Syria and More News

 

The U.S. is using the accusation that Assad is using chemical weapons as a means to send weapons to the rebels. The truth is that the Al-Qaeda back rebels are found to have chemical weapons. The White House claimed that Syria has crossed the red line. Secretary of State John Kerry loves this action. This imperialism is done under the guise of humanitarian intervention. The West accused the Syrian President of killing his own people. “Following a deliberative review, our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year,” White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said in a statement. “Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information.” The President believes that President Bashar Al Assad has used chemical weapons allegedly in Syria. This is very similar to the WMD saga of Iraq. Iraq was attacked on the false basis that it has WMDs extensively. The West believes that the Syrian government executed premeditated mass murder, so intervention must occur. The rebels want the U.S. to have a no fly zone. The United States wants to aid the rebels more. The military rebels have been decimated by the Syrian government forces. These defeated opposition rebel forces –largely composed of the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusrah– are supported by Turkey, Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The US, NATO, and Israeli funded rebels have lost the ground war. The Western military alliance has funded the Al Nusrah Front Fighters. A no fly zone could be risky since Syria's air defense system has the Russian S-300 SMA system. We know that the U.S. supported Al Qaeda rebels have used chemical weapons (in their atrocities in Syria). Confirmed by various sources including CNN, the Western military alliance has not only made chemical weapons available to the Al Nusrah Front, it has also sent in military contractors and Special Forces to train the rebels. The rebels have been trained in Jordan and Turkey. Many defense contractors are training Syrian rebels to handle stockpiles of chemical weapons. The Gulf Arab states are aiding the rebels as well. Some like those in the Syrian Foreign Ministry believe that the U.S. is wrong to frame the Syrian regime as having used or prepared for chemical warfare. While President Obama accuses Bashar Al Assad, the US-NATO military alliance is channeling chemical weapons to Al Nusrah, a terrorist organization on the State Department list of terrorist organizations. Even the United Nations Independent Mission confirms that rebel forces are in possession of sarin nerve gas. The Turkish state media agency Zaman said that the Turkish General Directorate of Security named Genel Müdürlüğü sad that the Al Nusra terrorist cell has chemical weapons. The West is supporting Al Qaeda. The State Department called Al Nusra a terrorist organization. They have killed innocent Syrians in Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. The head of the FSA Supreme Military Council Brigadier General Salem Idriss is a liason with Al Nusrah military commanders. Both Democrats and Republicans believe in this war mongering. Bill Clinton agreed with John McCain in having militarism in Syria.  Most Americans do not want an American troop intervention inside of Syria. Much of the anti-war movement is silent on this issue since a Democratic President is in the White House. We know the truth. The truth is that pseudo-liberals want to transform the Middle East into a place filled with pro-Western puppet states. It is the threat of imperialism and a malleable world which is a true threat to all freedom loving peoples of the world. We have the right to disagree with this evil and advocate for justice and a peaceful resolution to the civil war in Syria. The Western elite is trying to force or pressure President Barack Obama to attack Syria (after the liberation of Qusayr on June 6, 2013. The anti-Assad death squads were defeated there) plainly speaking. He or Obama has hesitations about a massive military involvement in Syria. We know that illegal phone taps are bad, but the WWIII scenario as advocated by reactionary neocons is worse.

 

NSA Spying in the world is even more extension than what Swonden have described. CNET reported that a new classified briefing showed that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.” If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee. So, Nadler's testimony means that NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval. A Wired magazine article and other reports mentioned that the NSA can record nearly all domestic and international phone calls.  They have a new data center in Utah. Two government officials have admitted that as many as 50 American companies are feeding the NSA with real time user data. Big corporations give sensitive information to the NSA. Indeed, former top NSA executives Thomas Drake and William Binney, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez – a member of the Committee on Homeland Security and the Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities – and others say that Snowden’s revelations are only “the tip of the iceberg." So, we have more than enough proof of the NSA monitoring phone calls without warrants. William Binney, a former NSA technical director who helped to modernize the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping network, told the Daily Caller this week that the NSA records the phone calls of 500,000 to 1 million people who are on its so-called target list, and perhaps even more. “They look through these phone numbers and they target those and that’s what they record,” Binney said. The NSA spying has been revealed further by an EFF lawsuit. Even before the evil of COINTELPRO, the federal government has monitored dissidents from across the political spectrum. J. Edgar Hoover agreed with and activated COINTELPRO. He spied on American citizens. It lasted from 1956 to 1971. Even Frank Morales documented how the FBI, the military, and police forces have a bad record of quashing citizen dissent. Many Democrat and Republican political elites have agreed with this spying agenda. “I’ve been amazed and disappointed for a long time at how the most slavishly partisan media Democrats who pretended to care so much about these issues when doing so helped undermine George Bush are now the loudest apologists and cheerleaders for these very same policies,” Glenn Greenwald, who broke the NSA story, said on Tuesday. “If they started a club called Liberal Pundits to Defend the National Security State, no auditorium in the country would be large enough to accommodate them.” This is tyranny and it has been going on for a very long time. Many so called liberals criticized George W. Bush heavily for violating human civil liberties and spying without warrants. Now, some of them want to justify some of this similar wicked policies in our time with a Democratic President. The sabotaging of the Bill of Rights with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 is well known. So, the intelligence community wants to monitor and undermine the political activity that they perceive as the enemy. Some Patriots have been falsely labeled as terrorists by the federal government. So, we should not be paranoid, but knowledgeable about the situation.

 

 

Adult Stem cells could help amputees with limb regrowth. Some species can regenerate limbs and other body parts. There is a flatworm called the planarian. It is so good at regeneration that it can be cut up in several pieces and each of those pieces will generate a whole new worm. This regenerative power comes from stem cells that exist all over their bodies. These stem cells can become the cells that are needed for replacing all the missing body parts. Scientists want to harness the power of stem cells in humans. In that way, humans could have this regenerative power to repair damaged or missing limbs. This dream could be one step closer. Scientists have found that stem cells in the nails are key to regenerating missing toes in mice. This has been reported by Discovery News. We know that mammals can regenerate the very tips of their fingers and toes after amputation. New research talks about how stem cells in the nail play a role in that process. There has been a study in mice. It was detailed online in June 12, 2013 in the journal of Nature. It revealed that the chemical signal that triggers stem cells to develop into new nail tissue and also attracts nerves that advance nail and bone regeneration. The researchers said that these findings suggest nail stem cells could be used to form new treatments for amputees. There has been a kidney transplant with no anti-rejection drugs via adult stem cells too. Rob Waddell had a kidney transplant. He takes no anti-rejection drugs to prevent his body from rejecting the transplanted kidney. Adult stem cells are versatile, lifesaving cells that have many uses. It can work in tissue repair, maintenance, and other duties. Rob has a genetic issue called polycystic kidney disease. That is why his doctor wanted him to have a kidney transplant when his kidney function deteriorated. Usually, a person has to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life as a means to stop the rejection of the transplanted organ. Some of these drugs have toxicity, so they can be risky at times.  Rob signed up for a clinical trial where he received bone marrow adult stem cells from the kidney donor. These adult stem cells are part of his immune system. Those adult stem cells became part of Rob's immune system and retrained him to recognize the donated kidney as his own. Rob now lives a very active life. He doesn't take anti-rejection drugs. This is a product of him taking stem cell transplant. Adult stem cells have saved life for years. You can see Rob’s video story at www.stemcellresearchfacts.org/rob-waddell-defeats-kidney-dis. You can view other success stories of patients treated with adult stem cells at www.stemcellresearchfacts.org.

 

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is something else. The billionaire Bloomberg is selling off New York's public libraries. There is a crisis economically. He wants to lower the subsidies sent to libraries in the realm of $193 million (of the budget for Fiscal year 2014). That is a 35 percent reduction from the Fiscal 2013 adopted budget. According to Albor Ruiz writing in the New York Daily News, “More than 60 libraries will have to close their doors and there will be massive layoffs resulting in disastrous cuts to hours and services.” At this point in the negotiations, the final cuts may end up being somewhat less severe. However even a cut half or a third as large as this one would be devastating. This is about the agenda of privatization in the world. The great value of libraries and other public places have been a great fixture of urban planning for over 100 years. Some want to end libraries as a means to grow real estate. We see the neoliberal agenda growing. Now, we have Samantha Powers as the new United Nations ambassador. Susan Rice is the new National Security Council chief. They were 2 human beings that aggressively advanced the intervention in Libya. This has been said by executive director of Friends of Congo named Maurice Carney. Renowned professor of international law Francis Boyle says Susan Rice and Samantha Power were among those most responsible “for slaughtering 50,000 Libyans under the pretext of Responsibility to Protect [R2P]. We saw outright genocide inflicted on the black citizens of Libya and black foreign guest workers…these people were outright exterminated,” said Boyle. “These are the same people who will be pushing [R2P] against Syria.” We should never forget that it is bigger than them. The Western elite is responsible for this evil war on terror and a lot of it have been mapped for years. Detroit is suffering since corporate interests want its resources to be up for sale. Electoral democracy has been harmed in Detroit when the state appointed Emergency Financial Manager told a crowd at Wayne State University that would break up their city into buyable and sellable parts. The principle of self-government has been rejected in Detroit and places throughout the world. There is a massive privatization of inner city education. The imposition of charter schools and private vouchers are a reality. Instead of having corporate solutions, we should have democracy for human beings. Some folks want to harm civil liberties and have a vast police state as a means to handle situations.

 

 

 

McCarthyism is always a controversial part of world history. There were witch hunts in the late 1940's and the 1950'. Many actors and writers were banned from doing any acting work. There was a purging of so-called militants in cultural and political life. There was the stifling of critical thought. Hundreds of human beings were jailed, thousands were deprived of jobs, and some were ruined of their livelihoods because of their political views. The fruits of the evil McCarthyism era are seen today. We can see much of the subservient American trade union movement, the commercialized Hollywood television and movie industry, and some of the conformist including stultified state of academia. Cultural life and intellectual life has been constricted in that era. In political arena, reactionary propaganda common now has been influenced from McCarthyism as well. The biggest era of McCarthyism is that it viewed socialism as solely some monolithic force that harmed human beings when ideologies can be complex. History is readily gray. You don't have to agree with socialism or communism, but not all communists and not all socialists want to kill folks and make society into some totalitarianism system. During that era of history, the FBI subverted civil liberties. There was the government, backed by the AFL-CIO, to destroy left-wing unions such as the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers and the Maritime Cooks and Stewards Union. Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, published by historian Ellen Schrecker, attempts a new examination of the McCarthy period. Schrecker, a professor of history at Yeshiva University, spent more than 20 years studying the McCarthy period. Her previous works on the subject include No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities and The Age of McCarthyism. Schrecker is right to expose that the excessive red baiting rhetoric of the period harmed society in general. He wrote about efforts by some to stop the production and distribution of the film Salt of the Earth. The movie showed a strike by members of the Mine Mill union against Empire Zinc in New Mexico. The project was an effort by blacklisted Hollywood screenwriters, actors and technicians. They encountered ferocious resistance, including attacks by a vigilante mob and the refusal of technicians to process and edit the film. Schrecker is wrong to assume that the socialist opponents of Stalinism wanted to attack democratic rights. The American Trotskyists, at that time represented by the Socialist Workers Party, opposed the CP on an anti-capitalist basis, citing its crimes against the interests of the working class. In contrast, the McCarthyite red-baiters and their liberal allies denounced the CP for allegedly trying to foment a revolution in the US, a fantastic and absurd charge based partly on ignorance and partly on conscious deception. Many socialists disagreed with Stalinism since to them; it betrayed the interests of workers in the class struggle. American Stalinism gave personnel for the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Coyoacan, Mexico in 1940. Even after WWII, the imperialists tried to harm democratic freedoms. Many unions were purged of those accused of being Communists. Yet, the catch was that this Communist purge harmed those that were not even Communists (and being a Communist is not even against the U.S. Constitution). Some were harmed, because they opposed Jim Crow segregation and wanted progressive action in the world. This in turn also levied a heavy toll on the unions. Among the questions asked of Dorothy Bailey, a black U.S. Employment Service employee, to “prove” supposed Communist sympathies, was: “Did you ever write a letter to the Red Cross about the segregation of blood?” (Quoted in Biondi, To Stand and Fight). She was fired from her job. Black workers were asked, “Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?” White workers were asked if they ever entertained blacks in their home. Witnesses before the witch-hunting commissions were asked, “Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?” (Philip S. Foner, Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1973 [1974]). There was the purging of black sailors, longshoremen, and black postal workers as well during that time period. When WEB Dubois finally woke up, after his disgraceful conduct towards Marcus Garvey, the NAACP ousted him. This was after he supported Henry Wallace presidential candidacy in the 1948 elections. Even when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. followed pacifism and nonviolence, even he was monitored illegally by the FBI.

 

By Timothy