Tag Archives: Morocco

Jan 5 2018

Is BREXIT in Trouble? Can Britain Survive Past 2042-2044?


Armstrong Economics Blog/BRITAIN

Re-Posted Jan 5, 2018 by Martin Armstrong


The REMAIN crowd is doing everything possible to surrender the sovereignty, dignity, and future of Britain. The left is taking hold in Britain calling anyone who wants to leave the EU is now openly called a “racist” and they are bashing anyone who even appears to be nationalist.

While the British pound closed 2017 at 13501, it finished the year in a long-term bearish position. We now have politicians rebellion and saying that the question was too complicated for the average person to understand and so the referendum should be put aside. This is keeping in line with the anti-Democratic policy adopted in the EU to deny the people the right to vote on the European Project – the surrender of all sovereignty to Brussels.

Unfortunately, our model has not indicated any change in the long-term trend. The Euro still closed in a bullish position relative to the cross with the pound sterling. Support lies at 88120 for 2018 on Euro/Sterling. We elected a Yearly Bullish Reversal back for the close of 2016 and that has dominated the trend as 2017 closed high with an inside trading year.

The posture, overall, shows that this remains in a questionable position. The early election called by PM May was a disaster and has opened the door for the REMAIN crowd to overthrow the vote by painting anyone for BREXIT as a racist and we now hear the politicians saying that Parliament should decide and not the people. If they succeed in this movement, we seem to be on schedule for the complete collapse of Britain come 2044 where it too will split up into regions as it had begun.

 

During the reign of Eadgar (959-975 AD), England was united under one ruler. It was Eadgar who instituted a uniform coinage throughout the land. Eadgar set the pattern for the ‘reformed’ coinage of the later Anglo-Saxon and Norman period and standardized the use of the king’s portrait as in old Roman tradition.

Here too, we are reaching 21 cycles of the ECM 51.6-years from the reign of Eadgar, which also confirms independently 2042-2044 the likelihood of England breaking apart back toward the regions that were united by Eadgar will be the fate of Britain.

Jan 2 2018

JFK TRUTH – The Mob, CIA and the 8 paid ASSASSINS


Published on May 11, 2017

November 22, 1963, eight Assassins were paid 50,000 each, to assure our Leader of the free world JFK, CAMELOT, would never survive another day. The meeting the day prior of the plan and the participants who wanted him dead would surprise you. All conspiracy theories, and recent books still do not tell you the truth, as they were also paid by the CIA, since the original patsy, Lee Harvey Oswald story, is proven to not even be possible. This is the true story and explanation to what really took place that day. It’s disturbing, embarrassing, and hurtful our nation, planned his assassination; for money, power, and different political ambitions. This is a non monetized, brief encounter to the JFK Murders explained from the film that is over 3 hours long. “JFK 911 A Rich Mans Game” that I shortened to get to THE POINT of the JFK murders truth, and explains why the other conspiracy theories are NOT TRUE. AND THIS IS THE TRUTH YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR!
Jan 2 2018

War in the Classroom


By Tabitha Korol       

The year was 2011, and a freshman in Newton South High School, in Newton, Massachusetts, asked her father if it was true that the “Israeli occupation forces” had “imprisoned, tortured and killed” hundreds of Arabic women who had been “active in the Palestinian resistant movement.”  Her father, Tony Pagliuso, asked for the source of this misinformation.  It was her 540-page Arab World Studies Notebook, a highly explosive textbook filled with fabrications, shown to contribute, at least in part, to the marked decrease, from 84 to 57 percent, in student sympathy for Israel. In another textbook, The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography, a question reads, “If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?”  These are not unique.

The editor, Audrey Park Shabbas, employed by Arab World and Islamic Resources and School Services, authored the volume to improve the Arab image because the truth is unpalatable in Western society, and the Israeli image is scapegoated in the process, consistent with the 1400-year Islamic war against Jews and Western civilization.  Schools also distribute Scholastic’s maps that omit Israel from the modern Middle East.

Other education sources used across America are the Internet’s Flashpoints: Guide to World Conflicts, which identifies Jerusalem as the capital of (the non-existent) Palestine; handouts that omit the numerous and deadly Arab terrorist attacks on Israel; and A Muslim Primer that presents a deceptive, sugar-coated version of the subjugated Muslim woman’s life.  Biased textbooks in use throughout America are World History: The Human Odyssey; World History: Human Legacy; World Civilizations: The Global Experience; A Muslim Primer: Beginner’s Guide to Islam, and more.  I have personally reviewed four textbooks and written exposés accordingly, and many concerned professionals and members of the public are working hard to combat the manipulation of our youth, but the disinformation continues to proliferate.

More than 10,000 teachers attended Shabbas’s hundreds of three-day teacher-training sessions from 2000 to 2006, and were thus persuaded and made skillful at reaching and indoctrinating more than 25 million students over ten years.   Additional corroboration comes from visiting biased speakers, such as the notorious anti-Israel Noam Chomsky, an aficionado of the Iran-supported, world’s most powerful terrorist group/army, Hezbollah, responsible for large-scale bombings and suicide attacks on Americans and Israelis; Linda Sarsour, anti-Semite, jihadi and proponent of FGM (Female Genital Mutiliation); and academia’s Paul Beran, then-director of Harvard University’s Outreach Center, now leader of SHARIAsource, recognized for promoting BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel to the Presbyterian Church.

It took alert parents and involved citizens and intense investigation and reports by The Massachusetts Board of Education, Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), the American Jewish Committee and Verité Educate to expose Newton High’s ethical violations and unacceptable practices and to finally have the school admit the Outreach Center’s strong influence.  Key criticism was leveled at Harvard International Review’s Hatem Bazian’s fallacious portrayal of Palestinians as the indigenous victims and Jews as the colonialists; at the textbooks for their academic dishonesty through inaccuracies, false information, plagiarism, deceptive editing, and hate-filled, religious-proselytizing websites; assignments designed to prejudice students toward a suicidal one-state solution for Israel/the West Bank/Gaza, revealed in Miriam F. Elman’s “Palestinian Propaganda is  Infiltrating US Public Schools”; and biases against Israel and the US while sanitizing Islamic ideology and terrorism, explained by Rafael Medoff in Breaking Christian News.

Examples of other schools across the country that inculcate Islamism and unfairness in the classroom include Bellaire High, in Houston, Texas, cited for extreme claims about Israel’s history; Carlmont High in Belmont, California, which invited Linda Sarsour and other anti-Semites to advocate BDS and tutor radical positions against Israel; and La Plata High, a Maryland public school that forces the children to learn about Islam, memorize the Five Pillars of Islam, and recite the Shahada, the Islamic oath of conversion.  By contrast, there is a considerable lack of parallel information being taught about Christianity and Judaism because Islamists precedently announced their aversion and umbrage.  This generation of children is being fed an egregiously biased version of an ideology that is incompatible with democracy and corrosive to our beliefs, morals, and ideals.  Let us be clear: their ultimate purpose is the conversion of our children.

The Intense focus on Islamic subjects is carefully selected.  For example, the status of women is profoundly misrepresented, the origin and purpose of their sharia-compliant clothing falsified and unsupported by scholarship.  One author asserts that “Islam and the Quran created major improvements in the status of women,” when the truth is otherwise.  The worst conditions for women are concealed, including the practices of genital mutilation and honor killings; accusations of adultery and stoning; their treatment as property and legal inferiority; endorsed beatings by their husbands; the fact that a woman may have no rights to show her face, walk alone, drive a vehicle or attend schools. International speakers and experts who offer genuine facts, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Anni Cyrus, Brigitte Gabriel, and Noni Darwish, are not among the invitees.

The textbooks elevate Islam over Judaism and Christianity, one being John Esposito’s Islam, the Straight Path, in which he declares that revelations given to the Jews and Christians were false. By contrast, he cites as truth, rather than belief, that God sent Muhammad as his final messenger and that God’s sacred language is Arabic.  Students write about Moslem pilgrimages, including to Jerusalem as “your homeland,” when Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran.  Many textbooks explain the rise and spread of Islam as being a successful acceptance of ideas, rather than the result of persecution and wantonly destructive conquerors who beheaded the non-believers, kidnapped the women for forced conversion and sexual slavery, and enriched themselves with appropriated bounty.

The textbooks’ definition of jihad varies from the benign, the spiritual struggle within oneself against sin, to the traditional, the struggle against the enemies of Islam, but the goal is always the same – that of bringing the whole world under Islamic law, as explained by Bernard Lewis. Omitted is the account of hundreds of members of the Jewish Meccan tribe, the Quarayza, beheaded in 627 AD for rejecting Muhammad as Prophet, and the more than 109 verses in the Quran that decree violence and death to Jews and Christians, and the destruction of Israel.

Not found in textbooks is Israel’s history – not 1948, when five surrounding Arab states declared war on the new state of Israel and lost, or 1967, when the Arabs again attacked Israel and lost, leaving behind Arabs who stayed and accepted Israel citizenship and Arabs who fled and remained as stateless pawns, neglected by their brethren.  Mislaid is the number of Jews – between 800,000 and one million – who fled for their lives from Islamic countries, and were absorbed by Israel.  Missing are a timeline that would verify Israel’s attacks as retaliatory to the Arab leaders’ calls to annihilate Israel, and a correct definition of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “religious,” as declared in the Quran, confirming that anti-Semitism is integral to the Moslem culture. The textbooks do not explain Islamic terrorism and radicalism as religious precepts of jihad, or the incitement to hate that permeates Palestinian and Islamic society. Palestinians extol terrorism, praise terrorists as heroes and deceased murderers as martyrs after whom streets, cultural events, and public squares are named, and for which parents are handsomely rewarded – with “humanitarian aid” funded by UN countries. Anti-Semitism is endemic to the Koran, and none of this is mentioned.

The correct definition of Islam, with its religious, legal, political, economic, social and military components is a 100% system of life, and the greatest threat to the world.  There are organizations that work to free our schools of Islamic propaganda, but the programs of study have been bought and paid for by the Saudis, and theirs is the agenda.  Hence, the lessons are plagued with poor scholarship, revisionism, and blatant anti-Israel bias, and supported by a corrupt media that fuels the skewed perspective.

It is now evident that we are at war, a war that is being waged in the classroom, with its weaponry aimed at our children’s minds.  The diligent work, “Indoctrinating our Youth,” by CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, has resulted in the removal of some curriculum materials, but not all.  Despite parental rights to know what their children are learning, teaching staff does not provide full disclosure.  And, for every school that removes falsehoods, there are a hundred more that are continuing its use, now beginning at 3rd grade level.  It is up to us to pursue what must be stopped for the sake of our survival as a republic.  Go to www.schoolbias.org or call CAMERA, at 617-377-6911.  To quote a popular phrase, “If you see something, say something.”

 

Jan 1 2018

Iran Political Clarification


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics

Re-Posted Jan 1, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Two things:

 

“He is remembered for publicly stating that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth.”

 

Although he is indeed remembered in the West for ‘saying’ that, the truth is that phrase was a gross mis-translation of what he did say in Farsi. Just a simple lie. I don’t think you should be party to the perpetuation of a lie.

And, with Pahlevi, his ‘claim’ to the throne was problematic. His father was not an aristocrat and in fact was installed by the British. Real granular knowledge of history is useful, don’t you think?

 

REPLY: My piece on Iran does not support either side. I am fully aware that I am well read in Iran. The question was simply about the cycle of political change. That does not endorse the claim to the Throne under Mohammad Reza’s reign, marked the anniversary of 2,500 years of continuous Persian monarchy since the founding of the Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great. That took place on the 12–16 of October back in 1971.

 

He revised the calendar making the benchmark the beginning of the First Persian Empire, measured from Cyrus the Great’s coronation. He introduced the White Revolution, which a series of economic, social and political reforms designed to transform Iran into a modern global power. He offended the religious conservatives by granting women suffrage.

 

I fully appreciate his claim to the throne is disputed and he was only the second of the House of Pahlavi and thus the conservatives dispute his heritage to the throne. That is not my concern. Like Trump, our model forecast the 2016 election back in 1985. Trump appeared and read the people’s discontent and beat 17 Republicans to their shock. It was not Trump the person, it was just being there at the right time. If it was not Trump, it would have been someone else. The cycle was turning – plain and simple.

 

There is a 26-year cycle that is quite dominant throughout Iranian history. There have been many revolutions that have often centered even on religion. The Sassanid Shâhs (Great Kings), 223/4-651 AD is a classic example. The Sassanids replaced the Hellenophile Parthian dynasty, with the program of deliberately reviving the Zoroastrian Achaemenid Persian Empire, aspiring to recover all the former provinces of the Achaemenids (Egypt, Syria, Anatolia). Zoroaster was the predecessor to Christianity and the source of the story of the Three Wise Men.

Zoroaster was a prophet whose teachings were the religious foundation of ancient Iranian-speaking peoples. This became the religion of Zoroastrianism, which is often considered to be the first world religion. It is still practiced by a tiny population. There are approximately 11,000 Zoroastrians who live in the United States, 6,000 in Canada, 5,000 in England, 2,700 in Australia and 2,200 in the Middle East. Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, was actually the world capital of Zoroastrianism. The  Sasanian Revolution was all about restoring the old religion. The 1979 Islamic Revolution was similar in overthrowing the Shah to reestatlish an Islamic State.

From that birth of the Sasanian Kingdom in 223/224BC, the 26-year cycle brings us precisely to 2017/2018 (cycle #69 from that revolution). Hence, I am looking at this less from a political standpoint of supporting either side in Iran, where we have a lot of readers I know, but from a purely cyclical viewpoint.

I have no interest in promoting any religion for that to me is a personal choice

Jan 1 2018

Iranian Protest & Revolutionary Cycle


Armstrong Economics Blog/Civil Unrest

Re-Posted Jan 1, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Many look to you from Iran. Can you please advise as to your cyclical work of Iranian revolutions is you have calculated that out.

Thank you so much. You are a voice in this world.

الله معك

ANSWER: Thank you. Yes, there is a remarkable 26-year cycle in Iran. During August of 1953, the Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, dismissed the Prime Minister Mohammed Mossaddegh after he adopted a nationalist policy by dissolving the parliament and instituted a dictatorial rule by decree. Mossadegh refused to step down and instead arrested the royal messenger delivering the dismissal order. The Shah fled to Italy and that is when the US CIA and British intelligence initiated and execute “Operation Ajax” with the help of conservative Iranians to overthrow Mossadegh. This succeeded and the Shah returned to Iran.

The Shah then fled 26 years later in 1979 on January 16 to Egypt. Then Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini (1902–1989) return to Iran on February 1st, 1979. That began the Islamic State.

The next target was 2005. This was when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the sixth President of Iran from August 3rd, 2005 to August 3rd, 2013. He was also the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country. He was controversial both domestically because of his economic policy and internationally moving Iran toward a nuclear armament. He is remembered for publicly stating that Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth.

What is not publicly talked about is the fact that the USA encouraged Iran to adopt nuclear energy beginning in 1957 when they signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement as part of the U.S. Atoms for Peace program. The USA continued to help move Iran toward nuclear energy under the Shah until the 1979 Revolution.

On January 17th, 2005, Iran offered a proposal to the EU. It included an Iranian commitment not to pursue weapons of mass destruction along with cooperation on combating terrorism, and on regional security, including for Iraq and Afghanistan. They sought cooperation on strategic trade controls, but the proposal was rejected. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, he took the country into a hostile confrontation once again with Israel and the West. On August 5, 2005, just 2 days after taking office, the pending EU-3 submit a proposal to Iran pursuant to the Paris Agreement which required Iran to permanently cease enrichment was rejected by Ahmadinejad.

 

Now we are at 2018 and this is the half cycle mark – 13 years from 2005. So the rise of protests is right on target. When will the younger generation succeed in overthrowing the old powers that be once and for all? That will be in 2031. For now, the government still has power and it is not afraid to torture its own people. Things are changing as the younger generation demands change. Thus, the protest is currently cyclical right on target for 2018 and they will build.

Dec 31 2017

Stunning Audacity – Clinton Tweets Support For Iranian Protests She Previously Helped Destroy…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on December 31, 2017 by

There are times when the audacity of the most political poll-testing opportunist on the planet reaches beyond stratospheric levels of comprehension.  Cue the visual:

Arguably the most consequential failure of the Hillary State Department was in 2009 when the U.S. undermined the Iranian Green Revolution. Not only did the U.S. do nothing to help the opposition against the Iranian regime, but US funding was cut for democratic organizations/programs in Iran under Clinton’s State Department. It was Hillary Clinton who supported the Mullahs in an ill-fated decision to achieve the ridiculous Iranian Nuclear Deal which she was just praising and defending three months ago.

Hello?

Meanwhile the mainstream media apparatus are refusing to even acknowledge the Iranian uprising; apparently because President Trump is supporting their cries for freedom.

Yes, if ever there was a bigger example of Trump Derangement Syndrome causing media to contort themselves into hypocritical pretzels, their reaction -or lack thereof- to these protests in Iran would stand as exhibit “A”.

(Via BBC) […] They are the biggest show of dissent since huge pro-reform rallies in 2009. There are reports of two deaths.

There were calls for the removal or death of Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the cities of Khoramabad, Zanjan and Ahvaz.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutions Guards Corp is a powerful force with ties to the country’s supreme leader, and is dedicated to preserving the country’s Islamic system.  (read more)

(Fox News, Stephen Miller writes) […] CNN ignored the protests completely, and the explosion on social media until a front page story reporting on not uprisings against the regime, but a pro-government rally and President Trump’s tweet in support of the protestors. If the State Department wants to send a message of solidarity to the protesters in Iran, perhaps it can send them a white truck. Yes, the question has to be asked how such an uprising of thousands against their government would be covered by western media if this were Tel Aviv. We don’t need U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley defiantly raising her hand to answer that question for us.

The somewhat muted reaction to thousands of people rising up against the Iranian regime can and should be compared to the attention the Arab Spring received in 2010. The scenes coming out of Iran are just as dramatic, if not more so, than those of the Arab uprising.

A woman was caught on videotape screaming “death to Khamenei” at Iranian law enforcement officials – an action that could not only endanger her life, but the lives of her family. But nevertheless, she persisted.

Social media came to a halt when another video was shared on Twitter of a female activist, shedding her hijab and waving a makeshift flag at security forces while standing atop a container.

I’m not exactly sure why an Iranian woman would shed such a garment that we’ve been told by the political left of this country is a symbol of empowerment and feminism. But her body, her choice.

Protesters are shouting “Death to Khamenei,” “Mullahs get lost,” “No more Islamic Republic,” “Clerics return us our country.” They are not shouting “We have economic anxiety”. This is not about economic anxiety. This about revolting against a regime who has exhausted its moral good will, and no longer can lean on a sympathetic United States for more pallets of cash.  (read more)

Dec 30 2017

Cry Freedom: Iranian Protests Grow in Day #2 – Regime Forces Crack Down…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on December 30, 2017 by

It looks like the Iranian Green Revolution is back on the streets as waves of protests are happening.  In 2009 the Mullah’s brutally cracked down on the reformers and President Obama stood by.  In 2017 the reformers have an ally in the oval office as President Trump and his entire administration (specifically Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley) openly show their support for the movement.  Stunning developments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The U.S. Media are attempting to spin the protests as “pro-regime” and claiming the supporters are pro-Khameni and pro government.  That narrative is 100% false, yet it highlights the severity of the entire left-wing media apparatus as they attempt to prop-up the failed policies of the Obama administration.

Tens-of-thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to express their anger, and unfortunately for the preferred media script that anger is not directed at President Trump or Saudi Arabia; but rather at the mullahs and their oppressive security forces.

The protests may have begun over economic grievances in the northeastern city of Mashhad.  However, the uprising has grown to at least 18 cities nationwide.  The slogals are no longer about corruption and economics, they are directly confronting the Islamic Republic:

“Death to [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei!”

“Death to Hezbollah!”

“Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, Our Life Only for Iran!”

“We Will Die to Get Our Iran Back!”

“Clerics Out of Our Country!”

President Trump Tweeted his prior statements from the U.N. General Assembly about Iran and the hopes for the people of Iran.  U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, also is transmitting support for the reformers along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The reformers and protesters face a brutal Iranian regime that spends most of its time trying to retain itself and will not hesitate to crack down, just as it did in 1999 and 2009.

Perhaps the difference now is they have the support of U.S. President Donald Trump, and it is likely our western propaganda media will not be able to hide the truth much longer.

Dec 29 2017

Secretary Tillerson Transmits Support for Iranian Protests….


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on December 29, 2017 by

Interesting.  Visible support for a position 180° from prior administration.

“transition of government” supported by U.S.

State Dept – We are following reports of multiple peaceful protests by Iranian citizens in cities across the country. Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos. As President Trump has said, the longest-suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are Iran’s own people.

The United States strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters. We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.

On June 14, 2017, Secretary Tillerson testified to Congress that he supports “those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of government. Those elements are there, certainly as we know.” The Secretary today repeats his deep support for the Iranian people. (link)

Dec 29 2017

Political Protests in Iran Spread Amid Rumors of Regime Change Goals…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on December 29, 2017 by

News of spreading and morphing political protests in Iran are beginning to surface as social media accounts are now gaining MSM attention.

Openly political protests are not common in Iran ever since the 2009 ‘Green Revolution‘ was harshly put-down by security forces carrying out the instructions of the ruling Mullahs and political class.  Iranian security services are omnipresent and looming.   However, what appears to have begun as protests over prices, inflation and the lack of economic freedom, seems to have morphed into several regional political protests directly challenging the Mullahs and the reigning political class.

Back in 2009, after President Obama gave his famous Cairo speech, the message was interpreted by the Iranian reform movement, the “Greens”, as a spark toward freedom.  However, the Mullahs responded violently, Iranian security forces attacked the protestors, several were killed and hundreds jailed and President Obama stood by, watched the brutality, saying and doing nothing. 2009 was a very dark time for the reform movement.

It is too soon to tell if today’s protests are the beginning of a similar uprising, a resurgence of those previously crushed cries for freedom, but the reform movement appears to be pushing the message: this is indeed their objective.   It is a very interesting development.

(Reuters) – Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.

Police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars said.

The outbreak of unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern about the Islamic Republic’s costly involvement in regional conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.

An official said a few protesters had been arrested in Tehran, and footage posted on social media showed a heavy police presence in the capital and some other cities.

About 300 demonstrators gathered in Kermanshah after what Fars said was a “call by the anti-revolution”. They shouted: “Political prisoners should be freed” and “Freedom or death”, and some public property was destroyed. Fars did not name any opposition groups.

The protests in Kermanshah, the main city in a region where an earthquake killed over 600 people in November, took place a day after hundreds rallied in Iran’s second largest city Mashhad to protest at high prices and shout anti-government slogans.

Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators yelling, “The people are begging, the clerics act like God”.

Fars said there were protests in the cities of Sari and Rasht in the north, Qazvin west of Tehran and Qom south of the capital, and also in Hamadan in western Iran. It said many marchers who wanted to raise economic demands left the rallies after demonstrators shouted political slogans.  (read more)

I would advise caution not to read too much into the events and accept there are tenuously connected seeds within the larger Middle-East struggles.  History is filled with the conflicting polarity between Persians and Arabs.

Iran has been on a growing question to influence the broader middle-east ideology, and Saudi coalition members are pushing back against that influence with open support for the reform agenda within Iran.  Proxies on proxies, and sub-sects on sub-sects.  A considerable challenge for those who would support increased ‘freedom’.

Viewpoint of National Council of Resistance in Iran – SEE HERE

Another Viewpoint of Resistance Supporters – SEE HERE

Reminder, proceed with caution.  There’s a great deal of misinformation.

Dec 28 2017

Why Was Jesus Crucified?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Rule of Law

Re-Posted Dec 28, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You are clearly a Roman scholar.  Is it true that the Romans used crucifixion only for political crimes and that the two who were crucified with Jesus were not thieves but rebels? There has been some debate on this subject. I would like to hear your views.

Thank you

WR

ANSWER: Jesus’ crime was really sedition and not blasphemy. The high priests may have seen this as blasphemy, but Jesus would never have been put to death by the Romans for such a local issue. The Romans practiced freedom or religion. They allowed the provinces that they had conquered to retain their own gods. Even the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (218-222AD) was an heir to the throne being of the Severian House. He had been a priest in Emesa of the sun god, which is the modern city of Homs in Syria today. He worshiped a black meteor that had fallen from the sky and a temple had been built for this stone of god (see above). When Elagabalus became emperor, he carried the Stone of Emesa to Rome and built a temple there. After he was murdered, the Romans respectfully returned the stone to Syria as to not offend any god. As for the Black Stone of Emesa is concerned, it was most likely smashed to pieces when the temple was converted into a Christian church at some point during the 4th Century AD by the Byzantines.

Therefore, the only possible way that Jesus would have been crucified was for a civil crime, not a religious one, and the penalty had to be only for sedition, which is conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state. It is rabble-rousing, incitement to rebel, subversion, troublemaking, but not a religious issue. Therefore, the high Jewish priests took Jesus to the governor and had to make their case that he was inciting a rebellion against Rome by claiming to be King of the Jews. Pilate interrogates Jesus:

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.

“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”

Rome’s punishment only for a political crime was a crucifixion, which was a public display that was painful, and a visible warning to others. There is no possible way that the two men crucified with Jesus were common thieves. The sentence of crucifixion was only something that Rome could order. The two men who were killed along with Jesus are identified in the Gospel of Nicodemus as Dismas and Gestas.

Luke 23:39-41 says, “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’”

Matthew refers to Barabbas who is released by Pilate in place of Jesus only as a “notorious prisoner” and that would never imply a common thief. Mark and Luke further refer to Barabbas as one involved in a στάσις (stasis, a riot), probably one of the numerous insurrections against the Roman power who had committed murder. The translation as “thieves,” however, the word can also mean “insurgents,” and it is more-likely-than-not that the two were co-conspirators of Barabbas rather than thieves. This is the only possibility that would support the sentence of crucifixion, which was a political weapon used to send a message to those still living: Do not engage in sedition or this will be your fate.

Crucifixion was an execution that was severe and reserved for political crimes, not common thieves. The more common method of execution in the Roman Empire was by strangling. Even the leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, who was an adversary was put on display in a triumph of Julius Caesar and then strangled – not crucified. This was simply a captive of a conquered nation or group who had not been under Roman rule and thus did not warrant crucifixion.

Spartacus (111-71BC) was a Thracian gladiator who escaped and became a slave leader during the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Crassus crucified 6,000 of Spartacus’ followers on the road between Rome and Capua pictured here in the 1878 painting by Fyodor Bronnikov. Again, the punishment of crucifixion is employed for rebellion. Even Karl Marx listed Spartacus as one of his heroes and described him as “the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history” and a “noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat”.

Therefore, from a historical perspective of Roman law, Jesus would then have been crucified ONLY as a rebel and not for blasphemy. Giving a choice to the crowd between Jesus and Barabbas would not have been plausible unless they both stood for the same type of offense of sedition. This to me is clear evidence of the political nature of Jesus’s execution and was not merely a local religious issue but was a crime of sedition against the Roman Empire.