NSA Developed Search Engine is Another New Toy for the Surveillance State

The NSA has developed yet another tool with which to wage the ongoing war on American privacy that has escalated in intensity under the damnable presidency of Barack Obama. According to a new story based on documents provided by former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Obama's Stasi has built the mother of all search engines. ICREACH allows for multiple government agencies to query numerous databases filled with data that has been gleaned under the pretense of the phony war on terror. The events of September 11, 2001 provided the government every excuse that it needed to engage in massive domestic surveillance of millions of law-abiding U.S. citizens, take a meat ax to the Constitution and build a costly Surveillance State Gomorrah. With the definition of "terrorism" becoming increasingly vague it is only a matter of time until it is affixed to American dissidents, political opponents and critics of the ever more tyrannical government in Washington.

The story which was originally published at the online magazine The Intercept under the title of "The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built it's Own Secret Google" was written by Ryan Gallagher. The story states that:

The National Security Agency is secretly providing data to nearly two dozen U.S. government agencies with a “Google-like” search engine built to share more than 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats, according to classified documents obtained by The Intercept.

The documents provide the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies. Planning documents for ICREACH, as the search engine is called, cite the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration as key participants.

AND

The search tool was designed to be the largest system for internally sharing secret surveillance records in the United States, capable of handling two to five billion new records every day, including more than 30 different kinds of metadata on emails, phone calls, faxes, internet chats, and text messages, as well as location information collected from cellphones. Metadata reveals information about a communication—such as the “to” and “from” parts of an email, and the time and date it was sent, or the phone numbers someone called and when they called—but not the content of the message or audio of the call.

While Mr. Obama has continued to be quite the artful dodger on the collection of "metadata" and not the actual content of intercepted communications, it is all hogwash. After collection, the "metadata" than can then be used to reference the actual content of calls, emails, texts etc. According to former NSA executive turned whistleblower Thomas Drake, "metadata indexes content", a statement that is compatible with former NSA boss Michael Hayden's comments that "we kill people based on metadata". Billions of records are swept up daily and it is all being stored in facilities like that massive NSA complex in Bluffdale, Utah.

More according to Gallagher:

In a statement to The Intercept, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed that the system shares data that is swept up by programs authorized under Executive Order 12333, a controversial Reagan-era presidential directive that underpins several NSA bulk surveillance operations that monitor communications overseas. The 12333 surveillance takes place with no court oversight and has received minimal Congressional scrutiny because it is targeted at foreign, not domestic, communication networks. But the broad scale of 12333 surveillance means that some Americans’ communications get caught in the dragnet as they transit international cables or satellites—and documents contained in the Snowden archive indicate that ICREACH taps into some of that data.

Legal experts told The Intercept they were shocked to learn about the scale of the ICREACH system and are concerned that law enforcement authorities might use it for domestic investigations that are not related to terrorism.

Which is an obviously reference of the circumventing of the Constitutional requirements of our legal system by a practice known as “parallel construction” which was revealed last year by Reuters. The Reuters story which is entitled “Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans” from which I excerpt:

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

So in addition to living in an unaccountable surveillance state that would blow George Orwell's mind, now there is a practice of government agents being able to set people up. Then there is the battlefield ready, militarized police force that may just end up being put under national control which is now being advocated. Don't forget that after 9/11 the government actively began to encourage neighbors, delivery personnel and home service companies to report "suspicious" behavior. We are not only subject to secret surveillance, secret laws and secret courts but also must exist among millions of potential rats and snitches.

Those creeping little cat footsteps of fascism grow louder by the day don't they? That is if you are listening. 

Israel's Embedded American Operatives Aid the Genocide in Gaza

Extremist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu enjoys an overwhelmingly accommodating media in the United States. along with a treacherous Congress packed with corrupt and cowardly weasels, lickspittles and religious fanatics whose dedication to a foreign country stabs their actual constituents in the back. The fealty that Netanyahu receives was evident when he received 29 standing ovations during an address to the U.S. Congress in 2011. He also is able to play the corrupt state-corporate media like a Stradivarius to receive an unprecedented forum on national television to push his lies and propaganda to sell Americans his product that is the ongoing slaughter of women and children in Gaza.

In the early days of Operation Protective Edge - one of those deceptive military style names that sell so well to star-spangled schmucks in the Homeland - Bibi was a fixture on those Sunday morning "news" shows that are nothing more than propaganda organs of the warfare state. His genocidal policies also receive routine cover by "America's most trusted name in news" and mealy-mouthed celebrity pundit Wolf Blitzer, a former AIPAC lobbyist whose objectivity is non-existent when it comes to defending extremist Israeli actions. His ridiculous feature on exploring the "terror tunnels of Hamas" last month was as ludicrous and phony as when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault.

Much of the power of "King Bibi" in the domestic U.S. comes courtesy of foreign agents such as AIPAC and the larger Israel Lobby but also a well-financed, integrated network of American "Christian Zionist" churches and organizations that assist in melding Israeli aggression and the ongoing quest for Lebensraum with end times eschatology. This is the bastardized biblical reinterpreting  in which Israel will play a major role of the return of Jesus Christ to the planet Earth as espoused in the mega-selling Left Behind series of apocalyptic pulp novels.

Foremost among the Christian Zionist organizations is CUFI or Christians United for Israel led by Texas radical cleric John Hagee. There is no more important bastion of the chicken-fried brand of cracker "Christianity" to the mustering of the flock to carry the torch for Netanyahu's war crimes in America. The annual CUFI summit was just held last month in Washington and attracted the exalted high priests of Israeli supremacy and the genocide necessary to deliver to Bibi everything that God once promised and then some. The heavy hitters being the Grand Poobah of neocon propaganda William Kristol, the fiendish Iran-Contra criminal Elliott Abrams, former CIA Director James "World War IV" Woolsey and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer who has been seriously referred to as "Bibi's brain".  Additional guests of dishonor at this sordid soiree were the typical extremist Republicans, in particular the increasingly unstable Senator Lindsey Graham, batshit crazy Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, Senator Jim Inhofe who is squealing like a stuck pig about ISIS destroying an American city and the wettest of wet dreams of Christian fascists who have long been awaiting the arrival of their führer: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

David Wiegel writes of the event for Slate in a piece entitled “Inside the Most Insanely Pro-Israel Meeting You Could Ever Attend” from which I excerpt the following:

The supporters of CUFI moved up the convention center escalators and took their seats for a plenary session. Onstage were the first guests, all recognizable from Fox News—Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Bill Kristol, onetime CIA director James Woolsey, and the Council on Foreign Relations fellow Elliott Abrams, a presidentially pardoned veteran of foreign policy disasters on two continents. Sitting right next to them was John Hagee, the burly Christian Zionist pastor who founded CUFI in 2006 He leaned into a microphone, passionately explaining why supporters of Israel should not be tricked by casualty reports.
“Since July 8, more than 1,000 rockets have been launched into Israel by Hamas from Gaza,” said Hagee, who speaks with a captivating rumble that could make a brunch order sound like a lost gospel. “Two-thirds of Israel’s population has had to run to bomb shelters, having 90 seconds to save their lives.”

The objective of Hamas, said Hagee, “is to win the media war with dead civilians. We’ve come to Washington to ask our government to stop demanding for Israel to show restraint.”

More than 4,800 evangelicals and Jews broke into applause. Some raised their arms and turned up their palms; a shofar-maker from New Jersey blew on one of his horns.“If a foreign power had launched 1,000 rockets into America, we would be pulling the gates of the White House down,” said Hagee. “Let Israel finish the job. Let every rocket be dismantled. Let every tunnel be destroyed.”

Hagee had set the theme: This year’s CUFI conference, followed by its members’ lobbying trips to Congress, would pressure the Obama administration not to broker an early cease-fire in Israel. The people of Israel would not suffer so that “John Kerry could win his Nobel Peace prize.” (Hagee made that joke again at an evening, music-and-dancing stuffed CUFI celebration, which started with a taped message from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.) American evangelicals needed to imagine themselves as Israelis, praise the “miracle” of the Iron Dome missile defense system, and understand that the Jews had a biblical mandate to the entire Holy Land.

“I’ll bless those that bless you and I’ll curse those that curse you,” said Hagee, quoting from the book of Genesis. “That’s God’s foreign policy statement, and it has not changed.”

               AND

That was backed up by the speeches, and by the hallway conversations. Israel was one war away from destroying Hamas—unless John Kerry stopped it. Iran was one missile away from a second Holocaust—unless the Obama administration acted. On Monday night, Hagee gave a special award to Republican super PAC donor Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who turned and thanked the mostly Christian audience for backing Israel.

“If you had been there during the Holocaust, you would have stood up and fought for the Jewish people,” said Miriam Adelson. “And maybe the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened.”

“I’ve never had a greater warm feeling than being honored by Pastor Hagee,” said a beaming Sheldon Adelson.

But the honors were mutual. Speaker after speaker gave the evangelicals ammunition for the next time someone criticized the Gaza operation, or shamed Israel over the body count.
“Here’s a message for America: Don’t ever turn your back on Israel, because God will turn his back on us,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. “More Germans died in World War II than American soldiers. That didn’t make the Germans right.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who debuted at the conference in 2013 and got its loudest ovation this year, walked the crowd through all the Obama administration betrayals. Remember, how Kerry had warned that Israel could become an apartheid state—a “slander and a lie.” Remember how Kerry had acknowledged the BDS movement and angered Israel’s leaders. The Obama administration was naive; CUFI wasn’t.

“It is Hamas who is putting women and children on top of the rockets,” said Cruz, “because they value the missiles and rockets more than they value their own civilians.”

It could have been scripted by Joseph Goebbels and choreographed by Leni Riefenstahl and it was taking place right here in America in the city of sin on the Potomac, not far from AIPAC central command. You have to give it to Netanyahu,he is a chronic and dedicated meddler in U.S. domestic politics and is able to consistently get his message out despite the lies, spin and demagoguery. What often goes unmentioned is the work of thousands of activist electronic shock troops in the cyber wars who churn out racist screeds and blog posts, invade comment threads and engage in coordinated blog swarms to spew accusations of anti-Semitism at critics.

Sometimes this backfires as it did a few weeks ago when The Times of Israel was forced to retract a blog post by an American-Israeli calling for the genocide of the Palestinians.  In a deranged screed that was published by The Times of Israel and then rapidly removed after mounting outrage triggered by the ill-advised posting by Yochanan Gordon. The piece also appeared at The Five Towns Jewish Times, a Long Island based newspaper and website founded by Gordon's father. Both sites rapidly issued apologies for the piece and should have hanged their heads in shame for ever allowing such a thing to slip by their editors. But that is only based on the assumption that such sentiment is not widely held and it was only the brouhaha that led to the retractions.

In his outrageously over the top screed, entitled "When Genocide is Permissable" Gordon made light of an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, trivializing it with sports references, in particular NBA basketball:

I wasn’t aware of this, but it seems that the nature of warfare has undergone a major shift over the years. Where wars were usually waged to defeat the opposing side, today it seems – and judging by the number of foul calls it would indicate – that today’s wars are fought to a draw. I mean, whoever heard of a timeout in war? An NBA Basketball game allows six timeouts for each team during the course of a game, but last I checked this is a war! We are at war with an enemy whose charter calls for the annihilation of our people. Nothing, then, can be considered disproportionate when we are fighting for our very right to live.

The Times of Israel's statement was:

This blog post, which was described by our Ops & Blogs editor as both damnable and ignorant, blatantly breached The Times of Israel’s editorial guidelines.

We have discontinued the writer’s blog.

But the Times allowed a similar post which was couched in biblical language to remain.

Erwin E. Blank writes in his piece entitled "1 Samuel 15:18":

1 Samuel 15:18-Samuel said, “Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the LORD anointed you king over Israel, 18and the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’ 19“Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the LORD?”…

The great big book of evil, hatred, persecution, death and violence is always whipped out to justify extermination and conquest by these people and you have to admit that it is a great scam in favor of Israel. Which is why it is so important that the Netanyahu regime continues to feed their utterly dishonest and hateful bullshit to the American rapture-heads whose lack of intellectual curiosity and fanatical dogma leads to the best certitude a continued boatload of sheckels can buy. There will be many of them as well as dollars and perhaps even comped blowjobs from hookers at the Las Vegas Sands courtesy of Bibi's buddy, the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Shelly has already vowed to pump billions of his loot into the upcoming 2016 U.S. presidential elections so he can see Tehran reduced to a glowing pile of nuclear embers before he departs this mortal coil. The Times of Israel has nothing on Adelson's Israel Hayom which in terms of pure, dehumanizing agitprop has no equal and would have even given Julius Streicher's notorious Der Stürmer a run for the money back in it's heyday. Adelson is at the top of the food chain in American political influence when it comes to forcing the agenda if right-wing Israeli supremacy down the throats of U.S. voters.

But I digress...

Gordon and Blank have much company at the Times of Israel when it comes to American based, genocidal zealots. For example there is also a nutcase who writes there named Michael Lumish who  expressed similar sentiment in a post on his own blog, a no-frills, amateurish piece of crap imaginatively called Israel Thrives. In his piece entitled "Jews Need to Bomb More Nursery Schools in Gaza" the author writes:

And not just nursery schools, of course, but elementary schools, as well.

We need to bomb schools and hospitals.

It is exceedingly important that Israel bomb the holy crap out of hospitals... and nursing homes.

We need to bomb nursery schools, hospitals, and nursing homes.  Wherever people are the weakest in Gaza, that is what we must bomb.

And when I say "bomb" I do not mean one little bomb.  What I mean is flatten.

Of course, were it not for the fact that so many Arabs believe they have some Allah-ordained right to kill Jews then Israel would not need to bomb nursery schools and hospitals and nursing homes or any place else where Hamas uses old people and sick people and women and children as a means to defend themselves and their rockets.

Israelis uses rockets to defend their women and children.

Hamasniks uses women and children to defend their rockets.

The bottom line is this, however, if Arabs don't want war they should not wage war.

So long as the Arab majority insists upon bombing the tiny Jewish minority in that part of the world then the Jews of the Middle East are going to defend themselves and what that means is fighting back and what that means is dead Arabs, including children, because civilian populations ALWAYS suffer in war.

To take Lumish's argument that "civilian populations ALWAYS suffer in war" to its logical conclusion it could actually be interpreted that Hitler's rounding up and slaughter of 6 million Jews (along with millions of others) during World War II was a just cause. You know, in times of war "civilian populations ALWAYS suffer" so fuck them. But pointing out any of the contradictions, hypocrisy and similarities between Netanyahu's Israel and Hitler's Germany (and there are many) is like casting pearls before swine. The piece is outrageous and while the author belatedly added the term "semi-snark" to the title because he is a coward lacking the stones to stand by his convictions do not make it any less vile than the calls for genocide run by the Times of Israel.

Lumish’s bio at the Times of Israel states that he: “is a PhD in American history from the Pennsylvania State University and has taught at PSU, San Francisco State University, and the City College of San Francisco.” AND ). “He has in recent years given conference papers on American cultural and intellectual history at The International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences in Dublin, Ireland, as well as at the Western Historical Association in Phoenix, Arizona and the American Cultural Association in New Orleans, Louisiana.” I wonder if any institution that invites this guy to speak or otherwise participate in research studies might have second thoughts if they understood that he moonlights as a propagandist for a notorious child murderer.

Also, for a man with such credentials in education it is rather bizarre that he would be calling for the Israeli bombing, or has he puts it "flattening" of schools. But it is something far deeper with people like Lumish and his ilk – it is about the eradication of a people. Goebbels would be proud.

Some of the actions of the domestic Israeli operatives (which could be accurately referred to as sleeper cells) go far beyond just activism and advocating for the extermination of a people into outright skullduggery.  Just last week an expose by the website Common Dreams reports on the actions of man referred to by the handle of HamBaconEggs" or "Jason Beck" but both are two of a number of aliases or screen names as posted by the website. The scam involved the creation of a number of "sock puppets" where he would appear on articles, post outrageous anti-Semitic statements and then do combat with himself in order to discredit the site itself. It was a pretty sophisticated operation as is detailed in the special investigative report at Common Dreams entitled "The Double Identity of an "Anti-Semitic" Commenter" from which I excerpt:

Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. But on Common Dreams these posts have been so frequent and intense they have driven away donors from a nonprofit dependent on reader generosity.

A Common Dreams investigation has discovered that more than a thousand of these damaging comments over the past two years were written with a deceptive purpose by a Jewish Harvard graduate in his thirties who was irritated by the website's discussion of issues involving Israel.His intricate campaign, which he has admitted to Common Dreams, included posting comments by a screen name, "JewishProgressive," whose purpose was to draw attention to and denounce the anti-Semitic comments that he had written under many other screen names.

The deception was many-layered. At one point he had one of his characters charge that the anti-Semitic comments and the criticism of the anti-Semitic comments must be written by "internet trolls who have been known to impersonate anti-Semites in order to then double-back and accuse others of supporting anti-Semitism"--exactly what he was doing. (Trolls are posters who foment discord.)

The impersonation, this character wrote, must be part of an "elaborate Hasbara setup," referring to an Israeli international public-relations campaign. When Common Dreams finally confronted the man behind the deceptive posting, he denied that he himself was involved with Hasbara.

The piece is long and fascinating, it offers a rare glimpse at the elaborate network of Israeli cyber operatives in the U.S. so please take the time to read it and pass it around. The best way to deal with these people is to get the word out about their dishonesty and false identities. Again the expose is called "The Double Identity of an "Anti-Semitic" Commenter" and can be found at Common Dreams.

Those of us who are veterans of the blogosphere going back years - in my case nearly a decade now - have seen exactly what Common Dreams writes of. The "Hasbara" effort to influence U.S. opinion to support Israeli human rights abuses and garner support for an  increasingly fascistic and closed society that is thoroughly examined in Max Blumenthal's seminal book "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel". The efforts to spread propaganda and disrupt honest debate in America by Israel-first loyalist embeds has evolved greatly since the days of Megaphone with the advent of social media - but then again so has the ability to counter the campaign of disinformation, hatred and lies by Americans who have a functional moral compass.

This small sampling of de-facto foreign agents operating within the U.S. provide the grunt work for the "stars" of the Israel backed, anti-Muslim hate machine that continues to pollute America. With Gordon, Lumish and HamBaconEggs performing similar dirty work to pro-Nazi saboteurs in the run up to World War II it allows the rock stars of the evil anti-Muslim crusade to assume center stage. Some of the luminaries are Brigitte Gabriel, Pamela Gellar, Republican Congressman Peter King, former Congressman Allan West, the aforementioned Michelle Bachman and a galaxy of others including the most sinister of all in HBO's celebrity host Bill Maher who couches his ferocious hatred of Muslims in his proclaimed atheism (I am skeptical that he is) and provides that crossover appeal to the liberals and easily influenced low-information types by concealing his hatred in jokes.

There is an underlying ideological infrastructure for Muslim hating that benefits Israel with such groups as Jihad Watch led by extremist bigot Robert Spencer. His group's work was a huge influence on Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik who in 2011 gunned down 69 people in cold blood, most of them teenagers at an isolated youth camp. The pro-Israeli anti-Muslim industry thrives in America and is covered in detail in reports like the Center for American Progress's "Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America", as well as Public Eye's "Manufacturing the Muslim Menace" and anti-Muslim groups ae also tracked by the Southern Policy Law Center.

The tentacles of the right-wing Israeli octopus may be slithering throughout America but the head of the beast lies within the land that Netanyahu has poisoned as surely as Hitler did in Germany.

One of history's greatest ironies is that the country which was created post WW II as a refuge from persecution and genocide has come to mimic Nazi Germany in so many ways today. The theft of the land from the Palestinians and their abhorrent refusal to not honor the will of God - who of course gave it to Israel if one is prone to believe all of that religious horseshit (I am an atheist) ensured that there would always be a plague upon the land of resentment and the oppression of those who dare to challenge the divine mandate. The great mythology of a chosen people always will lead to violence, persecution and ultimately slaughter. Nazi soldiers embarked on their epic spree of conquest under the banner of "Gott Mit Uns" as an underlying foundation of Aryan supremacy. To a lesser (at least to this point) expression of a God given superiority is that highly potent intoxicant brew of "American exceptionalism" which so many a neoconservative have sipped from the poisoned chalice of our own imminent damnation. Once a people takes upon itself the mantle of holy providence all who are deemed to be inferior or "untermensch" as the Palestinians are seen to be are legitimate targets for extermination.

The degree to which eliminationist language and dogma have gripped Israel under the rule of the crazed Netanyahu regime is startling and not only can you read it in the writings of the aforementioned propagandists but it has taken control of the very souls of the people there. Take for example the glee that some Israelis took when they dragged out their chairs and refreshments upon a spot of high ground to cheer as Bibi's bombs blew up innocent women and children in Gaza. I excerpt the following from a story in The Guardian entitled "Israelis gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as military drops bombs on Gaza":

As the sun begins to sink over the Mediterranean, groups of Israelis gather each evening on hilltops close to the Gaza border to cheer, whoop and whistle as bombs rain down on people in a hellish warzone a few miles away.

Old sofas, garden chairs, battered car seats and upturned crates provide seating for the spectators. On one hilltop, a swing has been attached to the branches of a pine tree, allowing its occupant to sway gently in the breeze. Some bring bottles of beer or soft drinks and snacks.

On Saturday, a group of men huddle around a shisha pipe. Nearly all hold up smartphones to record the explosions or to pose grinning, perhaps with thumbs up, for selfies against a backdrop of black smoke.

It is a jolly good show as directed by Netanyahu and underwritten by Uncle Scam courtesy of the American taxpayer playing out under the protection of the Iron Dome sphere of protection, a "great achievement" as Bibi calls it. Such a system only serves to put an exclamation point on the ethnic cleansing operations in Gaza in that Israel is able to conduct it's cowardly attacks with complete impunity.

The viewing of the carnage in Gaza as entertainment, like a sporting event or the cheap thrill of reality television here in The Homeland is an example of the transformation of the oppressed into the oppressor. The people in Gaza have no chance or if they do it is about as much as the occupants of the Warsaw Ghetto had before the order was given to send in the goons. The acceptance of the Palestinian people as sub-humans and the bloodlust evident in a large portion of the Israeli population is eerily similar to that of rank and file Germans when the Jews of Europe were the hunted. In a 1996 book written by American Daniel Goldhagen entitled "Hitler's Willing Executioners" the author examined the complicity of ordinary Germans in the Nazi genocide. Such an effort to dehumanize and eradicate a people from the planet doesn't take place in a vacuum, the society which perpetrates it must itself be one debauched by the most evil final evolution of racism so as to accept it if not to actually provide the impetus for it to occur.

Goldhagen wrote:

For what developments would a comprehensive explanation of the Holocaust have to account? For the extermination of the Jews to occur, four principal things were necessary:

1. The Nazis - that is, the leadership, specifically Hitler - had to decide to undertake the extermination.
2. They had to gain control over the Jews, namely over the territory in which they resided.
3. They had to organize the extermination and devote to it sufficient resources.
4. They had to induce a large number of people to carry out the killings.

Could just as easily be applicable to Gaza and other ongoing extremist Israeli actions by simply changing out a couple of words. 

1. The Israelis - that is, the leadership, specifically Netanyahu - had to decide to undertake the extermination.
2. They had to gain control over the Palestinians, namely over the territory in which they resided.
3. They had to organize the extermination and devote to it sufficient resources.
4. They had to induce a large number of people to carry out the killings.

The book and author were vilified by some for daring to suggest that the "final solution" could not have occurred were it not for the saturation level of anti-Semitic hatred within the German culture. Max Blumenthal is drawing much vitriol for his "Goliath" Life and Loathing in Greater Israel" which serves as the bookend of Goldhagen's work. The racism and hate have now come full circle and the one thing that extremist right-wing Zionists and their U.S. based fifth-column hate even more than they hate the Palestinian people is the truth. That he has caught as much hell from the so-called left shows that how deeply that the U.S. establishment is complicit in the ongoing genocide. Even the liberal hero Senator Elizabeth Warren is in the Israel amen choir as journalist Glenn Greenwald points out in his column at The Intercept entitled "Elizabeth Warren Finally Speaks on Israel/Gaza Sounds Like Netanyahu". Warren's comments should serve notice that she, like Obama, is a Judas. 

Blumenthal continues to deliver that truth, spraying it like holy water upon vampires. While Netanyahu was exploiting the tragic murder of three Jewish boys to whip the Israeli's into a lynch mob frenzy with all of the skill of a seasoned KKK grand dragon, Blumenthal wrote the piece calling bullshit on the dog and pony show. I excerpt the following from his piece at Electronic Intifada entitled "Netanyahu government knew teens were dead as it whipped up racist frenzy":

From the moment three Israeli teens were reported missing last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s military-intelligence apparatus suppressed the flow of information to the general public. Through a toxic blend of propaganda, subterfuge and incitement, they inflamed a precarious situation, manipulating Israelis into supporting their agenda until they made an utterly avoidable nightmare inevitable. Israeli police, intelligence officials and Netanyahu knew within hours of the kidnapping and murder of the three teens that they had been killed. And they knew who the prime suspects were less than a day after the kidnapping was reported.

Rather than reveal these details to the public, Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency imposed a gag order on the national media, barring news outlets from reporting that the teens had almost certainly been killed, and forbidding them from revealing the identities of their suspected killers. The Shin Bet even lied to the parents of the kidnapped teens, deceiving them into believing their sons were alive. Instead of mounting a limited action to capture the suspected perpetrators and retrieve the teens’ bodies, Netanyahu staged an aggressive international public relations campaign, demanding sympathy and outrage from world leaders, who were also given the impression that the missing teens were still alive. Meanwhile, Israel’s armed forces rampaged throughout the occupied West Bank and bombarded the Gaza Strip in a campaign of collective punishment deceptively marketed to Israelis and the world as a rescue mission.

It is an outstanding piece and an expose of the complete depravity of Netanyahu who is growing ever more desperate and dangerous and now is facing complaints from members of the Israeli government that his kill crazy rampage in Gaza wasn’t sufficiently violent to slake their thirst for blood. Bibi unleashed the demons with his cynical use of the murders to trigger pogroms and revenge killings like the torture-murder of that 16 year old boy who was beaten, forced to drink gasoline and burned alive by hooligans incited by his demagoguery. 

Then the military action began and the body count began to multiply as Bibi slithered around American media outlets with his despicable comments about "telegenically dead" bodies implying that the parents in Gaza actually wanted to have their children ripped to shreds by flechette shells.  The star-spangled sheep eat it up too, so clueless that they are as to the true nature of our "special relationship" with God's chosen land and their willful ignorance, apathy and own racism make them complicit in Netanyahu's ongoing destruction of the Palestinian people. Things won't change either now that the next two and a quarter years in the USA! USA! USA! will be dominated by the elections and which candidate will be the best one to enable the genocide and if old Sheldon Adelson gets some serious bang for his bucks will vow to nuke Tehran before that miserable, corrupt Hebrew toad croaks.

The eliminationist rhetoric will continue to ooze from every pore of Israel's American propaganda apparatus and once mingled with our own red, white and blue strain of racism mutate into something very potent and even more explosive, the fear-mongering over the latest bad ass Islamic bogeyman army ISIS will serve as an accelerant. That such vile sentiment enjoys the forum that it does in the "mainstream media" is evident as to the barrenness of America's own soul and the embracing of the worst elements of Zionist racism is a fornication between parasites. America is already well on on the way to that great scrap heap of ruined empires that are strewn throughout history no amount of providence nor exceptionalism will stop it. Hubris and an acceptance of enforcing a false superiority at the end of a gun or whatever the weapon of the times may be never works and especially when deceptively aligning policy and public sentiment behind a murderous monster and world class villain like Benjamin Netanyahu the demise will only be hastened.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Ozymandius by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Crew Member of Cops Reality TV Show Shot Dead by Police

In an incident that is most surprising because it did not happen sooner, a crew member from the hit Fox reality show “Cops” was shot to death while on the job producing future episodes. The chosen police unit in Omaha, Nebraska were likely enjoying their moment in the television limelight until a response to a robbery went terribly wrong. In rolling up at a local Wendy’s fast food restaurant, the cops engaged in a shootout with the suspect that ultimately resulted in the death of audio technician Bryce Dion who was hit by a stray police bullet.

According to a story on the incident on CNN’s website “'Cops' crew member killed in police shooting”:

A crew member working on a taping of "Cops" was inadvertently shot and killed by a police officer during a robbery in Omaha, Nebraska, local officials said Wednesday.

Bryce Dion, an audio technician, is believed to be the first member of the "Cops" production staff killed in the 25-year history of the television show.

The production company behind "Cops," Langley Productions, said in a statement that it was "deeply saddened and shocked by this tragedy and our main concern is helping his family in any way we can."

Dion, 38, had been in Omaha all summer, helping with the production of future "Cops" episodes. The production company described him as a "long term member of the 'Cops' team and a very talented and dedicated person." His resume lists credits on "Cops" dating back to 2009.

Todd Schmaderer, the Omaha police chief, confirmed at a Wednesday afternoon news conference that a bullet fired by an officer struck Dion during a shootout with the robbery suspect, Cortez Washington, who was also killed.

Schmaderer described Dion as a friend to the officers that he'd been embedded with.

"This is as if we lost one of our own," Schmaderer said. "That is the grieving process we're going through right now."

Dion and a cameraman were traveling with police officers who responded to a robbery inside a Wendy's restaurant on Tuesday night. Schmaderer said the suspect, Washington, fired two shots at the responding officers, who responded with a barrage of gunfire.

It was later discovered that Washington had a pellet gun that fired plastic bullets.

The story is getting much attention today as it should by such prominent media outlets as the  USA Today “Police fired shot that killed 'Cops' crewmember”, The New York Times  “Police Shooting Kills Crew Member Working for Reality Show ‘Cops’”, ABC “Omaha Police Bullet Kills 'Cops' Film Crew Member” and of course Fox “'Cops' crew member killed by police officers”.

According to a local news source, Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer has already said that the officers were “justified” in firing their weapons. The question though is that if the perpetrator of the robbery knew that he was using a fake gun then why would he have pointed it at the police knowing full well that he would be gunned down like a dog by the guys with the real guns? Was the presence of the "Cops" film crew a mitigating factor in the shooting in that the officers wanted to look more like bad-asses on television? I suppose that this will only provide one more example to those pushing for President Barack Obama to appoint a national police Czar.

What is never discussed as one of the causes in the rise of police violence in America today is that culture plays a big role. Cops has now been on the air for over a quarter of a century and given the bent for authority worship that now exists in America it will probably continue to be shown for decades more. There is after all no shortage of material with the police state nearly fully implemented. It is the ultimate form of bread and circuses served up to the beggared and enslaved citizens of a rotting empire. There are also the movies, endless other police television series and violent video games that further contribute to the worship of the police, not a healthy trait of a supposedly "free" society.

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they’re coming for you, bad boys!

Horrified Wal-Mart Shoppers Watch Cops Beat the Living Crap Out of Man

With the exception of the annual Black Friday door-buster sales, Wal-Mart stores normally aren't the venue for beatings so it was a shock to shoppers watching police pummel a man in the middle of an aisle on Saturday. In  yet another display of escalating police violence, cops in Greenville, South Carolina pursued a man  into the friendly neighborhood Wally World over the weekend and then after chasing him down commenced to pummel him - before they Tasered him. The victim, who by accounts as well as in video footage appeared to be intoxicated, was pursued into the big box store where he was subdued by two officers. One of whom punched the man in the head multiple times despite pleas from Wal-Mart customers to stop, landing up to 20 blows.

According to reports from Greenville television station WSPA-7 in a story posted on their website entitled  "Video Spurs Questions Of Arresting Methods After Deputies Tase Man Inside Walmart":

An arrest Saturday led to some witnesses thinking the arresting officers went a little far.

In a video sent to 7 On Your Side, you can see a man lying on the floor of the Walmart on Whitehorse Road and the deputies attempting to arrest him. Witnesses from the scene felt the officer's actions went too far, but the Greenville County Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident.

According to Greenville County Master Deputy Jonathan Smith, deputies responded around 1:00pm Saturday to a call about an intoxicated man outside the Walmart.

He said the first deputy arrived to find the man acting erratic outside the store. The deputy approached the man and tried to speak to him. The man apparently kept repeating "I'm 911" to the deputy before walking away inside the store.

Smith said the second deputy arrived and the decision was made to enter the store and arrest the man. He says the man was resisting enough that a deputy had to use a taser in order to arrest him.

Smith said the man was taken outside the store and transported to a Greenville hospital. Smith said the man is undergoing evaluation to determine if he was under the influence of alcohol or other substances.

Several videos have surfaced of the incident on the internet. Smith says they are reviewing them and will comment further at a later time.

A reasonable person might figure that the nation's police forces would be very careful in the aftermath of incidents in Ferguson, Missouri as well as cognizant to how easy that it is to trigger a public relations nightmare but not the boys in blue in Greenville who are now enjoying their ten minutes of fame.
Robby Soave comments in a blog post at the libertarian website Reason online "Cop Hits Man in the Head 20 Times as Onlookers Plead 'Don't Punch Him No More'":

Once the cops have pinned a non-violent suspect to the ground, how many times are they allowed to punch him in the head? Is it fewer than 20? I would say so, but I'm not a Greenville County, South Carolina, deputy.

Greenville officers approached a man at a Walmart parking lot on Saturday. The man appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and didn't respond to police questions or instructions. Eventually, the officers followed the man inside the store, where they attempted to detain him. The deputies claim the man resisted, though video footage of the incident certainly makes said resistance look passive, rather than violent. But once the two cops had the man on the ground, one of them immediately began punching him in the head. I count at least 20 blows.

Onlookers were horrified, and begged the deputies to stop. Many thought the treatment of the man was cruel, according to WSPA.com. "Please don't punch him like that, don't punch him no more," said one witness. (More video footage can be seen here.)

The man was eventually tasered and then taken to the hospital. Police have not given his name or explained what the charges against him are. The department is reviewing the footage, however, to determine whether the deputy acted properly when he punched a helpless man in the head over and over and over again.

Maybe the victim was being an A-hole, was overly obnoxious or just guilty of the cardinal sin of not being sufficiently subservient to the police but the beating is another ugly look at the terrible state of law-enforcement in the post-9/11 iteration of the U.S.A. that is referred to as The Homeland. The South Carolina Wal-Mart thumping would be far less disturbing were it to have just been an isolated incident. Instead it provides  another piece in the much larger mosaic of police violence in America circa 2014.

The beatings, tear gassing, Taser attacks, body cavity violations (including anal probes) and obvious setups have now become all too frequent in American law enforcement. I know that there are good cops out there - and seeing crap like this must really piss them off - but the system itself is badly broken. We can see it on a daily basis and unless there is a national effort to demilitarize the police and enforce accountability we are all going to wake up one day in a fully fascist state. The analogy of the "boiling frog" has never been more evident nor as relevant to American society as it is today.
From Wikipedia:

The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually.

How's the water today folks?