4764-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

Top British researcher Mark Curtis, interviewed on RT UK's Going Underground (because the British media isn't allowed to interview him)

In a rare and damning interview, historian and UK foreign policy analyst Mark Curtis asserted that the British state has been complicit or responsible for the deaths of around 10 million people since World War II. The interview spans across various cases of post-war British foreign policy, from Libya to Vietnam and from Yemen to Indonesia. And it's definitely not the kind of analysis you'll find on theBBC.

The establishment media as a propaganda tool

To many people, the figure of 10 million deaths might appear outrageous, or at the very least bloated. But if it's true, at least British foreign policy has been consistently well-intentioned, right? Well, not quite - even if that basically sums up the range of acceptable debate on UK foreign policy. Because when evidence of the devastation of British intervention becomes unavoidable, the debate almost always shifts to its allegedly benevolent goals.

In this context, is it any wonder that, as a 2014 YouGov poll showed, "by three to one, British people think the British Empire is something to be proud of rather than ashamed of"? This is less the fault of the British public than its establishment media, which seems wilfully blind on issues that shame the British state. And no area of British politics should shame the state more than its record on foreign policy.

This propaganda by omission continues today. Because Britain is complicit in exacerbating two of the world's biggest humanitarian catastrophes, in Yemen and Palestine. When the establishment media mentions these conflicts, Britain's role remains near-comprehensively absent. As such, the myth of Britain as a benign or positive global power becomes self-reproducing.

"The call has never come" from the BBC

According to Australian journalist John Pilger in the foreword to Curtis's Web of Deceit, "I know of no other historian who has mined British foreign policy files as devastatingly" as Curtis. And in the words of MP Caroline Lucas, Curtis:

relentlessly peels away layers of deception until, with the aid of painstaking research and analysis of declassified files, he lays bare in graphic detail a shocking exposé of British aggression and double-standards.

But that's apparently not welcome at the BBC. As Curtis tweeted after the interview:

He also wrote:

The 'state broadcaster'

In October, Channel 4 journalist Michael Crick tweeted:

Crick, perhaps unknowingly, surmised the very nature of the BBC: the 'state broadcaster'.

Born in Strasbourg, 2yrs in prison: What we know about suspected Christmas market shooter

Published time: 12 Dec, 2018 09:21

Edited time: 13 Dec, 2018 10:15

A shooting at a Christmas market in Strasbourg that left two people dead and 14 others wounded was carried out by a man with a substantial criminal record who had been flagged as a security risk, French authorities say.

The suspect, Cherif Chekatt, 29, was born and raised in Strasbourg, but his activities in the northeastern French city apparently raised red flags: Suspected of being “radicalized,” Chekatt was placed on a terror watch list and was known to intelligence services as a potential security risk.

He had previously served prison sentences in both France and Germany for minor crimes, according to French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. According to the Daily Mail, Chekatt was sentenced to two years in prison in 2011 for a knife attack on a 16-year-old.

A photo purporting to be that of Chekatt began circulating online. Its authenticity cannot be immediately verified.

View image on Twitter

The European Post@theEUpost
Police have named the suspect of the #strasbourgshooting Christmas terror attack as local Cherif Chekatt http://europeanpost.co/strasbourg-shooting-one/ …
4
2:42 AM - Dec 12, 2018

The 29-year-old was sent to jail by a court in the German town of Singen for a violent robbery in Germany. After serving the sentence, Chekatt, a French national with North African roots, was deported back to France in 2017, according to DPA news agency.

Incredibly, police had intended to arrest Chekatt in connection with an armed robbery hours before he allegedly opened fire on the Christmas market – but he was nowhere to be found when they raided his home. Police did, however, discover a grenade.

Authorities are still trying to establish a motive for the attack. Meanwhile, hundreds of police have been mobilized as part of a manhunt to find Chekatt.

The suspect reportedly exchanged gunfire with French security forces twice as he fled the scene. Some reports state that he is wounded and may have even hijacked a taxi to make his getaway.

(RT)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/13/2018 10:30:46 AM
	San Francisco Creates World’s First Ever Transgender Cultural District The creation of Compton’s Transgender Cultural District is to stop the displacement of trans people from a place they were traditionally welcomed in, and to teach trans history. Emily Wilson Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast Honey Mahogany walked down 6th Street in San Francisco, pointing to single room occupancy hotels, the dance and performance space Counterpulse, and gay bars, OMG and Aunt Charlie’s Lounge. She passed by the Golden Gate Theatre where A Bronx Tale was playing and came to site of the former all-night diner, Gene’s Compton Cafeteria (now transitional housing), where in August 1966 a trans woman threw a cup of coffee at a police officer trying to arrest her, which turned into a riot with trans people fighting back against police harassment, flipping over tables and throwing cutlery. This event, detailed in Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman’s documentary, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria, happened three years before the famous uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village. The area Mahogany was walking through makes up part of the first legally recognized transgender district in the world, Compton's Transgender Cultural District. Mahogany, a performer and contestant on Season 5 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, is Compton's district manager. The district’s purpose is to stop the displacement of trans people from a place they have been welcomed in historically, and to teach people about trans history, she said. Mahogany grew up in San Francisco, and she always felt comfortable in the Tenderloin. “The Tenderloin has always held a really special place in my heart as a trans person with the way the community is accepting of gender variant and trans people of color,” she said. “There’s friendliness and an energy to the Tenderloin. People say hello and good morning and how are you and check in with each other, which I think often gets lost in a big city.” Under Donald Trump’s administration, there has been a proposed ban on transgender people in the military, and more recently, proposed changes to narrowly define gender that would eradicate federal recognition for about one and a half million trans Americans. Mahogany, part of a collective that bought San Francisco’s historic gay bar, the Stud, when it was in danger of closing, said it was important, in the face of this attempted erasure, to tell stories about history. And she thinks bars are a kind of community hub where that can happen. “Many of our traditions are passed down through queer bars because those are the places where our elders interact with younger generations,” she said. “Drag is often seen as a way of storytelling and passing on stories of previous generations.” Mahogany and other advocates pushed to stop development of a 12-story project in the area. The developer and the activists reached an agreement where project will go ahead, but the developer will pay $300,000 to establish the district, which will include a community center, due to be finished in a few months, at the site of a former gay bathhouse. In November, San Francisco passed a proposition for a percentage of an existing hotel tax to go to arts, with $3 million specifically for cultural districts. In May of this year, the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors unanimously supported funding the city's cultural districts, which include the “Calle 24: Latino Cultural District and the LGBTQ Leather Cultural District in SOMA. Compton’s received $215,000 from the city, said Clair Farley, director of San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives. Last year the focus was on getting community input and establishing priorities for the district. Going forward, Farley says, the goal is to help trans business and to provide workforce development for trans and LGBTQ people. Jane Kim, a supervisor whose area includes the Tenderloin, introduced the legislation in June 2017 to create the Compton’s district. “When you a person of color and part of a marginalized group, it’s easy for your history to be erased. If it’s erased, it’s like it didn’t happen” “We don’t often think of nightclubs as safe spaces, but for the LQBTQ community, they’re a place people can be free to love and dance with the people they want,” she said. “That’s why we’re working so hard to have an intentional strategy to keep our small businesses here so they can grow and thrive.” Aria Sa’id, the LGBT policy adviser for San Francisco’s Human Rights Commission, was also involved in creating the district. Unlike Mahogany, Sa’id didn’t grow up in San Francisco. She came here on a Greyhound bus at 19 with $50 in her pocket, feeling that her hometown in Southern Oregon wasn’t a safe place to be who she was. Sa’id was looking for medical support for her transition and acceptance. She wants to be sure this is a place others can find that as well. “When you a person of color and part of a marginalized group, it’s easy for your history to be erased,” she said. “If it’s erased, it’s like it didn’t happen.” Being in a place that had had a continuous presence of trans people for decades made a difference to her, Sa’id said. “Knowing how many trans people came from across the country to be their authentic selves and to realize they lived the same things I did—knowing I was a part of that history really empowered me,” Sa’id said. “Now my work is finding ways to empower trans people.” _________ o _________ For a long time, the Tenderloin has had a reputation of being a place for people not accepted by society, said Donna Personna. Personna, the daughter of a Baptist minister in San Jose, said she got the message early on that being who she was wasn’t OK, and she started going to the Tenderloin in the ’60s when she was a teenager, taking a Greyhound bus to hang out in Compton’s Cafeteria before taking the bus home in the morning. She loved the people she met there. “All they wanted was to live out their lives feeling normal—they just wanted to get a job at Macy’s and maybe have a husband,” she said. “They wanted to dress on the outside like they felt on the inside. It’s not like they wanted to be part of a drug cartel or be criminals.” Personna stopped going to Compton’s before the riot. She says she wasn’t able to live like the people she met in Compton’s did. “I came to understand how powerful these women were and so brave,” she said. “I wasn’t courageous enough to do what they did—I didn’t want to end up in prison all the time and get beat up.” Now Personna lives in San Francisco and is an activist for transgender rights. She was featured in a short, Beautiful by Night, about drag performers at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, and she and Collette Legrande, also in the film, wrote The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, with playwrightMark Nassar. The play had sold out audiences for four months this year. The play came about when Nassar, the author of off-Broadway comedyTony n’ Tina’s Wedding, came into theTenderloin Museum, wanting to write a play about the neighborhood. Katie Condry, the museum’s director, looked through the exhibits with him, and they decided on the largely unknown history of the cafeteria and the women fighting back against the cops. Condry said that she was proud the museum showcases how pivotal the Tenderloin was in the fight for LGBT rights. “Saying the LGBT movement in the United States started with Stonewall completely ignores the work activists had been doing for a decade at least,” she said. “It’s important to realize the movement started with a lot of trans women, particularly trans women of color, and it gives them back their rightful place in history.” Condry said that the goal of the museum is similar to that of the district—celebrating the people living and working in the Tenderloin now as well as the history of the neighborhood. That focus on current residents, not just street signs and plaques, is key for the district, Kim said, who aims to keep it a welcoming place. “The first transgender commemorative neighborhood in the nation’s history is well timed given the president’s attack on transgender people,” she said. “We will have grants for small businesses and we need to be intentional to make the district an anti-displacement strategy.” “It’s an act of resistance and of fighting back. I’m proud and happy with myself that we did something tangible against the Trump administration” For Personna, the district is a rejection of Trump’s policies. “It’s an act of resistance and of fighting back,” she said. “I’m proud and happy with myself that we did something tangible against the Trump administration.” The district is in its infancy, and she’s looking forward to seeing what it can do, but establishing it is a huge step, Sa’id said. She grew up not seeing any representation of trans people in the media except for maybe on the Jerry Springer Show or a dead hooker on CSI. Now transgender actor Laverne Cox, known for Orange is the New Black, is on magazine covers and has a wax figure at Madame Tussauds. Sa’id recalled President Barack Obama using the word “transgender” in a State of the Union speech–the first time an American president said it. “Now we have Trump and his intention to further marginalize trans people and Muslims and anyone who’s not a straight white man,” she said. “But progress is not linear. Just saying the word ‘transgender,’ he’s empowering us. We’re seeing solidarity from people who didn’t know what trans was five or 10 years ago. He’s encouraging people to come together and do the opposite of what he wants.” (thedailybeast.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/13/2018 2:05:48 PM
	Richard Partington Economics correspondent IMF warns storm clouds are gathering for next financial crisis Deputy head David Lipton says global banking system is not prepared for another downturn Crisis prevention is incomplete more than a decade on from the financial crisis, the IMF’s deputy head, David Lipton, said. Photograph: Eddie Mulholland/Rex Tue 11 Dec 201810.59 GMT The storm clouds of the next global financial crisis are gathering despite the world financial system being unprepared for another downturn, the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund has warned. David Lipton, the first deputy managing director of the IMF, said that “crisis prevention is incomplete” more than a decade on from the last meltdown in the global banking system. “As we have put it, ‘fix the roof while the sun shines’. But, like many of you, I see storm clouds building and fear the work on crisis prevention is incomplete.” Lipton said individual nation states alone would lack the firepower to combat the next recession, while calling on governments to work together to tackle the issues that could spark another crash. “We ought to be concerned about the potency of monetary policy,” he said of the ability of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks to cut interest rates to boost the economy in the event of another downturn, while also warning that high levels of borrowing by governments constrained their scope for cutting taxes and raising spending. Lipton said the IMF went into the last crash under-resourced before it was handed a war chest worth $1tn (£790bn) from governments around the world, while adding that it was important that national leaders had agreed to complete a review of the fund’s financial firepower next year. “One lesson from that crisis was the IMF went into it under-resourced; we should try to avoid that next time.” Speaking to an audience at Bloomberg in London, Christine Lagarde’s deputy called on China to take urgent steps to open up its economy to global competition. Against a backdrop of Donald Trump engaging in a bitter trade dispute with Beijing, he said China needed to lower trade barriers, while also impose tougher rules to protect intellectual property – a key complaint of the US president. Lipton suggested that Chinese trade policies that were once considered acceptable when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 as a $1tn economy may now be inappropriate as it had become a $16tn international superpower. However, he did warn that the US should not take an overly heavy-handed approach to reform, adding: “China has many reforms that it could carry out that would be in its own interest and in the interest of countries around the globe. But China feels they can’t take those steps, as they put it, with a gun to their head, in the midst of trade tensions.” The warning from the IMF marked the latest intervention from the Washington-based fund as the outlook for the global economy deteriorates, with particular flashpoints being the US-China trade dispute and central banks raising interest rates. Global growth is forecast to slow as a result of the trade war, while financial markets have also been rattled in recent weeks. Last week, the FTSE 100 recorded its worst day since the Brexit vote, prompted by fears over the dispute, wiping more than £56bn off the value of the UK’s leading companies. After almost a decade of low interest rates, the total value of global debt, both public and private, has risen by 60% to hit a record high of $182tn, so if central banks raise borrowing costs that would create difficulties for businesses and governments. Lipton warned that sustained trade conflict between the US and China would be likely to trigger “far-reaching and long-lasting consequences” for the global economy, with a risk that Trump’s rhetoric could encourage China to shift its economy away from the rest of the world. “Trade barriers if they are sustained could lead to a fragmentation of the global economy.” “If this [trade dispute] leads to stalemate, China may decide to reorientate its economy not to trade with the US. To accept sustained trade barriers … could lead to a slowdown [for the global economy],” he said. (The Guardian)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/13/2018 5:59:44 PM
	As US debt spirals to $22 trillion, former Fed chair Janet Yellen is suddenly concerned Published time: 13 Dec, 2018 11:13 © Getty Images / Hiroshi Watanabe Latest data from the US Treasury Department shows that the federal government is sitting on $21.85 trillion of debt. At current pace it is likely to hit the $22 trillion mark next month. America’s gross national debt skyrocketed by $11.2 trillion in less than 11 years, according to statistics. It means the government has been adding an average of more than a trillion dollars a year to the national debt for more than a decade. Total public debt outstanding has risen by $1.36 trillion, or 6.6 percent, since the start of the year, and by $1.9 trillion since US President Trump took office. The latter figure is about the size of Brazil’s gross domestic product. With America’s national debt rising at the fastest pace since 2012, the global financial elite have started warning about the possibility of a new financial crisis. “I think things have improved, but then I think there are gigantic holes in the system…The tools that are available to deal with emerging problems are not great in the United States,” former chair of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen said on Monday. READ MORE: Former Fed chair warns of ‘gigantic holes in the system’ & new financial meltdown risk She cited leverage loans as an area of concern, saying regulators could only address such problems at individual banks not throughout the financial system. “I’m not sure we’re working on those things in the way we should, and then there remains holes, and then there’s regulatory pushback. So I do worry that we could have another financial crisis,” Yellen said. Janet Yellen was appointed by former president Barack Obama to head the US Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018 when she was fired by current president Donald Trump. During that period, US national debt ballooned from $17 billion to $21 billion. Deputy head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) David Lipton warned that “the storm clouds of the next global financial crisis are gathering despite the world financial system being unprepared for another downturn.” “As we have put it, ‘fix the roof while the sun shines’. But, like many of you, I see storm clouds building and fear the work on crisis prevention is incomplete,” he added. (RT)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/13/2018 6:27:59 PM
	Researcher Mark Curtis: Britain Systematic Violator of International Law, Responsible For 8 to 13 Million Deaths Globally Since 1945 John McEvoy The Canary Wed, 12 Dec 2018 13:59 UTC Top British researcher Mark Curtis, interviewed on RT UK's Going Underground (because the British media isn't allowed to interview him) In a rare and damning interview, historian and UK foreign policy analyst Mark Curtis asserted that the British state has been complicit or responsible for the deaths of around 10 million people since World War II. The interview spans across various cases of post-war British foreign policy, from Libya to Vietnam and from Yemen to Indonesia. And it's definitely not the kind of analysis you'll find on theBBC. The establishment media as a propaganda tool To many people, the figure of 10 million deaths might appear outrageous, or at the very least bloated. But if it's true, at least British foreign policy has been consistently well-intentioned, right? Well, not quite - even if that basically sums up the range of acceptable debate on UK foreign policy. Because when evidence of the devastation of British intervention becomes unavoidable, the debate almost always shifts to its allegedly benevolent goals. In this context, is it any wonder that, as a 2014 YouGov poll showed, "by three to one, British people think the British Empire is something to be proud of rather than ashamed of"? This is less the fault of the British public than its establishment media, which seems wilfully blind on issues that shame the British state. And no area of British politics should shame the state more than its record on foreign policy. This propaganda by omission continues today. Because Britain is complicit in exacerbating two of the world's biggest humanitarian catastrophes, in Yemen and Palestine. When the establishment media mentions these conflicts, Britain's role remains near-comprehensively absent. As such, the myth of Britain as a benign or positive global power becomes self-reproducing. "The call has never come" from the BBC According to Australian journalist John Pilger in the foreword to Curtis's Web of Deceit, "I know of no other historian who has mined British foreign policy files as devastatingly" as Curtis. And in the words of MP Caroline Lucas, Curtis: relentlessly peels away layers of deception until, with the aid of painstaking research and analysis of declassified files, he lays bare in graphic detail a shocking exposé of British aggression and double-standards. But that's apparently not welcome at the BBC. As Curtis tweeted after the interview: He also wrote: The 'state broadcaster' In October, Channel 4 journalist Michael Crick tweeted: Crick, perhaps unknowingly, surmised the very nature of the BBC: the 'state broadcaster'. When it comes to reporting on foreign policy, the truth is often a matter of life and death. And if the establishment media continues to deny analysts like Curtis a platform, the only choice remaining - in order to share important information with the population - is to find new platforms. (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/14/2018 10:03:04 AM
	Born in Strasbourg, 2yrs in prison: What we know about suspected Christmas market shooter Published time: 12 Dec, 2018 09:21 Edited time: 13 Dec, 2018 10:15 © Reuters / Christian Hartmann A shooting at a Christmas market in Strasbourg that left two people dead and 14 others wounded was carried out by a man with a substantial criminal record who had been flagged as a security risk, French authorities say. The suspect, Cherif Chekatt, 29, was born and raised in Strasbourg, but his activities in the northeastern French city apparently raised red flags: Suspected of being “radicalized,” Chekatt was placed on a terror watch list and was known to intelligence services as a potential security risk. He had previously served prison sentences in both France and Germany for minor crimes, according to French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. According to the Daily Mail, Chekatt was sentenced to two years in prison in 2011 for a knife attack on a 16-year-old. A photo purporting to be that of Chekatt began circulating online. Its authenticity cannot be immediately verified. View image on Twitter The European Post@theEUpost Police have named the suspect of the #strasbourgshooting Christmas terror attack as local Cherif Chekatt http://europeanpost.co/strasbourg-shooting-one/ … 4 2:42 AM - Dec 12, 2018 The 29-year-old was sent to jail by a court in the German town of Singen for a violent robbery in Germany. After serving the sentence, Chekatt, a French national with North African roots, was deported back to France in 2017, according to DPA news agency. Incredibly, police had intended to arrest Chekatt in connection with an armed robbery hours before he allegedly opened fire on the Christmas market – but he was nowhere to be found when they raided his home. Police did, however, discover a grenade. Authorities are still trying to establish a motive for the attack. Meanwhile, hundreds of police have been mobilized as part of a manhunt to find Chekatt. The suspect reportedly exchanged gunfire with French security forces twice as he fled the scene. Some reports state that he is wounded and may have even hijacked a taxi to make his getaway. (RT)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Menu

Forums

San Francisco Creates World’s First Ever Transgender Cultural District

The creation of Compton’s Transgender Cultural District is to stop the displacement of trans people from a place they were traditionally welcomed in, and to teach trans history.

Emily Wilson

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast

Researcher Mark Curtis: Britain Systematic Violator of International Law, Responsible For 8 to 13 Million Deaths Globally Since 1945

Born in Strasbourg, 2yrs in prison: What we know about suspected Christmas market shooter

Like us on Facebook!