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Retribution: Hospitals Bombed On Purpose By U.S.

“Punished” For Opposing TPP Trade Deal

by Robert S. Newport, Jr

Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
If there’s one lesson to be learned from the last 40 years of America’s behavior, it is that no deed is black enough, no morals are ever on display, and no quarter is given, not even to woman, children, doctors, or hospitals.  Every time you think that you’ve seen it all, another heinous event pops up.  The kidnappings, the renditions, the torture cells operated around the world, the torture prisons at Abu Ghraib, the Guantanamo disgrace, the use of “depleted” uranium in Iraq, the assassinations by drones of American citizens without a trial, the murder of thousands of others in the middle east on a weekly basis by merciless aerial bombardment against civilian populations, the list goes on.
And now we have another set of incidents.  Blatant war crimes carried out by the Pentagon and its partner Saudi Arabia.  At the present time there will be no investigation by Congress, the President, or any other U.S. Government authority into the hospital attacks, and the key question: “Who ordered these murderous attacks?” will not be answered by the authorities or the mainstream press.
There’s plenty of evidence as to why the attacks were ordered.  It is circumstantial, but so self-revealing that no other conclusion can even be considered.  The “oops, we goofed” excuse doesn’t wash.  The Pentagon knew exactly where both hospitals were located.  They were both deliberately destroyed.  Why?   One word:  Payback.
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
For What?  For the huge campaign that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has waged against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.  Before anyone scoffs at this suggestion, look at the stakes.  If this trade deal goes through, the big pharmaceutical companies will reap billions of dollars over the next couple of decades, maybe hundreds of billions, because the treaty locks in the high priced drugs and extends patent protection for years.  Say goodbye to a lot of generic drugs.  Also say goodbye to a lot of soon to be dead people, even in the United States  (drugs to fight AIDS comes immediately to mind).
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Doctors Without Borders has been aggressively fighting this trade deal, claiming that millions of folks who depend on the inexpensive generic drugs will be at risk, and that means a death sentence to many of them, and horrible suffering for the rest. Their campaign against the TPP was causing waves, threatening the passage of this horrendous deal.  The poor people of the world, already racked by war, pestilence, and drought, fleeing by the hundreds of thousands by land and sea, seeking some place of refuge, these folks cannot pay the high prices that  the drug companies want for their life saving pills. If the TPP deal goes through, they may die by the millions.  And certainly, we Americans, may be among the casualties.
Recent history teaches that when there’s billions of dollars to be made, the morals and the laws take a back seat to profit.  War itself is immensely profitable, so much so that the Pentagon has ” lost track” of over 8 trillion dollars since 2001.  The added benefit of the TPP, the possible population reduction that will result, would make Prince Phillip, The Club of Rome boys, and the depopulation fanatics in the Obama administration squeal with joy.
So the hidden hand slips the co-ordinates of the hospital into the Pentagon’s attack database, and on October 3rd planes bombed the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan for hours. Doctors, nurses, and patients alike were blown to bits.  Then, even as howls went up around the world to this vicious atrocity, the Pentagon sent tanks in to crush the remaining parts of the building into rubble, just to make sure that the message got through.  On October 26th, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia  attacked another MSF hospital operating in Heedan, Yemen.  Once again, the Saudis knew of the co-ordinates, they were following orders from Washington, who of course supplies them with the weaponry and training.   As you can see from these pictures, they bombed the hospital into rubble.
It’s at once bad enough to follow the events in the Middle East, the religious and political barbarism reaching new heights, with groups like ISIL thugs running mad dog campaigns of terror.  They and others like them do it for their sick, twisted religious fanaticism.  Here in the West, especially in Washington, where there’s no religion OR morals, it’s done for financial gain.  The end result is nearly the same.
Make way for the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, for they are indeed now riding hard around the world, killing anything in their path.

Walmart May Spell Doom For Altadena Small Business

New Report Says Walmart’s Guatemalan Sub-contractor Cheated Workers

From ABC News

Guatemalan factory workers making blazers and suits for dozens of well-known American retailers, including Wal-Mart, JCPenney, and Kohl’s, were allegedly deprived of more than $6 million in wages and benefits when their employer abruptly shut down the business last year, according to a report published today.

Continue reading Walmart May Spell Doom For Altadena Small Business

Hollywood Homeless May Face Starvation

West Hollywood Food Coalition Under Assault by City, Cops, Big Real Estate Corporations

Class War Rages in Hollywood

Food TruckThe class war is intensifying in Hollywood, as it is nation-wide.  With millions of foreclosures each year, more and more people are being put on the street.  Combined with the exporting of good jobs to China, it’s hard for many to survive on the minimum wage jobs that still exist, and especially since a lot of these are part-time jobs.  Paying rent of $800 or more for a single apartment on a part-time minimum wage job is tough.  More people than ever are living in their vehicles or on the street.  One reason a lot of homeless go to Hollywood to “live” is that the image-myth of Hollywood attracts thousands of tourists from around the world, making pan-handling easier there than say, Pacoima or Long Beach.

But Hollywood continues to have a massive development scheme.  Big buildings, condos, and towers continue to be built.  Billions of dollars are pouring into the area’s real estate.  And if there is one thing the real estate moguls don’t like to see, it’s homeless people.  “It’s bad for business.”  It gives the lie to the image of growth and success that the moguls are trying to polish up. If they don’t keep up the “Rah Rah” then their buildings may end up vacant. Although the breaking point of rents is fast approaching, the big investors who now own so much of Hollywood’s commercial and office buildings, seem to be oblivious to the further eroding of the economy.  So the word is out: Get rid of the homeless.  Push them out to somewhere else.  Anywhere but Hollywood.

A Lesson From The History Books

One way is to take a lesson from the history books.  When the American Imperial expansion was in full swing, the main obstacle was the Native American tribes, who had been residents of the land,  now called “The United States of America”, for thousands of years.  Solution: kill off the buffalo, food supply for the Natives.  This ultimately weakened many tribes into submission and made them dependent on food from the government.  This same tactic is now being pushed in the Hollywood area.  Cut off the food supply, harass them at every turn, arrest them, push them out.  This combined assault by the City of Los Angeles and it’s big business backers is now threatening the 27 year old Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition (GWHFC).

The GWHFC has fed about 200-300 folks a night for 27 years.  Operating on the corner of Sycamore and Romaine in Hollywood, help is there with a hot meal and often with volunteers who help the seniors and homeless with issues like health, legal problems, and psychological counseling.  Now comes the class war:  the Health Department demanded that all the tables and chairs be removed from the sidewalks; microscopic inspection of the food prep building; citations for anything imaginable; cops trolling the food lines trying to find homeless who have warrants outstanding; cops and B.I.D. police hanging around looking to cite anyone.  If you ever wanted to know what it was like to eat a meal in a Nazi food distribution during WW2 (if there even was one), then this is it.  Even during the great depression, big mobsters like Al Capone set up food kitchens in Chicago and fed thousands on the streets.  The politicians of today aren’t even as nice as the 30’s mobsters.  They hate the thought of feeding anyone, other than their honorable selves, of course.

Homeless Treated Worse Than Animals by Cops, City Politicos

If you are a senior or homeless and would like a free hot meal at the GWHFC nightly food distro, get ready to be treated like a dog.  Not by the good folks at the Food Coalition, who are trying to cope with this attack, but by a heartless, cruel City and their squadrons of Cops.  There are no tables to sit down and enjoy a meal.  You have to sit on the ground.  There’s no place to wash your hands, no bathrooms or porta-poties. Men, women, and children grovel on the ground for their gruel because the Food Coalition can no longer put out chairs and tables.

Americans, Unlike Other Humans, Do Not Ever Have To Go To The Toilet – An Entire Nation of Anal Retentives

Business people and some residents complain about the damage done or the annoyance in the neighborhood.  “I saw a homeless guy pissing on a tree.”  What do you expect?  There’s no bathrooms in the area and a lot of Hollywood businesses and restaurants try to keep them out of their bathrooms.  If the City can’t provide some free bathrooms, then you get what you deserve.  An outsider or visitor from another planet would notice right away that Americans never go to the bathroom.  These places, if they exist at all, are hidden away in secret corners, even in Shopping Malls.  Contrast this with Europe.  Go to London or Paris.  Bathrooms everywhere. In London the “Water Closets” are manned by old pensioners who exist on tips.  They work shifts and keep the places clean.  Think of all the seniors here in Hollywood.  A lot of them would like a job like that, just as soon as America joins the rest of the civilized world.  Meanwhile, it’s “piss-o-rama” on the back streets of Hollywood and will continue to be until the City of L.A. and the Hollywood business people wake up to THEIR responsibility to provide bathrooms FOR EVERYONE. (Hey, even the beloved tourists have to “go”)  And they could also find a suitable building in the area of Romaine and Sycamore and let the good folks at the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition go about their humane efforts to feed the hungry.  It is a responsibility for everyone to pitch in and help.  So to the Hollywood Fat Cats and Moguls: call off the Cops and sour-faced bureaucrats and lend a hand in finding a solution. Make the world a better place by becoming anal-expulsive.

Hidden Camera Shows Cops Lining Up Homeless “Suspects” at Sycamore and Romaine

Life and Death in Dirty Dave’s Homeless Camp

Filmmaker Michael Arth Spent Years Documenting the Drama of

A Homeless Camp in the Woods of Florida

200px-Michael_E._Arth_5-21-09His film, “Out of the Woods” is an engrossing study of the folks who live in a camp in the Florida woods.  Some are drunks, fighting the demons created by alcohol; some are dopers, others just out of work or homeless with no place to lay their head at night.  Dirty Dave Grimsly, who weirdly has a slight resemblance to George Bush (the Junior one), takes them all in.  He feeds them, cooks meals, gives them a tent or a sleeping bag, and tends to them.  Because of their emotional and physical situations, the people who live in the camp provide us with dramatic statements of the personal horrors and the angst they are going through.  Michael Arth is to be honored for this timeless study of those who need a helping hand, but find that the there is none from the local government.  For those poor folks, the last stop is a tent deep in the woods, in a camp run by a good natured alcoholic nick-named Dirty Dave.  And if there is an unlikely saint in this film, it is Dave.  Every day he lives through his own hell of being a drunk and an ex-con sent to prison for manslaughter  But it is Dave who gives his love and attention to a squad of lost souls who occupy the camp. It will probably be a long time before you forget some of these characters and their sad and tragic lives.  Filmmaker.Arth holds up a backwards-looking mirror in which you not only see them in the present, but you see them as children, growing up, handsome and beautiful, ready to jump into the American dream.  The juxtaposition of their youthful years, so hopeful and full of life, with the shocking reality of their hopeless descent into the swirling hell that lies beneath the surface of our society, is a major achievement by Mr. Arth.

Mr. Arth made this film in part to promote the construction of a project called Tiger Bay Village, to give a last chance to homeless folks in the area, a place to detox and recover their health, as well as living quarters so they can recover their personal dignity. Michael Arth has been working for years to push through this project, which is still stalled by the local government.  The pathetic, actually enraging and ironic slap in the face to the American people, is that when our own folks need this kind of help it is not to be found, and our own government, year after year dumps millions of people into the U.S. as “refugees” or for “political asylum”.  As this is syrian_refugeeswritten, your tax paid mentally ill rulers at the Department of State are planning on bringing one and a half million refugees from Syria into the country.  What for?  We don’t need them or want them.  We have our own to take care of.  Every war that the CIA loses becomes another humanity dump of millions more into our decaying cities.  With the jobs sent to China, and the banksters pushing millions of families from their homes into the streets, the homeless population is increasing at a rapid pace. Tell Washington to STOP NOW.  Get out of these foreign countries, and please, no more refugees until the American born homeless are taken care of, and that includes our Veterans, 800,000 of whom have been waiting for years for their benefits. The smells in homeless encampments are nothing compared to the stink from the politicians in Washington, D.C., the world’s biggest sewage pit masquerading as a city. Those politicians are not fit to kiss the feet of a guy like Dirty Dave Grimsley.

Watch the film below, or find it directly on youtube:  Out of the Woods

Contact the filmmaker Michael Arth at www.goldenapplesmedia.com

Check out the Tiger Bay Village site at www.villagesforthehomeless.org

 

Make Your Own Candy Bars

New Book Shows You How To Make Yummy Candy Bars At Home (or in Your RV)

Skylight Books in Hollywood hosted the two authors of a new book “Hand-Crafted Candy Bars.” Susie Norris and Susan Heeger presented an evening of candy bar tasting that had the audience in high spirits. Like a wine-tasting, first a store bought candy bar like Snickers was served, then water to clean the palette, then pieces of home made Snickers type candy, concocted with a high grade chocolate and better ingredients, all without the preservatives and wax used in commercial bars. You can watch the entire event by clicking here: Candy Bars,

Or, watch the embedded version below.  Skylight books in Hollywood still has signed copies of the book, www.skylightbooks.com.

Check out Sylight Books in Hollywood, click here: Skylight Books,

 

Venice Parking News

THANKS TO MARK RYAVEC & VENICE STAKEHOLDERS ASSOC. (VSA) OVERNIGHT PARKING DISTRICTS (OPDs) – DESIGNED TO RESTRICT VEHICLE-DWELLERS FROM PARKING OVERNIGHT – ARE BACK ON THE FRONT BURNER IN VENICE, CA!

Following a lawsuit brought by Ryavec and VSA against the CA Coastal Commission (CCC) & City of L.A (COLA) – a settlement proposal has been drawn up for submission to the CCC June hearing.

We need to put the pressure on CCC, who have already denied OPDs in Venice twice, to deny them a third time. Please sign this petition and pass along.

Permit parking in Venice would be in violation of the 1976 Coastal Act which was designed to keep public access to the CA coast free and open to all.

NOPDs IN VENICE! KEEP OUR PUBLIC STREETS FREE!

PRESERVE ALL PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE VENICE COASTAL ZONE!

JOIN WITH US IN TELLING THE CA COASTAL COMMISSION THAT VENICE STREETS SHOULD BE OPEN TO ALL – PROVIDING PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE COAST AT ALL HOURS OF THE DAY OR NIGHT.

WE DON’T WANT PARKING PERMITS ON OUR STREETS IN VENICE

Sign our petition here http://www.change.org/petitions/keep-our-public-streets-free-nopds-in-venice – each time someone signs and email is sent to City of L.A. and the CCC. You can sign, even if you don’t live in Venice – because coastal access should be for everyone !!!! Thanks, SOV

565 Agencies on Waiting List To Join L.A. Food Bank

An Incredible Number of Agencies In Los Angeles County Waiting For Food

U.S. Government Policy Has Led To Catostrophic Consequences As Food Supplies Tighten Across the Country – Inflation Could Now Destroy What Is Left of the Middle Class

How is it possible, you say?  This great, once bountiful country, now becoming mired in a continuing food crises threatening to collapse the middle class.  Let’s go back in time a few years. America had a huge food surplus – we had a Strategic Food Reserve.  This was abandoned and the government started a policy of paying people to NOT grow food.  Big farmers and corporations raked in millions DOING NOTHING.  Our wheat surplus was shipped to Russia and China, compliments of the US taxpayers.  Now we have hundreds of charities – 565 according to the L.A. Food Bank – waiting for food for their hungry wards.  This situation may be getting worse due to drought, climate change and other natural disasters.  It is also estimated that in other parts of the world something like 100 million people are starving,  Go to www.YardEats.com website for an analysis of Strategic Food Reserves and comments on the food shortages and what needs to be done.