WEST UNDERESTIMATES MORAL STRENGTH OF IRAN, AT ITS OWN PERIL

The west underestimates the true moral strength of Iran at its own peril for Iran’s character and ancient Persian roots will not cave in to demonization, fear and sanctions and are far more likely to follow the words of their greatest poet, Rumi ~ Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real Sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl: Allen L Roland

The more I interact with Iranians, especially in my capacity as an online columnist and frequent interviews with Press TV, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h1waKv8VBk
~ the more I realize how resilient Iranians are and unafraid of an obvious policy of forced Regime Change by the West in their quest for oil and natural gas to fuel their on going imperialistic agenda and war machine.

Obama’s own words during his recent State Of The Union pep rally demonstrate his on going efforts to demonize Iran for all the old and worn out political reasons ~ “ and we will safeguard America's own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests. Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”( We’re still in control, so don’t rock the boat )

This is simply hot air and empty threats for the politically gullible and then Obama goes on to justify American imperialism and exceptionalness with these self-righteous words of bluster and hypocrisy ~ “ From the coalitions we've built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we've led against hunger and disease; from the blows we've dealt to our enemies; to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about….. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can't control every event. But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs - and as long as I'm President, I intend to keep it that way.” ( In other words, it’s our way or the highway )

President Obama is now at the laughable stage of denial where he is drinking his own Kool-Aid and fails to see that the so called War on Terror has finally revealed the true culprit which is the West’s War of Terror, often operating under the guise of NATO, which is still committed to illegal preemptive regime change ~ and now has Iran in its sights.

Obama’s faux populism is brilliantly captured by Robert Scheer who wrote ~ “ l admit it: Listening to Barack Obama, I am ready to enlist in his campaign against the feed-the-rich Republicans ... until I recall that I once responded in the same way to Bill Clinton’s faux populism. And then I get angry because betrayal by the “good guys” for whom I have ended up voting has become the norm.” See article ~ http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/26

With the desire to better understand the 70 million Iranian people as well as their rich culture and heritage ~ I recently watched Rich Steve’s outstanding presentation on Iran after he spent a few weeks there in 2008.

It verified that not everything we hear about Iran is true, nor is everything we hear false, but even the truth out of context can be misleading.

If you ask a politician about Iran they're likely to tell you what you already think you know, Iran is bad, they're working on nuclear weapons, they did some horrible thing in 1979, and they're all religious fanatics. If you ask John McCain, in particular, he might sing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" again and make us all laugh or gasp in horror.

Turn to the main stream media for answers on Iran and you'll hear pretty much hear the same thing.

But ask an objective travel writer, like the personable Rich Steve, about Iran and he'll tell you about the people of Iran. He'll tell you about their character and the culture and the things we've never thought about as well as their deep fundamentalist faith ~ where they proudly see themselves as Persians, not Arabs.

With the war drums beating again against Iran, let us get to know a little something about the PEOPLE who will bear the brunt of that war, should it ever come to pass and remember Steve’s words when he says ~ “ Don’t underestimate the strength and unity of the Iranian people, if invaded or attacked, they will fight until the last person dies”

58 minute Video:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/3692.html

People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another: Rumi

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/west-underestimates-moral-strength-of.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

IRAN CRISIS / FOLLOW THE MONEY, IT'S ALL ABOUT PETRODOLLARS

As Obama refuses to acknowledge that Obamanomics is rapidly sinking ~ a closer look at the Iran crisis reveals, if you follow the money, that the real issue is petrodollars in that Iran is dumping the dollar in its trade with Russia as it has already done with China and Japan. As such, Regime Change is now the goal of the Obama administration as it was in 2000 when Iraq’s late Saddam Hussein abandoned the petrodollar and recently when Libya’s late Muammar Gaddafi proposed a gold dinar as currency for his energy resources: Allen L Roland

Its classic good cop / bad cop with Obama positioning himself as the good cop who is trying to restrain an impetuous Israel who wants to attack Iran. Things got a little too dicey last week, with the Mossad assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, so Obama cancelled the joint war games with Israel ~ particularly since Israel still refuses to agree not to launch preemptive action against Iran without U.S. approval.

Here’s an insightful update from Real news with Paul Jay and investigative reporter Gareth Porter: 14 minute Video

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=7813

But as Pepe Escobar writes ~ “ This larger-than-life psychodrama we call “Iran” may turn out to be as much about China and the U.S. dollar as it is about the politics of the Persian Gulf or Iran’s nonexistent bomb .”

To get a handle on this psychodrama , we have to follow the money and that means the implied threat to petrodollars ~ which send shivers up the spine of the global financial elite. Escobar elaborates ~ “...consider 2012 the start-up year as well for a possibly massive defection from the dollar as the global currency of choice. As perception is indeed reality, imagine the real world ~ mostly the global South ~ doing the necessary math and, little by little, beginning to do business in their own currencies and investing ever less of any surplus in U.S. Treasury bonds."

Excerpt: “ That Iranian isolation theme only gets weaker when one learns that the country is dumping the dollar in its trade with Russia for rials and rubles -- a similar move to ones already made in its trade with China and Japan. As for India, an economic powerhouse in the neighborhood, its leaders also refuse to stop buying Iranian oil, a trade that, in the long run, is similarly unlikely to be conducted in dollars….Translation, if any was needed: in the near future, with the Europeans out of the mix, virtually none of Iran’s oil will be traded in dollars.

In this context, it’s worth remembering that in September 2000 Saddam Hussein abandoned the petrodollar as the currency of payment for Iraq’s oil, and moved to the euro. In March 2003, Iraq was invaded and the inevitable regime change occurred. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi proposed a gold dinar both as Africa’s common currency and as the currency of payment for his country’s energy resources. Another intervention and another regime change followed.” See full story: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30269.htm

So what we are really talking about now with Iran, as it was with Iraq and Libya, is REGIME CHANGE ~ for Obamanomics, like the Titanic, will surely sink unless those precious Eurodollars are investing in the ever growing surplus of U.S. Treasury bonds.

Pepe compares it to Poe’s classic The Pit and the Pendulum ~ “ If this were an economic rewrite of Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Iran would be but one cog in an infernal machine slowly shredding the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Still, it’s the cog that Washington is now focused on. They have regime change on the brain. All that’s needed is a spark to start the fire (in -- one hastens to add -- all sorts of directions that are bound to catch Washington off guard).

As Petrodollar expert William Clark writes regarding Petrodollar Warfare ~ “the upcoming Iran bourse will introduce petrodollar versus petroeuro currency hedging, and fundamentally new dynamics to the biggest market in the world - global oil and gas trades. In essence, the U.S. will no longer be able to effortlessly expand its debt-financing via issuance of U.S. Treasury bills, and the dollar’s international demand/liquidity value will fall.” See story ~ http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7707

To make it simple, Obama is captain of a sinking ship, overloaded with ever increasing debt, but he still stands on the bow convinced he is flying when in reality he is just one spark, or a few minutes, or days away from a complete economic disaster.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/iran-crisis-follow-money-its-all-about.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

WILL YOU TAKE A STAND FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE / AS MLK DID?

The words and inspiration of Martin Luther King Jr return every third Monday in January but in the troubled days of 2012 King’s words demand a deeply personal moral stand ~ Are you willing to protect something so precious that you will die for it? Allen L Roland

As our civil liberties slowly erode with a corporate state under control of the Military/Industrial complex and global elite ~ there will come a time when we all must take a stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause or some great truth.

The question is ~ are you willing to stand alone and overcome fear for what is right in a world apparently gone blindly wrong.

Martin Luther King Jr asked himself that same question at 38 years old, on November 5, 1967, in a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church when he obviously sensed his mission and destiny and knew there was only one answer he could live with.

"SO PRECIOUS THAT YOU WILL DIE FOR IT"

“ I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live.

You may be thirty-eight years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab you or shoot at you or bomb your house.

So you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at thirty-eight as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice....

Don't ever think that you're by yourself. Go on to jail if necessary, but you never go alone. Take a stand for that which is right, and the world may misunderstand you, and criticize you. But you never go alone, for somewhere I read that one with God is a majority. And God has a way of transforming a minority into a majority.”

Personally, I have taken a stand for a great truth, for a Unified Field of love, joy and soul consciousness ~ that exists beyond time and space as well as deepest within each one of us and whose principle property is the universal urge to unite. Like King, I have been to the top of the mountain, I’ve seen what lies both within and beyond our present state of fear based ego consciousness and like King, I’ve seen what lies beyond the difficult days ahead, for as King wrote ~ “We are all tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever effects one directly effects all indirectly.”

Here is a clip from Martin Luther King Jr’s last but incredibly moving speech before he was assassinated on April 4^th, 1968 ~ 1.17 minute Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FiCxZKuv8

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/will-you-take-stand-for-truth-and.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

AN ELECTABLE RON PAUL TRIUMPHS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

Ron Paul, the protector of our once sacred constitution, seized the moment in New Hampshire by finishing a strong second in the Republican Primary and gleefully announced to a stunned Republican establishment that he is not only electable but dangerous to the status quo: Allen L Roland

Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul has been bucking the trade winds of the Republican establishment for years and making little headway in his efforts to defend the constitution and protect our liberties. Last night in New Hampshire, Paul shocked the establishment with the help of the youth, Independents and a beaten down Middle Class by finishing a strong second to Mitt Romney and shattered the myth that Ron Paul is non-electable. Watch this 15 minute video of his victory celebration and witness a Ron Paul with the wind at his back and finally seizing his moment in New Hampshire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jdUA910WYFY

It is my opinion that, minus the main stream media sponsored myth of non-electability, Ron Paul would have garnered at least 30% of the New Hampshire vote ~ which would truly have him nipping at Mitt Romney’s heels.

Now watch Doug Wead, Senior political adviser to Ron Paul explain the Republican Party’s best kept secret ~ Ron Paul Is Electable and Can Beat Obama !

Why? Because as Wead explains Paul is incorruptible, has integrity and matches up against Obama better than any other candidate. 4 minute Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmafSP3vxEA&feature=player_embedded

Then there’s Jesse Benton, Ron Paul's youthful Campaign Chair Interview with Piers Morgan After Paul’s N.H 2nd Place Finish ~ where Benton predicts Paul will continue his momentum in South Carolina as people begin to realize that he is the only conservative alternate to Mitt Romney ~ and that Paul’s enthusiasm and honesty is contagious. 4 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlYjgvEgSLc&feature=player_detailpage

Then there’s the highly intelligent Bruce Fein, another Paul Senior political advisor, on Fox explaining that Ron Paul "Is the only major candidate who is hawkish on defending Americans in America ~ and not all over the world“ who eloquently outlines Paul’s campaign strategy and appeal. 5 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=28eDF1dNnD0

Wednesday morning I was interviewed for 90 minutes by Mike Harris, on the Republic Broadcasting network, and we entertained questions from listeners regarding Ron Paul’s strong finish in New Hampshire and the response from across the country was unanimous ~ Ron Paul is electable!

Not only that but there’s a wide cross section of this country that support his candidacy regardless of the Main Stream Press’s attempt to marginalize his campaign .

A white Catholic from the Northeast called and shared his worry that Paul’s candidacy would be such a threat to the establishment that they would attempt to stop him ~ much like the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King were stopped ~ because his message and presence was so needed at this time.

A black man from Chicago stressed Ron Paul’s moral integrity, character and honesty which have been so sadly lacking in the White House.

A woman from Louisiana commented on the hypocrisy of both Gingrich and Santorum in contrast with Paul’s honesty and integrity.

And lastly a Texas neighbor of Dr. Paul spoke movingly about Paul’s down to earth friendliness and how, as an OB, he has delivered over 4000 babies and has a direct or indirect relationship with virtually the whole town ~ how often he sees him riding his bicycle and waving to his neighbors and that what you see with Ron Paul is what you get in real life or in the political arena.

I was moved by these unsolicited comments from across the country and am now firmly convinced that the myth that Ron Paul is non-electable has been planted and continually stroked by the Republican establishment who are deathly afraid of not only Ron Paul’s message and its consequences to a Party that is still married to Wall Street and the Military/Industrial complex ~ but that Paul is the real thing (a true conservative) in a cast of pretenders and a constant reminder to the establishment of how far they have strayed from their core beliefs.

Watch out South Carolina and Florida ~ Ron Paul finally has the wind behind him and he is most certainly not only electable but dangerous to the status quo and Republican establishment.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/electable-ron-paul-triumphs-in-new.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net