We Are Change

Article via The Anti-Media by Jake Anderson

In recent years, the mere notion of conspiracy theories has increasingly been stigmatized and ridiculed by mainstream news outlets, internet trolls, and “rational” thinkers. Yet, with powerful revelations by Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks, and generations of intrepid journalists, we now know that many outlandish geopolitical and domestic “conspiracy theories” were and are cold-blooded truths of the modern world.

Here are 10 that are well-documented and profoundly disturbing…

1) The Gulf of Tonkin Incident

The Gulf of Tonkin incident, a major escalator of US involvement in the Vietnam War, never actually occurred.

It’s true. The original incident – also sometimes referred to as the USS Maddox Incident(s) –involved the destroyer USS Maddox supposedly engaging three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats as part of an intelligence patrol. The Maddox fired almost 300 shells.

President Lyndon B. Johnson promptly drafted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which became his administration’s legal justification for military involvement in Vietnam. The problem is the event never happened.

In 2005, a declassified internal National Security Agency study revealed that there were NO North Vietnamese naval vessels present during the incident. So, what was the Maddox firing at? In 1965, President Johnson commented: “For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there.”

Worth pointing out: The NSA’s own historian, Robert J. Hanyok, wrote a report stating that the agency had deliberately distorted intelligence reports in 1964. He concluded: “The parallels between the faulty intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq War make it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the events of August 1964.”

2) Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

Between 1932 and 1972, the US Public Health Service conducted a clinical study on rural African American men who had contracted syphilis. The Public Health Service never informed these men they had a sexually transmitted disease, nor did they offer treatment, even after penicillin became available as a cure in the 1940s.

Tragically, it’s true. Rather than receiving treatment, the subjects of these studies were told they had “bad blood.”

When World War II began, 250 of the men registered for the draft and were only then, for the first time, informed they had syphilis. Even then, the PHS denied them treatment.

By the early 1970s, 128 of the original 399 men had died of syphilis and syphilis-related complications, 40 of their wives had the disease and 19 of their children were born with congenital syphilis.

Worth pointing out: A similar experiment conducted on prisoners, soldiers, and patients of a mental hospital in Guatemala actually involved the PHS deliberately infecting the patients and then treating them with antibiotics.

3) Project MKUltra

The CIA ran secret mind control experiments on US citizens from the 1950s until 1973.

It’s so true that in 1995 President Clinton actually issued a formal apology on behalf of the US government.

Essentially, the CIA used drugs, electronics, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, verbal and sexual abuse, and torture to conduct experimental behavioral engineering experiments on subjects. The program subcontracted hundreds of these projects to over 80 different institutions, including universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies.

Most of this was uncovered in 1977 when a Freedom of Information Act exposed 20,000 previously classified documents and triggered a series of Senate hearings. Because CIA Director Richard Helms had most of the more damning MKULTRA files destroyed in 1973, much of what actually occurred during these experiments is still unknown and, of course, not a single person was brought to justice.

Worth pointing out: There is growing evidence that Theodore Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Unabomber, was a subject of the Project MKULTRA while he was at Harvard in the late 1950s.

4) Operation Northwoods

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military drew up and approved plans to create acts of terrorism on US soil in order to sway the American public into supporting a war against Cuba.

It’s true and the documents are out there.

Fortunately, President Kennedy rejected the plan, which included: innocent Americans being shot dead on the streets; boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere; people being framed for bombings they did not commit; and planes being hijacked.

Additionally, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, planned to fabricate evidence that would implicate Fidel Castro and Cuban refugees as the perpetrators of the attacks.

Perhaps most horrifyingly, Lemnitzer planned for an elaborately staged incident whereby a Cuban aircraft would attack and shoot down a plane full of college students.

5) CIA Drug Trafficking

During the 1980s, the CIA facilitated the sale of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army.

It’s convoluted and complex, but it’s true.

Gary Webb’s book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion outlines how CIA-backed Contras smuggled cocaine into the U.S. and then distributed crack to Los Angeles gangs, pocketing the profits. The CIA directly aided the drug dealers to raise money for the Contras.

“This drug network,” Webb wrote in a 1996 San Jose MercuryNews article, “opened the first pipeline between Colombia’s cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the ‘crack’ capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America . . . and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.’s gangs to buy automatic weapons.”

Worth pointing out: On December 10, 2004, Webb committed suicide under suspicious circumstances, namely the fact that he used two bullets to shoot himself in the head.

6) Operation Mockingbird

In the late 1940s, as the Cold War was just getting underway, the CIA launched a top secret project called Operation Mockingbird. Their goal was to buy influence and control among the major media outlets. They also planned to put journalists and reporters directly on the CIA payroll, which some claim is ongoing to this day. The architects of this plan were Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, and Philip Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), who planned to enlist American news organizations and journalists to basically become spies and propagandists.

Their list of entrenched agents eventually included journalists from ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, and Copley News Service. By the 1950s, the CIA had infiltrated the nation’s businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives.

Fortunately, our media is no longer lured in by corporations and governments to disseminate propaganda and disinformation….hmmm, never mind–strike that last statement.

7) COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO was a series of clandestine, illegal FBI projects that infiltrated domestic political organizations to discredit and smear them. This included critics of the Vietnam War, civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King and a wide variety of activists and journalists.

The acts committed against them included psychological warfare, slander using forged documents and false reports in the media, harassment, wrongful imprisonment and, according to some, intimidation and possibly violence and assassination.

Similar and possibly more sophisticated tactics are still used today, including NSA monitoring (see #10).

8) Operation Snow White

Operation Snow White is the name given to an unprecedented infiltration of the US government by the Church of Scientology during the 1970s. They stole classified government files regarding Scientology from dozens of government agencies.

In 1977, the FBI finally cracked Snow White open which led to the arrest and imprisonment of a senior Church official.

The core mission of the program was to expose and legally expunge “all false and secret files of the nations of operating areas” and to enable Church seniors and L. Ron Hubbard himself to “frequent all Western nations without threat.” By the end, of course, there was nothing legal about their endeavors.

9) Secret Global Economic Policies

For years, activists who feared a sinister globalist corporatocracy were told they were being paranoid. Whether you want to call it the New World Order or not: they were right.

In 2013, WikiLeaks released the secretly negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. It revealed a closed-door regional free trade agreement being negotiated by countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says TPP has “extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and [will] hinder peoples’ abilities to innovate.”

Worth pointing out: In June 2014, WikiLeaks revealed the even more far-reaching Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), a 50-country agreement that will promote unprecedented levels of privatization across the world. The agreement will essentially prevent governments from returning public services into public hands. This could dramatically affect our ability to enact environmental regulations and keep workers safe.

10) The US Government Illegally Spies On Its Own Citizens

This used to be laughed at as a dystopian fantasy derived from an overactive imagination, Orwell’s 1984, and a juvenile distrust of the government. When you claimed “they” were spying on you, people labeled you a paranoid conspiracy theorist, a tinfoil hat-wearing loon.

Even after it was revealed that the NSA has been illegally eavesdropping on us and collecting our cell phone metadata for over a decade, people still hedged on the meaning of it. Yes, they are analyzing our transmissions, but it’s under the auspices of national security. “In a post 9/11 world” certain liberties must be sacrificed for the sake of security, right?

It turns out that is patently untrue. Not only is there no evidence that the NSA has protected us from terrorism, there is growing evidence that it makes us more vulnerable. Thanks to revelations about the NSA and their Prism project, we know that the scope of the NSA’s eavesdropping is even beyond what we originally believed.

In early June of 2014, the Washington Post reported that almost 90% of the data being collected by NSA surveillance programs is from Internet users with no connection to terrorist activities. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, this is in clear violation of the constitution.

The ACLU is pursuing a lawsuit against the NSA, claiming that the dragnet-style mass collection of data violates the Fourth Amendment right of privacy as well as the First Amendment rights of free speech and association.

---

This article (10 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True) originally appeared on The Ghost Diaries and was used with permission. Tune in! The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org.

The post 10 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

The Secret Service has drawn their weapons in front of the White House in response to yet another person who jumped the fence.

BREAKING NEWS: @SecretService draws guns at White House. pic.twitter.com/nOHn7MMNWZ

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 18, 2017

BREAKING NEWS: @SecretService draws guns at White House. pic.twitter.com/UTi48Mc0oh

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 18, 2017

Source: Secret Service respond to fence jumper at White House. pic.twitter.com/qKmvq3GAtM

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 18, 2017

A video by Fox News showed Secret Service agents with their weapons drawn out front of the White House.

President Donald Trump is currently in Florida at his “Winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago.

This comes after a Former U.S. Secret Service agent Dan Bongino’s statement claiming that President Trump is no longer safe in the White House after a man jumped the Fence last week.

“The intruder set off multiple alarms, alarms that clearly showed someone breached the property, and he was seen by officers who didn’t think anything of it. This is a big story,” Bongino said.

Adding, “that just shows the president is not safe there – in the White House. The Secret Service does not have the assets, they don’t have personnel on the ground they need to keep him safe.”

(THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS DEVELOPING STORY CHECK BACK FOR UPDATES STAY TUNED TO WE ARE CHANGE.)

The post Secret Service Has Drawn Their Weapons At The White House appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

The top official from a United Nations commission that published a report on Thursday describing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as apartheid quit Friday, claiming the organization’s leader wanted her to retract it.

Article via Geopolitics Alert by Jim Carey

A report was issued on Thursday by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) that found Israel’s treatment of Palestinians fits the definition of apartheid by the standards of international law.

ESCWA, which is composed of 18 Arab countries, published the report this morning claiming Israeli policy fits well within the official parameters of apartheid. The report found Israel treats Palestinians as second class citizens based on racial, ethnic and religious identity in order to uphold their standing as a “Jewish state.”

While the report doesn’t represent the stance of the UN Secretary General or the UN as a whole by any means, it is one of the strongest criticisms to ever come out of the international body.

The report notes how “the expert consensus [is] that the prohibition of apartheid is universally applicable and was not rendered moot by the collapse of apartheid in South Africa.” It stated that independent of what most people think of when they hear apartheid, Israel is “guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid,” as defined under “customary international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

The report is described as “detailed analysis of Israeli legislation, policies and practices” which shows that Israel is guilty of “demographic engineering” in a violation of the generally accepted definition of apartheid by the UN.

The report covered both Palestinians living within Israel as well as those who reside in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who live under what the commission deemed “military law.” This is in sharp contrast to how Israeli settlers in those areas live, who are “governed by Israeli civil law.”

The report also highlighted the plight of Palestinian refugees that are “prohibited from returning to their homes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The reasoning behind these restrictions was found to be because Israel believes it would “constitute a ‘demographic threat’ and that their return would alter the demographic character of Israel.”

Israeli and US Delegations Respond

Israel was predictably displeased and angered by the report’s findings, saying it “falsely label[s] the only true democracy in the Middle East” according to Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon. Danon said the comparison of Israel to South Africa was a “false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie.”

Danon personally called out ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf in his response saying her ties to the BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) movement and her statements comparing Israeli “democracy to the most terrible regimes of the twentieth century,” made it no surprise she would approve this report.

A spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry takes the prize however, as he compared the report to the Nazi propaganda publication Der Sturmer.

US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley also spoke out against the report calling it “anti-Israel propaganda.” This shouldn’t come as a surprise though, Haley has been mad about the UN’s position on Israel since her first meeting on the Middle East, where she felt the other member states “blamed Israel for all the region’s problems.”

Coming from that position, Haley’s response to the reports findings sounded traditionally American when she said “The United States stands with our ally Israel and will continue to oppose biased and anti-Israel actions across the UN system and around the world.”

Palestinians are happy about the report however, including the head of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti who said the findings are “very first beam of light that ushers the dawn of sanctions against [Israel].”

While the UN Secretary General, António Guterres has already distanced themselves from the report, it still remains one of the most critical appraisals on Israel’s policy to come out of any sector of the UN.

It’s unclear what will come of the report but it’s just another step in the right direction by factions within the UN adding to a growing list of valid criticisms of Israel and their unethical policies.

---

This article first appeared on GeopoliticsAlert.com and was authored by Jim Carey.

The post The Diplomat Behind Thursday’s U.N. Report Accusing Israel Of Apartheid No Longer Works For The U.N. appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

Article via Zero Hedge

Roughly a year ago we wrote about perhaps the most notable bank heist in history in which a group of hackers used Swift, the interbank messaging system, to steal $81 million from the Central Bank of Bangladesh.  Here’s our recap:

For those who missed the story, you can review it in all its James Bond-ish glory in the four posts linked below, but here is a brief summary of what happened to the $81 million: 1) it was transferred to four accounts at the Jupiter Street, Makati City, branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines, 2) $470,000 in cash went into the branch manager’s trunk and the rest went to a possibly forged (but possibly not) account registered to one William Go, 3) the money was transferred to an FX broker called Philrem, 4) $50 million was split between two casinos and the remaining $31 was delivered to a “Weikang Xu” in cash.

From there, the trail goes cold.

• Plot Thickens In New York Fed Heist As $30 Million In Cash Said Delivered To Mystery Chinese Man

• The Incredible Story Of How Hackers Stole $100 Million From The New York Fed

• Chinese Hackers Break Into NY Fed, Steal $100 Million From Bangladesh Central Bank

• Mystery Of New York Fed Robbery Has Central Banks Asking Who’s Next

But Bangladesh isn’t the only country whose Central Bank has been targeted by a growing number of hackers seeking to score a quick, and massive, loot.  As Bloomberg notes, hacks on global financial systems soared in 2016 and claimed Russia, Poland, Uruguay and Mexico, just to name a few, as victims. 

Over the course of last year, hackers looted up to $21 million from accounts opened with the Bank of Russia.

Poland’s financial regulator was targeted in January by a suspected “watering hole” attack, where hackers target an often-used website, according to research from BAE Systems. In this instance, the hack originated from the website of Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), where code was planted that would serve malware to certain visitors of the site. The malicious code was selectively targeted at financial institutions, and multiple banks were compromised via their users simply browsing the KNF website.

Similar code was also believed to be present on the website of the state-owned Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay, and the National Banking and Stock Commission of Mexico in late 2016, according to analysis from BAE Systems and U.S. software company Symantec Corp.

Now, the hacking collective “Anonymous,” known for its activism against big corporations, security forces, and governments, has decided it wants to get in on the massive central bank scores and is actively recruiting new hackers that can assist in the effort.

While the people wouldn’t say which banks are being targeted, they said the group has been busy recruiting new hackers to aid it in its forays, and renewed its attack against a number of central banks in February.

The group last year attacked at least eight monetary authorities, including the Dutch Central Bank, the Bank of Greece, and the Bank of Mexico, the two people said. In a change of tack, it is also considering plans to sell on any confidential information it obtains, according to one of the people.

The actions by non-state hacking and hacktivist groups such as Anonymous “are a wake-up call that should alert us to the critical weaknesses of global financial systems,” said Stefano Zanero, a professor of computer security at Italian university Politecnico di Milano.

Janet Yellen recently warned in testimony before the congressional Joint Economic Committee in November that a successful cyber-security attack on the U.S. banking system is “one of the most significant risks our country faces.”  In fact, central banks all around the world are spending millions on cybersecurity experts and even buying startup companies to avoid being the next embarrassing victim of a multi-million dollar cyber heist.

In response, central banks and related agencies have been busy attempting to stem the increasing number of attacks. In June Swift hired BAE Systems and U.K. cybersecurity adviser NCC Group Plc in a bid to improve its security defenses. BAE has since helped Swift analyze whether it needs to flag potential issues to correspondent banks.

The Bank of England is even scooping up startups to help it battle online threats. It is currently running an accelerator, launched in June 2016, and is to start working with Anomali in order to “hunt and investigate cyber security intelligence data in a highly automated fashion,” according to a case study published in February by the Bank.

Of course, try as they might, we suspect the world’s bureaucratic central banks may be ill-equipped for a battle against an army of anonymous, international hackers fed up with their destructive policies aimed at continuously inflating assets bubbles which serve only to help the rich get richer while enslaving the masses…

---

This article first appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was authored by Tyler Durden.

The post ‘Anonymous’ Joins Hacker Crusade To Steal Millions From Global Central Banks appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

The New York State Supreme Court is preparing to make an important decision regarding cellphone surveillance and what New York police can legally keep a secret.

Article via Activist Post by Derrick Broze

The opposition to “stingray” cellphone surveillance, and the support of transparency are both experiencing growth throughout the United States. Recent bills passed in Arizona and New Hampshire are part of a trend that has been steadily increasing in the United States. The public and the political class are becoming aware of the true level of intrusion possible as a result of arming local, state, and federal police with military grade surveillance equipment, with very little oversight.

In New York a new bill was recently introduced in the New York Assembly which would ban the use of “stingrays,” the brand name of a popular cell phone surveillance tool manufactured by the Harris Corporation. Stingrays are a brand name of an IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) Catcher targeted and sold to law enforcement.

They are also known as cell-site simulators because they work by masquerading as a cellphone tower – to which your mobile phone sends signals to every 7 to 15 seconds whether you are on a call or not – and tricks your phone into connecting to it.

As a result, whoever is in possession of the Stingray can figure out who, when, and to where you are calling, the precise location of every device within the range, and with some devices, even capture the content of your conversations.

Now the New York State Supreme Court is poised to make an important judgement on the legality of the devices. On Wednesday, one judge showed support for allowing New Yorkers to be made aware of how the city officials have spent tax dollars on Stingrays. Recent reports indicate that the NYPD has deployed stingrays more than 1,000 times without a warrant.

“Sunshine is the best medicine for our society,” Judge Shlomo Hagler said Wednesday, according to Courthouse News. For the last several years, the New York Civil Liberties Union has attempted to use open records laws to access information regarding the NYPD’s use of stingrays. Now they are attempting to convince the state Supreme Court that the people deserve to know where their money is being spent.

“This is about the council members and the public having very basic information about how much the NYPD has been spending and what tools,” Mariko Hirose, an attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union, argued Wednesday before the Manhattan County Supreme Court. Hirose is attempting to get the judge to order the release of purchase orders, contracts and agreements related to the technology.

New York City’s Law Department attorney Neil Giovanatti told the court that “nobody knows what devices the NYPD actually has” and that the stingrays they use might not have the capability to monitor people’s information. Courthouse News reported that Judge Hagler was doubtful of this premise, stating that “NYPD has the biggest budget for law enforcement than any city in the world.”

Judge Hagler indicated that he might force city to reveal the cost of the devices, but not necessarily the full contracts and agreements. The City is arguing that the release of the information could put NYPD officer in harm’s way or limit their ability to fight crime and terrorism.

The judge will examine the city’s records in a closed-door hearing on March 22 before meeting with attorneys from both groups and making a final ruling.

---

Derrick Broze is an investigative journalist and liberty activist. He is the Lead Investigative Reporter for ActivistPost.com and the founder of the TheConsciousResistance.com. Follow him on Twitter. Derrick is the author of three books: The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 1 and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 2

Derrick is available for interviews. Please contact Derrick@activistpost.com

This article may be freely reposted in part or in full with author attribution and source link.

The post New York Supreme Court Signals Support For Transparency On Cellphone Surveillance appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

“Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better.” ~Unknown

Article via Tiny Buddha by Annie Wood

When I was about sixteen or so, one of my parent’s friends got into some trouble with the law. When we’d visit him he’d often shake his head from side to side and mumble, my life is in the toilet.

He said it many times, for many years, even when things seemed to have gotten better for him.

My life is in the toilet was his mantra.

At the time I thought it was funny, so I adopted it for myself, until one day I started to believe it. I’ve since dumped that charming phrase and gotten a new mantra.

Things haven’t magically become ideal for me since I did that. I mean, there’s this pinched nerve in my neck and those construction sounds across the street, and I could really use some more work, and…

Type of Drains

Everyone complains, at some point, at least a little, says Robin Kowalski, PhD, a professor of psychology at Clemson University.

There are different types of complainers, according to Kowalski, such as The Venter. The Venter is a “dissatisfied person who doesn’t want to hear solutions, however brilliant.”

Venting. We’re just letting off steam, right? Maybe not. I’ve personally found that the complain drain can be soul draining, not just for the complainer, but for all within earshot.

Other types you may have met along the way (or may be yourself) are the Sympathy Seekers, the I got it worse than you do, and the habitual everything sucks folks.

The Chronic Complainers, those living in a state of complaint, do something researchers call “ruminating.” This basically means thinking and complaining about a problem again and again. Instead of feeling a release after complaining, this sort of complaining can actually make things worse. It can cause even more worry and anxiety.

No one is suggesting you be a peachy-keen-Josephine and pretend all is swell when it isn’t. What I’ve learned in my mindfulness practice is to aim to do the opposite.

In mindfulness meditation, we try to experience fully the truth of the situation, in this exact moment, and allow it to just be. Easier said than done (but what isn’t?) Still, with practice, the need to express our dissatisfaction for things not being how we’d like them to be lessens.

Can’t We Just Call Roto-Rooter?

Running with this drain analogy…

Call Roto-Rooter, that’s the name… and away go troubles down the drain!

When I was a kid I loved singing along to those Roto-Rooter commercials. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could “away go troubles down the drain?” Well, maybe we can.

Most of us may have been unintentionally reinforcing the nasty habit of complaining, by virtue of… complaining.

There’s something called “experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” which is the continuing creation and grouping of neuron connections in our brains that take place as a result of our life experiences.

Neuroscience teaches us that neurons that fire together, wire together. Donald Hebb, a Canadian neuropsychologist, coined that phrase back in 1949. What this means is that whenever we think a thought or have a feeling or physical sensation, thousands of neurons are triggered and they all get together to form a neural network.

With repetitive thinking, the brain learns to trigger the same neurons each time.

So, if you keep your mind looping on self-criticism, worries, and how nothing is working out for you, your mind will more easily find that part of your brain and will quickly assist you in thinking those same thoughts again.

This shapes your mind into greater reactivity, making you more vulnerable to anxiety.

Imagine a truck driving down a muddy road. The wheels create a groove in the mud, and each time that truck drives down that exact spot, the groove gets deeper and deeper.

The truck might even, eventually, get stuck in that mud rut. But it doesn’t have to. Instead of repeating the same negative complaints, we can drive our thoughts on a different road so we don’t get stuck in that negative mud rut.

Throughout our lives we are wiring our brains, based on our repetitive thinking. We get good at what we practice.

If we worry, creating more unease and anxiety, we become stellar worriers since our brain is responding, making it easier for us to worry each time we do it, thus creating our default mode living.

Default mode living is our habitual way of going about our lives. It’s our reacting minds as opposed to ourresponding minds.

Our reacting minds are often knee-jerk reactions to something. We often say or do things that we’ve said and done in the past, as if we were in that default mode living, on automatic pilot. But our responding minds come into play when we give ourselves a pause before responding to a situation.

We ask ourselves what’s really going on and what the next best step is. It’s a clearer response in the moment that’s not linked to past responses. So, how do we respond instead of react?

4 D.I.Y. Tips – Stop The Drain!

You’re stuck in traffic and not only are you complaining out loud to the cars that are in your way, you’re imagining getting home and complaining to tell your significant other all about it. You’re practicing this conversation in your head while in the car. Your heart races, your forehead tenses up. It’s all so very annoying! What to do?

Read the full article at Tiny Buddha.

The post How Complaining Rewires Your Brain For Negativity (And How To Break The Habit) appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

Increased US Aid Would ‘Restore’ Ties After Obama

Article via Antiwar

Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri today told a group of US reporters that the Trump Administration has made promises to “significantly” increase US intelligence and military support for the kingdom against Iran, with a particular eye of fighting against the “Iran-backed” Shi’ites in Yemen.

Asiri presented the move as a necessary US commitment to “restore” US-Saudi ties after Saudi resentment that built up during President Obama’s time in office. Though he did not elaborate, Saudi Arabia’s main source of anger at Obama was going along with the nuclear deal with Iran.

Saudi Arabia has long presented its invasion of Yemen as being about the Shi’ites there being an “Iranian proxy,” though evidence suggests no real Iranian support for the Houthi movement before the invasion, and very limited support, mostly to spite the Saudis, afterwards.

Trump is definitely on board with hostility against Iran, and Saudi officials say that Trump has invited Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to help him “make the plan for the Middle East.” Whatever other aspects this plan ends up having, Saudi input ensures it will mean US hostility toward Iran.

---

This article first appeared on Antiwar.com and was authored by Jason Ditz.

The post Saudi General: Trump Promises Increased Support Against Iran appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

Article via Antiwar

The first of what will ultimately be a deployment of 800 British ground troops, with Challenger 2 tanks and armored vehicles, arrived today in Estonia to join the ever-growing NATO deployment of a “spearhead force” into the Baltic states to “deter” Russia.

This deployment has its origin in the escalation of deployments into Eastern Europe by NATO to nominally prepare for a Russian invasion. Each of the Baltic States is to get around 1,000 troops, with the US, Britain, Germany, and Canada each taking the lead of each groups.

Of course, the idea that Russia is about to invade Eastern Europe, something US officials were pushing a couple of years ago, has long since lost any credibility it once had. Instead, the deployments have been pushed as a way to show Western support for the smaller Baltic members of NATO, though it is fueling considerable additional tension with Russia for the entire alliance.

British officials say that this new deployment, which will be fully in place by April, will be the largest British deployment in Europe since the end of the Cold War. In addition to the 800 troops in Estonia, another 150 British troops are to be put elsewhere in the Baltics under different commands.

---

This article first appeared on Antiwar.com and was authored by Jason Ditz.

The post Britain Sends Troops, Tanks To Estonia In Largest Deployment To Europe Since End Of Cold War appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

Article via Zero Hedge

Is sanity finally returning? After weeks of ranting and raving about Russian “interference” and Putin-Trump conspiracies, so-called ‘intelligence’ agencies and high-ranking Democrats are quietly walking back their rhetoric and managing their base’s expectations – simply put: there’s no ‘there’, there.

‘Moon of Alabama’ reminds us that a while ago Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone warned: Why the Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the Media:

If we engage in Times-style gilding of every lily the leakers throw our way, and in doing so build up a fever of expectations for a bombshell reveal, but there turns out to be no conspiracy – Trump will be pre-inoculated against all criticism for the foreseeable future.

And now, as The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald writes, key Democratic officials are now warning their base not to expect…

The post The Trump-Russia Conspiracy Campaign Collapses appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

During an interview I conducted with G. Edward Griffin, author of ‘The Creature From Jekyll Island’, I asked Mr. Griffin “Who really runs the Federal Reserve?”
Griffin replied,

“Well the answer to that is really simple… If you understand perhaps the most important fact that there is about the Federal Reserve and that is that it’s not a government agency, it’s a cartel. It’s a banking cartel. No different than an oil cartel or a banana cartel, it’s a banking cartel. The question is, who controls the cartel? The answer is, the cartel members.
And the answer deeper than that is that the stronger cartel members, the biggest cartel members control it.
So we have to look at who are the biggest banks and now we answer the question. It’s sometimes international in scope. This is really an international interlock. So we’re looking at international banking. Who are the biggest banking families in the world and then you answer the question, who controls the Federal Reserve?”

His insinuations don’t leave you with much mystery, you don’t have to think too deeply to figure out who those banking families are.

The Federal Reserve prints fiat currency out of thin air, devaluing the dollar, creating debt and inflation. They work in collaboration with nearly every central bank in the world which leads to perpetual debt enslavement. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was signed side by side with the IRS act under President Woodrow Wilson.

G. Edward Griffin wrote one of the all-time most prophetic book on the creation and use of the Federal Reserve back in 1994 which has been through more than 40 printings.

The full interview World Alternative Media conducted with Mr. Griffin can be found here:

 

RELATED: Luke Rudkowski Confronts Jacob Rothschild

The post G. Edward Griffin Answers: Who Really Controls The Federal Reserve? appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

Article via The Anti-Media by Carey Wedler

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is terribly confused and wildly uninformed. That, or he’s a liar.

Trump’s pick to head the Department of Justice has long opposed cannabis and enthusiastically supported the war on drugs. Though he reportedly recently assured congressional lawmakers he would not be instituting a crackdown on weed in states where it’s legal, his rhetoric against the increasingly accepted plant is concerning.

Sessions attracted headlines last week when he claimed “there is more violence” surrounding marijuana use than many people imagine. Of course, this is demonstrably false according to crime statistics from states where it is legal. As the Denver Post has noted, “there is one thing that legalization supporters, opponents and neutrals within Colorado agree on: It’s unlikely marijuana has much to do with Denver’s recent uptick in crime.”

As one meme quipped, the violence Sessions should have been referring to is caused by the war on drugs, which is now widely known to cause widespread, institutional violence.

Nevertheless, Sessions remains steadfast in his opposition to weed. In another demonstrably false statement, Sessions claimed this week that marijuana is almost as dangerous as heroin. Speaking to law enforcement agents at the federal, state, and local level on Wednesday, Sessions boldly asserted:

“…I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana – so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful.  Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”

First, let’s examine the claim that legalizing cannabis will not help the heroin — and by extension, the opiate painkiller — crisis. One recent study indicated that in states that allow access to cannabis, overdoses from opiate drugs drop. That 2014 study concluded such deaths had decreased by as much as 25% in states with medical marijuana programs. Further, according to some reports — and in an apparent nightmare scenario for Sessions — some opiate addicts are switching to cannabis rather than continuing to use the deadly drug.

“They felt a lot better when their pain was being controlled by cannabis rather [than] opioids because opioids have a lot of side effects,” said Dan Clauw, a researcher investigating this trend.

It is unclear what exactly Sessions considers so “awful” about cannabis. In various forms, it is increasingly proving to help treat epilepsy, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, anxiety, pain, and the side effects of chemotherapy, to name a few indications. As the government-run National Cancer Institute has acknowledged, preliminary research shows cannabis may help inhibit the growth of tumor cells by causing cell death.

Heroin and opiates do none of these things, except treat pain — a benefit clearly outweighed by the extreme risk of addiction and death these drugs pose (even former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has admitted marijuana is not a gateway drug). From 1999 to 2015, 183,000 people in the United States died just from prescription opioids, and many painkiller addicts graduate to heroin out of desperation.

In contrast, research supports the medical potential of cannabis. This is particularly impressive considering the weed the government provides for academic research hardly even resembles healthy cannabis and is often covered in mold. Imagine what researchers might discover if they were studying cannabis similar to what individual users are actually consuming.

Nevertheless, Sessions correctly asserts preventative measures are vital to tackling drug abuse. But his other solutions, namely, criminal enforcement, are less viable. Even police officers are increasingly skeptical of the government’s ongoing war on marijuana. While many officers recognize the serious threat of heroin and painkillers, a recent survey of law enforcement showed marijuana is a top concern for less than 5% of those questioned.

Sessions is not only out of touch with research regarding cannabis, but also the priorities of the law enforcement agents he allegedly presides over.

Though he claims he will not aggressively pursue the plant, at least one U.S. attorney has already tried. Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden issued a warning to organizers of High Times’ Cannabis Cup in Las Vegas, asserting they had incorrectly interpreted an Obama-era memorandum commanding the Department of Justice to respect state’s rights on marijuana. Though it’s doubtful Sessions had anything to do with this specific action, it’s possible his stance is already permeating the culture of the Department of Justice.

Whether Sessions is simply grossly uninformed about cannabis or is actually  misrepresenting it to bolster is drug warrior approach, one thing is clear: his focus on “enforcement” ensures the drug war will be in full swing for some time to come.

---

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

The post Jeff Sessions Goes Full Reefer Madness On Legal Weed appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

Article via Medium by By Mike Cernovich and M.T. White

Foreign influence in U.S. politics and media is a hot topic at the New York Times, which fails to disclose its largest shareholder is a Mexican who oppresses his own people. Why did Carlos Slim purchase 16.8% of the New York Times, and what has he received from the deal?

Lest you dismiss this expose as a “right wing conspiracy theory,” consider that the most vocal critics of pay-for-play are left wing editors and commentators, including the New York Times’ own editor!

“Behind the Scenes, Billionaires’ Growing Control of News.”

New York Times editor Jim Rutenberg wrote an article covering the perils of allowing billionaires to control the news. While criticizing Peter Thiel for funding the Hulk Hogan litigation against Gawker, Rutenberg sets his sight on conservative Sheldon Aldeson:

Mr. Thiel’s campaign is in keeping with the pledge his favored candidate for president, Donald J. Trump, made to ease barriers to lawsuits against journalists. But it is actually the flip side of the media realm’s new coin. Many of his fellow billionaires have gained control of news organizations by buying them or starting them.

The most striking example can be found in Nevada, where the conservative casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bought The Las Vegas Review-Journal last year. Mr. Adelson is not shy about using his money to influence the politics of his state and country. And the sale was followed by reports of editors suddenly altering articles about Mr. Adelson’s business dealings to put them in a more flattering light, or holding from publication articles about him altogether.

Read the rest of the article by clicking here.

---

This article first appeared on Medium.com and was authored by Mike Cernovich and M.T. White.

The post How A Mexican Robber Baron Turned The New York Times Into His Personal Blog appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

Article via The Anti-Media

Have you ever heard the phrase, “There’s no use crying over spilled milk?” It appears that in the case of the Obama presidency, a more apt phrase would be “There’s no use crying over spilled Yemenis,” considering the man generated $115 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a country that has been imposing utter destruction on the civilians of Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world.

The reason there’s no use crying over these past events is that any time wasted focusing on our recent history could seriously undo all the hard work that could be put into resisting events unfolding under the Trump administration. With Obama’s departure comes an indispensable resource in the so-called left-wing sector of the population, many of whom have started to re-emerge as advocates for peace. Hell, even the mainstream media ripped Trump’s first raid in Yemen to shreds, something almost unheard of under Obama.

Let’s be honest: Obama was not an anti-war president. His supporters were not anti-war, which should have been clear in the early stages of his campaign as he set his sights early on expanding the war in Afghanistan. From there, he and Hillary Clinton toppled the government in Libya, sending the rich North African nation into ruin. He also bombed Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan, a total of 7 majority-Muslim countries. There have also been reports of drone strikes carried out under the Obama administration in the Philippines, too.

In 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped over 26,000 bombs in seven countries.

No point crying over spilled blood as Obama goes kite-surfing with entrepreneur Richard Branson and as Ellen Degeneres hugs George W. Bush as if he hasn’t been wanted for arrest in some countries.

But both Obama supporters and radical Islam-fearing Republicans alike have a unique opportunity to craft the future of America, bearing all of the above in mind. If Obama was able to pull all this violence off, what should we make of a president who makes weapons deals to the Saudis that the arms-dealing former president shied away from — or orders raids even he deemed too risky?

It’s time to mobilize. It’s time to make the anti-war movement great again. Even if one was naive enough to believe Trump was going to radically reshape America’s foreign policy, it appears his hands are tied. Military spending under the Trump administration is already set to reach record highs. Trump is sending more and more ground troops to Syria without congressional approval or approval from the U.N. The Syrian government has just warned that all forces who operate inside Syria without permission will be deemed “invaders.”

Syria is bound to Iran by a mutual defense agreement and is heavily defended by Russian air power. America’s stalwart regional ally, Saudi Arabia, is also sending ground troops to Syria with the express intent of stopping liberated areas from falling into the hands of the Syrian regime. This dynamic could pave the way for an all out confrontation between American allies and Russian allies and has the potential for disaster. If this seems unlikely, consider that the Military Times recently reported that Russian troops and American troops are now stationed in the same Syrian city.

Further, as I write this article somewhere safely outside of the Middle East, a mosque near Aleppo, Syria, was just reportedly bombed by the U.S. Air Force, killing at least 42 worshipers. Remember how fervently the mainstream media reported Russia’s alleged bombing of Aleppo back into the Middle Ages? The U.S. military is apparently making the Russians look friendly in comparison.

Further still, the Syrian government just fired its anti-missile defense system against Israeli jets. Of course, Israel has struck Syria in multiple instances in the past without any direct response from Syria or Iran (or Russia.) Until now, of course.

A war with Iran is not unthinkable, given how hawkish Trump himself has been towards the Iranian government. To make matters worse, there is an Asian powderkeg in the form of the Korean peninsula just waiting to be lit by one rogue simpleton looking to go down in the history books as the world’s most idiotic person. Currently, that frontrunner appears to be Rex Tillerson, Trump’s secretary of state, who has announced that the U.S. is considering a military option against North Korea.

This military option is becoming more and more likely as each day passes. So how else would the Trump administration choose to diffuse tensions in this already complicated battle arena (bear in mind that North Korea and South Korea are, for all intents and purposes, still at war)?

By sending a U.S. missile defense system to South Korea, of course. (Are you aware that North Korea and China have a defense treaty?)

No one will hold it against you if you were silent over the last eight years — if you make the right decision now and resist these looming wars in Asia and the Middle East. Even Ellen will be let off the hook for cuddling a man responsible for the deaths of over one million Iraqis and thousands of American troops if she does the right thing and mobilizes this much-needed resistance to war.

Because let’s face it, what choice do you have? If tensions aren’t diffused, proxy wars that have been ongoing for the last decade have the very real possibility of evolving into hot wars between big players. Think of it like this: Russia and the United States are currently bombing the same country with complete polar opposite interests.

What could possibly go wrong?

---

Opinion / Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

The post It’s Time To Make The Anti-War Movement Great Again appeared first on We Are Change.

We Are Change

The FBI has arrested a man accused of harassing and causing a seizure to Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald with flashing GIF images.

The suspect, John Rivello, was arrested by the FBI at his Maryland home. Rivello, 29, is being charged under federal cyberstalking statutes and will appear in federal court in Dallas on Monday, Eichenwald’s attorney Steve Lieberman told The Daily Caller.

Eichenwald confirmed this information, tweeting that the man who “assaulted” him faces federal charges and is also expected to be indicted by the Dallas district attorney on different charges in the next few days.

He added that he would like to “thank Dallas Police, Dallas DA, U.S. Attorney in Dallas, the FBI and the Dept of Homeland Security who all played a role in this case.”

In December, Eichenwald said that a Twitter troll sent him a flashing video with the message, “you deserve a seizure,” which he claimed triggered an epileptic episode after viewing.

Eichenwald further noted that more than 40 people sent him strobe lights after they found out that they could trigger seizures and there were other cases that the FBI were investigating.

To this writer’s knowledge, this would be the first time that a court would attempt to indict someone for assault by GIF animated image.

More than 40 ppl sent strobes once they found out they could trigger seizures. Details of their cases are with the FBI. Stop sending them.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 17, 2017

I want to thank Dallas Police, Dallas DA, US Attorney in Dallas, the FBI & the Dept of Homeland Security who all played a role in this case.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 17, 2017

Eichenwald’s dubious account of this incident is not helped by another tweet he sent at the time, claiming the tweet was from his wife and she had contacted police.

@jew_goldstein This is his wife, you caused a seizure. I have your information and have called the police to report the assault.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016

How many people would take the time to tweet while their husband was having a seizure?

The post Assault By GIF? Man Arrested By FBI For Giving Newsweek Journalist A Seizure appeared first on We Are Change.