We're already attacking Iran.  Israel is plainly behind the assassinations and sabotage. 
They don't quite say so but there's open admission. In fact, some high US official recently 
asserted that the Israeli Mossad, their CIA basically, is using Iranian terrorist groups, designated by the US' terrorist groups, to carry out assassinations in Iran.  
The only question is: will it go up to a direct military attack?
Well, Israel is trying very hard to get the US to attack Iran.
That is obviously what they would prefer.  So far the US is backing off. 
It looks as though US military intelligence don't want to get involved with a bombing of Iran.  It would have all kind of…
Not out of love for Iranians but because they are afraid of the consequences.  
Israel might just do it themselves, I can't tell.  If they got a clear order from the US not to do it, they wouldn't. 
But if its what's sometimes called a "yellow light," we don't say yes but we don't say no, then they might.  
And in fact, it could be within the next few months.  
Their line is, "if we wait a few more months, Iran will be able to make the nuclear facilities impregnable.”  
I have no idea whether or not this is true, and I don't care, but that's the line they are using.
What's interesting and what I think we should consider carefully is that the general assumption here is that it's only a question of what the costs would be.  
In other words, if we could do it without cost, it would be the right thing to do. That's almost across the spectrum; maybe it's too costly. 
The sanctions are basically an act of war.  
In fact, there was a group of NATO generals recently, about a year or two ago, 
that issued a long statement about what would constitute 'acts of war' that would entitle the US to use nuclear weapons. 
And one of them was manipulation of the financial system.  
Well, what we are doing is cutting Iran off from the global financial system. 
And we are doing it by putting pressure on other countries. 
So the most recent was to get Belgium, which runs the international telecommunications systems for banks, to essentially cut off Iran. 
This is essentially an act of war.
The sanctions are having the predicted effect; they are harming the population. 
You can read articles in the New York Times explaining, kind of upbeat articles, saying the sanctions are working: people don't have bread, they're starving, they can't bring food into the country, and that's great.  
That's what sanctions do.  Sanctions in Iraq were the same.  
The two international diplomats, respected international diplomats, who administered the Oil For Food Program, which was supposed to be the generous part of the sanctions, both resigned charging that it was genocidal. 
And they were essentially cut out of the US media and couldn’t comment.
But that's what sanctions do. We've had 50 years of embargo against Cuba. 
It seriously harms the population, that's the point.  In fact if you look back to the origins of the sanctions, 
in the Kennedy years, high officials just said, straight out, that if they can make the population suffer, then maybe they'll overthrow their government.
What makes Iran a threat?  
Try and find some discussion on that. Actually, there is discussion. There's even an authoritative answer but it's not reported and discussed. 
It comes from the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies in their annual presentations to Congress on the global security system. 
They of course talk about Iran. And they review the Iranian threat and they take it very seriously. 
But we can learn a lot about ourselves by seeing what the threat is.  The threat is basically deterrence. 
They might deter US actions and that's intolerable if you own the world and have to be free to do anything you want anywhere in the world. 
They don't think Iran has the capacity to deploy force; they say 'no, of course it doesn't.' And I don't think any strategic analyst in his right mind thinks that, even if Iran had nuclear weapons, that they would use it in a first strike. The country would be vaporized. 
Well, it's not politics as usual. These guys are off the spectrum. 
If you get outside the US, people are watching this with amazement. It's as if it's a freak show or lunatic asylum.  
So it's not at all politics as usual. I can't recall a time when there was anyone who even was even in the real world. 
Probably Romney would be, if he didn't have to appeal to the Republican base. 
But what's actually happened over the years, whatever these guys might think in their heads, years ago the Republic party basically abandoned any pretense of being a normal political party. 
They're just dedicated, passionately, to service to the very rich and the corporate sector, period.  
And they have a kind of catechism that you have to repeat. It kind of makes the old Communist party look like a free institution.  
And everyone has to repeat it.  Well you can’t get votes that way. So if you want votes, 
you are forced to turn to sectors of the population that, have always been there, but were never mobilized as a political force.  
For one thing, it's an unusually religious country. By international standards it's an extremist religious country.  
So that sector of the population can be mobilized. 
There is a nativist element, always has been, driven by fear, you know, everything,
maybe the UN is coming or…aliens or whatever it is. 
This is now buttressed by the fact that the white working class has really taken it in the chin for 30 or 40 years. 
The democrats have pretty much abandoned them. They don't pay any attention to the white working class. 
And they are bitter. They also sense, correctly, that they're losing their country. 
Not only are they losing their jobs, and their lives but it's not going to be a white country in 50 years, maybe less. 
And so they are extremely bitter and they can be mobilized.  
Racist groups can be mobilized. The sort of paid-bourgeois, you know, the insurance salesmen, the car salesmen, etc. These people do not like government regulation; it bothers them. 
I remember, years ago, when they were trying to bar lead paint.  Painting contractors were really upset. They said, it's the only paint that works and it's going to destroy our businesses. 
And people would ask about the effects and they would say 'oh well that's all science…those scientist and whatever interest them.'  
So you have those sectors. And if you want to appeal to those sectors, you have to be pretty crazy. 
So if you watch - frankly, I don't watch the debates, I cant stand it, but I read about them - and if you see what is going on, 
the most frightening aspect of it, I think, is the audience response. 
The most shocking statements get huge applause.  
And if anyone by accident says anything that's even semi-humane, they have to back down, apologize for it and their popularity drops.  
So it's not politics as usual and there's nobody there. At least not the way they present themselves.  I don't know what they are somewhere else, but they way they present themselves; it's a disaster for the world if they come in.  
Some of the things they've done, I thought were pretty good. For example, when the government tried to prevent any Wikipedia [Wikileaks] funding, Anonymous went after the big sites like Amazon, Google, and kind of shut them down. Good move I thought. 
And there are other things that I thought were good.  Going after people's email, I don't particularly like.  
But it's kind of like the questions that came up all the times during the resistance movement back in the 60's. I was very much involved in that. 
You have to decide what makes sense, what doesn't make sense, what's legitimate, what isn't, what the consequences are, and so on.
It has to some extent. That's why authoritative regimes keep trying to close it down, you know, Egypt and China, etc. 
Sure, it's the main way in which organizing and activism gets off the ground.  
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It's also a technique of marginalization and control. 
It's like any kind of technology; you can use it for liberation or you can use it for repression. 
Like the drones you were mentioning. In principle, you could use them to help fire fighters or you could use them for surveillance. Depending on the structure of power, it will be one or the other.
Not really. I mean, it's certainly a different system but if you go back 50 years anybody could print stuff in their living room and distribute it in the streets too. 
I mean, this way it reaches more people but… it's a question of how much it means. 
If you know what you're looking for, the Internet is extremely valuable.  
If you don't know what you are looking for, it's about as valuable as walking into the Library of Congress and saying 'I want to be an physicist;' 
it's just massive meaningless data.  
