have-nots.

The haves….have unfettered and unquestioned rights. Their money is, in actuality, free speech. Their corporations pay cost-of-doing-business fines but are never held accountable and never admit to doing anything wrong….ever. Even though what the haves pay elected officials to do for them does not reflect the will of the American people, compromised elected officials do their utmost, anyway, to fulfill the wishes of the haves. The haves coax the politicians that work for them to pass more legislation which will further enrich them.

The have-nots, increasingly, are marginalized and denied their rights. Right before our eyes, the haves have convinced elected officials that a terrible economic crisis period is the right time for politicians on both sides to take stuff from the have-nots in order for the haves to benefit from even lower tax rates.

In all of this….corporate media have advanced the cause of the haves over the have-nots. This is understandable because corporate media is run by the haves, paid by other haves, for the sake of all of America's haves. In the soon-to-come, waste-of-time argument coming up over unemployment and payroll tax cut extensions….pay attention to how our 4th estate frames the "debate." No doubt, the haves will be pleased.

What media workers don't quite grasp in their urgency to please their haves-masters….is that the haves will turn on them just as they have turned on the 99% have-nots.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently helped to illustrates my premise when he ordered storm troopers to roll up the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti Park.

During the more than six hours we spent at the raid last night, The Observer was unable to get closer than two blocks away from the protest. We assumed this was due to our lack of an official NYPD press badge, however, we also saw credentialed reporters from CNBC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, NBC, The New York Times, Reuters and a Japanese TV station get blocked at the barricades.

It really would not be surprising in the future to see Have-Mayors, like Bloomberg, establish a new "embed" policy for the press….similar to the "embed" charade during the Iraq invasion and occupation. One of the ways that the haves control our democratic process, or what's left of it, is to control the information to which the have-nots have access.

And so it was that Bloomberg ordered the press away from any eyewitnessing of the Zucotti camp roll up by the Mayor's storm troopers.

Bloomberg went on to give his justification for denying the press access to his para-military invasion of the protester camp….

“The Police Department routinely keeps members of the press off to the side when they are in the middle of a police action. It’s to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect the members of the press,” Mayor Bloomberg said, adding, “We have to provide protection and we’ve done exactly that.”

Just "routine." Denying access to the press, the Authoritarian Have Mayor of New York explains, is simply standard operating procedure. Sure, the press has rights…..but the Have Mayor gets to decide when and how those rights can be exercised…and for how long.

The kicker to me is Bloomberg's explanation that in refusing press access to the storm trooper roll up, he was only acting for the purpose of "protect(ing) the members of the press." Bloomberg, apparently, acting as the Have-Daddy of New York City, must unilaterally deny the press access rights to keep the press safe.

Whatever rights you thought you enjoyed in America are now subject to our Have-Leaders determination of whether we are "safe" or not. You see, rights are fine and all….but when a situation is just "unsafe", then, Billionaire Leaders must insist on limiting or denying those rights for the greater good of "safety."

Allow me to expand. Americans electronic communications have always been guaranteed 4th amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure by the government. But no longer. Why? Because it is no longer "safe".

The right to due process? Another right granted by the Constitution which our Leaders have determined we can no longer safely respect. Sure, the Constitution says that every American citizen has the right to a trial by jury when charged with a crime…..but the President can no longer guarantee "safety" if he doesn't have the right to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without….umm….due process.

Treaties against the use of torture? Virtuous, perhaps, but no longer meaningful to Authoritarian Leaders who must deny rights to keep us all "safe."

As the great "shining city on the hill" sinks into the authoritarian sunset, it will be because safety (fear) wins out over bedrock constitutional rights. After all, if it is the job of our Authoritarian Leaders to keep us "safe"…..what pesky constitutional guarantees can be allowed to get in the way?

The shock took place on 9-11-2001. The WTF-just-happened kind of shock. The horrible spectacle of it all shock. The chaos. The shock of mass murder. That's what 9-11 was all about. The shock of it all. 9-11 will always be commemorated, and rightly so to a certain extent, for the sake of victims and victims families, the bravery displayed by many, and how we came together as a nation on 9-11. However, what happened to all of us on 9-11-2001 was a case of collective shock.

As much as the idea of collectivism is despised by many on the right, I think everyone would agree that what we felt on 9-11 was collective shock. We were united in that feeling immediately after the planes struck. One nation, one people, indivisible.

It's what began on 9-12….after the shock sank in….that we must always remember. Following the shock of the Bin Laden extremists on 9-11 came what comes naturally to mankind….revenge. We can call it justice, and often do…but we know we're kidding ourselves. We wanted revenge. I wanted revenge.

9-12 began our national journey to avenge the spectacular injustices done to us by 19 middle eastern radicals. W. told us, and I cheered his incompetent ass at the time, that "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from ALL of us soon." You're goddamn right, I thought, and said, at the time. I wanted every person remotely involved with the 9-11 crime…dead. No trials, no nothing….kill'em….every goddamn one of them.

And I know, at the time, I was not the Lone Ranger. Our plan to attack in Afghanistan and, allegedly, go after Bin Laden's Boyz, was supported by over 90% of the American people.

I wanted all of Bin Laden's Boyz, and their related families…..dead. That was the only sacrificial offering I, and 90% of Americans, could accept. No middle eastern religious psychopath and his cloned suiciders were going to get the f*ck away with what they had done. Confidently, I believed, yes, our leaders are going to kill every miserable bastard involved in this spectacle…..and by god, it wasn't just from our military that the scoundrels were going to hear. When our military would go about blowing the heads off of each and every one involved….WE were going to be speaking, collectively. They were going to be hearing from ALL of us soon…..and with extreme prejudice.

That's the feeling of 9-12. After the shock….came the rage. People would pay for what happened, so help us god. And it is that unity in vengeance…..a natural desire for revenge ….which was exploited, perverted, twisted and, eventually, the unity destroyed by U.S. leaders who used the political horsepower generated by our national desire for revenge to fuel the political and private agendas and ambitions of only a few.

Two months after 9-12, with Bin Laden and his main gangsters still alive and well, General Tommy Franks was ordered to start moving assets closer to Iraq. Apparently, our revenge would have to wait. It is at this same time period when the first evidence of extraordinary rendition and torture surfaced. By spring of 2002, America began waterboarding. Guantanomo opened for business. We were still a year away from Abu Ghraib. But Bin Laden's gang was still not dead.

Then came the most politically surrealistic series of months in my lifetime. The executive leadership in America spent almost an entire year fabricating a case, publicly, to attack Iraq….a nation who had nothing to do with avenging Americans collectively for 9-11. What followed were years of Iraqi chaos, thousands of needless U.S. military deaths, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths,…..and an America no longer united as one.

What happened instead was increased political polarization within the U.S. population. The energy contained within our still unresolved longings for revenge was slowly redirected towards each other. We were either "for us, or for the terrorists". The patriotism of former war heroes was challenged and mocked. White House swagger turned into political gamesmanship with Mr. Karl Rove more than willing and able to divide Americans by re-channeling all that pentup revenge from 9-11…..towards political opponents.

Our unity of purpose after 9-11….revenge for the evil deeds done to us as a nation….dissipated into the fog of the same old stuff….dividing the American population for political purposes. Meanwhile, Bin Laden's gang was still alive and kicking.

Bin Laden is dead now, but so is our unity. And that's the lesson of 9-11 that should never be forgotten.

American citizens should never trust political leaders again with their emotions, whether those emotions are filled with hope…or vengeance. Our collective emotions will always be exploited and manipulated for political and personal gain. Our political leaders….even when Americans are united as one like we were after 9-11….can't be trusted to do the right thing.

9-12-2001 was the day that a new opportunity presented itself to America. Would we, could we, turn that unity of purpose….to avenge the crimes of 9-11…..into a long lasting positive force, strengthening and reinvigorating us here at home as well as reestablishing America's tarnished image as a force for good in the world?

Sadly, the answer was no.

And, THAT'S what our nation should be commemorating every September 12th.

There are three notable political events this week. Tonight is the first Republican presidential candidates' debate since the new Tea Party extremist, Texas Governor Rick Perry, entered the race. Look for Villagers in the media….no matter how poorly Praying Perry performs tonight….to gush uncontrollably over the gunslinging Texan.

Tomorrow night will be President Obama's address to Congress. Because Obama is in full campaign mode now, I actually expect him to say all the right things….Republicans are hopelessly obstructionistic, and GOP "ideas" to fix the nation's economic woes have already proven to be utter failures.

Let me rephrase, the GOP has no new ideas for the economy. Republicans have but one idea….tax cuts. And as we've seen in the last ten years….tax cuts, especially when given to our richest citizens…..do not generate jobs. The other idea that Republicans have is to cut government spending. But, cutting government spending is actually only a corollary of the GOP's only idea…tax cuts. The purpose of cutting spending, as far as Republicans are concerned, is to be able to provide deeper tax cuts for, primarily, our richest citizens.

An example of this would be Mitt Romney's recently released "jobs plan".

"America should be a job machine: jobs being created all the time, people looking for employees to join their enterprises," he said.

Sure, Mitt….we agree….and how do you propose to turn America into a job machine?

He would seek a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent, eliminate the estate tax and undo the 2010 health care overhaul championed by President Barack Obama.

If that's a jobs plan….I'm Bill Gates.

Expect President Obama to address GOP "ideas", like Romney's, for the foolishness that those "ideas" truly are. I also expect the President to remind viewers of how Paul Ryan's Roadmap to Ruin and Governor Rick Perry's nullification mentality would scrap Medicare and replace it with a Wall Street directed, for-profit privatization plan which would give American seniors less for more.

No matter what Obama says, or sets forward as a reality-based plan to increase employment, Republicans are never going to agree to any of it. The top priority for Republicans, as their almost-three year campaign to obstruct everything demonstrates, is to limit the Democratic president's stay in the White House to four years.

The third event this week is the commemoration of 9-11. This being the 10 year "anniversary", I fully expect the Villagers, and all the usual suspects who are always wrong, to be in full peacock preening mode.

No matter the amount of rah-rahing done by the sickening Beltway Bullsh*tters…..there is no doubt in my mind that the United States is worse off 10 years removed from 9-11.

Let me explain.

We are worse off economically. The reason we are worse off financially is because of the hysterical overreaction of our leaders following 9-11.

The U.S. spent an astounding $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade.

As a percentage of GDP, U.S. military spending has increased from 3.1% in 2001 to 4.8% last year.

Not only has our defense spending doubled since 9-11, but "defense industry profits have nearly quadrupled, approaching $25 billion last year."

Remember…..all of this spending…and profit-making…was because of a couple of thousand anarchist-extremists scattered throughout middle eastern nations.

In addition to the doubling of the defense budget since 9-11, the United States has also more than doubled its spending on the Orwellian-named Department of Homeland Security. From $22 billion for the same agencies in 2001 to $55 billion today.

Furthermore, civilian intelligence agencies are now spending $55 billion per year….almost double the $30 billion we spent in 2001.

What's odd about this explosion of, you know, big government spending,….is the fact that very little is ever heard from our self-appointed Tea Party national hall monitors about…well…this explosion in big government spending. $350 billion per year of additional spending on chasing less than two dozen radicals, $33 billion more on defending the Homeland, whateverthehell that is supposed to mean, and $25 billion more for domestic-spying and eavesdropping programs, both a clear and present violation of several Constitutional guarantees. That adds up to over $400 billion more being spent now on various and sundry "keeping us safe" programs than we spent before 2001.

All of that wasted money….all of those dead and wounded bodies….all of our military occupations and operations in middle eastern countries….have made us less safe from Muslim extremists. The very reason radicalized Muslims want to kill themselves in order to kill Americans is because 1) we side with Israel's apartheid program in Gaza and 2) America thinks it has the right to interfere, militarily, in primarily-Muslim nations.

So not only have we damaged our own country economically by our hysterical, and in some cases, cynical, overrreaction to 9-11…but we have also damaged ourselves security-wise by actually creating more Muslim extremists because of our even larger military footprint in Muslim nations.

What Americans should be told this weekend…but of course won't be….is that after 10 years of hysterical reactions by our "leaders" following 9-11….we are worse off as a country. Though Osama bin Laden is dead…his plan to bankrupt the United States and make us weaker is….how would Charlie Sheen put it?….winning.

Also worth reading.

We know now that the Oslo, Norway terrorist-murderer is a right wing, anti-Muslim, Christian nationalist.

In online debates marks Anders Behring Breivik as well read, and one with strong opinions about Norwegian politics. He promotes a very conservative opinions, which he also called nationalist. He expresses himself strongly opposed to multiculturalism – that cultural differences can live together in a community.

Breivik has had many posts on the site Document.no, an Islam-critical site that publishes news and commentary.

In one of the posts he states that politics today no longer revolves around socialism against capitalism, but that the fight is between nationalism and internationalism. He expressed clear support for the nationalist mindset.

Anders Breivik Behring has also commented on the Swedish news articles, where he makes it clear that he believes the media have failed by not being "NOK" Islam-critical.

Elsewhere, it has been demonstrated that the murderer had a keen affection for anti-Muslim American screedist, Pam Gellar….she of the "no mosque at Groud Zero" infamy.

Brievak's philosophy would fit in very nicely on several Fox news programs, both radio and teevee. The anti-Muslim conservatives in America and this mass murderer from Norway hold similar beliefs. That doesn't make anti-Muslim Americans murderers or terrorists….it just puts them in the same ideological camp.

So commonplace has American anti-Muslim rhetoric become…not anti-jihadist rhetoric but anti-Muslim rhetoric, that conservative "journalists" in mainstream American media immediately blamed the bombing and youth camp murders in Norway on al-Qaeda….

We don’t know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today’s events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra. Prominent jihadists have already claimed online that the attack is payback for Norway’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

"in all likelihood"

Here is what kneejerk journalism, seasoned by never-ending Muslim bashing by Americans and American media, looks like….

Moreover, there is a specific jihadist connection here: “Just nine days ago, Norwegian authorities filed charges against Mullah Krekar, an infamous al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist who, with help from Osama bin Laden, founded Ansar al Islam – a branch of al Qaeda in northern Iraq – in late 2001.”

The author, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, was ready to take the case to trial. She already had al-Qaeda Muslim fingerprints all over the terrible crime…and had even established motive.

Then comes the warning to any of us out here in America who still aren't taking Sharia and the Caliphate seriously enough….

This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.

That is followed by a quote from a representative of the American Enterprise Institute….an organization who can never support enough wars against Muslim nations….

“There has been a lot of talk over the past few months on how we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run and, compared with what it once was, it’s become a rump organization. But as the attack in Oslo reminds us, there are plenty of al-Qaeda allies still operating. No doubt cutting the head off a snake is important; the problem is, we’re dealing with global nest of snakes.”

Glenn Greenwald succinctly describes America's kneejerk assumptions that all tragic events are carried out by Muslims…..

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates. The morning statement issued by President Obama — “It’s a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring” and “we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks” — appeared to assume, though (to its credit) did not overtly state, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group.

David Dayen, the best blogger at FireDogLake.com further explains…

These assumptions, cultivated through the last 10 years, are all the more insidious when you consider that, even after the affirmative ID of the perpetrator as a Norwegian nationalist, the NYT still intimated that the attacker somehow “learned” from Al Qaeda. They even intimated that it was OK to consider that “terrorists” would be responsible, as if a Norwegian shooting up a youth camp is somehow not an act of terrorism. They were not alone: the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial, which made it into some early editions of the paper, reflected the assumption of Islamic terrorism.

This is a damaging side-effect of the 9-11 attacks. Ten years later, an entire religious group, representing 1 billion people worldwide, is for too many people synonymous with violence and terror, at total variance with the facts in many cases. And the rush to judgment followed by the rush to avoid judgment is depressingly familiar

The anti-Muslim hysteria in the United States, promoted primarily by American conservatives, has left a permanent mark. As the Professional media's response to the Norwegian tragedy demonstrates, we are an uglier nation because of it.

It seems that Bloomberg took a new poll….

A majority of Americans say job growth would best be revived with prescriptions favored by the (Republican) party: cuts in government spending and taxes, the Bloomberg Poll shows. Even 40 percent of Democrats share that view.

….

Though Americans rate unemployment and the economy as a greater concern than the deficit and government spending, the issues are now closely connected. Sixty-five percent of respondents say they believe the size of the federal deficit is “a major reason” the jobless rate hasn’t dropped significantly.

….

Republican criticism of the federal budget growth has gained traction with the public. Fifty-five percent of poll respondents say cuts in spending and taxes would be more likely to bring down unemployment than would maintaining or increasing government spending, as Obama did in his 2009 stimulus package.

What this Bloomberg poll demonstrates….at least to me….is that repeating falsehoods over and over is a successful way for propagandists….deception artists…..to get Americans to believe a lie.

In September, 2003…..70% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9-11 attacks. He wasn't. And there was no evidence that he was. Yet, corporate media…..anxious to do the bidding of the Bush administration at the time…..spun out the administration's lies repeatedly over a 2+ year period until 70% of average Americans believed in the lie.

The same thing has happened since the collapse of America's economy and the election of Democratic President Barack Obama. Wall Street banksters gamed a deregulated, "on your honor", system…..risking our nation's economic future in a risky gambling game consisting of huge bets on mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps. Those Wall Street gamblers crapped out…..and now average American workers and families are paying for it.

The Tea Party, conveniently, organized and rolled out their nonsensical conservative movement before the smoke had cleared from Wall Street's implosion. The Tea Party instantly became the darling of corporate media….they became joined at the hip, as it were….the media spouting the Tea Party "message" each and every day for months and months on end. What was that message? Government debt had become such an emergency problem that it just had to be addressed…now….and new taxes would not be tolerated.

Every day, every night….corporate media spouted the claims of the Teabaggers as gospel….deficits and debt were elevated to a prominent place in all discussions, despite the fact that the same corporate media was entirely silent during the doubling-of-the-debt years of a Republican president.

The goal of the propagandists, paid for by our richest citizens, was to prevent increasing taxes in the wake of the Wall Street disaster. A corollary goal was to fight and fend off any new regulatory structure on the Wall Street crooks' casino operations.

"Cutting government spending" became the new war cry…..the new "Saddam was in on 9-11" lie. Now, a majority of Americans, according to Bloomberg, just as they did in 2003, have accepted the lie as truth.

Cutting government spending in the middle of a lack-of-demand recession, a recession with interest rates at historic lows…..is the opposite of what Americans should be embracing. Cutting government spending….taking more demand out of the economy, laying off more workers…..will only make our economic woes greater.

Cutting taxes…especially on the rich….will do nothing to create jobs and revive our economy. Deep historic tax cuts during the last administration did not catapult our national economy into the high-growth lane. But after hearing the same falsehood over and over on teevee, on radio and in print…..Americans logical thought processes have been neutralized…..the new Big Lie accepted.

The size of the deficit has nothing, whatsoever, to do with our jobless rate. No conservative has been able to present a convincing causal case between high deficits and high unemployment…..yet 65% of Americans now believe that the deficit is hindering job creation.

55% now think that cutting government spending and cutting taxes would bring down unemployment numbers…..when doing so would actually extend and possibly worsen the recession.

Convincing Americans to believe in lies is the full time job of corporate media. There's method to the lie-repeating madness. Readers may think that such a conspiracy to deceive could not possibly be successful in such a free country like the U.S……but I would ask those readers to consider the 100,000 dead Iraqis and the 4500 dead U.S. soldiers who are now dead because U.S government leaders, working hand in glove with corporate media, convinced the American public to believe in a lie.

Now they've done it again.