Saturday, 19 September 2015

The Liars of 9/11 : Superhero William Rodriguez

"I am Vinz, Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer...
Volguus Zildrohoar, Lord of the Seboullia. 

Are you The Gatekeeper..?"




William Rodriguez - Last Man Out: Discovered a Fraud! 
by; Phil Jayhan & Larry McWilliams

ATTENTION: With an advertising budget of zero dollars we ask everyone who has websites and blogs to copy and paste this important new revelation into 911 in as many places and blogs as possible. Please copy and paste this story in its entirety in as many places as possible! Please spread the truth about William Rodriguez as fast as possible! We are 9 years behind the 8 ball in discovering these things! Thank you! 

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” - Sir Walter Scott

Could it be that many of the 9/11 “heroes” have been groomed to play that role a long time before the event occurred? People often ask me “Why would they need to do that?” and a possible explanation could be:

Allowing random heroes to rise will open doors. Doors to the unknown. It will elevate people to fame who might use that fame to express doubts in the official 9/11 story down the line.

Same with the fake pictures: Allowing family members to identify real pictures of their loved ones would allow them media attention a random person could possibly use to threaten a smooth sailing with the official story.

We have more then a few things we have discovered about Mr. William Rodriguez, alleged last man out of the world trade center on 9/11 which are extremely suspicious, but none as suspicious as when one draws a simple gracious time-line of William Rodriguez's very own tale of the events and compares it to probability verses possibility verses impossibility. . Unfortunately, no matter how one does the equation of William Rodriguez's tale of events of September the 11th, 2001, last man out, there is no available possibility that his story is true. There is literally no other possibility then that his tale of events is a staggering national hoax and at the crux of an international conspiracy. 

His file is growing every day we look into this national hero of 9/11. When one lies and is caught in their lie, there is humiliation. But when one tells a lie thousands and thousands of times, and makes a fat living off of it for 10 years straight, who can describe the humiliation? William Rodriguez has told his lie, on National TV, International TV and beyond. He is by far one of the more prolific liars of the 21st century. 

So don't expect William Rodriguez to ever admit to the truth. Even when nobody is listening to him any longer and he is living in a box again. And no, I seriously doubt Willie Rodriguez was ever homeless. That was all part of his "legend." The national hero ignored. National hero homeless. Then finally recognition and redemption., then finally international hero status. Legends take an awful lot of effort to create. Yet fraudulent legends sometimes fall in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds. It doesn't take much. Just a little bit of truth shining in a dark place. 

Below are the tools anyone can use to see whether William Rodriguez is a international hero, or whether Willie Rodriguez is an international liar. The main tool will be creating a time-line of William Rodriguez's exploits, and simply seeing if there was enough time for any of this to occur, much less all of it. So, without any more small talk, lets start creating that time-line and see how believable William Rodriguez is, last man out of the world trade center, according to unconfirmed legends. 


Rosie O'Donnell interviews 9/11 Hero William Rodriguez (Part 1 of 5)  


We will start with Willies "boom." From part 1, listed above. After dissecting part 1, we will move along to part 2-3, where his lies really pick up some steam and start rolling. Move to the end of part 1. Also, FYI, the time-line below is two-fold. The red time stamps are the estimated times it would have taken Willie Rodriguez to do such and such feat or miracle, with the clock ticking down. It is not the actual time frames spoken by Willie, but rather the estimated times taken for each thing described by Mr. Willie Rodriguez. 

Time-line:

8:30 Willie punches in - alleges 14 people in office with him; Did he count them all? The story gets off to a bad start with that. But lets continue.

8:46 At "about" 8:46 I heard an explosion, a very loud "BOOOOOM" which pushed us upwards. 

(editors note: This timeline is important; It should be noted because of everything you are about to hear that you know it was 8:46 and some change; I think the explosion happened at the end of the minute, with only a few seconds remaining till 8:47)

---8:46 A: The sheet-rock opened up, the fax machine fell on the floor, ceiling fell down and the sprinklers started going off. 

7-8 seconds pass; Then he claims they heard another explosion, all the way from the top of the building; For the purposes of this time-line, it will be graciously assumed now that it is roughly 8:47. Counting seconds here, and in a little while you will see why. Be patient. Not sure why someone didn't do this before now, but we were all under the spell of the 911 lie and the 911 legend. 

8:47 A guy comes running into the office screaming explosion, explosion, explosion; (Felipe David) It says that Felipe was down one level and had to make it up to the offices; This moves the time-line and clock forward at bare minimum, being gracious, to 8:48.


** 
It should be pointed out here that Willies story about Felipe David having 32% of his skin blown off his body from the explosion and then getting severely burned in the process, and THEN walking or taking the elevator up to the offices is a lie. He would have been unconcious and in shock. This is where Willies story simply starts falls apart. Look now for embellishments which make the super hero look even more heroic. 

At first I thought he had a red shirt, but then realized it was soaked in blood. Wait a second Willie, you just got done saying all of the skin from his arms and torso were hanging from his body. So the explosion ripped off his skin, but left his shirt on, and in place, and presumably still tucked in. So much so, that you thought he was wearing a red shirt. Huge screw up here. Shows he is lying.

Now more embellishments; Now nobody wanted to touch this man, because it was 2001, and you know, the AIDS thing. 

Quote:
"Nobody wanted to touch him because this was 2001 and nobody wanted to touch someone with blood because of the aids virus;"
Thus Willie was the only decent chap out of all 14 people who was willing to help this man. Apparently, even after Willie broke the ice. This is a lie. And works to pump up Willies super hero status. 8 minute mark, part 1
8:48 - 8:51 They tend to Felipe David. Nobody helps but Willie. Everyone is standing in the corner, not even helping Willie because they are all afraid of the aids virus, even after Willie starts helping. Only Willie does the right thing, even when 14 others are present! By Willies own admission, by the time he hears the next explosion, it was "minutes after Felipe David" came into the office. 
Being conservative here and again very gracious with time, I now move the clock of the time-line ahead to 8:51, even though with everything that's happened, it is probably closer to 8:55 - 9:05. This will become crucial in a few minutes after more of Willies questionable story. At the 8:50 mark in part 1 of the video now; 

8:51 AM - Now Willie claims that he "lead all 14 people, and Felipe David" down to the loading dock where there was an ambulance waiting. The WTC was 209 x 209. They claimed to be in B1, and then went to the loading docks. (B2)
Embellishment notice: Notice how the contrived and scripted superheros do all sorts of heroic things while everyone else simply follows and won't even help? This also helps you realize this is all a giant lie because not one of those 14 people would have refused to help Felipe David because he had blood on him and because of AIDS. That's not normal human behavior, especially in a crisis when a man is dying in front of their eyes. They all stayed in a corner while Willie helped wrap the man in towels? Anyone else's BS detector going off yet? 9:30: - 9:55 mark in video - part 1

Estimated time of trip to loading dock: 9-10 minutes, especially since he was with 14 other non hero's who needed consolation, extra guidance, counseling and special help. These 14 nameless people were of course completely dependent on Willie, and none of the 14 ever once offers any assistance to Willie. Willie Rodriguez also had to carry Felipe David down to the ambulance. Willie did it all, none of the 14 would help. And smoke and darkness filled the air. And I will graciously give him a 3 minute credit, as perhaps Willie Rodriguez are able to to things faster then born and bred Americans, who need scripted super hero's to save them. 

This now moves the clock of the time-line to roughly 8:56. 8:57 for time in helping place Felipe David into the ambulance, assuming they too were afraid of the AIDS virus and not wanting to help, it was after all 2001 and the AIDS virus thing was raging fear for all Americans. Even, and probably for American ambulance technicians. The clock of the time-line of Willies story is now, very graciously & conservatively, at 8:57 AM. 

8:57 - Here Willie makes another big mistake, The loading docks were at the B2 level, which is 2 floors undergound of the WTC. Yet from those underground loading docks [citation needed] Willie was able to penetrate his vision through the concrete floors above and see that it was indeed a plane which hit the buildings. Kind of like superman here. X-ray vision. 9:55-10:10 mark in video

minutes now left before the 2nd plane crashes into the world trade center; Lets now see how much William Rodriguez, last man out of the world trade center was able to accomplish in those last 6 minutes. It truly is an amazing feat of strength, speed, agility, and lying tongue. 

End of part 1:


Rosie O'Donnell interviews 9/11 Hero William Rodriguez (Part 2 of 5)  


Part 2 time-line starts here:

8:57:30 First 20 seconds into part 2 -
 Willie Rodriguez claims of all the worthless 14 people he just saved, that nobody wanted to go back into the building, only him. Again the super-hero status, self proclaimed super hero status. These embellishments are a give away. They are lies. I am a cowardly, super-chicken guy who avoids danger like the plague. But if there are people who need help and I'm the only thing available, I will always do whats necessary to help others which are hurt, or dying, as will 99% of all other Americans. William Rodriguez is lying. Clock moves ahead to 8:58.

8:58 AM - 

Quote:
"I went to the South Tower, the operations control center, the OCC...."


.50 seconds to 1:02 mark in video; There was 200 feet between buildings, almost 100 yards. Then to get to the OCC, it would be another 100 feet inside the building, bare minimum. This removes 2 minutes, conservatively, from William Rodriguez's time-line.
 

This moves the clock up to 9:00 AM. Now some 13-14 minutes after the first event William described, and conservatively giving him every benefit of the time-clock here. In reality it would be closer to about 9:10 - 9:15am here; But lets work with the overly gracious time allotments I have given Mr. Rodriguez, alleged last man out of the WTC. I think everyone here who has been following along will see that I have been extra gracious to Willie Rodriguez, with regards to time. Very gracious indeed. 

9:00 AM
 - 

Quote:
"No, no, this is before the 2nd plane hit..."
[Very important, as I have been working towards this statement since the beginning of the article] 1:20 -1:30 mark in video; 

2:25-2:40 mark in video - More super-hero embellishment

Willie Rodriguez meets a new employee, whom he claims wouldn't leave the building because she was afraid of being fired, even though every other single person in the towers had evacuated. Critical thinking will tell you this is yet another lie. Just an FYI here everyone, everything that William Rodriguez has ever said, or told regarding 9/11 is a total lie. Williams midas touch saves yet another poor stupid American from their own stupidity. God bless his lying tongue. How many has Willie saved so far? The 14 idiot friends he worked with, none of which had enough character to help a wounded dying man because they were afraid of AIDS. Then Felipe David. That's 15. Now he saves another dumbass American girl who didn't have enough wits about her to evacuate even though all of her superiors had evacuated. Thank god Willie was there! Thus we are now up to 16 salvations from Willie alone, in less then that many minutes. Truly an unbelievable person he is. 

Quote:
"I pushed her out..."
{God bless William Rodriguez, this man is truly unbelievable!}

This removes 1 minute minimum from Willies time-line:

9:01 AM - 2:42 mark onward in part 2 of video:
"And then with Jimmy Barron I went straight to the North Tower..." part 2, video mark 2:35-2:43

Willies time clock just moved forward 2 minutes; Another 300 feet to travel, bare minimum. Notice at the 3 minute mark in this video the 2nd plane has still not hit yet. This is crucial. 

9:03 AM: Willie hears people screaming from the elevator, but can't tell where because the sound of the water sprinklers was making such a loud noise. 3:05-3:11 in part 2.

Two people are found miraculously by Willie, he obviously pries the doors open (not mentioned, but would have been necessary) and they are screaming to Willie they are going to drown in the elevator because of the sprinkler system. Notice how he claims the water was up to their waist now, only minutes after the North Tower strike. 

Quote:
"Water up to their bellies..." 

Mind you the time which has passed would make this a simple and easy lie to see through. How fast does the water come down in an elevator with a cage top? And don't forget how easy it is to pry the doors of even a stopped elevator open which would allow the release of the water. But when hero's aren't present, people die, because they are helpless and stupid, unlike scripted super heros. 

And I said; 

Quote:
"God please help me, and I was not a person that believed in anything at that moment..." 
4:45-4:55

Willie says he was able to experience super hero strength at this point and was able to save two more people. This guy is simply unbelievable.

"Went back inside the building, ALONE again"
 Super-heros are always alone. 

For the sake of sleep and rest, I am ending this now but will try and finish this tomorrow. But let it be known that William Rodriguez is now officially out of time, by about 10-15 minutes. The elevator rescue burned another 9-10 minutes bare minimum from Willies time-line.

It is now roughly 9:20 AM according to the timing of all of Willies feats, and the south tower plane would have hit some 20 minutes ago, but according to Willies story, the South Tower plane simply hasn't hit yet? Yet Willie will continue on and on and on and save many more lives, and screwing up a precious time-line that neither he nor his handlers ever went over for choreographed mistakes and errors. If anyone here goes through all of William Rodriguez's testimony and creates a time-line as I just did, they will see that his entire story, from start to finish is a fraud. A total lie, A fabrication which earned him much money.


Willie will still climb 40 flights of stairs, come in and out, all before the 2nd plane hits the 2nd tower. There simply isn't any possible way, no way on earth that any of William Rodriguez's story is true. It is a complete fabrication, from beginning to end. A total lie, and he is a total liar, a cheat, a fraud, and far from being an American and international hero, is a national and international disgrace. And please do not forget that he is a traitor to America, and to the world. What do we do to traitors? Whose lies cause the deaths of millions of people overseas? 


Rosie O'Donnell interviews 9/11 Hero William Rodriguez (Part 3 of 5)  

I hope you all enjoyed my time-line. I created this in my head last night as I watched all these videos over and over again, and still haven't come close to fleshing out all of his lies and deceit.

Perhaps you guys can help and finish this for me.


William Rodriguez, last man out of the World Trade Center is a fraud, liar, and most importantly, a traitor to this great nation as well as to the world. Now when Willie Rodriguez was confronted with some of these things from a private email I had sent to Joyce Riley (not meant to be shared, but was nonetheless) Williams wrote me back and made this statement;

Quote:
Quote from William Rodriguez, the last American liar pulled from the WTC: 

Thanks Joyce for sending me this. Phil used to be a FRIEND before he got deranged and obfuscated. I think his issue may be that I removed him from my list of friends on Facebook plus all the other contacts connected with him, after I noticed attacks on his website and he did not even ask me about the issues. If you want, and only if you want, I will be willing to have a total debate with him on the air about his perceived beliefs that I am not myself. I will love to do that and also to ask him some questions as well, including personal ones. I think its fair. Also, I am the last man to exit the building when it was collapsing not the last person pulled from the rubble. My "white skunk" mark on my head is hereditary in my family, obviously Phil Jayhan bad teeth and halitosis may be hereditary as well. Comparing me to a deceased hero of the tragedy that I experience is totally insensitive, but then again, Phil is famous in his own circle for doing that with other victims as well. I will make sure that I send this to the victims family as well. Since I have a huge database of the families, victims, survivors and those affected by the event, I will also make a note of his attacks and a list of his insensitivities so those who do not know will be aware of his erratic behavior.
I would like to point out the reason I have severely discolored teeth is because when I was a baby I nearly died of a high fever, and they gave me massive doses of tetracycline, which as many of you know, severely discolored anyone's teeth who was given the medicine. So, no Willie, it isn't hereditary, it was a medical issue you douchebag. 

Notice how this total traitor and lying douchebag thinks the reason I have issues with him is because he removed me as a friend from his precious facebook. What a total loser this guy is. He thinks he is bestowing blessings on people by being their friend, even on facebook. This simply shows William Rodriguez's arrogance and how he is drunk with the small amount of power he was given, but will soon enough be yanked from this sorry little traitors ass.

And BTW, that's not a bad name for William Rodriguez. Traitor. Last time I checked, traitors were just as prone to die from being hanged by their neck until dead, as are real American traitors. Can't wait for Willies trial to begin. Someone please get me front row seats so I can smile at this sorry son of a bitch traitor, Willie Rodriguez, with my discolored tetracycline teeth all the way through the trial. Maybe if I am lucky I can be the last guy who breathes in Willies face when that great American trap door of justice opens underneath his sorry soul... 

In closing I offer this appeal to William Rodriguez, and then to everyone else, respectively. I will debate you face to face anywhere, anytime where there is a fair medium presented and where you don't have all the fake hero cards stacked against me. I will refute your bogus false claims of 911 super-hero status right to your face, and before any audience, small or large, as long as above conditions are met. I will go through this time-line in front of any audience in the world and prove you to be the total liar and fraud that you are. By using your own stated "facts" as my only evidence against you. Your time-line simply is not plausible, possible or remotely close to being true. You are a fraud. And part of the 9/11 conspiracy. 

I will not debate you on your own turf, Captain Joyce Rileys show. She too is part of the same criminal network as you, and like you was paid huge free money to freely, willingly take part in the 9/11 hoax, IMO. Call me tomorrow and I will schedule you on my own radio talk show, any day of the week, at any time of your choosing. If your telling the truth, you would accept this offer, as nobody can blind side the truth. You have nothing at all to fear by appearing on my radio show, since everything you claim, is claimed as gospel truth by you. If you are the liar I have accused you of being, and the traitor you are, you will more then likely refuse this offer. Because you are a scared miserable pathetic little lying traitor. And your story cannot hold up to even, as we have seen, the littlest amount of scrutiny.

Just an FYI here Willie. Your 9/11 fun has come to an end. Times up! These truths will spread faster then just about any other truths we have uncovered, if only for the reason you lied more then any other 911 person since the beginning. Over and over and over again you told your story to unsuspecting, uncritical audiences. Those days are over Willie. Time to face the music. Just happens to be playing a tune your not fond of. 

At this point I would like the reader to understand and see, and even question a few things; Namely:

1. How it is that you cleaned the stairwells of t least 1, maybe (2) 100 story buildings each day, yet when these building fell, there was 16 miles of missing staircases. Where did those 16 miles of staircases go Willie? <<Said like philip petit the white joke walker, who allegedly penetrated all of WTC security with a 990 pound wire and tip toed across the WTC tulips un-noticed>>

2. Where are the 16 miles of staircase that you cleaned on a daily basis Willy? They are totally and completely absent from the debris pile. "Where did those 16 miles of missing staircases go to Willy? And why aren't those 16 miles of missing staircases at the world trade center part of your international crusade? <<Again said just like philp petit>>

3. How is it that performed at bare minimum 97 minutes of miracles in only 17 minutes? From 8:46 a, till 9:03 am, the world wants an answer Willie Rodriguez, Mr. Last man out of the world trade center with nice white teeth not stained from tetracycline.

4. Whats your relationship again to James Randi, MASS Illusions and magic?

5. Where is a single piece of footage of any of your alleged claims on 9/11? To being pulled from under the fire truck, to everything else? There isn't a single credible reason you can give why there is no footage of you being pulled from the fire truck. News wires and reporters at that time would have descended the scene like seagulls in a McDonalds parking lot.

6. What is your relationship to Joyce Riley? And why does she go out of her way to help your lying story?

7. Can you produce within any reasonable amount of time, 1040's and tax forms from your alleged 20 years of employment at the world trade center? Multiple ID cards? Pictures of your offices? Friends and co-workers? 20 years with a love like yours Willy, well you would have thousands of such pictures. I'll bet you cannot produce 10.

8. Can you produce 20 years of pay stubs and tax forms? Pictures of your alleged offices and cubes? I have noticed you have given this story, this legend of yours thousands of times now and probably gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars for it, probably millions. yet, something that is lacking in all of your presentations is a single damned picture of your offices, your desk, your cube, your space. Wow, eerily absent, like it was all make believe or something. 

9. The truth is you never once cleaned the stairwells at the world trade center and that your entire story is a fraud, and you are a total fraud Willy. There was no stairwells at the world trade center. 16 miles of missing staircase is an impossibility under every circumstance but one. That they were never there to begin with. Where are those 16 miles of missing staircases Willy Rodriguez? Who used to have a security clearance and work for the corrupt Mario Cuomos governors office? Just where did those 16 miles of missing staircases go to Willie Rodriguez? Mr. Last Man out of the world trade center? <<Said just like philpe petite the tight rope guy, in broken stupid french>>



10. Joyce Riley knows you are a fraud which is why she silenced Chris when he called into the POWER HOUR. <<insert video here later phil, citation needed>>

11. The only peoples shows you go on are people who are frauds. As William Casey once said; "There is no one in the media whom the CIA does not own or control" 

12, This includes, duh, Rosie.

13. YOU are at the center a a giant massive worldwide hoax, which is now spinning out of control, and your very existence should feel threatened in thousands of ways. What will people do to you when they find your such a massive fraud, hoax, and part of something which sent millions and millions of Afghans and Iraqi's to their deaths? 

(I am kind of thinking I wouldn't want to be YOU right now, even though your teeth are whiter and far prettier then mine.)

14. People still rise up against tyrants and hang traitors and all their lying accomplices. 

15. I would rather be me right now, then you, even with all your pearly whites and better looks. Why? Because I have done a service to this nation by exposing the very 911 hoax you are a part of and at the center of. You Mr. Willie Rodriguez are a traitor. And total human scum. And your very days are numbered. They will be cut short by your treachery and lies. Just wait till people find out the truth about you, there won't be a place in the world you can hide those pretty white teeth of yours. 

16. Parties over. So glad it was me who spoiled it. I thank God for this in a very personal way. And the members of this forum who helped me arrive here faster then had I been alone.

17. You better have something far better then my discolored teeth from tetracycline as a defense to all these allegations and proof, because there is one giant hell of a shit storm heading your way Mr. Willy. And it's going to splatter you all the way back to Peurto Rico. 

18. Traitors still hang. Till they are dead. 

19. Does your cute little hispanic wife know what a lousy piece of crap liar you are? Did she go along with this for the easy ride? Or is she ignorant of your treachery and traitor hood? And wow Willie. You have a new baby boy. He is going to grow up now with the knowledge that his Father is an international and national liar. What a terrible burden you have placed on your wife and new child. 

20. Time WILL tell. <<pardon the pun>>

cheers-
Phil  






ATTENTION: With an advertising budget of zero dollars we ask everyone who has websites and blogs to copy and paste these links into them as a directory, to help spread the 

Flight 11 Frauds: 
Flight 175 Frauds:

  • Triplets Separated at Birth - Edward H. Luckett, Carlton Bartels, Michael Tarrou
  • Flight 77 Frauds:
    Flight 93 Frauds:
    The 911 Jumper Frauds:
    North Tower Frauds:
    Pentagon Stage Props - Pentagon TV Fakery: 
    Pentagon Fraudulent Victims on 9/11:
    Media Complicity and Fraud:
    Media 9/11 Memorial Frauds:
    The 9/11 Memorial Wall:
    9/11 & WTC Corporate Fraud:
    Gatekeepers of the Alternate Media:
    Pending Research Requests from Lets Roll Members:
    MISC: Great Research Links on this Material above:

    Hypertime




    "How does it work? Off the central timeline we just left. Events of importance often cause divergent “tributaries” to branch off the main timestream. But what’s astounding is there’s far more to it than that. On occasion, these tributaries return—sometimes feeding back into the central timeline, other times overlapping it briefly before charting an entirely new course. An old friend is suddenly recalled after years of being forgotten. A scrap of history becomes misremembered, even reinvented in the common wisdom.

    There are hazards to Hypertime, of course.... Artifacts carried into differing hypertimelines dangerously break down the barriers between kingdoms...but you’ll learn more about that in the months and years to come."

    Friday, 18 September 2015

    The Liars of 9/11 : Steve Rannazzisi

    The Coming War in Vojvodina

    Powder Keg : Refugees of the War of Terror and the Coming War in Vojvodina




    The phoney « refugee crisis »

    JPEG - 54.1 kb
    The left-hand part of this photo has been widely published by the Atlantist Press. The victim, a Syrian Kurd child, Aylan Kurdi, is supposed to have been washed up by the sea. However, his corpse is perpendicular to the waves instead of being parallel. On the right-hand part, the presence of an official Turkish photographer reinforces the suggestion of a staged event. In the background we can see people bathing.

    A wave of brutal emotion suddenly submerged the populations of the NATO countries. People suddenly realised the drama of the refugees in the Mediterranean - a tragedy that has been going on for years to their complete indifference.

    This change of attitude is due to the publication of a photograph showing a drowned child washed up on a Turkish beach. It doesn’t matter that this photo is staged - the sea washes up bodies parallel to the waves, never perpendicular. It doesn’t matter that in less than two days, it was instantly reproduced on the front pages of almost all the newspapers in the NATO zone You have already been advised that the Western Press is free and pluralist.

    Continuing in the same vein, television channels multiplied reports on the exodus of thousands of Syrians who were crossing the Balkans on foot. Particular attention was given to the crossing of Hungary, which first of all built a completely pointless barbed-wire fence, then made a number of contradictory decisions which allowed the filming of crowds walking along the railway lines and mobbing their way onto trains.

    « Reacting » to the emotion that they had provoked in their citizens, the « surprised and upset » European leaders struggled to find a way to bring help to these refugees. Antonio Guterres, ex-President of the Socialist International, and present UN High Commissioner for Refugees, invited himself to the debate, advocating « the obligatory participation of all the member states of the European Union. According to preliminary estimations, European countries will probably have to expand their relocation opportunities to 200,000 places », he declared.

    What is the real problem, who is managing it, and what is their goal ?

    The Mediterranean refugees

    Since the « Arab Spring », in 2011, the number of people attempting to cross the Mediterranean and enter the European Union has augmented considerably. It has more than doubled, and rose to 626,000 in 2014.

    JPEG - 14.4 kb
    Flow of refugees towards the European Union (in hundreds of thousands)
    Source : Eurostat

    However, contrary to a common misconception, this is not a new and unmanageable wave. In 1992, when the Union numbered only 15 of its current 28 states, it received even more than that - 672,000 refugees for 380 million inhabitants. So there remains a considerable margin before the refugees begin to destabilise the European economy and its 508 million present inabitants.

    More than two thirds of the migrants are men. According to their declarations, more than half of them are between 18 and 34 years old. So, generally speaking, this is not a family issue.

    JPEG - 17.3 kb
    Proportion of male migrants who entered the Union in 2014.
    Source : Eurostat

    Contrary to the information presently being published by the media, less than a third of these are refugees from war zones : 20 % are Syrians, 7 % are Afghans, and 3 % are Iraqis.

    The other two thirds do not come from countries at war – they are for the most part economic migrants.

    In other words, the migration phenomenon is only marginally linked to the « Arab Spring » and war. These are poor people who leave their countries to try their luck in the rich countries, by virtue of the post-colonial order and globalisation. This phenomenon, after having slowed from 1992 to 2006, has started again, and is progessively growing. It only currently represents 0,12 % per year of the European population, and so – if correctly handled – should present no short-term danger for the European Union.

    JPEG - 46.4 kb
    The President of the German Industrial Federation, Ulrich Grillo, hopes for 800,000 extra foreign workers in Germany. Since European agreements forbid this, and since public opinion is hostile to the idea, he is playing his part in the staged « refugee crisis » in order to force the evolution of the law.

    Do the migrants pose a problem ?

    This flow of refugees is a worry for the European populations, but is warmly encouraged by German business leaders. In December 2014, the German « boss’s boss », Ulrich Grillo, hypocritically masking his interests behind a trickle of fine sentiment, declared to the DPA : « This counry has been open to immigration for a long time, and it must remain so ». « As a prosperous country, and also out of Christian love for our neighbours, our country should be able to welcome more refugees ». And again : «I want to be clear – I am in no way close to the neo-Nazis and racists who are meeting in Dresden and elsewhere ». More seriously : « Because of our demographic evolution, we are consolidating our growth and prosperity through immigration » [1].

    This speech uses the same arguments as those used by the French business leaders in the 1970’s. Even more so today, the European populations are relatively well-educated and qualified, while the great majority of migrants are not, and can easily assume certain types of work. Progressively, the arrival of a non-qualified work-force who would accept conditions inferior to those of Europeans was causing tension on the job market. French bosses then began to push for family regrouping. The law of 1976, its interpretation by the Conseil d’État in 1977, and the jurisprudence by the European Court for Human Rights, deeply destabilised society. Since the adoption of the same dispositions, the same phenomenon can now be observed in Germany, with the inclusion, in 2007, of family regrouping in the immigration laws.

    Contrary to a widely-held belief, the economic migrants do not cause an identity problem in Europe, but are missed in their home country. On the other hand, they are causing social problems in Germany, where the working class is already the victim of ferocious exploitation, because of the policies introduced notably by Ulrich Grillo. Everywhere else, it is not the economic migrants who are causing the problem, but the family regrouping.

    Who is fabricating the current image of the « refugee crisis » ?

    Since the beginning of the year, the passage from Turkey to Hungary, which used to cost 10,000 dollars, has dropped to 2,000 dollars per person. It’s true that certain human smugglers are slavers, but many of them are simply trying to make themselves useful to people in distress. In any case, who pays the difference ?

    Furthermore, at the start of the war against Syria, Qatar printed and distributed false Syrian passports to jihadists from al-Qaïda so that they could convince Atlantist journalists that they were « rebels », and not foreign mercenaries. False Syrian passports are today distributed by certain smugglers to non-Syrian migrants. The migrants who accept them rightly believe that these false papers will facilitate their welcome in the Union. Indeed, since the member states of the European Union have closed their embassies in Syria - except for the Czech Republic and Romania – they have no way of checking the validity of these passports.

    Six months ago, I was astonished by the blindness of the EU leaders, who failed to understand that the intention of the United States was to weaken their countries, including by means of the « refugee crisis » [2]. Last month, the magazine Info Direkt confirmed that, according to the Austrian Intelligence services, the passage of Syrian refugees to Europe was organised by the United States [3]. This charge still has to be verified, but already constitutes a solid hypothesis.

    Moreover, all these events and manipulations would be without gravity if the member states of the EU would put an end to family reunification. In that case, the only real problem would not be the arrival of the migrants, but the fate of those who die on their journey across the Mediterranean. And that is the single reality that no European leader wants to consider.

    What is NATO preparing ?

    So far, NATO, or in other words the international armed branch of the United States, has not reacted. But according to its most recent missions, the Atlantic Alliance is reserving for itself the possibility of military intervention if the migrations should become important.

    Since we know that only NATO is capable of publishing false information on the front page of all the newspapers of its member states, it is very probable that it has organised the present campaign. Besides which, the fact that all migrants are represented as refugees fleeing the war zones, and the insistance about the supposed Syrian origin of these migrants, allows us to suppose that NATO is preparing a public action linked to the war which it is secretly waging against Syria.


    The Great Serb Migration of 1690


    Hungary’s Viktor Orban: Washington’s New Enemy Image

    11207_5580b25aHungary and its populist nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban have come into the cross-hairs of Washington’s political elites. His sin? Not buckling under to the often destructive diktats of the Brussels EU Commission; attempting to define a Hungarian national identity. But his cardinal sin is his deepening relationship with Russia and his defiance of Washington in signing an agreement with Gazprom for bringing the Russian South Stream gas pipeline into the EU via Hungary.

    Orban has himself undergone a political journey since he was elected as Hungary’s second-youngest Prime Ministers in 1998. Back then he oversaw the entry of Hungary along with Poland and the Czech Republic into NATO over Russia’s protest, and into the EU. As Prime Minister during far more prosperous economic times in the EU, Orban cut taxes, abolished university tuition for qualified students, expanded maternity benefits, and attracted German industry with low-cost Hungarian labor. One of his American “advisers” then was James Denton, linked with the Color Revolution Washington NGO, Freedom House. Orban seemed the darling of Washington’s neo-cons. In 2001 he was given the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute’s Freedom Award.

    But in 2010 after six years in the opposition, Orban returned, this time with a resounding majority for his Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union Party, Fidesz for short. In fact Fidesz won a 68% supermajority in Parliament, giving it the necessary votes to alter the Constitution and pass new laws, which it did. Ironically, in a case of the pot calling the kettle black, the United States Obama Administration and the European Parliament for placing too much power in the hands of Fidesz. Orban was accused by Daniel Cohn-Bendit of the European Greens of making Hungary on the model of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. He was definitely not playing by the approved Brussels Rulebook for politically submissive EU politicians. Fidesz began to be demonized in EU media as the Hungarian version of United Russia and Orban as the Hungarian Putin. That was in 2012.

    Now its getting alarming for the Atlanticists and their EU followers. Orban has defied EU demands to stop construction of Russia’s important South Stream gas pipeline.

    Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline would guarantee EU gas together with German-Russian Nord Stream that could bypass the war in Ukraine something Washington bitterly opposes for obvious reasons

    Last January Orban’s government announced a € 10 billion deal with the Russian state nuclear energy company to refurbish Hungary’s only nuclear power plant at Paks, originally built during the Soviet era with Russian technology.

    That caused some attention in Washington. Similarly when Orban criticized the United States this past summer for failing to ultimately resolve the global financial crisis its banks and its lax regulation caused, and praised China, Turkey and Russia as better models. He declared in words not too different from what I have often used that Western democracies, “will probably be incapable of maintaining their global competitiveness in the upcoming decades and will instead be scaled down unless they are capable of changing themselves significantly.” In addition, Orban’s government managed to free Hungary from decades of devastating IMF bondage. In August 2013, the Hungarian Economic Ministry announced that it had, thanks to a “disciplined budget policy,” repaid the remaining €2.2 billion owed to the IMF. No more onerous IMF-forced state privatizations or conditionalities. The head of the Hungarian Central Bank then demanded the IMF close its offices in Budapest. In addition, echoing Iceland, the State Attorney General brought charges against the country’s three previous prime ministers because of the criminal amount of debt into which they plunged the nation. That’s a precedent that surely causes cold sweat in some capitals of the EU or Washington and Wall Street.

    But the real alarm bells rang when Orban and his Fidesz party approved a go-ahead, together with neighboring Austria, of the South Stream Russian pipeline, ignoring EU claims it violated EU rules. Orben proclaimed at a meeting with Germany’s Horst Seehofer in Munich on November 6, “”Es lebe die österreichisch-ungarische Energiemonarchie” („The Austro-Hungarian Energy Monarchy Lives.“)

    The US elites sounded the alarm immediately. The ultra-establishment New York Times ran a lead editorial, “Hungary’s Dangerous Slide.” They declared, “The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary is sliding toward authoritarianism and defying the fundamental values of the European Union — and getting away with it.”

    The Times revealed the real cause of Washington and Wall Street alarm: “Hungary’s most recent expression of contempt for the European Union is its passage of a law on Monday that clears the way for Russia’s South Stream natural gas pipeline to traverse Hungary. The new law is in clear violation of the European Parliament’s call in September for member states to cancel South Stream, and of the economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the European Union and the United States after Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Instead of issuing tepid expressions of concern over antidemocratic policies, the European Union should be moving to sanction Hungary. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, should exercise his power to force Mr. Navracsics to resign.” Tibor Navracsics, has just been named the new European Commissioner of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, a post in Brussels that has arguably little to do with gas pipelines.

    Next we can expect the National Endowment for Democracy and the usual US Government-backed NGO’s to find an excuse to launch mass opposition protests against Fidesz and Orban for his unforgivable crime of trying to make Hungary’s energy independent of the US-created insanity in Ukraine.

    F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”


    Tsipras front confronts EU brutal austerity

    Washington DC, February 17, 2014 – Can an effective European-wide political front be quickly improvised in opposition to the brutal austerity policies dictated since 2008 by the infamous Troika of the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund?  

    This is the question which will be answered between now and May 22-25 in response to an effort led by Alexis Tsipras, who is also the candidate for prime minister of Greece put forward by the Syriza left party.  Late last year, Tsipras was officially nominated as a candidate for the presidency of the Brussels European Commission by the European Left Party in the context of the upcoming elections for the European Parliament.  During February, Tsipras has taken his campaign to the Netherlands, France, and Italy, with further appearances planned in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Ireland, Great Britain, Sweden, Portugal, and Spain. 

    Thanks to this campaign by Tsipras, there is now new hope, after years of fragmentation and impotence, of assembling a coherent European-wide programmatic alternative to the three headed Cerberus of European austerity, deflation, and anti-worker measures.

     As he steps onto the European stage, Tsipras’ authority is bolstered by the unique success of Syriza under his leadership in recent years.  As of now, he is well on his way to becoming prime minister of Greece.  In late November 2013, Syriza passed several percentage points ahead of the ruling New Democracy party of the current Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who had was installed in Athens by the Troika as its austerity enforcer.  So far, this lead has held up.  

    Tsipras has pointed out that the success of Syriza in the 2012 Greek parliamentary elections led to the partial collapse of the discredited social democratic PASOK party of the Papandreou family, and he is predicting that the New Democracy, which has presided over an increase of Greek unemployment to the record depression-level high of 28%, will collapse in the next election -- which could come at any time between now and 2016.  If New Democracy is in trouble, this parallels the recent split of the Berlusconi party in Italy, and factional warfare among US Republicans.
     
    Tsipras starts with an uncompromising rejection of neoliberal austerity measures of the type which have so obviously made the Greek crisis much worse.  He takes a strong stand against the Troika and its so-called Memorandum, referring to the letters of intent submitted by the Greek government to the International Monetary Fund, detailing the various budget cuts, mass firings of public workers, and reductions of public services which Greece is supposed to carry out in order to secure the position of the zombie bankers.  Needless to say, the political parties which have most reliably tried to enforce the IMF dictates are those of the so-called Socialist International (or Second International).

    An International Conference to Reduce Debt, Launch a New Deal

    Across all of Europe, but especially in the southern tier and among nations who have undergone bailouts by the troika -- including Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus -- national debt represents a crushing and unmanageable burden.  The bailouts have not helped the national economies, but have been designed solely to save the zombie bankers from insolvency. 

    Tsipras’ answer is the convening of an international debt conference along the lines of the London debt conference of 1953, which dealt with the residual debt of Germany left over from World War I reparations under the Young Plan, and other payments.  Germany’s creditors agreed to cancel about 50% of the country’s outstanding international financial debts, while rescheduling payments for the remainder over 30 years.  Some payments were postponed until such time as the country might be reunified, which did not happen for almost 40 years.  This result helped foster the successful of the West German economy in the years after 1953.

    An international debt conference of this type held today could have highly beneficial effects on the world economy.  Even some financiers are prepared to concede that haircuts and debt write-downs of debt are inevitable.  In addition to reducing the debt burden on many European countries, the conference could be used to promote international bans on the most toxic derivatives, such as collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps.  It could also become a vehicle for at least the partial de-privatization of the European Central Bank, by forcing this institution to open a credit stimulus window offering trillions of euros in financing for job creation in infrastructure, education, and science.  African countries, Eastern European countries, and indeed a wide range of states from around the world might be interested in attending.  

     Tsipras also calls for a post-writedown New Deal of development investments to revive the stricken economies and allow them to stay viable into the future.  (We note that if private bankers should refuse to make these investments, then institutions like the European Central Bank will have to be pressed into service.)  Tsipras makes clear that if European bankers and the politicians they control, such as Merkel, refuse to cooperate in common-sense reforms, Greece and other countries would reluctantly have to resort to unilateral debt cancellations.  

    Unilateral Debt Moratorium Only If Creditors Get “Violent”

    In a recent interview with the Greek leader we read:  “Tsipras said German Chancellor Angela Merkel would come to realize that an organized debt write-off was a more sustainable solution for Germany than continuing to pour loans into countries that could never repay them because austerity policies were causing endless recession.  Asked whether a Syriza-led government would unilaterally default if other powers refused to negotiate a debt write-off, Tsipras said he would prefer to avoid unilateral action, but Athens might have to declare a moratorium on interest payments.  ‘One weapon we could use if our partners are very, very violent (tough) is to stop repaying interest in order to finance the Greek economy. But this is not our intention,’ he said, speaking in English.” Paul Taylor, “Greek leftist seeks negotiated debt write-off,” Reuters, February 4, 2014)

    In an op-ed published in Le Monde of Paris, Tsipras mocked German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the “Sleepwalker of Europe,” urging her to realize that her characteristic methods of deflation and ultra austerity are failing everywhere, and actually represent a threat to Germany’s economic future as well.  Tsipras is thus not a priori against the euro, and this sets him apart from the right-wing populists.  In Rome he stressed that Europe is the battlefield where the class struggle of our time is being fought out, whether individual leftists like it or not.  The European nations are interdependent, and the need for solidarity among them is greater now than at any time since World War II.  The Tsipras list, he indicated, will defend Europe against conservatives, neoliberals, and pro-austerity social Democrats.  It will not be the Europe of austerity, but a humanist and humanitarian Europe, concerned about the lives of immigrants.

    In France, Tsipras will receive the backing of the Parti de gauche, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who took about 11% of the votes in the first round of the last French presidential election.  In Germany, Tsipras should be supported by Die Linke, which got almost 9% in last year’s general election.  In Italy, there are no left wing parties in the 8 to 10% range, so Tsipras will have to rely on an ad hoc list including such figures as Guido Viale, a former leader of the anarcho-Maoist Lotta Continua, and Barbara Spinelli, the daughter of a leading Eurogarch and European federalist. Dubious figures like the anarchosyndicalist Toni Negri, formerly of Potere Operaio, are also circling in hope of increasing their own gate receipts through the prestige of Tsipras. 

    In introducing Tsipras in Rome, Viale stressed green and ecological themes, which Tsipras would be well advised to soft-pedal.  Tsipras has shown great dexterity in purging Syriza of discredited leaders responsible for past defeats.  Over time, he may be able to apply the same talents to the mixed bag of figures who are now joining his effort.  In any case, European voters need to look beyond individual personalities or even individual national parties to recognize the urgent historical necessity of what Tsipras is doing, and support him wholeheartedly. 

    It is notable that Tsipras does not waste much time reciting the usual impotent litany of radical environmentalists and ecologists, whose concerns are often viewed as diversions for the affluent by desperate working families fighting for survival in this depression.  Environmental concerns are quickly mentioned, but they get short shrift.  That rhetoric will be largely relegated to the right wing European Greens.  In this way, Tsipras can avoid the Malthusian blind alley of “green jobs” based on primitive windmill and solar cell technology which has done so much to cripple the left wing of the US Democratic Party.  Tsipras must also take care to steer clear of the anti-infrastructure demagogy pedaled by the Italian Beppe Grillo and various anti-development or atrophy economists.

     The Tsipras candidacy represents an important contribution to the potential success of the mass strike wave of 2014-2015 in Western Europe and North America which is now getting underway.  It is a key step towards the creation of a European-wide anti-banker movement to seize control of the European Central Bank and to mobilize the credit-creating power of that institution for a vast infrastructure and science program capable of creating the 40 million new productive jobs Europe needs to exit from the current economic depression.

    The Competition: Eurogarchs and Eurocrats on Parade

    The outgoing president of the European Commission whom Tsipras wants to replace is the Portuguese José Manuel Barroso, a Bilderberg stalwart who traces his political lineage back to the fascist Salazar dictatorship which ruled in Lisbon for half a century up until 1975.  Tsipras will be running for EU Commission chief against an array of the Eurogarchs and Eurocrats who have fought any vestiges of European social and economic justice left over from the Treaty of Rome, in line with their toxic neoliberal and pro-financier ideology favoring a Europe of the banks and cartels.

    A leading adversary for Tsipras will be the current European Parliament president Martin Shultz of the social democratic block, a current which is in the midst of a hard pro-austerity and anti-worker right turn.  The flagship German SPD has just entered a grand coalition government with Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leader of the austerity Valkyries.  In France, the socialist President François Hollande has totally repudiated his anti-austerity promises, and is launching new attacks on the standard of living of French working people, even as he promises to cut taxes on banks and corporations, to say nothing of planning a new Middle East war with Obama.  In Italy, the vaguely socialist Democratic Party (which contains the remnants of the old PCI) has just the propelled the pro-austerity Mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, into power – a politician notorious for his opposition to unions and his plan to make Italy a hire and fire labor market on the worst American model.

     Also in the running for the post of EU commission president for the Malthusian European Green Party of Germany will be Ska Keller, a former punk-rock devotee and opponent of coal mines in Brandenburg, and José Bove, the veteran anti-globalization activist who now likes to present himself in typical Rousseauvian fashion as a peasant.  Only about 22,000 voters took part in the European Green internet primary, suggesting dwindling support for this right-tending formation.  Working families looking for help will not find it here.

     The explicitly pro-banker Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) has nominated former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of the Bilderberg group, who narrowly edged out current EU Commission Vice President and economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn of Finland, also of Bilderberg, who has aggressively represented the interests of European zombie bankers in Brussels. Rehn will likely now be a candidate to become the EU’s foreign affairs boss the post currently held by the unfortunate Lady Ashton. 

     The biggest caucus in the European Parliament is currently the European Popular Party, which is dominated by austerity ghoul Merkel, whose favored candidate is Jean-Claude Juncker, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, a tiny nation dominated by its offshore banking center.  The candidate will be chosen on March 6-7 in Dublin.  Austerity enforcers like Greece’s Samaras, Mariano Rajoy of Spain, Victor Orban of Hungary, and Donald Tusk of Poland are members of this grouping.

    US-UK Media Tout Right-Wing Racist and Anti-Euro Parties

     So far, the Anglo-American news media have focused their attention on the supposed momentum being built up by racist, xenophobic, and anti-European parties.  There is indeed a European tradition of using the European Parliament elections for protest votes.  In the hopes of wrecking the euro as a rival to the dollar and the pound, the Anglo-Americans have been touting the potential of a xenophobic block (or “brownshirt international”) around Marine Le Pen of the French National Front and the Dutch Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders, who have come together on a platform of wrecking the European Union from within.  Le Pen is indeed likely to benefit from voters horrified by the failure of French President Hollande, but forming a parliamentary group at the European level requires 25 members from at least seven countries.

    According to University of Georgia professor Cas Mudde, “eleven far right parties will (re-)gain entry into the next European Parliament: the Austrian FPÖ (long led by the late Jörg Haider), the Belgian VB, the Bulgarian Attack, the Danish People’s Party (DFP), the Dutch PVV (Wilders), the French FN, Greek Golden Dawn (CA), the Hungarian Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik), the Italian Northern League (LN), the Latvian National Alliance (NA), and the Sweden Democrats (SD)” plus perhaps the Slovak People’s Party-New Slovakia (LSNS), for a total of between 40 and 50 seats. (Washington Post, February 11, 2014)  Attack, Jobbik and Golden Dawn are more or less explicitly fascist.  The UK Independence Party (UKIP), while thoroughly xenophobic and reactionary, is likely to remain in splendid isolation.  

    Also standing alone so far is the anti-immigrant Five Star movement of Italian demagogue Beppe Grillo, who is attempting to resurrect his sagging fortunes with a breakthrough in the European elections.  According to Marine Le Pen, Grillo sought contact with her with a view toward some kind of an alliance, but these talks broke down.  These are the groupings which Tsipras has in mind when he condemns right-wing populist leaders who, like the Ron Paul libertarians in the United States,  claim to be opposed to the banker-dominated system, but who in reality function as the “reserve army” of the financiers’ system.  In Italy, Tsipras is likely to take votes from Grillo.

     Unlike these politicians, who are eager to serve London and Washington by developing a strident anti-euro demagogy, Tsipras recommends a struggle against the bankers on the existing European battlefield, rather than first retreating into the national isolation of small states where post-euro resistance against J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs would be even more difficult.

    The European Left won about 4.5% of the votes in the last European Parliament election in 2009.  This was approximately the strength of the Synaspismós party (the forerunner of Syriza) when Tsipras became its leader.  Within a few years, Tsipras’ 4.5% had become 27% on the way to becoming the largest Greek party.  We will soon see whether this exploit can be repeated at the European level.


    Thursday, 17 September 2015

    Richard Branson

    DICK BRANSON is a dead groovy guy. All ready famous as a pickle mogul, a music baron and a record breaker, the world's richest bearded git now moves into the world of Giant Robot Destroying! Yes, those wicked shape-changing Decepticon robots really meet their match when they cross dicks with Dick in issue 160 of the crap comic Transformers. Basically this giant robot shark is well pissed off with Dick and tries to do him but Dick's too hard. Does this mark a new era of Dick style superheroes? Superdick? The Incredible HippySpider BransonCaptain CapitalistThrills hopes not.
    Steven Wells, New Musical Express

    Wednesday, 16 September 2015

    Taking Back the FDA by Dr Marcia Angell, MD



    Taking Back the FDA
    by Marcia Angell

    Boston Globe
    Monday, February 26, 2007

    It’s time to take the Food and Drug Administration back from the drug companies.

    Before a prescription drug can be sold, the manufacturer must conduct clinical trials to prove to the FDA that the drug is safe and effective. Without that, doctors have no way of knowing how good or bad a drug is. Just trying it out would be not only risky, but unreliable, since individual experience can be misleading. The scrutiny that this agency exists to provide is vital to our health.

    But in 1992, Congress put the fox in the chicken coop. It passed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which authorizes drug companies to pay “user fees” to the FDA for each brand-name drug considered for approval. Nearly all of the money generated by these fees has been earmarked to speed up the approval process.

    In effect, the user fee act put the FDA on the payroll of the industry it regulates. Last year, the fees came to about $300 million, which the companies recoup many times over by getting their drugs to market faster.

    But while it’s a small investment for drug companies, it’s a lot of money for the agency, and it has drastically changed the way it operates — creating a disproportionate emphasis on approving brand-name drugs in a hurry. Consequently, the part of the agency that reviews new drugs gets more than half its money from user fees, and it has grown rapidly. Meanwhile, the parts that monitor safety, ensure manufacturing standards, and check ads for accuracy have languished or even shrunk.

    Most tellingly, the office that approves generic drugs is so small that approval time for generics is twice as long as for brand-name drugs. There is now a backlog of more than 800 generics. That delay is worth billions of dollars to the drug companies whose high prices depend on not having generic competition.

    As part of the emphasis on speed, the FDA often approves brand-name drugs on the basis of less evidence than in the past. In these cases, approval may be contingent on companies conducting further safety studies after the drugs are on the market. But the companies usually don’t honor that commitment. Of the roughly 1,200 such studies outstanding — some for years — over 70 percent haven’t been started.

    The FDA is strangely silent about this inexcusable dereliction. When questioned, it weakly protests that it doesn’t have the authority to compel the research. In fact, it has enormous leverage, since it can withdraw drugs from the market.

    The FDA also refuses to release unfavorable research results in its possession without the sponsoring company’s permission. Here again, it contends not to have the authority to do so, but providing evidence of side-effects or negative results would seem to be an integral part of its job. It’s no wonder that serious safety concerns about drugs such as Vioxx, Paxil, and Zyprexa have emerged very late in the day — years after they were in widespread use.

    The agency’s coziness with industry is underscored by the composition of its 18 advisory committees — outside experts who help evaluate drugs.

    Incredibly, many of these advisers work as consultants for drug companies. Although they are supposed to recuse themselves if there is a direct conflict of interest, the FDA regularly grants exemptions from that requirement. Of the six members of the advisory committee that in 1999 recommended approving Vioxx — the arthritis drug pulled from the market in 2004 because it caused heart attacks — four had received waivers from the conflict-of-interest rule.

    The FDA now behaves as though the pharmaceutical industry is its user, not the public. Fortunately, the user fee law is subject to renewal every five years, and this is one of those years.

    Congress should let the law die this time around and substitute its own support — which ought to be increased. Other reforms recently proposed, such as administratively separating drug approval from safety surveillance, will not mean much as long as this law is in effect.

    At $300 million to $400 million a year, the equivalent of about a day in Iraq, Congress can easily afford to buy this vital agency back for the public, and it should.

    Dr. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School, is a guest columnist.

    Tuesday, 15 September 2015

    Grecian Lions


    "As he [Xerxes] was proceeding by this way, lions attacked the camels which carried his provisions; for the lions used to come down regularly by night, leaving their own haunts, but they touched nothing else, neither beast of burden nor man, but killed the camels only: and I marvel what was the cause, and what was it that impelled the lions to abstain from all else and to attack the camels only, creatures which they had never seen before, and of which they had had no experience."

    Hurrah for Karamazov



    "It's all part of my theory," Kinderman said.

    "Lieutenant?", said Atkins, holding up a forefinger, pausing to chew, and then swallow a mouthful. He pulled a little white paper napkin from its dispenser, wiped his lips, and then leaned his face in closer to Kinderman's; the babble in the room had grown excited. " Would you do me a favour, Liuetenant?" 

    "I am here but to serve, Mister Chips. I am eating, and therefore expansive. Let me have your petition. Is it properly sealed?"

    "Would you please explain your theory?"

    "Impossible, Atkins. You will put me under House Arrest."

    "You cant't tell me?"

    "Absolutely not." Kinderman took another bite of his burger, washed it down with a swaow of Pepsi and then turned to the sergeant. "But since you insist. Are you insisting?"

    "Yes."

    "I thought so. First take off the tie."

    Atkins smiled. He unknotted the tie, and slipped it off.

    "Good." Said Kinderman. "I cannot tell this to a perfect stranger. It's so huge. It's so incredible." His eyes were agglitter.

    "You're familiar with The Brothers Karamazov?", he asked.

    "No, I'm not," Atkins lied. He wanted to sustain the detective's giving mood.

    "Three brothers," said Kinderman; "Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha. Dmitri is the body of man, Ivan represents his mind, and Alyosha his heart. At the end - the very end - Alyosha takes some very young boys to a cemetery a d the grave of their classmate, Ilusha. This Ilusha they treated very meanly once because - well, because he was strange, there was no doubt about it. But then later when he died they understood why he acted the way he had and how truly brave and loving he was. So now Alyosha - he's a monk, by the way - he makes a speech to the boys at the gravesite and mainly he's telling them that when they're grown up and face the evils of the world they should always reach back and remember this day, remember the goodness of their childhood, Atkins; this good was that is basic in all of them; this goodness that hasn't been spoiled. Just one good memory in the world. What's the line?" 

    The detective's eyes rolled upwards and his fingertips touched his lips, which were smiling already in anticipation. He looked down at Atkins. "Yes, I have it! 'Perhaps that one memory will keep us from evil and we will reflect and say : Yes, I was brave and good and honest then.' Then Alyosha tells them something that is vitally important. 'First, and above all, be kind,' he says, and the boys - they all love him - they all shout, 'Hurrah for Karamzov'"  

    Kinderman felt himself choking up. "I always weep when I think of this," he said, "it's so beautiful, Atkins. So touching."

    The students were collecting their bags of hamburgers now and Kinderman watched them leaving. "This is what Christ must have meant," he reflected, "about needing to become little children before we can enter the kingdom of heaven. I don't know. It could be." 

    He watched the counterman lay out some patties on the grill in preparation for another possible influx, then sit on his chair and begin to read a newspaper. Kinderman returned his attention to Atkins. 

    "I don't know how to say this," he said. "I mean, the crazy, incredible part. But nothing else makes sense, nothing else can explain things, Atkins. Nothing. I'm convinced it's the truth. 

    But getting back to Karamazov for a moment. 

    The main thing is Alyosha, when he says 'Be kind'. Unless we do this evolution will not work; we will not get there", Kinderman said.

    "Get where?" asked Atkins.

    "The White Tower" was quiet now; there was only sizzling from the grill and the sound of the newspaper turning now and then. Kinderman's stare was firm and even. 

    "The physicists are now certain," he said, "that all the known processes in nature were once part of a single, unified force." 

    Kinderman paused and then spoke quietly. 

    " I believe that this force was a person who long ago tore himself into pieces because of his longing to be his own being. That was The Fall.", he said : "the 'Big Bang' : the beginning of time and the material universe when one became many - legion. 

    And that's why God cannot interfere : evolution is this person growing back into himself."

    The sergeant's eyes were a crinkle of puzzlement. "Who is this person?" he asked the detective .

    "Can't you guess?"
    Kinderman's eyes were alive and smiling. " I have given you most of the clues long before"

    Atkins shook his head and waited for the answer.

    "We are The Fallen Angel," said Kinderman. "We are the Bearer of Light. 

    We are Lucifer."

    Kinderman and Atkins held each other's gaze. When the door chime sounded, they glanced to the door. A disheveled derelict walked in. His clothing was shredded and thick with soil. He walks towards the counterman, and then stood with his eyes upon him in a meek and silent plea. The counterman glowered at him over his newspaper, stood up, prepared some hamburgers, bagged them, and gave them to the bum who silently shuffled out of the shop.

    "Hurrah for Karamazov", Kinderman murmured.

    Grey September : Lufthansa, The Germanwings Disaster and the Deep State

    from Spike1138 on Vimeo.

    Q: What is 'droning an aircraft'?

    Wayne Madsen : "Well, taking a commercial plane and putting drone technology on it so that you can fly it remotely... And Lufthansa, apparently, had developed that technology back with their anti-hijacking efforts, back when they had a couple of planes hijacked by Palestinians.."

    Goth Counselling with Grant Morrison