The Crucial Difference Between Donbass & Oregon

January 9, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Despite a few superficial similarities, the difference between the rebellion in eastern Ukraine and armed Oregon ranchers standing off with the US federal government couldn't be greater.

A lack of understanding regarding the nature of power and how it is brokered has led to many mistakenly believing there is any merit to what the Oregon ranchers are doing, besides providing an example of precisely how not to stand up against increasingly tyrannical special interests.  This is not to say the ranchers, or even Occupy Wall Street should not be standing up against the US government, it is just that they are going about it in completely the wrong way - compounding their problems, not solving them.

Perhaps by examining the numerous and critical differences between the Donbass fighters and the Oregon ranchers, readers can see the chasm between the two, and perhaps how, in certain aspects, to bridge that chasm.

Donbass vs. Oregon

1. Backing: Donbass has the backing of a superpower - Russia. This includes substantial backing across the media, in terms of political support, and logistical and military support ranging from the implicit threat of Russian retaliation should Kiev and its NATO backers step over certain lines, to - according to NATO - direct military assistance.

In all likelihood, the only superpower backing the Oregon ranchers is the US federal government itself - not a single militia in the US has gone un-infiltrated in the last several decades. Geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser in a recent piece admits he is unsure of the true motives and intentions of the Oregon ranchers, but has dug up a significant amount of information casting serious doubts over not only their objectives, but the very character of its leadership. 

2. Weaponry: The Donbass fighters have a standing army which includes machine guns, military-grade rifles, rockets, missiles (including anti-aircraft systems), artillery, counter-battery radar, and even main battle tanks.  They have the infrastructure to resupply front lines with food, weapons, and fuel, and the ability to protect their logistical lines leading to and from areas of engagement.

The Oregon ranchers have 5.56mm rifles, which can be quickly overwhelmed by numerical superiority, superior firepower, and armor - of which the federal government has all in much abundance.

Showdown in Oregon: How to - and How Not to Fight Tyranny

January 7, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - The showdown between armed ranchers and federal agents in the US state of Oregon has triggered passionate debates not only about the particulars of the standoff itself, but the precise manner in which people should stand up against an increasingly overbearing government and the corporate-financier special interests that have commandeered it.

Wall Street and Washington have left the country itself in socioeconomic shambles. Abroad, these collective special interests are subverting nations politically and economically from Venezuela to Southeast Asia, waging war throughout North Africa and the Middle East, while propping up criminal client regimes in nations like Ukraine.

A handful of armed ranchers with a few boxes of supplies, who live within and are completely dependent on a system controlled by the very special interests they are standing up against, will do little to change the military, economic, political, and social factors that add up to the above described global equation.

The ranchers' supply cache looks like it was picked up from one of America's many mega-retailers, the literal consumerist feeding troughs that keep the American people perpetually in servile dependence, and the Fortune 500 deeply entrenched amid the unwarranted power and influence it has enjoyed for decades and is able to wield at home and abroad with virtual impunity.

It is not unlike a group of American G.I.'s trying to fight the Germans during WW2, while buying German rations, from the Germans, all while leaving German supply lines completely intact. They would not only be preserving their enemy's source of strength to fight, but paying into it. The harder they "fought" the more supplies they would need, and the stronger their enemy would become.

The ranchers' standoff, from a purely strategic point-of-view, is already a failure. No matter who is really behind it, and no matter how it plays out, the actions of the ranchers at best will cause the government to back down on this one particular issue, and only for this particular case At worse, it will only further justify the growing police state evolving within America's borders. Regardless, it will do absolutely nothing to change the balance of power enabling Wall Street and Washington at home or abroad.

How to Fight Tyranny 

A growing tyranny is not entirely unlike an insurgency. The terms insurgency and counterinsurgency can quickly become confusing in a politically motivated context. However, generally speaking, an insurgency seeks to overthrow an established institution or political order, while a counterinsurgency seeks to maintain that order.

Big-Pharma's Latest, Most Sickening Crime Against Humanity

By dangling life-changing cures over people's heads for cartoonish figures of "1 million dollars," pharmaceutical corporations prove when they see sick, desperate, dying people, all they see is dollar signs... 

November 12, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Gene therapy is a game changer. It is not a treatment for diseases. It is a cure.

Image: Gene therapy works by reprogramming an ordinary virus to delivery modified genes to human cells. Once introduced, the modified genes are replicated by natural cell division. Missing or defective genes, over time, can be replaced by repaired genes, reprogramming the immune system to eradicate otherwise incurable diseases, or creating function in defective systems, curing blindness, deafness, diabetes, and even effects owed to aging. 

It is a cure for cancer, genetic defects, blindness, deafness, diabetes, even potentially aging.

It has already proven effective in clinical trials, curing people of leukemia who were otherwise certain to die, giving people their sight back, and already, there is one therapy approved for use in the European Union with several others approved in China.

The most remarkable aspect of gene therapy is that it overwrites your DNA once, then your cells replicate that new DNA each time they divide. In essence, the cure becomes a permanent part of you. One shot, one cure, for life, or close to it.

Why Haven't We Heard More About This? 

As remarkable and as promising as gene therapy is, it poses an immense threat to the established healthcare industry. A shot in clinical trials using experimental equipment that costs only 20,000 USD to produce that cures leukemia, if brought into mainstream medicine would be cheaper still, and undercut existing and ineffective"treatments" that can reach costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gene therapy, then, is essentially a disruptive technology that brings various healthcare rackets to an abrupt halt along with all the vast wealth and unwarranted power and influence big-pharma has enjoyed over the decades.

Image: Dr. Carl June (center) led a team that developed a breakthrough gene therapy that effectively reprograms the immune system to hunt and kill leukemia cancer cells. Most of the patients, otherwise sure to die from their cancer, have gone into permanent remission. 

How can big-pharma continue on with its monopolies, wealth, and influence by curing everyone with one shot that costs almost nothing to make?

Their strategy is two-fold. First, they have intentionally dragged their feet for as long as possible until they can figure this problem out, letting people die of now curable diseases simply because they want to protect their existing business models and bottom lines.

Second, they have begun to mold public opinion through intense lobbying across the media and medical journals, ignoring the actual costs involved in producing the therapies, and instead cashing in on what they think it is worth to people, or in other words, dangling cures for crippling, deadly diseases over dying and/or desperate people's heads, and seeing how much they are willing to pay for them.

Multipolarism Solves Syria at the Source

October 16, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The Syrian conflict is profoundly misrepresented across the entirety of the Western press.

To call it a civil war is a gross mischaracterization. The entire conflict was engineered and fueled from beyond Syria's borders. And while there are a significant number of Syrians collaborating with this criminal conspiracy, the principle agents driving the conflict are foreigners. They include special interests in the United States, across the Atlantic in Europe, and regional players including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel.

Image: Within the source of the problem, no solution can be found, unless the solution is removing from existence the source.

Syria is far from an isolated conflict. America's interest in dividing and destroying Syria is part of a much larger agenda serving its aspirations both in the region and globally. The division and destruction of Syria as a functioning, sovereign nation-state is admittedly meant to set the stage for the conquest of Iran next.

US End Game in Syria is Just the Beginning for Wider Regional War  

Reuters recently published an op-ed titled, "Syria’s one hope may be as dim as Bosnia’s once was," which argues that the only way the US can cooperate with Russia regarding Syria is if all players agree to a weakened, fragmented Syria.

If this scheme sounds familiar, that is because this op-ed was authored by Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution - a corporate-financier funded think-tank that has in part helped engineer the chaos now consuming the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). O'Hanlon previously published a paper titled, "Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war," in which he also calls for the division and destruction of Syria.

In it, O'Hanlon calls for the establishment of "safe zones," the invasion and occupation of Syrian territory by US, European, and Persian Gulf special forces, the relaxing of criteria used to openly fund what would essentially be terrorists operating in Syria, and openly making the ousting of the Syrian government a priority on par with the alleged US fight against the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL).

"Relaxing" criteria regarding who the US can openly fund and provide direct military support for, is nothing less than tacit support for terrorism and terrorists themselves.

But none of these treacherous methods should be shocking. That is because O'Hanlon is also a co-author of the 2009 Brookings Institution report titled, "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran" (.pdf). In this signed and dated criminal conspiracy, methods for covertly overthrowing the Iranian government with US-backed mobs augmented with armed militants, the use of US listed foreign terrorist organizations to wage a proxy war against Iran, the provocation of open war with Iran, and the use of Israel to unilaterally attack Iran first, before bringing America inevitably into the war shortly after are all described in great detail throughout the 156 page report.

There and Back Again - Your Trip Through the American Empire

October 10, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LD)  The October 8, 2015 US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing titled, "Russian Strategy and Military Operations," gave viewers an instructive snapshot at the current state of America's dwindling power.

Image: Western governments have their populations cowering in fear over "refugees" invading and destroying their "Western culture," successfully distracting them from true cross-border invaders - multinational corporations whose unwarranted power and influence has done more to destabilize, destroy, steal, plunder, and ruin global populations than any boatload of refugees could hope to accomplish. 

Enter the American Empire

The hearing is one of many interfaces between corporate-financier funded policy think tanks and the politicians who will ultimately rubber stamp their schemes and designs into law. It consists of a panel of bought-off, self-serving senators, listening to think-tank academics with no practical experience along with retired generals drawing paychecks by keeping big-defense, big-oil, big-ag, big-finance, and others well fed.

This particular hearing included Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) (donors here),  Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (donors here), General James Jones (USMC ret.) now of the Brent Scowcroft Center On International Security of the Atlantic Council (donors here), and Generael John Keane (US Army, ret.) of the Institute For The Study Of War (ISW) (donors here).

Image: This Tomahawk cruise missile was brought to Libya by, Raytheon - a corporate sponsor of the Atlantic Council, CSIS, and CFR - all of whom helped engineer, sell, and execute the war in the first place. 

Each witness providing testimony is a member of a corporate-financier funded and directed policy think tank. Looking through their donors and boards of directors, one sees several common denominators - big-oil, big-defense, big-agriculture, big-pharma, big-finance, and other big-businesses forming the foundation of Wall Street and Washington's current power structure.

Considering that the issues being discussed before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services revolve around the application of military force throughout the world toward achieving not the territorial defense of the United States, but defending what are called US "interests" abroad - including the encirclement, containment, and eventual overthrow of geopolitical and socioeconomic competitors - immense conflicts of interest are obvious. In fact, it is clear that these corporate-financier interests are the primary force driving US foreign policy and military planning.

The "Cataclysmic Conflict" Yet to Come

And what we can do to stop it. 

March 6, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Corporate-financier interests driving US foreign policy have long ago conspired to use Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremist forces to create a Pan-Arabian mercenary force with which to fight their enemies. Warned about in 2007 in a prophetic 9-page report by veteran journalist, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh, then exposed through documented evidence over the course of the past four years, and now incontrovertibly unfolding before the world's eyes, this criminal conspiracy against world peace and all of humanity can be seen in its full, horrific form. 

The war special interests in the United States along with its co-conspirators plan to wage across the planet encompasses not only the Middle East and North Africa, but also Russia, China, and beyond. It threatens the lives, peace, and prosperity of all on Earth. If it is not exposed, and the special interests driving it not undermined, uprooted, and purged from humanity, none will escape the dark days that inevitably lie ahead.

The Unheeded Warning 

It was in 2007, in the New Yorker, that veteran journalist Seymour Hersh published his lengthy, prophetic report, "The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" Within it, Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv were exposed amidst a criminal conspiracy to use sectarian extremists in a proxy war against Iran and its allies in Syria and Lebanon. The impending conflict was described as "cataclysmic."

The report stated explicitly that (emphasis added): 

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. 

And because the conspiracy was exposed during the administration of US President George W. Bush, attempts by the establishment to compartmentalize current, and increasingly more obvious support by the US of Al Qaeda and the so-called "Islamic State" by characterizing it as a misstep or even "treason" by the administration of US President Barack Obama, is merely a political ploy. It is clear that instead, the policy and its execution across two supposedly diametrically opposed political parties, is an example of "continuity of agenda."

And while the political "right" in the United States in particular feigns outrage and suspicion over the Obama administration's ties and support for sectarian extremist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and factions with direct ties to Al Qaeda, it was exposed in Hersh's 2007 article that the Bush administration had in fact initiated this support.  Obama keeping the Oval Office's chair warm while this policy continues.

The Coming Biological Infowar: US Proposes DNA Database

January 31, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - The US is proposing a government-backed DNA database composed of over a million volunteers' genetic material. RT would report in their article, "Got genes: Obama proposes genetic biobank of 1mn Americans’ DNA to fight disease," that:

A new $215 million US government proposal would seek more than 1 million American volunteers for analysis of their genetic information in an initiative to fight disease, while developing targeted health care based on one’s DNA.

Officials hope the biobank project, announced Friday by President Barack Obama, can merge existing genetic studies with a diverse range of new volunteers to hit 1 million participants.

While this initial database is composed of volunteers, involuntary blood samples are already collected by US law enforcement agencies around the country and amassed in an existing, and ever-expanding network. Additionally, the new proposal seeks to establish "precision medicine" as a standard in medical care, implying that everyone's DNA will eventually be required by medical practitioners to administer increasingly state-run healthcare.

Such information will undoubtedly end up in an expanded, nationwide iteration of this new proposed network. 

Serial Abusers and Their New Toy 

While precision medicine is indeed a powerful tool in fighting disease and repairing injury - in fact, truly the future of medicine - those appointing themselves as its arbiter in the US have already demonstrated they cannot be trusted with such a responsibility.

RT would also note in their report that:

How the US government will ensure that individual genetic information is kept private will certainly become a point of concern for many. A government-led database system amassing genetic coding will likely face resistance in this age of a global spying regime run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and a genetic patent system used by the likes of Monsanto to consolidate legal ownership of the natural world.

Indeed, a DNA database would be to our bodies, what the Internet was to our computers - with an NSA-like entity invading, abusing, exploiting, and manipulating not just our personal data, but the very genetic code that makes us who we are. The dangers are immense, and the abuse of genetic information has already been eagerly explored by the very special interests driving this new initiative.

Economic War, BRICS, and the Power of Self-Sufficiency

January 20, 2015 (Ulson Gunner - NEO) - The toughest, most resilient people as both individuals and as societies all generally have one thing in common - self-sufficiency. This by no means suggests isolationism, but rather the ability to survive, even thrive through one's own work using resources at their own disposal. 

As a principle, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and individualism defined young nations like the United States, catapulting it upon the world stage as a global leader after spending time racked in debt and in England's shadow. By establishing its own industry, its own institutions (including those of a financial nature) and its own military might, the United States transcended the tangled webs of interdependency locking Europe's ever-shifting, fragile alliances together. 

The evolution of human civilization along the lines of socioeconomics and technology has changed the roles, effectiveness and relevancy of those industries and institutions that had once made America great and in turn, those nations that had attempted to emulate such features have now all found themselves within the same boat - the boat of globalization.

Globalization is the hitherto pinnacle of interdependency, crippling any nation that falls foul of those sitting at the center of this entangled geopolitical order. There are many examples of nations that haven fallen foul including Cuba, Iraq, Iran and more recently Russia. In each case, respective economies depended heavily upon imports or exports or both. The response in defense against crippling economic warfare is self-sufficiency. 

Facebook: Colonialism 2.0

Putting the entire planet online... then controlling everything they see or read. 

December 24, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The Western media has attempted to portray Mark Zuckerberg's ambitious plan to get every human being online as altruistic at first, but later revealed as simply what could be called "profitable empathy." In reality however, the truth is much more sinister, with Facebook already revealed to be much more than a mere corporation run by Zuckerberg and his "ideas"
Facebook is the pinnacle of social engineering, an online operant conditioning chamber - also known as a Skinner box - that is being used to track, trace, document, and manipulate half of the entire online population. Despite users attempting to utilize Facebook to connect and communicate with individuals and organizations of interest, Facebook has turned its features against users, insidiously manipulating their timelines to show selected posts and updates while "soft censoring" others to manage public perception.

"Studies" have even been published proving the effectiveness of Facebook's unethical social engineering. In one study, the emotions of users were successfully manipulated by selectively posting only negative or only positive posts from individuals or organizations on users' contact lists. 

A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) titled, "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks," stated in its abstract that (emphasis added): 

We show, via a massive (N = 689,003) experiment on Facebook, that emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. We provide experimental evidence that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people (exposure to a friend expressing an emotion is sufficient), and in the complete absence of nonverbal cues. Not only are the findings troubling - illustrating that Facebook possesses the ability to influence the emotions of its users unwittingly through careful manipulation of their news feeds - but the invasive, unethical methods by which Facebook conducted the experiment are troubling as well.

In another experiment Facebook manipulated the news feed of some 2 million Americans in 2012 in order to increase public participation during that year's US presidential election. 

Image: US State Department's "Movement.org" helped
train hundreds of operatives years ahead of US-backed
subversion across the Arab World in 2011. Among the
many sponsors of this program is Facebook and Google. 

Facebook was also an official sponsor of the US State Department's training program preparing political subversion across North Africa and the Middle East years before the so-called "Arab Spring" unfolded. The very activists audiences around the world were told "spontaneously" sprung up across North Africa and the Middle East were in fact trained, funded, and equipped by the US State Department and various corporations including tech giants Google and Facebook years beforehand.

Turning a Network of Information into a One-Way Propaganda Pipeline 
The implications of an Internet commandeered by a conglomerate of Wall Street and Washington special interests is the mitigation of user-driven content and the retrenchment of information consumerism. 

Television "programming" could be perceived as both the process of programming what will appear on TV, but also could be perceived as programming the minds of those consuming television. TV, being a one-way process, effectively eliminates competing ideas and limits the scope of information down to only what those who control television networks want audiences to see and hear. It is clear that Facebook is part of a process to turn the Internet into a similar one-way experience.  

Ferguson and the False Promise of "Revolution"

November 26, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - When faced on the battlefield with a numerically superior enemy, one must attempt to divide his enemy into smaller, more easily dispatched opponents, or even more ideally, divide them against one another, and have them defeat each other without ever drawing your sword. For Wall Street's 0.1%, divide and conquer is a way of life.

Divide and Conquer

Never in human history has there been a more effective way for tyrants to rule over large groups of people who, should they ever learn to cooperate, would easily throw off such tyranny.

At the conclusion of the Anglo-Zulu War, the British despoiled Zululand, divided it into 14 separate cheifdoms, each led by a proxy obedient to the British Empire. The British ensured that these 14 cheifdoms harbored animosities toward one another and fostered petty infighting between them to ensure British interests would never again be challenged by a unified Zulu threat. Before the British, the Romans would employ similar tactics across Germania and Gual.

Image: Zululand lies in flaming ruins, its legendary army decimated, but the British were not about to take any chances of allowing them to unite and resit again. They divided the defeated nation into 14 chiefdoms each headed by leaders harboring dislike for the others ensuring perpetual infighting and a divided, weakened Zululand never again to rise and challenge British subjugation. 

In this way, the British Empire and the Romans managed to not only decimate their enemies, but by keeping them perpetually infighting, divided, and at war with one another, manged to keep them subservient to imperial rule for generations.

But one would be mistaken to believe that imperialism is only waged abroad. Imperialism is as much about manipulating, controlling, and perpetuating subservience at home as it is projecting hegemony abroad. For the imperialist, all of humanity represents a sea of potential usurpers. The systematic division, weakening, and subjugation of various social groups along political, religious, class, or racial lines has proven an ageless solution for the elite. 

Don't Replace Facebook, Disrupt It

November 11, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Facebook is a problem. It is undoubtedly being used by special interests to manipulate and monitor entire populations both within the United States and well beyond. It represents a tool that in no way serves the people actually using it, and instead allows special interests to use the users. It is a dream global panopticon for the abusive dictators that run Western society and presume dominion over what they call an "international order."

But in order to counter this threat, Facebook cannot simply be "replaced." It specifically, and what it represents, must be disrupted entirely.

Facebook is a Skinner Box for Humans 

Facebook has been at the center of several recent controversies that are increasingly leaving users disillusioned and in search of alternatives. At the center of these controversies is Facebook's "news feed" feature. Ideally, news feed would work by showing on your timeline updates from those individuals and organizations you follow. There are two options for news feed - "most recent" and "top stories." Facebook has decided to upend this feature by insidiously controlling what appears on your news feed regardless of which option you select. 

Now, you will no longer receive regular updates from accounts you follow, and instead will see a "filtered" version determined by Facebook's algorithms. Many Facebook users are unaware of this fact and are perplexed as to why they are no longer receiving regular updates from accounts they follow.

Facebook's own explanation as to why they've implemented this policy is as follows:

Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.

Facebook's real motivation is more likely a combination of implementing soft-censorship and an effort to monetize news feeds by forcing content makers to pay in order to access people already following them. What's left is wealthy content makers like large corporate media outfits monopolizing the public's attention whether the public wants it or not. 

3D Printing and the Age of Disruption

November 2, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Disruptive technology is that which overturns an industry unable to adapt or evolve to meet competition enabled by a technological edge. This has occurred across various media industries - from the newspaper to large network news channels, to music and movie producers - the dropping cost of entering the market and competing either directly or by undermining previously monopolized channels of distribution have challenged special interests' grip on information.

Many have predicted such a disruption across other industries beyond the digital world and within the physical, tangible world.

3D printing, more than any other technology, has served as the bridge between digital and physical disruption. The ability to turn digital files into physical objects allows people to design, scan, share, and send digital representations of physical objects just as they can images or text online. With 3D printers, these objects can be printed out in an increasingly larger number of materials and with ever improving resolution. They can also, at times, be printed out for far cheaper than it would be to buy them from a traditional manufacturer. 

Image; 3D printing has begun disrupting businesses in the physical world just as file sharing has disrupted media businesses in the digital world. Here, a user printed out their own tabletop game pieces, saving hundreds of dollars in the process. 

It appears the first industry to be hit by the disruptive power of 3D printing are those that produce small plastic objects. This includes British-based tabletop game company, Games Workshop (GW). GW produces miniature plastic game pieces for strategic games that could be compared to very elaborate chess. These pieces can be prohibitively expense to collect in the large numbers necessary to play a game - and it should be remembered that at least two sets are required.

Ebola and the Danger of Globalization

Whatever the cause - conspiracy or incompetence - the recent Ebola outbreak illustrates the dangers of centralized globalization, and opens the door to possible solutions. 

October 13, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) has surfaced in West Africa in an unprecedented outbreak infecting and killing thousands according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The epicenter appears to be centered between Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia - the former being where the first case was reported, the latter being hit the hardest.  Other nations including Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali have had cases reported but were contained and the spread of the disease there appears to have stopped. Nations like Uganda who have grappled with Ebola and similar diseases have yet to be affected and are believed to have suitable measures in place to zero in and contain the virus.

Beyond countries in West Africa, Spain, the United States, Brazil, and now Germany have reported travel-associated cases of Ebola as well as infections of health workers who apparently breached protocols while handling infected patients.

Characteristics of Ebola and Current Countermeasures 

The Ebola virus itself has an incubation period of between 2-21 days. It is not believed to be infectious until symptoms begin to form, however, it can cause infections for up to seven weeks after a patient recovers. Because of its varying incubation period, those infected have between 2-21 days to travel before any form of "screening" currently being done at airports would detect a fever and therefore be able to identify, contain, and treat possible Ebola cases. This means that the infected could be traveling into foreign countries, well past ports of entry and screening points before their symptoms and ability to infect others begin to manifest themselves.

Upon contracting Ebola, patients may begin to exhibit a fever and complain of abdominal pain but otherwise exhibit few other symptoms. It is only until later stages of the infection that Ebola may cause rashes and bleeding - and some patients never develop these symptoms at all. A complete list of symptoms is available at the CDC's website.

Because of Ebola's incubation period, screening at airports is perhaps the least effective measure a state could put in place. Instead, and has been done throughout all of human history to contain contagious disease, nations with widespread infections should be quarantined - and travel bans placed on these nations by governments interested in preventing the spread of Ebola within their borders. Within an infected country, quarantines must be placed on areas where infections are present.

Image: For years US and other Western NGOs have meddled in Liberia's
internal affairs, claiming to be building up education and the nation's
healthcare system. The US in particular has participated in military
intervention in Liberia and has poured billions in cash in alleged "aid."
Ironic then that Liberia is one of the worst hit and least prepared nations
suffering from Ebola. Above is a billboard sponsored by Open Society in
Liberia's capital of Monrovia. 

Despite the success quarantine has exhibited in the past, many Western policymakers have lobbied heavily against placing travel bans on infected countries or the notion of using quarantine procedures within infected countries. Open Society, a corporate-funded foundation that sponsors subversive political programs and so-called "civil society" within targeted countries, has been among the most vocal opponents of quarantining infected communities and countries.

In an Open Society post titled, "Looking Past Quarantine to Community Health," Open Society President Chris Stone claims:

The current focus on quarantine presents a danger not only in the short run, but in the long run as well. Quarantine forces farmers to leave their fields, freezes air travel in African cities, and slows the flow of food and labor. These interruptions can touch off longer, more complex health crises in the countries where Ebola is already weakening systems. 

Instead, the coalition that includes Partners In Health is training and equipping community-based health workers, with local partners such as Last Mile Health taking the lead. Community health workers are trusted neighbors who provide care while connected to a formal health system. This kind of community-based health response not only challenges the spread of Ebola and its fatality but also enables a new economic base and public health infrastructure.

In essence, economic progress within the context of "globalization" and the continued work of Western NGOs like Open Society in building their own administrative networks and infrastructure to control all sociopolitical and economic aspects within nations like Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, takes precedence over actually stopping the spread of Ebola. While the notion of building better and more prepared healthcare infrastructure in such nations should be a priority, it is a long-term goal that will have no affect on stemming the spread of Ebola currently.

Ello -The Facebook Killer?

September 26, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Ello, a social network alternative to Facebook is expanding its user base immensely, even as it remains in beta testing. Market watchers and tech trend analysts attribute the influx of users indicative of Facebook's waning popularity due to its invasive, profit-driven, monopolistic, and downright creepy conduct. 

Facebook's incremental, manipulative policy and terms of use have been described as everything from a greedy business practice, to a government sanctioned means of mass manipulation and soft censorship.

It was inevitable that start-ups and activists would seek to offer Facebook users an alternative that allowed social media to be used as a tool of empowerment, not insidious manipulation and censorship. Ello appears to be tapping into that with its manifesto which states:

Your social network is owned by advertisers.

Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.

We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.

We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life.
You are not a product.

In theory, not only does Ello's manifesto sound ideal, it is likely to attract a multitude of disillusioned Facebook users fed up with the big-tech's monopoly, but who have stayed aboard for a lack of a better alternative.

12 Billion People By 2100 - And Why It's No Big Deal

September 23, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Wired magazine recently published an article titled, "Boom! Earth's Population Could Hit 12 Billion by 2100," which despite the typical narrative of misanthropic population control that works its way into any Western mainstream article on the topic of growing populations, remained relatively positive.

Wired quoted statistician and sociologist Adrian Raftery of the University of Washington who stated:

“A rapidly growing population with bring challenges. But I think these challenges can be met.”

And Raftery is correct. Wired would also include in its article that:

...it’s worth remembering that human populations doubled between 1960 and 1999. That tremendous growth spurt occasioned fears of widespread famine and societal collapse. On the whole, though, we made it through in decent shape.

Many of those fearmongers between the 1960's and up to the turn of the century are still deeply involved in manipulating the discourse on the topic of human population growth and measures they claim are necessary to curtail it. John P. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in 1977 ludicrously concluded that the United States would collapse when its population reached "280 million in 2040." America's population is now well over 300 million with nearly 3 decades to spare. Holdren would add in his now entirely discredited co-authored book titled, "Ecoscience," that:

"...if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come."

Holdren's "population control measures" included a despotic "planetary regime" that would have made the architects of the 3rd Reich blush.

Wired's article does dabble in alarmism slightly, with some experts claiming rationing would be necessary while raising the issue of climate change in relation to growing populations. While resources and humanity's impact on the environment are definitely challenges that must be overcome, Vaclav Smil, an energy, environment and food production researcher at the University of Manitoba, incorrectly concludes that cultural motivations rather than technical innovations will be the key.

Overall, Wired's article focuses on innovation as the key to solving growing populations and is a refreshing departure from its typical mainstream rhetoric repackaged to manipulate more informed and educated members of the general public. Unfortunately, the comment section below was riddled with racist, crypto-eugenics propaganda denouncing the third world as an "overbreeding scourge." However, there were others pointing out that most of the consequences generally blamed on overpopulation, are instead rooted in global institutions like the World Bank and the IMF consolidating, exercising, and tragically abusing vast unwarranted power and influence, intentionally expanding socioeconomic disparity, and thus leading to starvation, war, political instability, and other tragic symptoms incorrectly blamed on "overpopulation."

"Climate March" Hides Real Culprits and Real Solutions

Climate march is silly at best - dangerously counterproductive at worst.  

September 21, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Big business and the big political parties and politicians they own have converged in what is being disingenuously called the "People's Climate March."  MSNBC would report in an article titled, "The largest climate march in history kicks off in New York," that:

They’re calling it the largest mobilization against climate change in the history of the planet. On Sunday morning, protesters from all over the United States and the world are converging on Manhattan to demand that global leaders take action to avert catastrophic climate change. Earlier this week Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental group 350.org, projected that the march would consist of “hundreds of thousands” of participants.

Not surprisingly little in terms of actual solutions are mentioned by the organizers and instead the march is meant to set the stage for political and financial deals to be made at the 2015 Climate Change Conference in Paris, France. Organizing the march are institutions funded by the very governments and corporate-financier special interests that have helped create devastating environmental and socioeconomic disasters across the planet over the past several decades in the first place.

Also involved are profiteers who have taken advantage of the general population's genuine concern for the environment to propose and benefit from scams consisting of everything from land-grabbing thousands of acres in Africa to peddling "carbon credits" and other financial gimmicks that make immense profits from doing literally nothing at all in terms of production and by creating a false sense of security, may even be compounding environmental catastrophes.

For those drawn to such "marches" and who are dismayed or disillusioned by the disingenuous nature of those trying to hijack their good intentions to peddle self-serving political and financial gimmicks, what can they do to develop and actually make good on the vague promises being made during this year's "People's Climate March?" 

The Climate Always Changes - We Must Always Be Prepared 

The climate is always changing, and nearly everything human beings and nature do, both on Earth and beyond it, has an impact on it. A changing climate, like earthquakes and volcanoes driven by the constantly changing geological state of our planet, or diseases that sweep animal and human populations amid a perpetual biological arms race, will be a challenge humanity will always have to face.

Makers: Escaping the Pull of Big-Business

Image: Make Volume 40 - worth reading. It is a guide to
building a new paradigm and new local institutions. 

September 7, 2014 (LocalOrg) - A popular magazine that should probably be more popular is Make. While this is always subject to change in the future, for the time being, it is actually a magazine that empowers rather than manipulates like its competitors on the news stands. While Popular Mechanics may at one time in the distant past have actually helped people learn more about the world around them and enabled them to change it - it has become more of a clearing house for covert Fortune 500 propaganda amid a torrent of overt advertisements.

Co-Opting, Tainting the Maker Movement 
Perhaps understanding the power of the emerging maker-movement and the fact that an entire segment of the population is moving beyond helpless dependency on the Fortune 500, Popular Mechanics, as well as the special interests it represents, has attempted to co-opt it. Its latest issue with its cover story titled, "The Makers," features many of the prominent personalities within the maker movement. It also, however, features at least two picked straight from big business - including representatives from Autodesk who helped lead the charge for SOPA/ACTA as well as war profiteer General Electric.

Also in the Popular Mechanics issue was an insidious article titled, "Junk Science," with the subtitle, "Flawed studies, agenda-driven research, and open-door journals are putting the public at risk." One would expect to see a searing indictment of big-corporate R&D, fraudulent studies to push poison, GMO, and useless or dangerous pharmaceuticals - instead it was a defense of just these very big-business rackets and a condemnation of those attempting to expose them.

The article slams activists fighting to warn the public about the dangers of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, big-pharma vaccines, and big-agri's genetically modified organisms.

Clearly, Popular Mechanics couldn't care less about the principles of open source, decentralization, and progress promoted by the true maker community, and instead, is attempting to flatter them and bring them back into the fold as members of their dark, insidious club of corporate servitude. 

Beware: Facebook's "Soft Censorship"

September 5, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - The Land Destroyer Report maintained a Facebook page under the name Anthony Cartalucci. Since 2009 it was used to express my personal thoughts regarding the news of the day, as well as share relevant links with followers. Today, Facebook, without warning or opportunity to appeal, decided that the Facebook account must be changed over to a "page." By doing so, all those following my account no longer would receive updates, because of Facebook's "news feed" filters.

The premise behind news feed filters is that people have too many "friends" and are following too many accounts, so they can't possibly manage all the content themselves. Therefore, Facebook will do it for them. We already know about the Facebook "experiment" where they intentionally manipulated the news feed of hundreds of thousands of Facebook users without their consent.

A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) titled, "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks," stated in its abstract that:

We show, via a massive (N = 689,003) experiment on Facebook, that emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. We provide experimental evidence that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people (exposure to a friend expressing an emotion is sufficient), and in the complete absence of nonverbal cues.Not only are the findings troubling - illustrating that Facebook possesses the ability to influence the emotions of its users unwittingly through careful manipulation of their news feeds - but the invasive, unethical methods by which Facebook conducted the experiment are troubling as well.

Clearly manipulating users' news feeds possesses powerful propaganda and mass-manipulative influence - surely influence those with the resources would be willing to pay for. And that is exactly what Facebook has arranged for with their new "reach" system. Facebook's own explanation is as follows:

Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.

Those involuntarily forced to switch from standard accounts over to "pages" will notice the "boost" feature below each post. This is where you are required to pay Facebook money to ensure people who voluntarily followed you to receive content from you, actually receive it. Obviously, this confers a major advantage to well-funded start-ups, established media outlets, and large, corporate-driven propaganda machines. For the independent or freelance journalist, analyst, or activist, Facebook has gone from an open platform to a cage of soft censorship.

How Thailand Can Outlast Its Enemies

Image: Weathering a siege requires not only strong walls, but the ability
to outlast the enemy as well. This can only be done by building something
sustainable within the walls, and something worth defending. 

July 26, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - ATN) - Thailand's culture, people, and history is directly tied to that of its indigenous, ancient institutions. For centuries these institutions have guided Thai society, protected it from a turbulent world beyond its borders and at times when this turbulence finds its way within Thailand's borders. For Thais, these institutions not only give the people cultural and sociopolitical underpinnings, but they give the people tangible, pragmatic guidance in building their communities stronger, closer, and better - and like healthy cells in a body - they create a nation that is likewise stronger, closer, and better. 

A strong, independent, self-sufficient Thailand has always been troublesome to history's various empires, both within Asia, and as far as Western Europe. Thailand has fought long and hard, but also cleverly, to maintain a balance among its potential enemies and weather the temporary inroads the "empire of the day" makes within Thai territory and culture, until that empire passes on - leaving Thailand to remain. 

Desperately Distasteful Propaganda 

VICE recently published an article by Andrew Marshall - a paid-propagandist who was previously an unreadable writer and senior staff member of Reuters - talking about an HBO comedian and his crass, disrespectful, but rather obscure comments about Thailand, its political crisis, and its royal family - a topic most Americans and Europeans are wholly ignorant of, have no opinion on, and frankly don't care about.

Such an obscure article that no one without a deep knowledge of Thailand would even get, let alone read, is rather suspicious. Those that do read it will recognize the deceit and overt attempts to undermine the forces that just ousted Western-backed dictator, billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and his political machine.

VICE exposes itself as a "rag-for-rent," while HBO reveals its role in programming Western public opinion where otherwise it would never have formed on its own. Most Americans literally couldn't even find Thailand on a map, and if they tried they'd end up pointing at Taiwan.

Empire has chosen once again to make inroads in Thailand, socially, politically, culturally, and economically. With Thaksin Shinawatra, it aimed at undermining and transforming the sociopolitical walls that have protected the nation for centuries from the inside. They have failed. Now their sociopolitical assault has taken the form of siege warfare - surrounding and battering the Kingdom with every weapon it can find - from discredited former Reuters staff, to magazines like VICE, to editorials and spun news items in mainstream sources like the Daily Mail, CNN and the BBC. 

Golden Rice: GMO "Super Gruel" for the Masses

You don't need big-ag's Golden Rice, you just need a garden. 

July 16, 2014 (LocalOrg) - Corporate biotechnology monopolies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, and others have met increasing resistance to their attempts to patent and control global agriculture. They have spent untold fortunes attempting to sway the public but to no avail. Local, organic agriculture is growing in popularity and proliferating across all social-strata. The introduction of technology to automate and augment organic farming is making it as competitive and accessible or more so than the capital-intensive models of monopoly employed by big-ag. 

In response, big-ag has attempted several distasteful public relation stunts, including "super bananas for Africa" and "Golden Rice" to allegedly feed Asia's poor.

They claim these initiatives are purely altruistic. Business Insider in its article, "A Miracle Rice Could Save Millions Of Lives," claims: 

Golden Rice, once it is widely released, will be much more cost-effective, as agricultural economist Alexander Stein has shown. Despite common misconceptions, no one stands to get rich when poor farmers start growing Golden Rice. Instead, it will represent a fundamentally different approach, an embodiment of the old "teach a man to fish" adage.

Business Insider's source? Big-ag giant Syngenta and the "Golden Rice Humanitarian Board." The board, of course, is stacked with big-ag-funded "NGOs," USAID representatives, and representatives of big-ag itself. The board represents the revolving door between corporate monopolies and big-government - and their combined efforts to use every means necessary to advance their collective self-interests.  

Contrary to their claims of altruism, the initial profit of selling the rice to farmers will be immense. Posing as an act of charity will secure taxpayer subsidized funding from governments around the world to "feed the children." 

Once the genetically engineered rice is being grown, big-ag herbicide, pesticide, and chemical fertilizer regiments will reap billions more, all likely to be subsidized as well - diverting state resources away from traditional, localized, and more effective nutritional and agricultural development programs.