NewAmericaNow

Preparing for Famine? You Really Should

2012-01-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

Several future scenarios include or produce famine on a very large scale. The goal of a famine feeding strategy is to get people from the beginning of the famine to the end alive and not permanently damaged. In extreme circumstances this may call for unusual measures…

Preparing for famine. We can be reasonably confident that any future crisis will include food scarcity. From EMP to pandemic, from war to drought, food is a critical resource. (The projected death rate from an EMP, including death from a variety of causes including famine, is 9 out of 10 Americans!) The sooner we can educate people about the dangers ahead the sooner every family can begin to prepare. Every little bit will help. And the sooner we start the better.

People need to know the facts in a non-inflammatory way and in a way they can relate to, “painting them a picture” so to speak of how it could affect them and their family. They need to know they cannot expect a government rescue, they need to take personal responsibility for their preparedness. And they need hope – to believe that their efforts can make a difference in the outcome.

Americans have been manipulated, lied to, cheated, and stampeded from issue to issue by unscrupulous people in government, education, the media, and even the church. We need a well thought-out strategy so that we don’t sound like crazies predicting the end of the world or selling something. That’s not going to happen without a lot of deliberation and work.

One of the reasons for getting a head start on famine preparedness is that the real experience of famine is horrible - it is surreal and disorienting and frightening. People need mental preparation, a sort of “mental inoculation” so that they are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually up for the challenge. Without this inner preparation many people will give in to paralysis and hopelessness and make an already dire situation worse.

Consider all the time and effort and materials that are going toward creating lovely politically-correct landscaping in 99% of American cities. Most of that landscaping could be replaced with food-producing plants, pasture grasses, fruit- or nut-producing trees, edible decorative plants, and even simply gardens. Fruit trees take several years to come to maturity – if people are going to plant them they are going to need to get going now..

As a group or a church becomes prepared their efforts will be multiplied by those in the community who catch the vision and understand the dangers. City policies for landscaping, even public landscaping, could be improved, and laws examined to allow emergency contractual changes to neighborhood covenants.

Gardeners need to be educated on how to grow insect resistant crops that don’t require pesticides, or that can be treated without commercial chemicals that will in all likelihood be unavailable. Cold-resistant and drought-resistant crops should be encouraged and seeds (for more than a single season’s planting!) and know-how distributed.

Stored foods. Clearly the best option in the face of famine is to buy food in advance! The challenges are (a) the cost of accumulating food over and above everyday consumption, (b) storing a large quantity of food, some of which will need special storage conditions, (c) making sure there is a nutritional balance, and (d) trying to guess how long a famine might last and how much might be needed. Because we can make some advance preparations now we even have the luxury of asking a nutritionist to help us develop a nutritionally sound plan, or of finding some individual or organization that has already done this basic meal planning. (A good resource is the LDS storage food calculator.)

In addition to a centralized storehouse, food storage should also be dispersed to individual homes as much as possible to make it harder to be all stolen or destroyed in one emergency or raid. Dispersed storage also means greater storage totals, and greater participation as people take personal responsibility. Bulk foods purchases could feed as many as 1,000 people for around $100 per day.

Raised foods. Raising basic, hardy crops such as beans, cabbage, beets / sugar beets, and potatoes can contribute significantly to the food available. It’s difficult to raise grain in a gardening situation, except for corn. Whether or not corn grows well will depend on what caused the famine in the first place – it typically needs a long, warm growing season which may not happen in some areas. Bean pollination can be improved (if insects are affected by cold or disease) by growing larger varieties and hand-pollinating. Sprouting grains in spring could provide an early “crop”. Unless massive amounts of vegetable seeds are made available to a community in advance, with gardening help, the first year’s crops are not going to come close to meeting the need.

Livestock. Livestock that can survive on foods that people do not eat (like grass) are an option (cows, sheep, rabbits, etc.), but livestock that requires grain input (chickens and turkeys) may not be an efficient use of the calories available. Care must be taken (if possible) not to eat livestock that may be needed for other essential purposes, such as oxen or horses for plowing or transportation. Growing children, the elderly, and the ill would benefit greatly from additional protein (eggs/meat) and fats.

Purchased/traded foods. In a famine some food typically continues to be available from traders or markets or even in stores, but at a significantly higher price. Saving up money to purchase food after a famine begins would be crazy, since far more food can be purchased for the same amount of money before it begins. But it’s possible that a delegation could be sent to other areas with a surplus to trade for food. A survival community theoretically could bring back additional food to sell to the public to cover the expenses of the trip.

Hunted/found foods. Hunting, fishing, trapping, and foraging are all good sources so long as there aren’t thousands of other people competing for the same resources. Once famine has thinned the population and concentrated people in the cities for government feeding programs, wild game and edible weeds/plants may rebound and be more available.

Gleaned foods. Combining a wheat field leaves significant amounts of grain still in the field where the combines miss the stalks – that grain can be collected. There may be fruit on fruit trees that was too difficult to reach or that was overlooked by pickers. All food harvesting processes should be investigated as possible gleaning candidates.

Discarded foods. An organized effort to collect food thrown out by restaurants and grocery stores could make a significant contribution to feeding people, and if nothing else scavenged foods may be fed to livestock to supplement their feed and indirectly contribute to feeding people. Fruit left in the field because of blemishes or damage, insect damage or rot, might yet have an edible portion. Even rotten, disgusting foods may provide highly-nutritious food for maggots (rather than feeding on feces), which can be safely consumed by humans.

Livestock feeds. Animal products like “All Stock” are made with bran, minerals, and molasses. It contains 12% protein (red wheat is typically 14%), 2% fat, 15% fiber, and vitamin A and D – it could be consumed by humans. “Cull peas,” a product of split pea manufacture, are peas that are too small to be processed for human use. A serving of pea soup has 8 grams of protein, 26 grams of carbs, 3 grams of fat, and 161 calories. Chicken scratch is just coarsely ground corn and wheat. It costs more than just plain whole corn and wheat, but if whole grain is not available the scratch is edible. The one thing to watch out for is that some foods unfit for human consumption are sometimes dumped in the livestock market – grains contaminated with mold, pesticides and other chemical contamination. Great care will need to be used to detect and avoid harmful feed (and it’s not good for the animals either!)

Insects. Millions of people around the world already know that the local insect population can be considered a potential food source. Maggots, or other large insects / bugs / worms such as earthworms and cicadas and grasshoppers are edible and nutritious when properly prepared. In ideal circumstances insects could even be raised, rather than having to be foraged for (found foods, below). Insects could be fed foods that are unfit for human and livestock consumption and produce high quality protein in return.

Lake “seaweed”. Not all algae is edible (avoid globular and floating!), but the long stringy strand-types can be boiled (or pressure-cooked!) and consumed, containing starches and even fats. There may be water pollution issues, but in a worst-case scenario that would be a secondary concern. Blooms of algae (floating on surface or making the water turbid) can be highly toxic and make everything in the water, including fish, toxic. Saltwater kelp/dulse (sea lettuce) is edible.

Non-traditional foods. Some things are edible (or could contribute nutrition to a meal) that are not commonly considered food. Some foods consumed by other cultures may have been rejected as too spicy, disgusting, or strong. Even dogs, cats and horses in excess of what is needed for security and agriculture/hauling should be considered if times are desperate enough. Bones discarded by butchers (turkey bones, chicken bones, etc.) contain valuable nutrients, as do organ meats including heart, lung, kidneys, liver, and intestines. They’re all edible, all safe and nutritious, and all consumed in many other non-Western cultures today. See e University database of foods known to be used by populations around the world in famine. Just three crops - maize, wheat and rice - account for about 40% of the world's consumption of calories and protein. 95% of the world's food needs are provided for by just 30 species of plants. In stark contrast, at least 12,650 species names have been compiled as edible (Kunkel 1984)

Fillers. Historically, chaff and fine sawdust have been added to breads to make the flour go further and still be filling. It’s not nutritive, but it’s filling as a last resort. Steel-cut (pin-cut) oats can be added to chopped meats to extend the meats because the oats take on the flavor and are nutritious in themselves.

A note about Vitamins. If every family would stockpile a year’s supply of a good multivitamin for each person it would be a huge help toward meeting their nutritional needs (particularly Vitamin D.) People escaping famine by pouring into Irish cities in the mid-1800’s died more frequently from disease caused by crowded conditions (and weakened immune systems) than directly by starvation. “In famines, most people do not die of hunger but of hunger-related fevers and diseases,” according to the excellent Multitext Project in Irish History.

Where do we start? “The minimum survivable calories varies between individuals, with 600 to 1,000 given as a standard range, according to the US Army Survival Handbook. The less active an individual is, the fewer calories he can eat and still survive.” There are a lot of variables to consider, and active, contributing persons would need more food than inactive and barely surviving ones. We don’t know how bad a famine will get or how long it will last, but we have to start somewhere:

The last time I checked, locally purchased wheat straight from the silo costs $200 a ton. That's just 10¢ a pound. At 92 calories per ounce that works out to 1472 calories/pound, and around 14,000 calories per dollar (roughly 72¢ per person per day). Bulk, un-winnowed wheat could be the cheapest calories per dollar deal we can find, and could be the foundation for a desperate food planning strategy. If I did the math right about 1,000 people could be fed on $72 per day. It’s not impossible to save a lot of people.

"Pinto beans are much more nutritious but more expensive ($1,600 per ton at Costco), and corn, potatoes (dried or stored in cool/humid conditions), oats, sugar, oil (corn oil keeps and is inexpensive) – all can be bought in bulk. Using the figures from Paul B.’s SurvivalBlog article Staple Foods Storage By The Numbers target nutrient categories per person per day are 112.5 grams of protein, 412.5 grams of carbohydrates, 100 grams of fat, and 40 grams of fiber. Much of that can be met with wheat, supplemented with other bulk foods as well as the alternative food sources mentioned above in this article.

Replant, Store, Raise, Hunt, Trap, Fish, Forage, Scavenge, Glean, Trade, and “eat outside of the box” – these are all famine survival strategies, but without a plan very little is going to get done. The effort in your community, your church, your club needs to begin NOW – today – and be led by the “vision bearer” – the person who “gets” that there is a storm coming and who has the leadership charisma to organize and motivate people. (This person might or might not be a person in the officially sanctioned ranks of an organization or church!)

Preparing for a famine, to prevent widespread death from hunger in our community, will be hard work that requires leadership and sacrifice and focus. We can probably save ourselves - those of us who have already been “prepping” for years – but the compassion of God calls us to save as many others as we can.

Find a way. Be Prepared. Trust God. We can do both.

Original Article

Bloody American Revolution By Armed Americans Predicted in 2012

2012-01-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

Guest Post by Paul Joseph Watson

Money insider Charles Ortel has warned that a worsening economic picture across the globe will see civil unrest hit the streets of America, not on behalf of leftist OWS types, but by an armed, “irascible and vocal Majority”.

Ortel, a managing partner with Newport Value Partners, LLC in New York City, predicts that a failure of the so-called financial recovery will precipitate “A painful re-calibration of economic strength and geo-political standing during 2012 in the midst of widespread civil insurrection and cross-border war.”

Noting that Americans’ access to firearms will cause such riots to be bloodier than anything seen in Europe, Ortel predicts that a contented and silent Majority will be turned into “an irascible and vocal Majority,” as a result of numerous macro-economic and geo-political threats facing the country, including the collapse of the euro, the bursting of the financial bubble in China, and the looming debt crisis, all of which will contribute to weak economic growth.

“Some will manage to contain their activities to peaceful protests. However, we believe the far more likely scenario is that violence will result, especially in the United States where the wider population has more ready access to weaponry and where mobs have proven impossible to restrain,” Ortel writes.

The crisis will also be exacerbated by a shift in “the governing pole of political discourse,” which will see the usual right-left paradigm replaced by a clash between young and old, with the youth of developed nations increasingly irate at seeing the elderly enjoy the security of retirement benefits while their own economic futures look increasingly bleak.

Despite widespread protests and civil unrest sweeping almost all corners of the globe aside from America over the past two years, the prospect of disorder unfolding in the United States in a broader context than the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations is widely expected.

Indeed, with trust in both the executive and legislative branches of government at an all time low, pollster Pat Caddell warns that Americans’ lack of confidence in their leadership is so fervent that they are now “pre-revolutionary.”

Fully aware that Americans’ disenfranchisement with the political system, allied with falling living standards, is provoking people to become more radical in their outlook, U.S. authorities have been preparing for civil dislocation.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR is seeking sub-contractors to staff and outfit “emergency environment” camps located in five regions of the United States follows preparations over the last three years to deal with riots inside the United States that have already spread throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Major police departments like the NYPD staging “mobilization exercises” to train police to prepare for civil disorder in the United States.

A report produced by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute warns that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it termed “strategic shock.”

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” stated the report, authored by [Ret.] Lt. Col. Nathan Freir, adding that the military may be needed to quell “purposeful domestic resistance”

Original Article

The Real 2012 Doomsday: U.S. Falls To Tyranny

2012-01-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

Guest Post by Sam Rolley

The past year has been a bad one for democracy, and the Republic that once was the United States seems to live in name only. Because of the extreme abuses of power the Federal government has exercised just in the past year, the people of the Nation have been broken, discouraged and must now only be controlled.

A recent report in the state-run Russia Today cites an instructional military book, Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book (leaked by PublicIntelligence.net) to outline the coming “high-tech crackdown” that may soon befall citizens of the United States deemed unruly.

If you have ever seen a farmer persuade his livestock to bend to his will with less-than-lethal methods such as cattle prods, whips and electric fences, you know how incredibly persuasive they can be to the animals. The U.S. government also knows a thing or two about controlling groups; unfortunately, the target isn’t unruly livestock, but U.S. citizens.

The report references one device that has already made a military debut in Afghanistan and that will likely become commonplace for domestic crowd control as law enforcement agencies throughout the country become increasingly militarized. The Active Denial System, which is described as a “long range, directed energy, vehicle mounted system that projects an invisible electromagnetic millimeter-wave energy beam beyond small arms range,” can be used as a non-lethal way to create extreme discomfort and quell group dissent.

Other military implements that may soon see use within U.S. borders include Acoustic Hailing Devices that provide “scalable, directional warning tones” causing “auditory damage” and the Distributed Sound and Light Array which “uses a combined laser, non-coherent light, and acoustics to produce a synergistic engagement system.” Other systems can completely disable motor vehicles and emit acoustic waves that make it impossible for crowds to shout without discomfort and nausea.

While many Americans deny that the U.S. government will ever use such weapons on a widespread basis against dissenters, recent developments in the country appear to indicate otherwise. The crackdowns on OWS camps carried out by police in riot/military gear, armed with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, indicate that when large masses of people cry out, no matter what the political agenda, they will be quieted by local, State and/or Federal officials.

Before the crackdowns on the OWS camps, the Federal government demonstrated its willingness to bypass the judiciary system anytime an individual poses a threat to its agenda. In September, the Administration of Barack Obama executed U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in the mountains of Yemen with a drone strike. Though he often spoke on behalf of al-Qaida, it could be reasonably assumed that al-Awlaki’s citizenship status gave him the right to trial before execution. The Administration disagrees: Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson said of the execution that only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.

Johnson’s statement would be less alarming if the Administration — with the help of hawkish neoconservatives like Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) — had not recently passed a military spending bill with provisions that effectively designate American soil a battlefield and every American a possible enemy. The bill gives the President the ability to indefinitely detain terror suspects, but this comes at a time when the lines of what constitutes “terror” are becoming increasingly blurry. The Federal government is currently in active negotiations with members of the Taliban, and Obama has made it clear that anyone who rejects his agenda is considered a “right-wing domestic terrorist.”

How long will it take for Federal government to decide it necessary to carry out al-Awlaki style executions on those deemed “domestic terrorists” as they sit in their homes in the United States? With the increasing use of military drones in U.S. airspace, the idea is not so far-fetched. The same Federal agencies that carried out fatally-flawed operations like those in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the 1990s now have aerial drones and a license to kill in the name of Homeland Security. Some people may think that the agencies have refined their methods since those days; others have been following news about Operation Fast and Furious, the most recent endeavor by the Department of Justice, and know better.

Those people who do not believe the Federal government is out to harm them by breaking their will, dehumanizing them and bending them to be the subservient masses that will keep it afloat should simply take a flight. If being prodded, poked and virtually stripped naked by poorly trained agents of the Transportation Security Administration is not bad enough, how about having very personal belongings fondled, food stolen and grandmothers groped by the TSA? All are tactics of dehumanization to create subservient masses, and all are things that happened to American travelers last year.

Aside from quashing unruly masses and making problems disappear, the Federal government wants to keep tabs on the information being put out by journalists and bloggers throughout the Nation with a new Homeland Security initiative. According to Russia Today, in a new report, the Department reserves the right to collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

And while Homeland Security is busy putting together a plan to rid the country of any bad press, Congress has been working to sanitize the Internet. Pending legislation like SOPA and the Protect IP Act will effectively give American citizens about as much online freedom as citizens of China.

Some Americans may think that if they are not in the public eye, don’t regularly protest and are not members of al-Qaida, they are not subject to government intrusion. But a recent decision by Magistrate Judge David Noce in United States v. Robinson says that as long as you park your vehicle in public parking lots or use public roadways, law enforcement has the ability to install a GPS tracking device with no warrant to log where you travel if they believe you “may be involved in criminal activities.”

When the First Congress enacted the original Crimes Act in 1790, with only 17 recognized Federal crimes, it may have been reasonable to assume that as long as a person was a law-abiding citizen, he was not at risk of intrusion. Today, though, there are more than 4,500 Federal crimes — and many are so obscure that they are nearly indecipherable. In addition to the 4,500 Federal crimes, there are tens of thousands of Federal regulations. Many people commit criminal acts daily without even knowing they are doing so.

Last year was a very busy one for all of those interested in ending American life as it is and has been known. The United States that was a Republic has already collapsed and has very quietly become a totalitarian regime, complete with a dictator named Obama and a Congress that bends to his will and continually legislates in such a way that would make any totalitarian regime proud. Together they have done everything in their power to undermine the Constitution and name themselves as the all-powerful ruling class. And with the undoing of the ideas of the Founders and the ruination of but a few more checks and balances, they will effectively claim their supremacy.

So what have Americans lost and why does the ruling class have to do away with the Constitution and the rights it gives to every American citizen? It is explained by James Madison, who contended that there was no way American lawmakers could declare themselves a ruling class under the provisions of the Constitution, in the 57^th volume of the Federalist Papers:

If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America — a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

Those who are working so hard to claim themselves a ruling class know that their goal cannot be achieved if there is such a thing as a population that holds dear its “vigilant and manly spirit.” And they know how to slowly break that spirit without alarm by dehumanizing populations — luring people into accepting tyrannical rule in the guise of laws claimed to exist for public safety, homeland security or the better good of humanity. Unlike Madison, they always leave out words like freedom and never discuss the great threats government poses to the people, but contrarily advise vigilance to combat the people’s threat to the government.

Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul has been warning the public of many of these frightening developments for more than 35 years. Now, as he vies for the Nation’s highest office, many of his predictions have come true. Maybe it is time Americans listened to the “kook,” because those things he said would happen — predictions Americans once considered to be crazy and far-fetched — are now reality. He may be the Nation’s last hope to a path back to some semblance of the Constitutional Republic created by the Founders.

Original Article

Warning Signs That We Should Prepare For The Worst

2012-01-19T12:25:00.000-08:00

The warning signs are all around us. All we have to do is open up our eyes and look at them. Almost every single day there are more prominent voices in the financial world telling us that a massive economic crisis is coming and that we need to prepare for the worst. On Wednesday, it was the World Bank itself that issued a very chilling warning. In an absolutely startling report, the World Bank revised GDP growth estimates for 2012 downward very sharply, warned that Europe could be on the verge of a devastating financial crisis, and declared that the rest of the world better "prepare for the worst." You would expect to hear this kind of thing on The Economic Collapse Blog, but this is not the kind of language that you would normally expect to hear from the stuffed suits at the World Bank. Obviously things have gotten bad enough that nobody is even really trying to deny it anymore. Andrew Burns, the lead author of the report, said that if the sovereign debt crisis gets even worse we could be looking at an economic crisis that could be even worse than the last one: "An escalation of the crisis would spare no-one. Developed- and developing-country growth rates could fall by as much or more than in 2008/09." Burns also stated that the "importance of contingency planning cannot be stressed enough." In other words, Burns is saying that it is time to prepare for the worst. So are you ready?

But of course it isn't just the World Bank that is warning about these things. The chorus of voices that is warning about the next great financial crisis just seems to grow by the day.

Some of these voices were profiled in a Bloomberg article the other day entitled "Apocalypse How? Dire ’12 Forecasts". The following is just a sampling of quotes from that article....

-John Mauldin, president of Millennium Wave Advisors: "We've got a cancer. That cancer is debt"

-Mark Spitznagel of Universa Investments: "Too much malinvestment has been kept alive, and history shows an inevitable wipeout, which started in 2000."

-Michael Panzner of Financial Armageddon: "The fundamental outlook is even worse now than it was a few weeks ago, given (the lack of positive) developments in Europe and growing evidence that the economies of major countries around the world are deteriorating fast."

If you have time, you should go check out the rest of that article. It really is fascinating.

When this crisis is over, all sorts of people are going to be running around claiming that they predicted it. But it does not take a genius to see what is coming. All you have to do is open up your eyes and look at the flashing red warning signs.

So what should we all be looking for next?

March 20th is a key date to keep your eye on. That is the day when Greece will either makes its 14.5 billion euro bond payment or it will default.

Greece does not have a prayer of making that payment without help. If Greece can convince the EU and the IMF to release the next scheduled bailout payment and if Greece can reach a satisfactory deal with private bondholders, then the coming Greek default might be "orderly". But if something goes wrong, the coming Greek default might be quite "disorderly".

At this point, almost everyone in the financial world is anticipating a Greek default of one form or another....

-Edward Parker, the managing director for Fitch's sovereign and supranational group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, recently declared that a Greek default is inevitable....

"It is going to happen. Greece is insolvent so it will default."

-Moritz Kraemer, the head of S&P's European sovereign ratings unit, made the following statement on Bloomberg Television on Monday:

"Greece will default very shortly. Whether there will be a solution at the end of the current rocky negotiations I cannot say."

-Richard McGuire, a strategist at Dutch bank Rabobank, was recently quoted by CNBC as saying the following....

"People often ask if Greece is going to default which ... is a misnomer because Greece is (already) defaulting"

-Diane Swonk, the chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago, says that the default by Greece will probably be an "orderly" one but that the situation could change at any moment....

"It appears at the moment that the market is accepting a Greek default as inevitable, and it will be an orderly default. But that can change on a dime."

But whether there is a default or not, the reality is that Greece is already experiencing a full-blown economic depression. In Greece, 20 percent of all retail stores have already shut down. The unemployment rate for those under the age of 24 is now at 39 percent. Large numbers of Greeks are trying to get themselves and their money out of the country while they still can.

Pessimism regarding Greece is at an all-time high. Michael Fuchs, the deputy leader of Angela Merkel's political party, recently made the following statement....

"I don't think that Greece, in its current condition, can be saved."

But of course Greece is not the only declining economy in Europe by a long shot.

Italy has a much larger economy, and if Italy totally collapses it will be an absolute nightmare for the entire globe.

Right now, the Bank of Italy is forecasting a significant recession for the Italian economy in 2012. The following is from a statement that Bank of Italy has just released....

"The uncertainty that surrounds the medium-term perspectives of the Italian economy ... are extraordinarily high and are directly linked to the evolution of the eurozone debt crisis"

Italy's youth unemployment rate has hit the highest level ever, and nearly all sectors of the Italian economy are showing signs of slowing down.

Plus there is the looming problem of Italian debt. As I wrote about yesterday, when you add the maturing debt that the Italian government must roll over in 2012 to their projected budget deficit, it comes to 23.1 percent of Italy's GDP.

Originally it was hoped that the economic problems in Europe could be contained to just a few countries. But now it has become clear that is just not going to happen.

Trends forecaster Gerald Celente recently explained to ABC Australia that much of Europe is already essentially experiencing an economic depression....

"If you live in Greece, you’re in a depression; if you live in Spain, you’re in a depression; if you live in Portugal or Ireland, you’re in a depression,” Celente said. “If you live in Lithuania, you’re running to the bank to get your money out of the bank as the bank runs go on. It’s a depression. Hungary, there’s a depression, and much of Eastern Europe, Romania, Bulgaria. And there are a lot of depressions going on [already]."

The troubling news out of Europe just seems to keep coming in waves. Here are some more recent examples....

-Manufacturing activity in the euro zone has fallen for five months in a row.

-Germany's economy actually contracted during the 4th quarter of 2011.

-It is being reported that the Spanish economy contracted during the 4th quarter of 2011.

-Bad loans in Spain recently hit a 17-year high and the unemployment rate is at a 15-year high.

So will all of this economic trouble eventually spread to the United States?

Of course it will.

The global economy is more interconnected today than ever. Back in 2008 the financial crisis that started on Wall Street ended up devastating economies all over the planet. The same thing will happen during this next great financial crisis.

Only this time the U.S. is in a much weaker position. The U.S. debt problem has gotten much worse since the last crisis.

During 2008, our national debt crossed the 10 trillion dollar mark. Less than 4 years later, we have crossed the 15 trillion dollar mark.

So what are we going to do the next time large numbers of banks fail and unemployment skyrockets?

Where are we going to get the money to bail out all of those banks and to take care of all of those newly unemployed people?

Some people say that socialism is the answer, but the truth is that we are already a socialist welfare state. If you can believe it, nearly half of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of financial benefits from the U.S. government.

During the next great crisis, the number of people that are dependent on the government will go even higher.

If you don't want to end up dependent on the government, you should heed the warning signs and you should use this time to prepare for the hard times that are coming.

When even the World Bank tells us to hope for the best but to prepare for the worst, you know that it is late in the game.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people out there only believe what they want to believe. They don't want to believe that a great economic crisis is coming, and so when it does happen they are going to be absolutely blindsided by it.

Original Article

How To Divert The Unprepared From Your Preps

2012-01-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

Guest post: by ‘Be informed’

Most people are probably going to be much better off after a society crushing event to be located away from highly densely populated centers. Unfortunately the majority of everyone lives in suburbia or in urban areas, and the problems of total or near breakdown of civilization are usually magnified there. Even in rural areas the anguish of collapse will be apparent and a problem. For those that failed to plan and put away what they need, their main issue is going to be food, clean water, and their everyday needs. For those that have prepared and sacrificed to be ready, “just in case”, their main problem is keeping what they have.

The prepper and survival driven person needs solutions to be able to better handle the fact that people are going to be coming for what they have in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Some people will turn their homes into forts, and battle to the end before anyone takes what they have saved up. For these people there are plenty of survival military manuals and training that go into great detail how to defend your home from booby trapping everything to every weapon you can imagine. For the person that has stored up and wants to survive as long as possible there are some less drastic measures (solutions). It should be remembered though, everyone should have some form of reliable self defense.

First and foremost what you have is your LIFELINE, it may be all that you have to work with for an indefinite amount of time. Sharing with those who are unprepared could cost you your chance of making it. You cannot feed everyone. There are precautions you can take beforehand to make your stocks safer. There are viable solutions that can be taken to try to avoid dangerous confrontations. There are things you can do to bypass hurt feelings with those you share a community with so as not to come back to haunt you if there is a recovery of the society.

Pre-planning and securing food and supplies.

- Find good hiding places for everything. A storm cellar is wonderful because it is buried, can be concealed, a place for personal safety, and it is cool and if properly insulted frost free for supplies. If moisture is a problem, keeping everything in plastic air tight boxes should solve this. Other hiding places include in the attic under insulation, inside walls, crawlspaces, anywhere you can hide your supplies, as you know your house best.

- Many people will stack food and other items in plain view of all to see, a simple window covering in a store room will not let people see in to what you have.

- If you can afford it, get enough plywood and screws for every window in the house. After a disaster your windows are vulnerabilities that can be shot out or broken for many reasons. Without windows you are at the mercy of the weather elements, harmful insects and animals, people having an easier time of getting in, and you become more visible.

- Don’t let anyone you don’t trust know what you are doing beforehand. Find reliable people you can count on and add them to your group. Safety in numbers.

Some suggestions for helping to keep people away after a cataclysm.

- On top of not being visible to others, keep your home as void of light during the nighttime as possible. Try to keep your home as blending in with the darkness as you can. People can see the dimmest light for miles.

- Be aware of the smell of food. Aromas of cooking food can be smelled for long distances, especially meats.

- Bury all your trash. This keeps disease down, and does not let desperate people know you have been eating food that there is probably more of.

- Make the outside of your place look more rundown and less appealing. Like during regular times the homes that look like they have nothing, are less likely to be ransacked. It doesn’t take much to quickly make a house look worse than it actually is.

- Avoid movements and noise. Where there are people there is food, and things that others need.

- A clever tactic that can work to keep others away is to spray paint in big red letters “QUARANTINED” across your home, even add “DANGER VERY SICK PEOPLE”. Most people don’t want to add to their misery being deathly sick or eating food contaminated by someone with a deadly disease.

When people come knocking at your door,

You can of course confront people with force, but doing this can send out a message you have something well worth fighting for and end up in a fierce battle being outgunned. It may be the only way, but there can be alternatives to this.

- Try never to allow people in your home, but if it happens, have clutter and unkempt surroundings to keep their focus on. Like the outside of your home, look like you have nothing.

- Physically look shabby and depressed like you have nothing.

- Admit to nothing you have stored, even like saying the mistake of saying you ONLY have 2 weeks of food. People will want you to share even this with them.

- Discussion about what you have, should include key words like; meager, little, very limited, bare, empty, sparse, etc.

- If you just have to give away some food, make it seem like it’s a huge sacrifice to do so. Less likely for someone to think you have much more.

- Give away food first to those with children as this makes you appear like you are doing what you can.

- Be ready for any excuse for someone to try to get into your home to see what you have.

- Never talk to a large crowd of people, mob mentality rules and you will find this out.

- Have only one person be the spokesperson for your group. One person is less likely to make a mistake than several that could let out what you have.

- Watch people’s eyes closely when talking to them, beware of the “sizing it up” wandering eyes. Never look away. Watch the body language.

- Remain calm and say what you mean and don’t change your mind, this doesn’t open up for all sorts of manipulation of people trying to get you to feed everyone till you have nothing.

- Don’t let others make you feel bad about sitting on your hoard while they suffer. Convince them that you wish you had food to feed everyone but you don’t. Even make it believable that you are worse off then those coming to your door. Sickness is again something to play on, people are ill inside.

- Get a person’s thought sidetracked what you “might” have, to what the person or people are going to do, ask them about their plans for the future.

- Without discriminating, the more overweight someone is the more desperate they are going to be to eat, the more likely that they are not going to take no for an answer. The more likely they are going to hound you or do something drastic to get any food that may be around.

- To try to predict how people will react, picture yourself in their situation and ask yourself what you would do.

This gives you a foundation to think about and plan for if and when people come to your door wanting what you might have.

- Have a collection of native plants, such as dandelions, that are eatable and discuss with your neighbors that this is what you have been living on and they can also find this around the city. This should curb their interest that you have much or any stored up food for them.

This is a set of ideas that can help you keep a hold of what you have to survive, those things that you have saved up for and sacrificed for to be prepared. It must be realized by most of us that we all have a degree of warmth and compassion for those hungry and desperate, it is called humanity. The problem with this is that you cannot support and keep everyone alive and thriving unless you are a multimillionaire and have all sorts of stored food and supplies and other means of manufacturing food and needs.

You can attempt to feed and supply everyone that you can, and end up with nothing, and in the same sinking boat as everyone else. You also can decide to keep what you have prepared for and try to survive for your family’s and group’s sake, and attempt to keep what you have by using these methods or other inventive and creative ways of avoiding “giving or having the shirt taken off your back”.

Source

Gerald Celente Predicts False Flag Could Close Banks

2012-01-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Guest Post by Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul

Trends Research Institute Founder Gerald Celente forecasts a false-flag by the United States will provide a needed excuse to shut down the banking system and institute an overnight dollar devaluation.

Speaking with GoldSeek Radio host Chris Waltzek this week, Celente suggested that covert plans from Washington for a staged event to cover up a financial collapse could take the form of either another act of terrorism or an all-out war with Iran.

“We believe that something [false flag or war] is going to happen,” Celente said. “There’s going to be a financial collapse; it’s collapsing in front of us, but they [Washington] may use a false flag rather than calling it a financial collapse—like maybe they’ll have the brassiere bomber, or the granny bomber in a wheelchair, you know, who’s going to threaten the entire country, or it maybe war. And war is ratcheting up with Iran.

Washington politicians from both sides of the aisle posture in preparation for an increasing likely military confrontation with Iran.

In a communique released to the European Union on Jan. 10, eight U.S. senators urged the EU to join the United States in an oil embargo and sanction of Iran’s central bank. The group also indicating that 2012 must be the “turning point in the confrontation” with Iran.

“We believe that both (steps) are absolutely necessary if we are to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear weapons and thereby foreclose either a regional war or a cascade of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East,” reads the communique.

Incidentally, signatures to the communique include Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and five others.

It should be noted, that Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, in particular, has studied the alleged Iranian threat to Western allies in detail, as he is the founder of a “bipartisan Iran Working Group” in 2004. Kirk also serves the Navy Reserves as a Commander.

Because of his work studying Iran, Kirk was asked to participate in a Q&A Congressional Roundtable discussion sponsored by The Jewish Policy Center publication inFocus in May 2007. Kirk, at that time, a Congressman, stated during the discussion that the “one rising threat – the existential threat – has the potential to destroy this little democracy and end more than 100 years of Zionism in an instant. And that is the growing danger we see in Iran, where a dictator openly calls for a fellow member of the United Nations to be wiped off the map. The Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose a mortal danger to the State of Israel, a danger we must remove through diplomatic means as soon as possible.”

Kirk’s proposed solution to the alleged Iranian threat to the “tiny democracy” is a simple one: quarantine gasoline imports to Iran in a similar technique deployed against Cuba by the Kennedy Administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

“Despite its status as a leading OPEC nation, the mullahs have so mishandled the nation’s energy sector that Iran lacks the refining capacity to turn its oil into gasoline,” Kirk explained. “Iran is dependent for almost half its gasoline on foreign imports – most delivered by one Dutch company, Vitol, aboard tankers mostly insured by one British firm, Lloyds of London.

“Looking at history, we find an interesting diplomatic lever effectively used by President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We can see how a naval quarantine of gasoline would grind Iran’s economy to a halt, leaving thousands of pro-Western Iranian young people to wonder why its leaders would choose nuclear weapons over their economic welfare.

“And because Iran’s naval strength is limited, a quarantine administered 200 miles off the coast would leave Iran with no military response. A quarantine of gasoline would pit our strength against their weakness, achieving our objectives without a shot being fired.”

So in May 2007, Kirk explained a rather simple and effective solution to the alleged Iranian problem, a full 16 months prior to the dramatic collapse of Bear Stearns in September 2008.

Instead, token sanctions imposed on Iran have only served to posture the U.S. as a patient negotiator in a trumped up scheme to justify military action if such action would provide political cover for domestic economic problems, according to many U.S. foreign policy pundits familiar with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and U.S. actions taken against other “enemies” of the U.S.

Iran, like Libya and Iraq before it, is being set up as a scapegoat for an imminent U.S. economic collapse, according to Celente.

The sales job to the American people as a means of stirring up jingoism is underway, while U.S. policymakers coax Iran into war.

“The United States and the European Union have effectively declared an act of war,” said Celente. “They’re making it impossible for Iran to sell its oil. About sixty (60) percent of Iran’s GDP is derived from oil sales. They’re the third largest oil supplier in the world. So if that happens [war with Iran], they’ll call a bank holiday of some sort. So I’m very concerned.”

Further evidence suggesting an attack on Iran would occur under false pretenses came from U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on January 8 on CBS’s Face the Nation, where he said, “Are they [Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No, but we know that they are trying to develop a nuclear capability.”

A “nuclear capability” includes the production of 20 percent uranium compounds used in the making of a nuclear powered energy, a detail not expounded upon by Panetta, allowing the viewer to potentially miss the ambiguity of his statement in the midst of his theatrics of body language to matching a shift in tone.

Whether Washington embarks on another false flag attack or engages in other provocative acts against another sovereign nation, or creates a ‘catastrophic event’ through the use of an FBI-staged “brassiere bomber” in an attempt to disguise an economic collapse, Celente believes Washington needs some form of diversion to divert public anger away from failed political policies and the illegitimacy of a privately-held Federal Reserve.

Source

Be Prepared For Unprepared People

2012-01-13T08:31:00.000-08:00

Guest post: by ‘Be informed’

In the aftermath of any unprecedented disastrous event, no matter how well prepared someone is with regards to a well accumulated stock of survival supplies, no one is truly ready or can anticipate how people will handle it. The emotional upheaval is difficult enough for yourself, throw in those around you within your circle of family and friends and you have some genuine stress. Nevertheless you are familiar and have certain bonds and mutual understandings with each other. Now, unless you are a totally isolated group, the actual issue is how those casual acquaintances, little known neighbors, people of your community, and strangers are going to act towards you and others when the normalcy and stable structure of society has broken down or collapsed.

It can be downright frightening to witness how a person you thought you knew becomes erratic and very volatile, a perfect word is “unhinged”. Try now to imagine that there is a calamity that goes into uncharted territory of overwhelming shock. You, your family, friends, maybe your whole neighborhood or even the better part of the city you live in might have stocked up and prepared to survive varying degrees of disasters. However, what do you do in regards to those that have NOT prepared?

This is mainly the issue that one is going to have to face with irrational people – the lack of their preparation and their need of food and other items. Aside from the obvious dangers of people that will try to come to your home or retreat and attempt to forcefully get what you have (which you should have defense plans for ahead of time), you might have to deal with individuals that are desperate, terrified, and disoriented. These people will come to your door in terrible distress, and whether you choose to answer the door will be a decision that you will have to make. You will have to decide whether to share what you have or not. I have personally reserved some food that I got with coupons for next to nothing for certain neighbors. Please beforehand, consider the following when thinking about handing out your supplies after a disaster.

Most people that have not stored away some food and supplies, other than those too poor to do so, have failed to “out of personal choice NOT to do so”. You and those in your group have gone without luxuries in order to prepare. Those that laughed at the idea of preparedness have spent their money on much useless junk, TOYS for amusement. Everything you give away will cut down on your family and group’s own time of survival. Survival food for 10 people for 3 months if shared with the average block of neighbors that is about 100 people that didn’t prepare will now only last 9 days. Think about the math and not being able to replace what you stored for your own survival before divvying it up. It may become quite difficult when very scared ill prepared people, nice and not so nice, come to your home and either plead or demand that you share.

An “in advance” solution that many people do not understand is to keep their mouths shut in regards to their preparations. Getting neighbors on board and getting them to store up is wonderful as this benefits all. Going around bragging about all the survival supplies you have and how you can make it through anything puts a great big fat bull’s eye on your home. You want to encourage and give valuable advice on how to stock up and store food and supplies to neighbors, not openly advertise that your house is a mini supermarket ripe for the pickens when the need presents itself. Too many make this mistake and become overly enthusiastic about prepping and forget the old adage that “loose lips sinks ships”.

On top of safeguarding what you have at all times, people MUST also watch over their dear pets. As repugnant as this sounds, some people are going to become ugly inside because of the desperateness of the dire situation and find and eat whatever animal is available. Someone MUST remain with their pets if they go outside or risk them disappearing. Your victory garden is also something that either has to be guarded at all times, or harvested early, to avoid the two legged varmints snatching every last vegetable and fruit you have growing. Disaster brings out some true weirdness in people, and people in your group should always go in at least pairs and children always have adults in their presence, if and when you must venture outside.

There are two extremes of unpredictable behavior to expect after a very intense and societal breakdown type of catastrophe. The first is not as likely at the offset, but becomes more probable as the time or lack of social order drags on. People begin to exhibit some raw animalistic behavior when doing whatever is necessary to get food and whatever they need and want. Ugliness that someone would expect in a prison in which just a handful of inmates have the remaining resources. Then there is the good nature of people that is supposed to separate the beast from man. This is where the community comes together and works for a common goal towards everyone’s survival. The standoffish neighbors are the ones out there with chainsaws clearing fallen trees and other debris. In other words, unpredictable stand and work togetherness. We can all hope!

Each community is different. But know this, whether it is intensely positive or horrifically negative, unprecedented and unbelievable disasters WILL bring about highly uncertain reactions in people around you. Any person planning survival and preparedness for future bad, ugly, and worst case events must understand and plan for; how to handle, adapt, and be ready for the many different “person to person equations” that will certainly continuously play out in everyone’s life.

Source

Russian Move Against US Called “First Shot” Of World War III

2012-01-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

By Sorcha Faal

A grim Ministry of Finance report prepared for Prime Minister Putin is warning today that the decision by Iran to cease taking US Dollars for its oil could very be the “first shot” fired in World War III, and one which Russia will be blamed for by the Obama regime.

According to this report, Iran swiftly countered planed US sanctions against its Central Bank yesterday by announcing that it will no longer accept the US Dollar as payment for its oil shipments to India, Japan and China, and further announced that bilateral trade between itself and Russia will, also, break from the US Dollar for settlement in favor of the Iranian Rial and Russian Rubles.

Sure to enrage the Obama regime, this report continues, was that the proposal to switch to the Ruble and the Rial was raised by President Medvedev at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Astana, Kazakhstan, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Though Iran had previously announced in 2008 that it had stopped trading its oil for US Dollars (Ahmadinejad called the depreciating US Dollar a “worthless piece of paper”) India, Japan and China were made exempt due to their large holdings of American currency and fears of wreaking further chaos on the global economic collapse that had just begun.

Important to note, this report reminds us, is that a similar move by Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein in not accepting US Dollars for oil in 2000 brought about the invasion of his country by the Americans and their European allies resulting in his eventual execution and causing the vast wealth of Iraqi oil and gas fields to be turned over to the Western oil giants.

Likewise, this report says, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi earned the same fate as Hussein after he, in the months leading up to the US-NATO military attack on his country, called on African and Muslim nations to join together to create a new currency that would rival the US Dollar and Euro and saying that Libya would only sell oil and other resources around the world only for gold dinars.

Most oil sales throughout the world are denominated in US Dollars, and according to proponents of the petrodollar warfare hypothesis, because most countries rely on oil imports, they are forced to maintain large stockpiles of Dollars in order to continue imports.

This creates a consistent demand for US Dollars and upwards pressure on its value, regardless of economic conditions in the United States. This in turn allows the US government to gain revenues through seignorage and by issuing bonds at lower interest rates than they otherwise would be able to. As a result the US government can run higher budget deficits at a more sustainable level than can most other countries.

But, this report reminds us, the current budget deficit of the US has now reached the staggering amount of $15.23 trillion which is the size of its entire economy, and with the Federal Reserve preparing to being another round of massive printing this coming summer the loss of Iran’s oil customers needing US Dollars could very well signal the collapse of the entire American economy.

Though the Obama regime has sent its Treasury Secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, to China and Japan today in an effort to persuade them to cut back on Iranian oil this effort appears doomed from start as the Chinese have outright rejected this move and Japan has, likewise, expressed its concerns.

As is always the case in these type of dire matters, reports from the US show its mainstream propaganda media organs are not reporting on this potentially catastrophic turn of events leading to yet another circumstance where the American people will be taken by complete surprise when this cold war suddenly turns hot.

In order to prepare itself for what is to come, however, a vast Russian naval fleet arrived in Syria yesterday in an attempt to forestall US-NATO action against its Middle East ally currently under attack by the CIA-backed terrorist group known as al-Qaida.

Most shocking in this report are some Russian economists stating that the Obama regime is actually anticipating the collapse of the US Dollar as a “solution” to their being able to implement drastic socialistic change such as was done during the Great Depression under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and which the grim statistics being reported from the US show they are, indeed, nearing total economic collapse and include:

1. A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

2. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be “low income” or impoverished.

3. If the number of Americans that “wanted jobs” was the same today as it was back in 2007, the “official” unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.

4. The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.

5. One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.

6. There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.

7. Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8 percent once you account for inflation.

8. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.

9. A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.

10. According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

As the buildup for war between the US and Iran continues to escalate, UN Chief Ban ki Moon’s call for the easing of tensions has gone unheeded as the Obama regimes call for the “dogs of war” to be unleashed on the Iranian people shows no sign of abatement.

To what the final outcome may be in all of these events was detailed by Professor Igor Panarin of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who has long warned the United States is in a state of economic collapse which will see America being divided up into 6 regions [Map bottom left] due to a “vulnerable political setup,” “lack of unified national laws,” and “divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions.”

Interesting to note about Professor Panarin’s prediction of the United States splintering into different regions are new reports coming from the United States showing that the Obama regime has recently called for the staffing of what are called FEMA Concentration Camps in not just 6, but 10 different regions of their country.

Professor Panarin further warned that “a secret agreement was reached between Canada, Mexico and the US on a common Amero currency as a new monetary unit” and said that “this could signal preparations to replace the dollar.”

When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Professor Panarin said: “Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles… We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink.”

whatdoesitmean

How to Stay in Your Home Despite Foreclosure

2011-12-30T08:16:00.000-08:00

The following is just a friendly opinion and comes with no warranty or guarantee of success. The responsibility and consequences for your actions taken based on any advise from anyone are solely yours. It is recommended to seek legal counsel when dealing with legal matters to avoid unpleasant outcomes.

In an increasingly dire economy, with many people getting layed off or fired because of global Corporate and Banking fraud and continued government complicity in this crime, many families will find themselves jobless and eventually homeless due to foreclosure. What can we do to fight back at the very institutions that have created this financial crisis?

If you are going to be foreclosed upon and evicted from your home and are about to be made homeless by the bank, use the Law to stay in your home and off the street. When properties change hands all pre-existing legal agreements must be honored by the new property owner, including the bank. A lease is a legal agreement. A new owner of a property must honor the rights of renters to the terms of their pre-existing lease and expires with that lease's expiration date.

Rent your home to a trusted friend or relative (who is not listed on the mortgage) that will allow you to stay and live in the property. Lease the property to them for $1 per month for 99 years and make it (the lease) as friendly to the renter as possible and don't forget to get it notarized. Once the property is sold, you or your friend simply pay the bank $1 every month and you get to stay for 99 years.

If any lawyers would like to comment on the subject please do. I'd love to hear your opinions.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

State Department Issues Holiday Travel Alert for All U.S. Citizens Visiting the U.S.

2011-12-26T20:56:00.000-08:00

Guest Post by Eric Blair

The U.S. Department of State routinely issues travel alerts to nations that pose a threat to U.S. citizens. Today they issued a shocking worldwide travel alert for U.S. citizens and non-citizens traveling to, and inside, the United States. This unprecedented announcement comes as heavy holiday season travel is underway, and the State Department claims it has the potential to become a full-blown travel warning.

"Travel Alerts are issued to disseminate information about short-term conditions, either transnational or within a particular country, that pose significant risks to the security of U.S. citizens." according to the U.S. State Department.

The situation is upgraded to a "Travel Warning" when "long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable lead the State Department to recommend that Americans avoid or consider the risk of travel to that country. A Travel Warning is also issued when the U.S. Government's ability to assist American citizens is constrained due to the closure of an embassy or consulate or because of a drawdown of its staff."

The State Department stated that "rogue operators" inside the government accomplished a silent coup in America which has undermined personal liberty as the primary reason for issuing the alert. They claim that this coup has been underway for well over a decade, but has only become noticeable to the general public in the last few years. They said that the coup is so pervasive that nearly all elected officials may be involved.

An anonymous official at the State Department boldly stated that they can no longer guarantee that U.S. citizens will be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" as preserved by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The State Department warned that all U.S. citizens entering the United States from international flights will face probing questions as to their reasons for traveling abroad and be thoroughly searched before clearing customs. The now-absent concept of "innocent until proven guilty" then takes on new meaning if they have a connecting flight.

Travelers will be forced to go through a full-body scanner which takes and records a detailed digital scan of each traveler to be used for flash identification in the future, while also soaking them with radiation levels said to contribute to cancer. Even more insidious, if citizens choose to "opt out" of the scanners they are to be made an example of by being pulled out of the line for physical inspection which includes groping of private parts and occasional strip-searching.

Although these measures would have been unthinkable in America's recent past, they have been in place for some time and they were not the trigger for the travel alert, but rather they're cited as a small symptom of the coup cited by the State Department.

The main trigger came because of the cabal's recent passing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which declares American soil a war zone allowing for Martial Law, indefinite detention and torture of U.S. citizens without charge or trial, and which funds a massive expansion of TSA checkpoints within the United States. Americans should expect these invasive checkpoints "on highways, in bus and train terminals, at sport events and even high school prom nights."

In turn, they warned that citizens' physical and digital movements will be tracked, traced, and databased without warrants or even probable cause to identify and detain Americans who appear to do anything out of the ordinary.

In addition to no longer being able to protect the privacy rights guaranteed to Americans under the Fourth Amendment, the State Department warned that the NDAA also criminalizes speech, citing that one can now be detained for "belligerent" speech against the stated goals of the cabal. The State Department also cited the violent crackdown on peaceful "Occupy" protesters as one of the "significant risks to the security of U.S. citizens" under the travel alert.

Consequently, they bluntly asserted that the government can no longer protect the free exercise of religion, or the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances previously secured by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In short, travelers should take extra precaution when moving about the United States so as not to appear to be a terror threat to the cabal. They issued a full list of characteristics that are being targeted and should be avoided at all costs. The consequences of getting caught attempting to exercise your rights will be severe.

The same anonymous official at the State Department said, "Hopefully this is just a short-term condition as indicated by travel alerts, but if this dangerous destabilization becomes protracted we'll have to upgrade this announcement to a travel warning."

"Unfortunately, the U.S. Government's ability to assist American citizens is constrained due to a drawdown of its staff who respect their oath to the Constitution," he added, foreshadowing the need for the upgraded status.

On a lighter note he claimed, "America is still a great place to spend the holidays and stores still have an abundance of $200 sneakers as long as you don't mind navigating the zombie mobs and pepper spray to get them."

(Obviously this is not a real news story, but it represents my only Christmas wish -- that officials in the United States government awaken to what their "bosses" are doing to our beloved nation. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!)

Original Post

The Year in Pictures - 2011

2011-12-24T19:49:00.000-08:00

Change For A Dollar - A Powerful Video

2011-12-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

Ask not what others can do for you, what can you do for others?
Quite appropriate video to watch at this time for the true meaning of the holidays.

Remembering Pearl Harbor Today and the Truth of The Conflict

2011-12-07T07:43:00.000-08:00

State Sovereignty: America's Final Solution to Tyranny

2011-12-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

Guest Post by Ron Holland

At the end of this article is a copy of the proposed state sovereignty amendment that Ron and Donnie Kennedy are promoting as the final solution to federal abuse. They believe that anything less will only continue the course of federal supremacy and the ultimate destruction of real American liberty. I sadly agree with them.

Just following Congress, the 2012 presidential campaign and the inability of citizens to influence government policy makes it clear to every American how broken the US political system has become. A few powerful interests run the entire show and the American people are being forced down a dark road to economic destruction. History shows us that Washington is immune to conventional national political action under the present system. What can freedom loving Americans do?

• We can't change Washington because Congress is owned and controlled by special interests.

• Neither can we take over the establishment control of either political party as the media elites can break, sideline or ignore any candidate that threatens the elite interests.

• Third party efforts at the national level are doomed to failure and an ineffective tool for promoting freedom principles when compared to the successful Ron Paul campaign effort inside the GOP.

• Finally, education, although important, is not a fast enough solution to save our nation when more than 50% of the electorate lives off the looting of taxpayers through government benefits or make-work jobs.

So do freedom advocates just give up or wait for the eventual collapse of the economy and the US political system? While this is a prevalent view in freedom circles, hyperinflation and economic collapse even if you are invested to financially benefit from this outcome is certainly not a recipe for restoring limited government and liberty to our country. Fascism and wealth confiscation are the probable result, just look at what followed the failed German Weimar Republic in the 1930's.

There is only one effective, democratic and peaceful tool left to Americans to defend their liberties and restore the original republic of our founding fathers. It is the right of state sovereignty and nullification, so effectively explained by Tom Woods in his book Nullification: How To Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century. http://www.tomwoods.com/books/nullification

Many other freedom advocates have proposed nullification and state sovereignty, including the Kennedy Brothers who have developed a State Sovereignty Amendment strategy that should be launched in all 50 states. Although the elites ruling our nation have total control over the federal government and the two-party system nationally, they have neglected to extend this top-down control to the state level. This is because over the last 50 years states have become mere powerless appendages of Washington without influence – and this is an opportunity for the Freedom movement.

Americans can, of course, continue feeling important and wasting time, money and efforts on establishment candidates for Congress and presidential campaigns claiming to represent our free-market views. But if we do, we are just playing in a rigged game to keep productive Americans busy at doing nothing that matters and does not threaten those in charge.

A decentralized national movement focused state-by-state at the legislature level is the only game left for us to play if we wish to be effective. When a state or states vote to nullify a congressional bank bailout, the sovereign debt of Washington or the Fed's dollar policy, this will attract media attention, especially uncontrolled foreign journalists and the alternative freedom media. Media coverage attracts investor and market attention and as we see today in the European sovereign debt crisis originally born on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs, markets move politicians and governments.

This is our last and final solution available to restore freedom and limited government to these United States. Following the 2012 elections – regardless of whether Romney or Obama win or which corrupt political party controls Congress – this is the only real game left in town that matters.

What do you think?

After reviewing the sample sovereignty amendment below, you can reach Ron and Donnie Kennedy on their website at www.kennedytwins.com. Remember, a return to state sovereignty and nullification is our last chance.

Feel free to improve on the proposed amendment and make it more appropriate for the unique needs and situation of your state, but do something now before it is too late! - Ron Holland, email: skironholland@yahoo.com

THE STATE SOVEREIGNTY AMENDMENT (Sample)
These United States of America are a Republic of Republics deriving its authority from the consent of the governed residing within their Sovereign State. Each Sovereign State is the agent of the people thereof. The federal government formed by the compact of the United States Constitution is the agent of the Sovereign States. Federal authority shall be supreme in all areas specifically delegated to it by the Constitution. All acts or legislation enacted pursuant to the Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land. The Sovereign State reserves an equal right to judge for itself as to the constitutionality of any act of the federal government.

Section I. The Sovereign State specifically reserves the right to interpose its sovereign authority between acts of the federal government and the liberties, property, and interests of the citizens of the state, thereby nullifying federal acts judged by the state to be an unwarranted infringement upon the reserved rights of the state and the people thereof.

1. State nullification of a federal act must be approved by a convention of the state.

2. Upon passage of an act of nullification, all federal authority for the enumerated and nullified act(s) shall be suspended.

3. Upon formal acceptance of nullification by three-fourths of the conventions of the states, including the original nullifying state, the enumerated federal act(s) shall be prohibited in the United States of America or its territories.

4. Upon formal rejection of nullification by three-fourths of the conventions of the states, the enumerated federal act(s) shall be presumed to be constitutional, notwithstanding any judgment of any federal or state court.

5. Until or unless there is a formal approval or rejection by the conventions of the states, the nullified federal act(s) shall remain non-operative as to the original and any additional nullifying states. A state that in its convention ratifies a particular act of nullification shall be construed to have nullified the same act as enumerated in the initiating state's nullification.

6. No federal elected official, agent, or any individual working within or associated with any branch of the federal government may harass or attempt to harass, intimidate, or threaten a Sovereign State or the people thereof for exercising their rights under this amendment. No federal elected official, agent, or any individual working within or associated with any branch of the federal government shall attempt to influence or use their office to attempt to influence the deliberations of the people regarding the nullification of a federal act(s) or the acceptance or rejection of a nullified federal act(s).

7. Any United States military officer, noncommissioned officer or federal official or agent who carries out or attempts to carry out any order by a federal official, officer or agent to deny or hinder the people of a Sovereign State from exercising their rights under this amendment shall be subject to the offended state's laws and may be tried accordingly. Jurisdiction in such cases is specifically denied to all federal courts, military courts, or any other court other than the courts of the offended state.

Section II. The government and people of these United States approve the principle that any people have a right to abolish the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This principle illustrates the American idea that government rests on the consent of the governed and that it is the right of a people to alter or abolish it at will whenever it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established. Therefore, the right of a Sovereign State to secede peacefully from the union voluntarily created by the compact of the Constitution is hereby specifically reserved to each state.

1. An act of secession shall be executed by a convention of the people of the state.

2. The seceded state shall appoint representatives to negotiate settlement of all debts owed the federal government, the purchase of federal properties within the Sovereign State, and the removal of federal military installations and personnel.

3. Upon acceptable arrangement for the payment of sums owed the federal government, the representatives may negotiate treaties of friendship, common defense, and commercial relations. Said treaties are subject to the same constitutional ratification as other treaties.

4. Readmission of a seceded state shall follow the same constitutional requirements as for any new state.

5. No federal elected official, agent, or any individual working within or associated with any branch of the federal government shall attempt to influence the people of the Sovereign State regarding their decision to secede from, remain with, or join this union.

6. Any United States military officer, noncommissioned officer, or federal official or agent who carries out or attempts to carry out any order by a federal official, officer, or agent to deny or hinder the people of a Sovereign State from exercising their rights under this amendment shall be subject to the offended state's laws and may be tried accordingly. Jurisdiction in such cases is specifically denied to all federal courts, military courts, or any other court other than the courts of the offended state.

7. The inalienable right of the people of each Sovereign State to govern themselves is a right that existed before this formation of the federal government, and therefore nothing in this amendment shall be interpreted in such a manner as to deem the federal government to be the donor of the rights enumerated herein.
Original Article

20 Things You Should Know About the Bill That Could Ruin America

2011-12-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

Guest Post by Lauri Apple

Last week the U.S. Senate passed 93-7 a version of the National Defense Authorization Act that includes provisions giving the military the right to detain you forever and without charge if they think you're some kind of terrorist. Consider it an early holiday present! There is no exchange policy, sorry.

President Barack Obama can get rid of the Act's indefinite detention provisions by using his veto powers. He says he might do just that, so there is hope. But Hopey could also change his mind at the last minute and let the language become law. Civil libertarians from all sides of the political spectrum are very anxious about the final call he'll make.

Even though you can't do much to prevent the provisions from taking effect, here's a list of 20 details about them. Maybe the info will come in handy when you finally flee to Saudi Arabia ISO political refugee status and have to explain how your country was oppressing you:

1. The provisions were passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—enacted for the last 48 years or so to provide funding for the military and all our wars. (The act for fiscal year 2012 awarded $662 billion for defense spending.) Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) took the lead in promoting them, making passage a bipartisan effort/failure.
2. Initially the provisions passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without a single hearing . The Senate didn't want to spoil the surprise for everybody.
3. Because of the provisions, the NDAA now says the military can detain anyone deemed to be "a part of" or deemed to have "substantially supported" Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or "associated forces." You can be on the battlefield, or you can be PayPaling money to your local terrorist cell while sipping your latte at a Starbucks—doesn't matter. Even though we captured Saddam, Osama, and Anwar al-Awlaki, these powers are still necessary. Don't question.
4. The bill grants power to the military to arrest U.S. citizens on American soil and detain them in military prisons forever without offering them the right to legal counsel or even a trial. This isn't a totally new thing: "dirty bomb" plotter Jose Padilla spent three-and-a-half years as an "enemy combatant" until he was finally charged. But Padilla's detention was unusual and sparked a huge outcry; the new provisions would standardize his treatment and enable us all to become Jose Padillas.
5. Some people are trying to say that language regarding indefinite detention (Section 1031) doesn't apply to American citizens, but it does. However, the mandatory detention requirement (Section 1032) includes an exemption for American citizens, which means the military doesn't have to imprison you forever and ever "unless ordered to do so " by the president. You better remove that Nobama bumper sticker from your truck.
6. The provisions could last as long as fruitcake lasts. We covered this earlier.
7. Many important people oppose the provisions, including FBI Director Robert Mueller, the CIA, the military, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, the Director of National Intelligence, and your mom (unless she's a U.S. senator).
8. A group of 26 retired generals and admirals wrote a letter to the Senate saying the provisions "reduce the options available to our Commander-in-Chief to incapacitate terrorists," and will "do more harm than good." The Senate obviously ignored them.
9. According to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who opposes indefinite detention of U.S. citizens, an American can be deemed a "terrorist" after just one hearing. Finally, the government promises to work efficiently on something.
10. Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) tried to kill the provision on indefinite detention with an amendment that required Congressional review of these brand-new military detention powers, but his effort failed 60 votes to 38.
11. All the Republican senators supported the provisions except for Paul and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL).
12. Former Vice President Dick Cheney was in attendance for the vote on behalf of the waterboarding lobby. Every time he heard the words "indefinite detention," he got an erection.
13. None of this stuff will ever affect people who are innocent of terrorism-related crimes, unless the government wrongly accuses them.
14. As pointed out by Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald, the provision dispenses with Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution, which provides that nobody can be punished for treason without heightened due process requirements being met." Goodbye, Art. 3 Sec. 3! Send our regards to the 4th, 8th, and 14th Amendments.
15. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the provisions' most vocal supporters, put it this way to the New York Times: "Citizens who are suspected of joining Al Qaeda are opening themselves up 'to imprisonment and death ... And when they say, "I want my lawyer," you tell them: "Shut up. You don't get a lawyer. You are an enemy combatant, and we are going to talk to you about why you joined Al Qaeda."'" Shut up, fool! Lindsey Graham hates it when you talk .
16. Some of the senators who passed this shit don't really know what they are talking about when they talk about "enemy combatants" and their status under existing law.
17. President Barack Obama has stated he'll veto the provisions because they would "raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets." They're also confusing.
18. The provisions will militarize America even further and—in Graham's words—"basically say[s] in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield." Your backyard is a microcosm of the war on terror. Just think of that every time you host a barbecue.
19. They could disappear from the NDAA if the House and Senate conferees who meet in conference committee this week decide to get rid of them.
20. Texas Republicans have somehow worked sex with animals into all this.

Now for the good news: Greenwald at Salon says none of this indefinite detention without a lawyer stuff changes the status quo that much. It only codifies what's already been happening in the U.S. for the past few years. So you've been living under these conditions for a while now, but look—you're still not in jail. Just be more careful about what sorts of opinions on the government you post on Twitter, and don't say anything nice about Al Qaeda, and you'll be fine.

Original Article

Obama Regime Warns All Americans: IF YOU FIGHT US YOU WILL DIE!

2011-12-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

In one of the most stunning reversals of human rights in modern history the Federal Security Service (FSB) is reporting today that the Obama regime has issued a blunt warning to all American citizens that, in essence, states that any one of these once free people who dare to oppose their government they will be immediately killed and offered no chance to defend themselves before a Court and/or jury of their peers.

According to this report, this unprecedented attack was begun yesterday when the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) General Counsel Stephen Preston in responding to a question at an American Bar Association national security conference bluntly stated that “American citizens are not immune from being treated like an enemy if they take up arms against the United States.”

Obama regime lawyers further stated that only the Executive Branch, not the Courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy thus equating all American citizens as being potential “enemies of the state” thus effectively destroying the Constitution all of these government officials had sworn to defend.

As we had stated in our previous report about the destruction of the freedoms and liberties once enjoyed by the American people, the US Senate, likewise, voted this past week to expand the power of the Obama regime to target its own citizens by the passing of new law debated in secret allowing for the total military takeover of this once free country.

So frightening is this new law it caused the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to issue an unprecedented warning that stated “The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.”

This FSB report notes that the actions now being undertaken by the Obama regime show its “outright contempt” for the democratic process and the US Constitution in that for the first time in American history military power is being put above that of civil authorities; a move many Russian intelligence analysts say can only be compared to the ending of freedoms in Russia under the Communists and Germany under the National Socialists (Nazis) preceding both World Wars of last century.

Even more astounding in the US Senates action, which according to noted American anti-war activist Justin Raimondo has created a “Presidential Dictatorship,” was Obama’s threat to veto this new law wasn’t because it went too far, but rather because it didn’t go far enough in allowing him to crack down on his own people.

To the reason behind the Obama regimes wanting to target its own citizens with state-sponsored murder and military rule, this FSB reports warns, is its“Great Game” strategy to overturn the entire Middle East and Central Asia in order to gain control over the majority of our planets last few remaining fossil fuel energy resources and whose next targets are Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

Virtually unknown to the vast majority of the American people is that “The Plan” to conquer the Middle East and Central Asia was revealed by General Wesley Clark (Ret.) who on 2 March 2007 [watch video HERE] stated that 10 days after 9/11 while walking through the Pentagon he was approached by another General who told him that the Bush regime was making preparations to invade Iran and at least 7 other Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations over the next 5 years.

Unfortunately for the American war hawks, however, was the Bush regime wasn’t able to complete their goal in the time they allotted themselves because they underestimated the fierce resistance they were met with, but since Obama took office has been able to gain speed.

Now, most ominously, with the US Senate passing by a unanimous vote to place sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank this FSB report warns that conflict is “all but assured” as Iran had previously stated that such an actions would be considered by them as an “act of war.”

The FSB further notes in their report that the American peoples ability to counteract the measures being put into place against them by the Obama regime appear to be “all but nonexistent” due to the “gulag mentality” instilled in these once free people through their educations system said to be virtually indistinguishable from their prisons [see video HERE] which hold more prisoners than all of the other worlds jails combined.

Current news stories coming out of the United States more than back up this FSB assessment of the way American children are being treated like criminals and include: 1.) A 4-year-old girl arrested for shoplifting at a Safeway store and made to sign a statement banning her from this store for life. 2.) A 13-year-old boy arrested, handcuffed and jailed for burping in class. 3.) A 6-year-old child charged with “sexual assault” when found “playing doctor” with another student. 4.) Two 12-year-old students investigated for “sex crimes” after they kissed in school.

And if the treatment of America’s children isn’t bad enough, new reports emerging from the United States by Obama regime supporters are now warning that Christians are a “national security threat” because they place their belief in God above that of their government.

To the future these Americans will awaken into should they fail to heed the many warnings being shouted out to them was described best by George Orwell in his seminal work 1984 wherein he warned….“People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.”

In order to avoid this future, however, these Americans would be well advised to listen to the advice given to them by their Founding Father Thomas Jefferson who warned… “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

So today, as millions of American children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered, one does indeed wonder when these once free people will awaken from their long slumber before all is lost.

Why is the American establishment media sanitizing reality?

2011-12-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

Guest Post - Madison Ruppert

The December 5th, 2011 cover of Time Magazine represents a disturbing truth: the American corporate-controlled establishment media presents a picture of the world that is meant to placate and pacify the people of the United States in favor of presenting reality as it is.

While the covers of the European, Asian, and South Pacific editions have an image of chaos in the streets in Egypt with “Revolution Redux” in bold white letters in the center, the American edition is a cartoon with the headline “Why Anxiety is Good for You.”

Is this just a meaningless marketing tactic or does it exemplify the greater trend in how the American corporate media presents the world to the people of the United States?

I tend towards the latter, given the fact that this is something that is inescapable when consuming media marketed to people in the United States.

When I have the unfortunate pleasure of turning on the radio and listening to National Public Radio, I never cease to be amazed by the topics they choose to cover.

While much of the economies of the world are in shambles, uprisings both real and manufactured are occurring around the globe, brutal police crackdowns are taking place in the United States and the federal government is attempting to legalize indefinite military detention of civilians, even American citizens, without trial or charge, they opt for fluff stories with little-to-no meaning whatsoever.

This is the unfortunate nature of the “infotainment” industry that appeals to the lowest common denominator instead of attempting to inform and educate their audience.

The debatable aspect of this grim fact is if it is simply a result of sacrificing information and content in favor of ratings or if it is a calculated agenda to dumb down the American people.

I tend to fall into the camp of people who believe that this has been too pervasive and relentless to be the product of just doing whatever it takes to get ratings.

Take, for instance, the recent study that found that viewers of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News were actually less informed about current events than people who watched no news at all.

While this probably seems like a somewhat obvious conclusion to anyone who has sat down and watched Fox News, the fact that it was actually shown in a study is quite surprising.

Then again, when their own hosts don’t watch the entire clips they are covering and supposed legal experts claim that pepper spray is a food product while proving they are wholly ignorant of California legal precedent, one can’t expect much.

The poll was conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University and utilized 612 New Jersey natives. Fans of Fox News failed questions about Syria and Egypt, even when compared with people who said they didn’t watch the news.

The New York Daily News wrote, “Fox News fans flunked questions about Egypt and Syria when compared with people who don’t watch the news. Fox viewers were 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians toppled their government and 6 points less likely to be aware that Syrians have not yet overthrown theirs.”

That being said, I might point out that the Egyptians did not in fact “topple their government” instead they ousted Mubarak and replaced him with an arguably even more brutal military junta.

Dan Cassino, a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the poll said that since they controlled for partisanship, this was not a question of Republicans or other groups being more prone to watch Fox News.

The results actually found, “there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions that those (sic) who don’t watch any news at all.”

How can this happen? Is it just that they are seeking to entertain and not really inform? Or are news outlets like Murdoch’s Fox News actually there to make the American people perpetually ignorant?

The mainstream media presents such a limited spectrum of the information out there, especially when it comes to broadcast television, that it is hard to believe that it could simply be a natural result of the push for ratings over all else.

The world view presented by the establishment media is so consistent and carefully crafted that it would be quite surprising if they all happened to decide to present such a version of reality completely independently.

This outlook claims that the economy recovered when the government said the recession was officially over, that the government told us the whole truth about the attacks of September 11th, 2001, and that we are never deceived about the true intentions behind conflicts abroad.

However, reality continues to smash through this false paradigm presented to us by the establishment media and with every passing week another crippling blow slams into the false narrative.

Despite the efforts of Time to present a cartoon and a light-hearted cover story as the most important news, much of America is realizing that there is truly important information out there that is just waiting for them.

The most fatal flaw of the establishment media is the Orwellian doublethink that is used on a disturbingly common basis.

One of the most glaring examples in recent history is the case of Libya where al Qaeda-affiliated and rabidly racist rebels who are comprised mostly of fighters belonging to designated terrorist organizations became freedom fighters and pro-democracy protesters.

While we are supposed to praise and laud these murderers according to the corporate media, we are still supposed to believe that the al Qaeda bogeymen are around every corner hoping to blow us up.

A slightly more obscure example from September of this year came up when Fox News was covering the usage of weather modification, also known as geoengineering, to combat a drought in Texas.

While weather modification is an irrefutable fact, it is still nonsensically treated as a conspiracy theory in some circles.

When they speak about it on the mainstream media it is a normal and acceptable solution to environmental problems, but if you speak about it you’re labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Unfortunately this type of blatant doublethink and outright deception is becoming more prevalent and the upcoming Time cover is a great example of how the events of the world are shaped and spun in the American mainstream media to keep the people of the United States from becoming agitated or asking too many questions.

Thankfully, there is the alternative media which is growing independent of traditional news organizations and funding sources thanks to readers and business owners who are willing to support the new wave in journalism.

We will continue to present the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, while the establishment media continues to present dumbed-down nonsense which will only serve to drive their viewers to sources of real information.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

Original Article

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns - Telegraph

2011-11-26T12:26:00.000-08:00

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns - Telegraph

S. 1253 will allow indefinite military detention of American civilians without charge or trial | End the Lie - Independent News

2011-11-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

S. 1253 will allow indefinite military detention of American civilians without charge or trial | End the Lie - Independent News

When Good Men Do Nothing

2011-11-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

By NewAmericaNow

Shame, Shame, Shame

Yes Shame on the police indeed. But Shame on the crowd for allowing a fool to assault peaceful people with chemical weapons (mace) and just stand by and do nothing. Since justice is blind it does not see uniforms it does not see badges but it knows and I know what injustice is .

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

So much of the history of the struggle between good and evil can be explained by Edmund Burke's observation. Time and again those who profess to be good seem to clearly outnumber those who are evil, yet those who are evil seem to prevail far too often. Seldom is it the numbers that determine the outcome, but whether those who claim to be good men are willing to stand up and fight for what they know to be right. There are numerous examples of this sad and awful scenario being played out over and over again in history.

To proclaim that it is never okay to forcibly resist law enforcement is to inadvertently demonstrate why so much of human history has been plagued by tyranny and oppression.

Throughout history most mass evil has not been done in spite of law enforcement but done in the name of law enforcement.

Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, pol pot, Amin, George W Bush and Barrack Obama

As uncivilized as violent self defense may sound the alternative is to allow government to do absolutely anything it wants to do to you and you have to allow it

In the words of Alexander Hamilton himself
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense...."

Make no mistake that self defense is measured, controlled focused and just not some anarchistic whim of unfocused rage that injurs the innocent and uninvolved

Do you know what history teaches us about people that don't stand up and defend themselves from tyranny?...they end up in gas chambers.

We may not have gotten that far yet but...

The injustice of the state is at the root of why people are taking to the streets in protest by both the tea party and occupy movements.

The Banks and Corporations are merely an opportunistic infection in a greater wound. And I am sad to say a self inflicted wound.

The Democratic Party promises economic security and more benefits for the poor and working class – in return for more taxes, more regulations, self serving foreign policy and forfeiting our personal and local community independence for what they perceive is best for our collective society . However, economic security is actually only selectively doled out to those who will benefit that individual politician's situation either in re-election or to increase his or her personal wealth.

The Republicans on the other hand promise to protect us from the Democrats and all the other boogie men of the world then turn around and grant subsidies for the super rich and build prisons for the poor and invade weaker countries for their valuable assets in the same self serving fashion.

The resulting wealth gap has always led to more demand for greater moderate socialism and redistribution of wealth gained by favors paid by both sides of the isle. The big kicker is, greater socialism entails that government, you know the same government that allowed all those special favors, be given more control in order to fulfill it's empty promises of social justice in an ever increasing spiral of government power and control.

Lets Ask the native Americans if the us government can be relied on to makes good on it's promises.

Have you all noticed that the laws, acts, and regulations being passed as well as the many wars or so called kinetic actions by both parties have no actual benefit to or wanted by the average person on the street. There only justification is that it is all being done for your own good. Continual wars, militarization of police, unwarranted searches, checkpoints and surveillance. Forced vaccinations, limiting healthcare, access to our saved retirement funds they now call entitlements, and our god given right to choose healthy food and vitamin over chemically altered and genetically modified crap. If that wasn't bad enough our young are being taught revisionist history and to always listen to authority in our government controlled schools. American education consists of material regurgitation instead of critical thinking. It is not in the governments best interest to produce children that question authority and have a keen eye that rejects hypocrisy.
Such independence is not in the best interest of the state. Substandard education that does not serve them in adult life except to create good obedient unquestioning workers is the standard.

Year by year we lose freedom and independence to the one-two punch of government and corporate bureaucracy. Politicians promise change, but actually offer the same two stale options: moderate socialism or wage serfdom.

Both parties have failed at protecting America's sovereignty. They have signed unwanted world treaties with global entities without the consent of it's people. They have failed to protect us economically by abrogating their constitutional responsibilities and allowing parasitic private banks to debase our currency, creating debt based currency and allow compounding interest to be the norm. With the passage of legislation, the two parties have allowed our manufacturing and productive base to leave our shores to better their corporate cronys at the expense of the economic health of it's people. They have knowingly allowed special interest to write legislation that either steals from the American pocket and or protects corporate monopolies against the best interest of the American people through elimination of future competition.

Just like the word democracy is misunderstood to mean freedom, all the while it's true nature is tyranny of the minority by a majority, a similar situation exists with the word Capitalism.
Make no mistake Capitalism is absolutely not a free market economic system. Capitalism is defined as a system of economics where those who privately own the means of production use economic and political influence to gain advantage over others. There is no other true definition. And there is no other system at play in the United states at this moment in time. Those that blindly defend Capitalism defend the use of political and financial advantage and influence over natural market forces to infringe upon the rights of everyone else to play the game equally.
Many who call for regulation rarely if at all get the regulation that is called for because those already playing the game control the rule making mechanism.

Today there is no equal justice in our current system. Insiders and cronys that fail are bailed out and their losses are legally given to you and I against our will. If your an insider, bad decisions have no legal consequence. There are individuals committing high crimes against the American people. Theft, murder and treason yet there are no consequences and there is no justice. Remember, as Thomas Jefferson once said, If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.

In a free society, the government's legitimacy and moral right to use it's power is only justified and legal when derived from the consent of it's people. I see no such consent. It is the duty of every free American to resist by all means necessary anyone and anything that seeks to destroy the precious jewel that is freedom.
To fight for freedom is wrought with risks of harm to life and limb. Thousands of young men and women sign up every year to lay down their lives for for what they believe will defend freedom. So I know you are out there my brothers and sisters.

It is of course everyone's right to interpret for themselves what freedom means means to him or her and a personal decision as to what actions he or she should take. But let me be clear and blunt. Freedom and Liberty is dying in America and America needs your help.

I will simply leave you with the historical words of our founding fathers in an attempt to allow you to glimpse America through their eyes, as they saw it and allow you to decide what actions our hearts should take.

Make no mistake there has been no major change to the human heart and mind since 1776.

From Thomas Jefferson:

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

From George Washington:

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.

And of course from Patrick Henry

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”

Countdown To Armageddon

2011-11-07T08:03:00.000-08:00

Guest Post by Zen Gardner

You don’t have to believe the Bible to see this one coming. If we aren’t in full scale war countdown mode I don’t know what.

Here’s a possible sequence that appears to be surfacing:

T-Minus 5: The Prep Is On

Pre-9/11, the American people were showing reluctance to back an escalating US militarization and enhanced role as an advancing hegemonic world super power.

Answer? A galvanizing “catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”. 9/11 soon followed.

The paper titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century“, openly advocated for global military dominance. PNAC was a Neo-Conservative think tank in Washington D.C. that was apparently founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in 1997 (and is supposedly no longer in operation), but has been a likely Pentagon creation by some people’s estimates (PBS); thereby being funded by the American taxpayer. Members included many from the Bush Administration as well as other “prominent” representatives of government and business (Full list of PNAC Members here).

The PNAC report stated this about “a new Pearl Harbor”:

“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions. Source

We’re in a very similar position now. As Donald Rumsfeld famously said, “the effects of 9/11 are wearing off” and the public is growing war weary, never mind the obvious strain the war machine has on the failing economy. The small staged terrorist alerts are keeping it alive but they obviously need more.

T-Minus 4: “They Definitely Have WMDs!”

Many lawmakers in Congress aren’t going along with the Iran war agenda – A complete parallel to the Iraq war build up.

So what did they do to convince lawmakers and sceptics? Trot out bogus yellow cake reports and weapons of mass destruction evidence.

What’s coming out next week? The IAEA is about to do just that for the globalist UN regarding Iran’s supposed nuclear capabilities. This has all been laid out in “think tank” documents once again similar to the PNAC report above.

As Tony Cartalucci puts it:

As the rhetoric for war with Iran begins to mount, first with the staged DEA-Saudi bomb plot, and now with an upcoming IAEA report supposedly “exposing” Iran’s nuclear arms ambitions, it is important to re-read through the signed confessions by the corporate-fascist interests behind this drive for war.. Go HERE

T-Minus 3: Pushing For More Sanctions Against Iran

Sanctions against Iran. Sound familiar?

Remind you of the Iraq war build up for 3 years prior to the US invasion and occupation? The saber rattling over Iran has been intensified over the last 3 years as well.

With UN sanctions already in place, here’s Congressman Ron Paul expressing his concerns regarding the new US Iran sanctions proposals while speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

I would like to express my concerns over the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 and my opposition to it being brought to the Floor for a vote. Let us be clear on one critical matter: the sanctions against Iran mandated by this legislation are definite steps toward a US attack on Iran. They will also, if actually applied, severely disrupt global trade and undermine the US economy, thereby harming our national security. More

T-Minus 2: Zionist-American Hysteria

Israeli threats mount to hysterical levels. International alarms go off.

Israel’s role in all this, as in 9/11, is critical. The march through the middle east has ultimately been for their “protection” as well as for international corporate expansion and outright disruption of the region. The Zionist lobby owns Congress and the entire American machine and both they and the US leaders know it.

Martin van Creveld at the House of Commons, London, 26 February 2008 (Wikepedia)

Rabid expansionist bulldog Zionist Martin van Creveld blatantly expounded the mad dog Zionist mindset when he screeched:

“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”

This insane suicidal Zionist warmonger goes on to say:

“Israel is a state that does not care about what others say about it and you must remember the saying of former defense minister Moshe Dayan when he said that ‘Israel must always act as a wild dog because it should be dangerous in the eyes of others, rather than be harmed.’” [emphasis mine] Source

The seriousness and insanity of this build up towards war is obvious to people outside the United States. Americans have been literally brainwashed and steered into this for decades through Church and State, and having been allowed to feast off the delicacies of war profits…a nice trade-off for being willing to shut their minds and just take it.

Russia Knows

Vladimir Putin recently gave a statement that should have been headlines everywhere. But even then, Americans just roll over and go back to sleep and watch the game and chug another 6-pack.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin prior to his departure for China, cautioned his generals to prepare for Armageddon. A similar message was also delivered to the Chinese leadership that has the Chinese Forces also on high alert. Apparently in the same context, Putin has resolved all differences with China to forge a clear unity for times ahead. Source

You can be sure he’s not the only one who reads the handwriting on the wall. Not exactly comforting.

T-Minus 1: False Flag Event Seals It

Nuclear False Flag trigger? This horrific scenario is well within their sick potential reality.

False flags have worked for centuries. From the secret society, banker and royalty backed slave trade and piracy ruses for which the technique is named, to the Nazi Reichstag fire, the Spanish-American war, WW1&2, the USS Cole and Embassy bombings, the London, Spain and Bali bombings, on and on. You think they’re about to stop now considering how well false flags work on populations programmed with problem-reaction-solution since birth?

I’m afraid we have to face a very serious reality regarding these wicked warmongers. They want to bring on the Big One. And they don’t care who goes down with the ship. They’re insane and possessed by an evil mission they won’t relinquish.

T-Minus 0: Full Scale Insanity

When the conflagration begins, due to whatever fabricated final provocation, things will stop as the world watches.

As the war progresses, it will draw in many more countries, with the utter annihilation of Israel being assured. After years of abuse, Israel’s battered neighbors will come to Iran’s aid and launch whatever they can to stop the attacks. Iran will retaliate hard. Iran is a huge, battle-tested, spiritually committed and naturally fortified country with 74 million people and will not go down quickly as Iraq did.

Pakistan and perhaps even Afghanistan and Turkey will not stand idly by, as China and Russia will vow to not let the war spread any further. Don’t forget India is armed to the teeth as well and could be provoked by a hit that is claimed to have come from Pakistan. Yes. We are sitting on a tinderbox.

It’s said the US will launch a biological attack on China during this time. We could be facing more threats than we can count after this battle is over.

A limited nuclear war could end relatively quickly as the horror of the reality sets in, but rest assured the US and Israel will inflict as much collateral damage as possible and use many more tactical nuclear warheads and depleted uranium than they’ll ever own up to, leaving their victims vanquished and toxified for as long as possible.

Ignorance Is The Enemy – Conscious Awareness Is Our Strength

I and others are pounding on this subject to the point of seeming overload. It’s not. If we can see their program for what it is and connect the dots, other areas of information converge with it. Nothing is separate and it all needs to coalesce into as clear a picture as possible.

We are one collective consciousness united in a marvelous mysterious and loving universe. Lower densities attempt to wrestle realms of control like freak cancerous entities, while real and loving humanity thrives on the harmonious vibrations of truth and natural revelations of the fantastic grand design.

Their day is passing soon. Their purpose? We can only conjecture and operate according to our personal experiential bases. Religions and belief systems generally see it all as a test. Maybe, to some extent. It’s clearly something set before us to get through and hopefully understand before the wave hits us.

I like what Bill Hicks said as far as detaching from it all: It’s Just A Ride!

But we have to engender a positive approach to this madness, and know somewhere deep within us life was not meant to be ugly and manipulated by power mad psychopaths. If we stand back, we can see how very wrong the Powers That (would) Be are in just about everything they’re doing.

If it points to a planetary overthrow by self-serving entities so be it. Ours is to respond consciously. But respond.

Our awakening is their nightmare

Love, Zen

www.zengardner.com

Occupy Wall Steet and the Police - To Serve and Protect: America’s Institutional Fallacy

2011-10-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

Guest Post
S. Paul Forrest

Those who today believe they are being sold out by Capitalistic Globalism, protected and served by a growing police state acting under the direction of our government are standing up to say, “No More!” They are tired of their jobs being shipped to other nations, their “representatives” serving financial contributors only and the poisoned rhetoric of corporatism infecting every speech and policy enacted by our currently inept government. Across this country, more and more people are standing up to have their voices heard and their demands for the resurrection of this once great nation, met. Unfortunately, these voices are being answered with the echoes of police brutality and media defamation trying to quell their collective desire for change.

Currently, the most powerful of these voices is Occupy Wall Street. Contrary to counter opinions from "popular" media, OWS is not a movement by Marxists and communists trying to take over America, a political march promoting President Obama’s agenda nor is it a meaningless protest by society’s pot heads and left over hippies from the 60’s. It is a meaningful commentary on the current and exponentially growing differential between our American Republic the way it was designed to be, and Corporatism. The line separating the two is evidenced by the police presence discouraging the movement, the violent tactics employed by them, and the news outlets either condemning this American reality or downplaying it by stating it is a movement without a clear purpose.

The police actions and the legislators and judges who enable them to enact such mistreatment and defamation of We the People as seen in Zuccotti Park, New York, delineates a greater ill in our society which many of the citizens in this nation are coming to recognize and speak out against. The protestors of OWS have gathered in numbers large enough to show solidarity in their purpose and represent a major cross-section of our population that cannot be ignored. Still, though, the police arrest and harass these people in an effort to control them, but it is only breeding more protests of the like, nationwide. The question is how our freedom of speech and assembly have both been so judiciously and legislatively quashed and how these "officers of the law" can so easily continue their assault on our right to assembly when they have sworn oaths to protect and serve We the People.

To Serve and Protect

We see it emblazoned on police cruisers, and politicians and judges swear oaths to it with hand on Bible: To Serve and Protect is more than a catch phrase, it is a promise to those who put them in their place of power and pay out of their own hard work the labor entailed in its performance. It seems of late, though, that the same people who only have power because We have given it to them, are abusing and misusing their posts to bring about a new structure of governing contradictory to the very essence of this great nation.

At one time, “To Serve and Protect” was the mantra of the Los Angeles Police Department and it eventually trickled into other departments nationwide. Many police officers took pride in this charter, and citizens most often could count on them to do so. Now though, one has to wonder to whom these services are being rendered and how it became acceptable by our government local, State and Federal to employ aggressive and even abusive tactics seen against the OWS protestors in this, our "free" Republic of the United States.

This term first came about in 1955, (when) a contest was announced in the Los Angeles Police Department's internal magazine, BEAT. The contest involved devising a motto for the Los Angeles Police Academy. The motto needed to be something that would succinctly express the ideals to which those who serve as Los Angeles Police Officers became dedicated. The winning entry for the phrase was submitted by Officer Joseph S. Dorobek and served as the LAPD academy's motto until by City Council action, it became the official motto of the entire Los Angeles Police Department in 1963. It continues to appear on the Department's patrol cars as a symbol of commitment to service.

This phrase which is emblazoned on LAPD patrol cars city wide has become one of the most recognizable phrases in law enforcement. Throughout its almost 50 years of use, it has come to embody the spirit, dedication, and professionalism of the Officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. (Excerpt from the LAPD site.) I wonder if Rodney King felt he was being served and protected in 1991 when he was brutally beaten by LAPD officers, an act which incited the 1992, Los Angeles Riots.

Likewise, the motto of the New York Police Department is Fidelis ad Mortem: (Faithful until Death) and until recently, members of the NYPD were frequently referred to by the nickname; New York's Finest. In light of recent events in the City one has to wonder to whom exactly they are faithful and what is it they have become the finest of? Certainly, the violent and inappropriate acts perpetrated by these “fine” officers in New York against the protestors of OWS, is anything but. If truth be told though, they are just an arm of our government, acting under their jurisdiction, direction and empowerment of the laws and codes of their legislative (mis)conduct.

Likewise, the oath to Federal Office is as follows:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

The last bit was added to the great chagrin of many in this nation especially since the oath swears to uphold the Constitution where it clearly states Article 6, at the end of the third clause:

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Congressional contradictions are bountiful, indeed. The very oath they take before entering office opens the door for ignoring our Constitution, so why stop there in the years they "serve" We the People?

Are we protected and served when our jobs are taken; our homes, our futures, and yes, even our civil rights? Are we protected and served when police officers spray in the face a group of seemingly peaceful women corralled in a plastic construction fence? Are we protected and served when our taxes and our safety is exported to foreign lands and used for murderous deeds the likes of which only Heinrich Himmler could ever have imagined? Possibly, but they are working daily to correct that particular oversight.

The end of service and protection

The police actions and the legislators and judges who enable them to enact such mistreatment of We the People, delineates a greater ill in our society which many of the citizens in this nation are coming to recognize and speak out against. With each arrest and unwarranted attack, these people justify the actions of Occupy Wall Street and further enrages the contempt toward this broken, American system.

Even though the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference, actions are being taken to counteract it. Many policies in our nation's congressional history have served this purpose, but three particular ones stand out above the rest.

The Patriot Act was the most recent attack on these liberties, but history is rife with similar restrictions of which most Americans are ignorant. It is with these restrictions imposed by our government in all its forms, which are being enforced by the NYPD and so many other police departments across our fading empire. As pointed out by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, "The USA PATRIOT Act threatens freedom of speech from many different angles. There are three sections of the Patriot Act that are threatening to free speech in particular: section 802, which defines “domestic terrorism”; section 805, which defines “material support”; and section 215, which deals with surveillance. These sections also threaten freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of religion."

Another article found on HubPages, “Is Speech Really Free?” points out that the Constitution does not guarantee free speech, but rather prohibits Congress from imposing laws to abridge freedom of speech. The ambiguity of this Amendment gave rise to two separate Sedition Acts. The first in 1798 was initiated by John Adams while the second was passed in 1918. Unbelievably, these Acts were brought into Law a mere twenty years after the Constitution was ratified. Is it any wonder how so many who call out to return to the time of our founding fathers can so easily support Constitutional manipulation?

In a much older action directly ignoring the Constitutional protection of our rights, the 1798 Sedition Act was a response to the threat of a war with France and included “four laws in an effort to strengthen the Federal government. Known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts, the legislation sponsored by the Federalists was also intended to quell any political opposition from the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson.” In essence, this Act prohibited public opposition to the government. Fines and imprisonment could be used against those who "write, print, utter, or publish any false, scandalous and malicious writing" against the government.

Acting in kind, the1918 Sedition Act extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds." It was amended by Congress the following year to not only target those who interfered with the draft, but also those individuals guilty of sedition, in other words; those who publicly criticized the government — including negative comments about the flag, military or Constitution (text).

Soon after 9/11, paranoia gripped our nation, and fear propaganda was delivered by those who would profit most from war and heightened security policies. "Free speech zones” were delineated for any protests and marches. These zones are established to enable protestors to speak their minds but to not pose a threat to areas where national security may be threatened. Unfair and unconstitutional you may say, but not so fast: As Julie Hilden points out in her article, “The constitutionality of police-imposed 'free-speech zones'”, the “First Amendment rule is that you don't have a right to a "captive audience" …But occasionally, the Supreme Court has recognized a right to preach even to a captive audience”.

After the 9/11 incident, which propelled this nation into the sinking ship of xenophobic, pseudo-patriotic whirlpool, the Patriot Act produced legislation which shadowed these previous “Patriotic” laws, but without the outward transparency of its forbearers’ desires to silence the People. The national protectionism which accompanied this free-for-all detriment to free speech has been seen every time a person speaks out against our nation’s immoral wars, corporate enablement or any other voicing of dissent from We the People.

The New York Police Department in particular, in the aftermath of that tragic day, formed a counterterrorism bureau whose sole purpose was to avoid another attack on the City. Part of the police reaction to the protests in New York is tied to this effort. Police in the City corralled protesters; pepper sprayed them and arrested hundreds of others on the Brooklyn Bridge. The rationale for these actions could be tied to this counterterrorism goal in that the protesters represented a danger to the City’s security in that the disturbance could distract police from their main duties. The control and silencing of the people in New York and across this nation embarking upon similar quests are being treated similarly without regard for their civil liberties under the banner of practices under the patriot Act, National Security Act but hidden with crimes cited such as inciting a riot, blocking the right of way or soliciting.

Protestors in America decry, as I do, the police force quelling the protests in this manner. Many of those who have been arrested and those watching these un-American events unfold cite that our freedom of speech is being undone. The Sedition Acts could easily be brought into action and all could be arrested accordingly. The main issue, though, is whether these police officers have been ordered to take this action against the People and whether they are now protecting and serving We the People or the corporatists who are now in control of our government.

Our institutional fallacy must end

Occupy Wall Street has taken this country to the point of revolution. The people are finally standing up against an unjust, self-serving system of governance which has forgotten who put them in power to begin with. One can only hope the protesters and many like them across this nation suffering for the result of this blatant disregard for our personal and financial security will show the same passion in protesting the corporations not only on Wall Street but across this nation, which have taken our jobs through boycotting any products and services sold by these pirates.

As it has been reported by the New York Times, “a trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Adam Sarzen, a decade or so older than many of the protesters, came to Zuccotti Park seemingly just to shake his head. 'Look at these kids, sitting here with their Apple computers,' he said. 'Apple, one of the biggest monopolies in the world…trades at $400 a share. Do they even know that?'”

To add to the broker’s words…Do these people even know that their laptops represent the worst part of supply-and-demand in this country: That economic principle which has enabled our jobs to leave for cheaper labor abroad? Do they know that every piece of non-American product they consume takes us further from the result they want: The end of America's quest for globalism and the revitalization of our economy? I wonder if they will they expend the same effort of only buying American products to bring our jobs back as they have in this march against Wall Street.

Another target which would serve the American people as well is a protest against corporate, mass media. These people have en masse stuck to a formula which has been designed to serve only to sell a product which enables their sponsors. The media system sells their politically ideological brands as well as useless products; both of which we can well do without. With the violent rhetoric of anti-Unionist slander, anti-socialist principles, and, in essence, anti-citizen protective policy, they have joined the deception by offering mellow tones of distraction rather than reporting on what America’s war machine is really doing overseas; how Congress is producing nothing to help our economic struggles of the middle- and lower-class citizens, and ignoring the blatant truths of the worst struggles in America since the early part of the 20^th Century.

We must all accept, though, that Wall Street isn’t the only power of greed responsible for our current debacle. It represents crony capitalism that will do what they can to garner profit. Most operate with an understanding of ethics, while others only do so because they have to under Governmental restrictions or moral/ethical restrictions. When the restrictions are lifted however, many of these entities with great fortunes to be made will succumb to the temptation and take advantage. It is our government which has enabled these corporatists by lifting restrictions; our government that is setting dissenters into “free speech zones” else pay the price of imprisonment; and our government operating with the monies of capitalists, who are allowing the state of our nation to degrade.

As an example of this infiltration of corporatism into our system, the New York Police Department, apparently for want of funding to continue their "service" to the people, accepted payments from Wall Street firm JPMorgan Chase & Co. This Fortune 500 company recently "donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation". The department was allowed to take these bribes . . . I mean “contributions,” not only because funding has been cut in many areas to combat bloated State and Federal budgets but because government oversight itself has shifted from protecting to controlling We the People. Again, Wall Street represents an obligation to investors to make money; they are acting within their character. It is the government’s job to protect the people from excessive and abusive practices of corporations. Why then has this practice of gathering funding from corporate America not been stopped?

Funding for domestic programs and our services are being drastically cut to combat the debt accrued by a government which has grown too large to support itself. The doors of opportunity then have opened for those with money to come in, take control and profit as a result. In this manner, corporatists have been able to pay for a private security force paid for largely by taxpayers for pennies on the dollar. Many of the officers performing the arrests may have lost their jobs otherwise so a certain amount of dedication to them. All one has to do is examine the growing market for private, corporate run prisons to see this unfolding.

The days of American industry are over and with it millions of our jobs. Unless We the People in our protests against the systematic destruction of our liberty aim our protests at all who are responsible for enabling the destruction of our nation and move toward stopping the madness of free trade and the corrupt government enabling corporations to control our nation, we will continue to lose jobs, our rights, and will continue be arrested for protesting as well as suppressed from speaking against the wrongs committed against us and yes, unemployed; more and more of us each day.

The end result

Wall Street presently represents greed growing unchecked. It is because our government allows it to be that way. The unfair practices and procedures enveloped by our government, now largely controlled by special interests, are moving toward enacting more laws and policies to better serve their corporate supporters rather than us, hardworking Americans. Though profit is the goal of business in a free market society, when their profit comes at a life destroying cost to the people, the Declaration of Independence’s premise of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” given to all men and women within that society, quickly diminishes. The Sedition Acts, The Patriot Act and other policies passed throughout our American history serve only to keep free speech imprisoned. These were largely brought by xenophobic insecurity, but, most recently, they are caused by greed, plain and simple.

To this humble writer, the issue is not so simple as to fit conveniently into the neat little image given by media moguls and their talking heads of a protest filled with disgruntled employees, people who fell into the crevice of throw away middle management or neo-socialists and Marxists with nothing better to do with their day since their unemployment compensation expired: It has to do with a society that has had enough with the status quo and are not going to keep their heads in the sand, anymore.

To the protestors on Wall Street, I say good show. I greatly admire your fortitude, your dedication to a cause and your decision that being arrested doesn’t matter if you have no future. To the rest of you, I can only emphatically say; It is time to get off your ass and take back our country. It is time the people enact our right to throw off a tyrannical system are reform this great nation. We need to keep our march moving and growing to throw out these criminals; these people who have taken the oath to Serve and Protect us, but instead are taking this country into the Land of missed and forgotten opportunity.

Original Article

Ocuppy Wall street - This Is What Freedom Looks Like

2011-10-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

Written By NewAmericaNow

I look out at the current world situation and see abusive government power and massive corruption at every level. A government, our government, co-opted by the powerful banking and corporate interests.

The banks and corporations have successfully hijacked our government on the back of good intentions for their own self interests. The addition of the fourteenth amendment in 1868, while purportedly designed to insure equality of citizenship after the civil war, has been used since then, by the banking and corporate interests for the purpose of a massive power grab of our unique political system. And so is the tale of the real danger of good intentions and their unintended consequences.

In my opinion, the fourteenth amendment was whole heartedly unnecessary. The fundamental solution for the problem of inequality was not another amendment, act or law but simply to fairly interpret the original fundamentals of existing law. The most fundamental precept of our nation is, all men, and people in general, are created equal and have basic rights expressed and agreed upon, as written in our Bill of Rights. The usual problem, as always, is that government does not abide by the rules and finds differing interpretations to break the chains that prevent the acquisition of power. When we protest that banks and corporations are in collusion with government and have taken over our political system and then in the same breath propose that government should do something about it is unbelievably preposterous.

In the final analysis, the banks and corporations are not the true cause of our problems, they are merely an opportunistic infection in a self inflicted injury. The banks and corporations would not consider taking control of a system that did not exert control over it's citizens, as it would not offer any monetary advantage. The fact that we have slowly and through the years given government more and more power over us and our actions, for some progressive well intentioned myth of safety or the common good, is the ultimate cause of our dilemma today.

Giving government more power has historically only made things worse. The secret solution to our dilemma is our undying insistence that government strictly adheres to the rules plainly written in the Bill of Rights and Constitution and to always err on the side of maximum individual freedom. Communism, Socialism and all forms of totalitarianism, such as fascism rely on the power of those in charge to fairly manage the masses. In a world of selfless, uncorruptable people it could work. However, in the real world of people with the the human frailties of ego, selfishness and self importance it would quickly, as our founders knew, devolve into tyranny.

It is quite interesting, as a history student, and disconcerting, as a citizen that although our system has given us a users guide to how our government should work and what our rights are, every single amendment of the Bill of Rights has been violated by government under the premise that they (the government) has the right to interpret those rights any way they choose because they have the force of arms and incarceration and are willing to use it. This is simply inconsistent with the original intent of the Bill of Rights.

Today people are arrested for dancing or expressing themselves at the very public and ironically, the memorial to the man who was the biggest champion of American freedom, Thomas Jefferson. What ever you may think about this type of expression, it is in fact, protected by what is suppose to be the highest law in the land. A US citizen was just exterminated by the Obama administration without due process of law and without presentation of evidence to justify this action and his family denied legal counsel to refute those allegations as it is guaranteed by this same document.

Innocent people are being searched against their will at airports across the country and the private internet activities of millions upon unsuspecting millions are surveilled without reasonable suspicion or warrant. People are being held without charges and without counsel for allegations they are unable to challenge with evidence or a jury of their peers.

The rights that we have are not subject to a vote because the majority thinks it's a good idea. THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRACY or rule by mob as our founders would call it. Areas of free choice like, privacy, lifestyle, who you married, what you and your community decide to teach your children or the food you choose to eat, were, according to these rules, for better or for worse, not subject to the vote of an intrusive majority or government regulation but was your right of choice as a human being. The protections we have are not subject to government interest or national security, they are unalienable and you can never be separated from them for ANY reason. That is what FREEDOM looks like.

Many would say we must regulate some things. I would agree that their are a good number of things that should be regulated, but not by the hand of government. It is not in our rules of government conduct and powers that they regulate our lives, and for good reason. Our founding fathers were specific in how much power our government would have because of the historical truth that, no matter how good intentioned human's are, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Underwriter's Laboratory or UL who's logo is found on many electronics today, is a fine example of the private sector stepping up to give unbiased assurances to the public that products don't kill or injure the public, as that would be legally costly for any business trying to compete in a world free of monopolies and full of real competing consumer choices where reputation is everything.

Another wonderful violation of the original rules placed on government, which originally only taxed those who OWNED the means of production and CORPORATIONS, was the addition of the Sixteenth Amendment. The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified on February 3, 1913 sets up the future creation of the monster we now know as, the Federal Reserve System, and allows the Congress to levy, for the FIRST time in American history, an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on Census results. The founding father's believed labor was a trade not income and so should not be subject to taxation and only those who could profit without work would be taxed and taxed equally, however, if taxes were to be collected they would always be equal and not incremental as they are today.

The founding fathers were very learned and wise men and were avid students of history.

Alexander Tytler, Arnold Toynbee, and Lord Thomas Macaulay were widely read historians of the pre-revolutionary period that noted that democracies throughout history have always been temporary in nature. The consensus among these learned historians was a democracy simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
As stated by Tytler in the 1768 "A democracy will continue to exist up until the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.” Does any of this sound familiar and ironically on target?

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. -
George Santayana

Although there are many aspects of democracy that were used in the creation of this nation, there were protections put in place in this Republic against the darker side of democracy that would protect each individual equally.

There are a number of ridiculous statements that I hear quite often coming from the naive or uninformed. Statements like, "a job is a right", "health care is a right" or "food is a right" or "I have the right to higher education". These statements are simply and unbelievably delusional. How can your right come from your demands on someone else? You have the right to choose to create your own business or choose to work for someone who has. You have the right to take care of yourself but you can not demand a doctor to heal you of your sickness without compensation. You have the right to grow your own food, but you do not have the right to sit in someone's restaurant and demand food without compensation. You have a right to educate yourself but you can not demand that someone teach you what they already know.

Don't think I am just picking on the left, the Tea Party is just as guilty of hypocrisy. I have heard of many a Tea Party member talk about Liberty and Freedom for all, yet call for Muslim members of our society, not to have the right to start a mosque in certain places even though they own the property. I have heard conservative Tea Party members rally against Gay marriage, when it is none of their business, since what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes is their right. The true test of freedom is respecting the free choices of others even when you strongly disagree.

Whether it's Occupy Wall Street, a Tea Party protest or whatever, if we are to make meaningful and fair change in our society we must proceed with caution, historical knowledge and wisdom at our backs. It is too easy to point fingers and say it's the other guy's fault without considering the historical facts and creating a real meaningful dialogue to make a better society. If we are careless, egotistical, and self absorbed we shall get exactly what we deserve.

True Consequences of Government Regulation in a Civil Society

2011-09-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

Guest Post, Glen Allport

Many things should be regulated – for health and safety, for protection against fraud, and for other reasons.

Regulation is a normal function of civil society. We don't want to get electrocuted when we touch a toaster or vacuum cleaner, for example, and the makers of electrical devices (and their insurance companies) know that killing customers would be bad business, so – in this case – early in the industry's life, a young electrical engineer founded Underwriter Laboratories, a non-profit safety and testing firm. You probably have a dozen or more products in your home with the "UL Listed" label, including the monitor on which you are reading this. Portable devices, which by their nature are not powered directly by wall current, are typically certified by groups other than UL, although, for example, "UL 1604 certification allows products to be used in potentially explosive environments found in oil and gas, petrochemical, aviation and other industries" (per Panasonic, whose Toughbook laptops* are so certified) and UL has recently added mobile telephone battery certification to its list of services.

* Not entirely on point, but thousands (thousands!) of these $3,000 laptops were recently stolen from a private contractor working for the U.S. Special Operations Command.

Founded in 1894, UL predates OSHA by 76 years. Today, OSHA relies heavily on standards created by UL and on UL testing, on standards created by ANSI, and on other private, non-government groups. Because UL is not a government agency, its customer base is not captive – although non-profit, UL must still either provide a service that people are willing to pay for, or disappear. Market pressures from all sides – from manufacturers, from consumers, from insurance companies, and more – push UL to do an excellent job at a fair and efficient price.

Corruption – such as dangerously easing standards for a manufacturer in return for cash or for a cushy job after retirement from UL – would erode respect for UL and might expose Underwriter Labs and those who run it to civil and possibly criminal penalties, especially if even a single death or injury were to result from the malfeasance. Such corruption would also give competing firms (such as MET Laboratories) a chance to take market share away from UL by providing services that insurance companies, consumers, and manufacturers COULD trust. Not surprisingly, Underwriter Labs appears to have resisted any such temptations and as a result, the firm is a respected and globe-spanning organization. Thanks to UL's competent and efficiently priced services, electrical appliances and quite a few other things, from high-voltage industrial equipment to drinking water, remain both safe and affordable.

When Government Gets Involved

Underwriter Laboratories and other such groups make the benefits of business regulation crystal-clear. Why is regulation so often a disaster, then? Why does government regulation nearly always raise prices, sometimes – as with medical care and pharmaceuticals – to bizarre levels? Why are regulatory agencies so often "captured" by corporations and used to keep new competitors out of the field, or to protect company profits by creating "standards" that merely legalize shoddy and dangerous practices and products?

The answer is that such problems are inherent in the nature of coercive governance, and not only with regulation. The coercive, monopolistic, and coercively-funded system is the problem; there are competent and well-meaning people in (one assumes) every government regulatory agency, but – as with public schools – the nature of the system itself ensures poor results no matter how well-meaning and competent many of its employees may be.

For that matter, some government regulation would more accurately be termed government-imposed price fixing, as with government-granted monopolies. AT&T was just such a government-created monopoly; when the government eventually broke up AT&T into the "baby Bells" and allowed them to compete, the competition drove long-distance pricing down from 62 cents per minute in 1983 to 10 cents per minute in 2001.

With a small, restrained government, there isn't much coercive State power for industry and other special interests to co-opt. As a government becomes larger and more powerful, this changes. With today's overgrown federal government, the power that corporations can purchase (via lobbying and other methods) is almost limitless.

Given that, it should be no surprise that government-imposed and government-run regulation in the United States is very different in effect from market-based regulation as exemplified by Underwriter Labs and other such groups. Contemporary examples of this sad reality are all around us (and in the links embedded in the text below). Despite the good that government regulation does and despite the honest, competent, hard work of many government employees in the regulatory agencies, the net result of our government-supplied regulation is negative – and often extremely negative, as detailed below.

Non-government regulation – which might largely consist of the same people employed at private firms and non-profit organizations – would provide the good without also creating the bad we suffer from government efforts. Examples of how government-supplied regulation harms more than it helps:

The BP oil-spill disaster and other environmental horrors

Government has been regulating offshore drilling for decades – including while BP destroyed the Gulf, and maybe the Atlantic as well, or maybe, just maybe, the entire planet (see also here, about a possible full-on ice age caused by the spill stalling the loop current that moves warm water north past the East coast and on to Europe). If you thought government regulation and other government meddling played no role in this disaster, see here, here, here, and here – just for a start. (And if you thought the problem was over, think again). Our government has also tried to hide the existence of a six-mile-wide oil plume under the Gulf and to discredit the scientists who found it. In this crisis, as elsewhere, government has often used its power in ways that cause harm. Only the State could forcibly prevent clean-up efforts (one example: early on, the EPA stopped the use of Costner's highly effective centrifuge machines because their discharged clean water still contains trace amounts of oil, thus violating an EPA standard). Only the State can legislate away most or all of an industry's liability for damages (as was done for the nuclear power industry in 1956, as well as for the oil industry and many others). Only the State can get away with refusing to recognize its own liability for horrors beyond anything a private firm could inflict, such as spreading Agent Orange over who-knows-how-many square miles of inhabited land or using thousands of tons of radioactive and chemically poisonous depleted uranium in and around populated areas (not to mention that nano-particles of the stuff are then carried around the Earth on the winds).

Economic and market regulation

Government has also been regulating banks and investment firms for decades. Government stood by, cheering on the bad guys (sometimes even requiring the bad guys to act as they did, like lend money to people who clearly couldn't pay it back) and inflating the money supply (which has to go somewhere) for bubble after bubble and crash after crash, going back to the Roaring Twenties and subsequent Great Depression, and even earlier. Government itself and the government-chartered Federal Reserve are the culprits here. In plain language, it is government interference (in a thousand ways) that created the present crisis. Not everyone is unhappy with this: Goldman Sachs and many other corporations have strong reasons to thank Mr. Government Regulator Man (and his many kin in Congress and elsewhere), because when your profits stay privatized but your losses are socialized, you practically can't lose! Citigroup (which received $45 BILLION of bailout money) and Bank of America (ditto!) and quite a few other big companies have benefited enormously from the generosity and benevolent oversight of our government. Failure and stupidity couldn't possibly pay so well without the help of Mr. Government Man.

Speaking of failure and stupidity: What regulatory group was keeping an eagle eye on Bernie "The Ponzi King" Madoff while the Ponz-meister was stealing $billions from too-trusting retirees and other investors?

The government's own SEC, of course, which received tips and complaints about Madoff's operation for a decade before the man volunteered his confession. Red flags were everywhere, but the SEC ignored them. Too bad for Madoff's investors, but hey: it's Darwin in action, baby! Considering that Congress has handled our Social Security ~~contributions~~ taxes in much the same way that Madoff handled his client's money, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at government failure in this area.

At the top of the regulatory food chain in the monetary realm is the Federal Reserve, a privately owned corporation chartered by the government to create (for a profit) the money used by the United States (and isn't that a bizarre idea?) and to regulate banking in this country. Under Federal Reserve stewardship, the U.S. dollar has gone from a perfectly-stable value of one-twentieth of an ounce of gold per dollar (meaning, for instance, that Henry Ford was paying his assembly-line workers a quarter-ounce of gold per day for building those Model Ts) to our present situation where the dollar HAS no defined value, is tied to nothing whatsoever, and will currently purchase only a tiny speck of gold; about one twelve-hundredth of an ounce (you can check the current gold/dollar ratio at 321gold.com). Americans are leery of the Fed (for good reason) and overwhelmingly want the Fed thoroughly audited at the very least, but instead Congress and the President have recently given the Fed vast new regulatory powers in the 2,000+ page Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation Act. Yet it appears the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve cannot account for $9 trillion in the Fed's off-balance-sheet transactions. (Link includes text and imbedded video of the IG being questioned on the topic, and yes: that was "trillion" with a "t"). We gave sweeping new powers to a secretive organization that doesn't know, or won't say, how it spent nine trillion dollars of our money. Yikes.

Preventing cattle producers from testing their own herds for Mad Cow disease

Another example: Who is it, do you think (hint: rhymes with "USDA") that has been forcibly preventing cattle producers from testing their own cattle for Mad Cow disease?

Once again, the answer is: Government. I cannot imagine any good reason for such stunning and callous tyranny, unless you consider taking the pressure off corporate cattle producers to more closely monitor their cattle to be a good reason. This is government power being used in the service of corporate profit at the expense of human health and safety, and it is sufficiently blatant that major newspapers have written editorials about it (see the two links above). Really, you'd expect that only an over-the-top fictional villain like Dr. Evil would do something like prevent a cattle rancher from testing his own cows for Mad Cow disease. I mean, c'mon!

No market entity, such as Underwriter Labs, would have the power to do such a thing; it would take a group that routinely uses coercion and can get away with it. In short, it would take either organized crime or coercive government.

Harassing and threatening cherry farmers and walnut growers

The similarity between organized crime and coercive government gets stronger the more you look at how government regulation (or any other part of government) operates. For instance, who would threaten cherry growers with fines and maybe worse for providing truthful information about the health benefits of their products (including the results of taxpayer-funded studies)? I'm sure you can guess the answer: Government, in the particular guise of the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA has pulled this same stunt on walnut farmers, using logic that even Dr. Evil might be too embarrassed to employ. William Falloon describes the situation (pdf):

. . . the FDA’s language resembles that of an out-of-control police state where tyranny reins over rationality. To enable you to recognize the absurdity of all of this, I excerpted a few paragraphs from the FDA’s warning letter to Diamond Foods as follows:

"Based on our review, we have concluded that your walnut products [i.e., walnuts] are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) and the applicable regulations in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR)."

"Based on claims made on your firm's website, we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease."

"Because of these intended uses, your walnut products are drugs within the meaning of section 201 (g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(B)]. Your walnut products are also new drugs under section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(p)] because they are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced conditions.

"Therefore, under section 505(a) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 355(a)], they may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application."

"Additionally, your walnut products are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes. Thus, your walnut products are also misbranded under section 502(f)(1) of the Act, in that the labeling for these drugs fails to bear adequate directions for use [21 U.S.C. § 352(f)(1)]."

If you are getting the impression that corporate profit and the exercise of raw power are more important to government regulators than your piddly-old health, then you are beginning to see what an attorney might call the government's "pattern of behavior" – and not just in the United States. For example, regulatory antagonism to vitamins and other safe supplements is even more extreme in Europe, where supplements are already regulated (and priced) as if they were drugs. This does not make the supplements safer (they are incredibly safe as it is) or protect public health in any way – instead, based on decades of studies showing the dramatic health benefits of many supplements, such "regulation" probably causes the premature deaths of millions from cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other conditions by reducing supplement intake – but it DOES make for higher profit margins for several large corporations, and for the medical industry as well.

Banning a natural vitamin – so it can be sold as a drug

Back to the United States and the FDA: the agency has decided to ban a natural form of vitamin B6 (pyridoxamine), despite it having been sold in supplements for years (the FDA apparently disputes this) and despite it having been present in the food we eat since before the human race was identifiably human.

Pyridoxamine is not only the safest form of the vitamin but is highly protective against glycation, and thus able to slow the damage from diabetes (and even, to a lesser extent, from normal aging), improving the health and extending the lives of diabetics and others. The ban was requested by BioStratum, Inc., which wants to sell pyridoxamine, at hugely inflated prices, as a drug. Of course, they'll first have to run human trials (no, I'm not kidding), which means Americans will be unable to obtain this natural and life-saving vitamin for YEARS (other than the smallish amounts we get in food).

We might be able to buy pyridoxamine from its new Big Pharma owners in 2014 (or never, if the firm runs out of money for clinical trials). In the meantime, millions of Americans will suffer from this imaginary transformation of a vitamin into a drug, as the kidney damage, eye damage, and other harm that might have been inexpensively prevented by pyridoxamine goes unchecked (and won't that be terrific for the fiscal health of Medicare?). Later, when the "drug" version – the identical substance – finally becomes available again, Americans will have to pay Big Pharma's insanely high prices for a cheap, natural vitamin. Medicare and other government health plans will ALSO pay the inflated new price, and without discounts: Obamacare forbids anything so déclassé as negotiating quantity discounts from the drug companies, or even importing lower-cost drugs.*

* The drug industry is appropriately grateful to those who, like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, helped get the "healthcare" bill passed. Meanwhile, the unintended side effects of this law – such as the potential for massive job loss or loss of existing health insurance benefits for low-income Americans – are only now being considered.

Clearly, your health is not the important thing in all this. Nor are your finances, or even the financial health of the federal government. What IS important is that drug companies will make oceans of money from what would otherwise be just another low-cost supplement at your supermarket or health-food store. The medical industry will enjoy some benefit as well, given that you'll have to see your doctor and get a prescription to obtain pyridoxamine when it finally becomes available again, and also given that diabetic complications will be more advanced and more common than they otherwise might have been, due to pyridoxamine's having been banned for years while the drug companies got their regulatory ducks in a row. And finally, the political class and the lobbying industry benefit from the continued demonstration that government can use its coercive power to the benefit of anyone with enough money and clout to get Congress or a regulatory agency to intervene on their behalf – often in ways that would be criminal if done by anyone else.

For more on the pyridoxamine ban, an FDA announcement on the matter is here. The petition filed with the FDA by law firm Morgan Lewis on behalf of BioStratum, requesting the ban, is here [pdf]. Another article on the subject is here; it includes this sentence: "In 2005, an up-and-coming pharmaceutical company made a big mistake: they invested millions of dollars into developing a drug only to discover that the only active ingredient of the drug, pyridoxamine, was really a common, naturally occurring substance that has been sold for decades at low cost to consumers in the form of a dietary supplement, and has always been available in commonly consumed foods such as chicken and brewer’s yeast." More on both pyridoxamine and the FDA's actions may be found in the Wikipedia article on the topic; there's no mention of Dr. Evil, but I believe that's him laughing manically in the background.

Such actions are commonplace

Is this sort of thing unusual? Is it unique to the FDA and the USDA? Of course not. It is the norm and has been the norm from the start of government regulation in the United States. The phenomenon is called regulatory capture, and here is Luke Mitchell on the topic: "When Congress created the first U.S. regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, in 1887, the railroad barons it was meant to subdue quickly recognized an opportunity. 'It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of railroads at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal,' observed the railroad lawyer Richard Olney. 'Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things. It thus becomes a sort of barrier between the railroad corporations and the people and a sort of protection against hasty and crude legislation hostile to railroad interests.' [Moving into the present, Mitchell continues] ". . . The Democratic deal for the drug companies is, if anything, even sweeter than the Democratic deal for the insurance companies." (from Understanding Obamacare by Luke Mitchell, Harper's Magazine) [Emphasis added]

There's more – an endless listing, I'm afraid. For example, the FDA approves patented pharmaceutical drugs that kill about 100,000 per year* (diabetes drug Avandia being only the latest major scandal in this area) while blocking consumer access to information about the safety and efficacy of over-the-counter supplements which are often more efficacious than patented drugs, incredibly safe (typical annual death toll in the U.S. from supplements: zero), and which, in many cases, have been safely used for centuries. For that matter, the FDA forcibly denies terminal cancer patients medicine that might save them and which, in some cases, is widely and safely used elsewhere. And as everyone is painfully aware, FDA regulation of the pharmaceutical industry has, quite predictably for government regulation, resulted in on-patent drugs becoming insanely expensive. By one accounting, even generic drugs are eight times more expensive than they should be.

* Add medical mistakes and other deaths from regulated medical/pharmaceutical products and services, and the death toll from America's heavily regulated "health care" industry may exceed 750,000 per year. On the death toll from supplements: some sources show slightly higher figures than "zero" but none that I've seen suggest more than a handful of deaths per year.

A more civil society is the only cure for the damage we've created

Seriously: eliminating coercive, monopolistic government regulation is the only way the United States will return to its former, widely-envied situation of healthcare that is both state-of-the-art and highly affordable. House calls by the family doctor used to be cheap and commonplace (I am old enough to remember them) – and pro-bono healthcare was easy enough for doctors to set up that it, too, was common. Like today's market-regulated electronics industry, today's medical and drug industries should be providing dramatically cheaper and better products and services year after year. Government regulation, which displaces healthy market regulation and other functions of civil society, is the reason we can no longer easily afford drugs and medical care and can no longer, in many cases, even obtain certain drugs and types of medical care that might improve or even save our lives. Freedom and compassion have been replaced with regulation-at-gunpoint, and the costs are enormous whether measured in money or lives.

All of this is a perfect example of the difference between regulation as practiced by Underwriter Laboratories and other non-government groups, and regulation as practiced by the Federal government. One is a blessing; the other a curse.

The truly weird thing about this is that so many Americans believe government-imposed regulation is the only kind of regulation available, and that it's a good thing – that without such twisted, counter-productive, and deadly "regulation," we would have horrible problems. Yet the FDA itself (for example) causes so many problems, in so many ways, that the Life Extension Foundation's William Falloon has called the FDA "the number one cause of death" for Americans. Falloon isn't kidding; he has been documenting outrageous and often deadly behavior by the FDA for decades.

Seriously: is there ANY other group as bizarrely evil and incompetent as government? To quote Will Smith: "No. HELL no." In truth, no other group (Apple? Microsoft?) even comes close, although note that I include corporatism – the bonding of corporate and government power – in my definition of "government".

The horrors described above are in addition to aggressive foreign wars, the aggressive and racist "War on People Who Use Pot and Certain Other Drugs," and the long slimy trail of genocide and torture and other cruelty that government has been responsible for since, well, since the first gang of psychopaths decided that farming other human beings might be easier and more lucrative than working for a living. I mean, really: take money from people by FORCE and then spend it however you want? What psychopath wouldn't jump at THAT in a heartbeat? Give it a fancy name and hey! – you da' man!

Ringo's Law and the Case of the Upside-Down Incentives

The harm caused by government regulation is an unavoidable manifestation of Ringo's Law, which states: "Everything government touches turns to crap." Nothing in the natural sciences is more accurate than Ringo's Law or shows more predictive power, as even a cursory study of history will show. Ringo's Law is one of several reasons that abolition of coercive government, as championed by Thoreau and many other Classical Liberals, is the only sensible approach – just as abolition was the only sensible approach to full-on slavery.

Back to regulation: Most people think we could reform our failed regulatory agencies, including the SEC, the FDA, the USDA, the Dept. of the Interior (which regulates oil drilling, including in the Gulf), the Minerals Management Service (MMS is that part of the DOI which most directly regulates oil drilling – or was; it is being renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOE for short), and the EPA (another federal agency regulating oil drilling; EPA regulations and other laws and rules were actually used to prevent clean-up after the BP spill in the Gulf in several ways; at the same time, the EPA has allowed the massive use of the incredibly toxic Corexit dispersant, which apparently does nothing to fix the oil disaster [other than to save BP money by hiding the extent of the problem, keeping the oil mostly out of sight] and which is now entering the food chain in the Gulf).

Every regulatory agency we have is a "failed agency" because coercive government is, for obvious reasons, the worst way to do anything ever devised. Well, other than things like genocide and torture and aggressive war and so on, but that's only because civilized people don't DO things like genocide and torture and war.

Weirdly enough, even failure itself doesn't work in the realm of coercive government. Failure has a function in the real world: to get those who fail out of the way of those who can do better. This function is why, for instance, Honda Motors is a successful multinational corporation, and Yugo is history.

How does failure operate on government agencies? Incredibly, the answer, for the most part, is: exactly opposite to how failure operates in the market. In government, or in industries protected/regulated by the government, failure is often a good thing, in the sense that failure leads to more money and more power being taken from "customers" and given to the State or to the "too big to fail" (but not too big to be stupid!) businesses involved.

In other words, the incentives here are upside-down.

How can that be? Easy: it happens through the magic of coercion. Yes, coercion is the special ingredient that lets the State fail miserably at almost everything, and then – time after time! – use that failure to justify taking even more money and control from the humans being farmed – er, from the citizens. Or "consumers," or whatever we're calling them these days.

Because normal businesses don't have access to that magic ingredient – coercion being a crime and all – they can't force their customers to pay for crappy products and services. Without the sparkly powerful brawniness of coercion, ordinary businesses have to actually not-fail in the marketplace, because customers of ordinary, non-sparkly businesses don't have to pay – not for things they don't want, anyway. But customers of the State do have to pay, like it or not (and or else, if you know what I mean) and they have to pay even when the goods or services are exceptionally crappy, and even when the customers don't want and don't use the goods or services, and even – this is where you can really see the awesome sparkly power of coercion – even when the customers think the goods or services are vile and evil and horrible, like, say, war and torture and stuff.

Wow! Try that, Honda Motors!

Crisis and Reform as Tools for Expanding Tyranny

One reason "reforming" a failed State regulatory agency (or a regulated industry) only makes things worse is that the reform typically supports the Universal Statist Game Plan; to wit:

Take more money and power from the people whenever possible, and make sure the transfer is permanent.

State failure (or any other crisis) is thus a tool for increasing the power of the State. Of course, it helps to blame the failure on something else: "the market" is an especially good patsy because blaming the market not only shifts blame FROM the State but infers that the market, and thus civil society generally, is unable to function properly without the State's power elite micro-managing everything – a double win for those in power! This attitude is exemplified by Rahm Emanuel's famous comment: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Mr. Emanuel is (at least as I write these words) Obama's chief of staff, but his comment encapsulates the view of ruling elites everywhere and in every age.

Crisis is such a useful tool for the power elite that throughout history, those in power (and those hoping to displace them) have not only used crises to further empower themselves, but have often contrived their own, custom-made crises: false flag attacks, supposed drug threats, "cold" wars, economic emergencies of various stripes, and so on. The crisis is pitched as proving the "need" for more government control; a media campaign is typically orchestrated toward that end, and soon: Yippee! It's Christmas day in Washington or Moscow or wherever, with gaily-wrapped packages of new government powers and tax-streams nestled beneath the tree. Again, this dynamic works to the advantage of those in power whether the crisis is "genuine" or something callously engineered.

Despite my lame attempts at humor above – sorry, but I need something to help counter the horror of all this – the reality is even worse than I've made it sound. For example, a recent AP story about The Washington Post's project on the growth of intelligence agencies since 9/11 (a multimedia effort titled A Hidden World Growing Beyond Control) says that "there are now more than 1,200 government organizations and more than 1,900 private companies working on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in some 10,000 locations across the U.S." The infamous and truly scary secret police agencies of recent history, including the KGB, the Gestapo, the SS, the Stasi, and others, would be insanely jealous of what the Bush and Obama administrations have put together to surveil and increasingly to dominate the American people. "Growing beyond control" seems an understatement, and the growth of this evil isn't over yet: the push to strip civil liberties from Americans continues.

As we have already seen, the ongoing, unavoidable damage caused by using a coercive, centralized monopoly to run so much of society brings plenty of crisis situations all on its own, even when no crisis is being purposefully engineered. You've seen these crises (of both types), and been affected by them your entire life.

It is worth remembering the incentive structure here: A failure – especially a nice, juicy, EPIC failure – can be used to expand existing agencies or even as pretext to create a new agency or (jackpot!) a fleet of new agencies such as the TSA, Homeland Security, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and others after 9/11. It is fair to say that the incentives here are not merely upside-down but actually opposed to the well-being of the masses. That is, government has strong incentive to fail, and for that matter to not resolve a given crisis quickly if a longer-running or deeper crisis might set the stage for an even bigger power grab.

Once again: regulation is necessary, but coercive government – an inherently psychopathic institution, because coercion is a crime – is the wrong tool for the job. The FDA (called the Bureau of Chemistry at the time) was founded in 1906 for perfectly good reasons: Nothing like Underwriter Laboratories had been created to ensure the purity and safety of foods and medicines. Regulation was sorely needed, and "muckraking" journalism such as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle put the problem front and center in the public mind. Yet the FDA has not only failed to properly regulate our food supply and our medicines (problems like those Sinclair described continue), the agency has, as we have seen, used its coercive power to cause serious harm to the people the FDA is supposed to protect. We would have been far better served to let a market response to Sinclair's book emerge, and for that matter, government could have used its bully pulpit to encourage such a solution – but that is not how government empires grow.

How Mal-Regulation by the State Destroyed the Modern World

The relentless increase in government's reach in the United States has done more than convert Thomas Paine's "haven for Mankind" into a darkening police state and a poverty-stricken yet aggressive empire; it has destroyed many normal functions of civil society, replacing civil, market-based solutions (including pro bono and other charitable efforts) with coercive, centralized, government-run or government-controlled versions. Regulation is not the only natural function that has suffered in this regard, but two key regulatory failures in the last few years are especially troubling.

The financial crash of 2008 and the massive, ongoing BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (which has now hit the beaches of every Gulf state) mark a tipping point that ends one age, especially in the West, and begins another. Damage from these two events continues – neither is repaired or even contained, despite assurances to the contrary – and that damage is in the process of ending the world we have long considered "normal." Say goodbye to full employment at high wages (or any job at all, for many Americans) with job security and generous benefits; to comfortable retirement with a fully-funded pension; to low prices for food, gasoline, and most other consumer items; to a strong real estate market; and to a natural environment still healthy enough to take for granted. All of that and more is gone for good, or at least for several generations to come.

Am I overstating the problem? I hope so, but I don't see how. At the very least, these two catastrophes are epic in scope and among the worst of their kind ever seen.

It is important to understand that neither of these disasters had to happen. Both of these cataclysmic fiascos would have been prevented by proper regulation. Replacing civil society, including civil society's natural regulatory mechanisms, with a coercive monopoly funded by coercive taxation and run largely by coercive means – for the benefit, inevitably, of a power elite – is neither healthy nor safe for society as a whole, and if these twin disasters don't teach us that, I can't imagine what will.

The regulatory simulacrum of State oversight is a shape-shifted replicant with different interests and incentives than the real thing. This unnatural corporate tool, cloaked in the guise of corporate regulator, emerges from the bonding of special interests (corporations especially, but also unions and other groups) with State power structures.*

* One particularly relevant example: the oil industry's often-decried influence on the Bush/Cheney administration, which included successfully pushing for regulatory changes (includes video, 2 min 9 sec) that saved money for the oil industry but are now implicated in the BP disaster in the Gulf and in dozens of lesser spills as well.

State-run regulation is not so much inept as it is actively harmful. Not only has government regulation failed us in the financial and environmental spheres, it actively contributed to both the Crash of 2008 (opening act for The Greater Depression, now in its early stages) and the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster – this last being both an ecological and a financial disaster that in the end may far exceed the scope of Chernobyl, another government-caused nightmare. (Speaking of which, a site titled Obama's Chernobyl has come online with news and links about the Gulf crisis).

Even before the ongoing BP event in the Gulf, the world's oceans (and rivers; see here, for example – note that the FDA is mentioned as testing only 2% of imported fish, despite much of that being contaminated) had already suffered "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" per a recent report* in Science Magazine.

* From the linked article – and remember, this was the situation before the BP disaster in the Gulf: "This is further evidence we are well on our way to the next great extinction event," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of the report.

John Bruno, an associate professor of marine sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the report's other co-author, isn't quite as alarmist, but he's equally concerned.

"We are becoming increasingly certain that the world's marine ecosystems are reaching tipping points," Bruno said, adding, "We really have no power or model to foresee" the impact.

~ It's not just BP's oil in the Gulf that threatens world's oceans by Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers

Coming on top of that, the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster – even the cleanup efforts are toxic (video, 1 min 37 sec – includes the claim that all of the Exxon Valdez cleanup crew is now dead, at an average age of 51) – may ultimately damage the global environment enough to cause a massive drop in environmental carrying capacity (the environment's ability to support life). 1.84 million gallons (and counting; one source suggests 42 million gallons is the true number) of toxic chemical dispersants have been added to the mix of oil, methane, and other poisons in the Gulf, and the true damage from all this will not be known for years or decades. There is even a chance that damage to the Gulf floor will lead to a planet-wide extinction-level event of a particularly nasty type – one seen several times before in Earth's history.

The odds of such scenarios are unknown, but this video taken during a June 21, 2010 flight over the Gulf (9 minutes 55 seconds) gives a sense of what has already happened – and no wonder flights over the Gulf have been severely restricted. Seeing the devastation – or at least, some of the surface effects – is quite different from reading about it. If you set the video to maximum resolution and full screen, you will be stunned at the vastness of what has already happened and at how puny our efforts to mitigate the damage really are. Imagine oil continuing to gush into the water unabated, not for two months but for two years, or 20 years, or for centuries: take your pick, because no one is certain how long this will go on. Fair warning: included are views of dead and dying whales, dolphins, and other creatures trapped in open water poisoned with unimaginable volumes of crude oil and chemical dispersants, to the horizon and beyond. Here and there, the ocean is on fire and columns of black smoke rise into the clouds. Little wonder this has already been called "the worst man-made environmental disaster in history." Also, little wonder that State coercion is being used in various ways, large and small, to hide the truth from the public (see 6’4” Cop Bullies 4’11” Videographer as She Videos a BP Worker Taken Away in Ambulance; includes 9 min 3 sec video; cop shows up about halfway in).

Isn't the well capped now? Maybe, maybe not. And even if it is – and even if the cap holds – most of the oil being leaked into the Gulf may be from cracks in the seabed miles from the well that is being shown on newsfeeds. Oil industry insider Matt Simmons [who died suddenly as this was being written] believes exactly that; he recently "described the real blowout as an open hole gushing 120,000 barrels of toxic crude every day below the surface of the Gulf six or seven miles away from the riser. And BP is ignoring it, he said. 'What you are seeing on television, what BP is saying about relief wells . . . that's a total ruse,' said Simmons." (from Simmons' Take on Oil Spill in the Gulf by Christine Parrish in the Free Press). Certainly, the corporate and government efforts to prevent citizen access to the cleanup efforts and to control news about the Gulf suggests we are not getting a full and truthful account of the situation. Perhaps things are quickly getting better, as some news reports suggest (as opposed to simply having the oil out of sight, submerged in huge lakes and plumes or mixed with Corexit and dispersed into tiny globs that sea life cannot avoid ingesting), but if so, why all the secrecy and thuggery?

Even if we avoid the worst of the possible Gulf spill scenarios, it appears certain that the actual damage, which will continue for years and perhaps for many lifetimes, will eventually far exceed the market value of BP if it hasn't already. Among other things, a BP collapse would be a financial crisis in addition to the environmental crisis BP has caused.* For one thing, BP is a huge supplier of credit; Jim Sinclair, quoted in the link immediately above, says that "BP extends . . . the amounts, quality and duration of credit a bank could only dream of. . . . God only knows how many assets around the planet are dependent on credit and finance extended from BP. It is likely to dwarf any banking entity in multiples." Other economic harm – via damage to the fishing industry, via lost tourism revenue, via lowered (or vaporized) real estate values, and via upward pressure on food prices (from possible toxic rain over much of the nation's farmland, as well as from loss of the megatonage of seafood normally harvested each year from the Gulf) has already been catastrophic and will surely become worse. Another possibility: sea life rebounds but is contaminated with enough Corexit and oil to be unhealthy to eat – in which case, the disaster is either loss of the Gulf fishing industry or the continuation of that industry and wide consumption of tainted seafood. Which would be worse? America's Gulf Of Mexico - A Toxic Crime Scene by Stephen Lendman suggests the latter; this piece is quite sobering and very different from the happy-face reporting in the mainstream media.

* Another horrific, oil-related crime BP is famous for – although not famous enough – is the company's role in the 1953 overthrow of the popular, elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, and installation of a pro-West dictator (the Shah). In true corporatist fashion, the British and American governments did most of the work on this project for BP. Hatred for the puppet government, which became infamous for torture and repression, eventually led to a revolution overthrowing the Shah and establishing an Islamic state – in what had been a modern, secular, and democratic nation.

Speaking of economic devastation: the financial and economic crash begun in 2008 is still in progress despite mainstream efforts to portray the current situation as a recovery. The underlying problems have not been solved; instead, government action has prolonged the problems and made them worse. "You don't recover from a debt crisis with more debt", as Gwyn Morgan put it recently in the Globe and Mail. Merk Investments Senior Economic Adviser William Poole echoes that sentiment: "It is clear that the federal government and many state and local governments have dug themselves, and us as citizens and taxpayers, into a terrible fiscal hole." The "financial reform bill" won't solve the problem, either: always remember Ringo's Law.

Throwing more debt, more fiat-money creation, more government spending, and ever-more mal-regulation at a problem caused at the most fundamental levels by those exact mistakes has failed every time it has been tried in history. As a result of such actions, the unfolding of The Greater Depression has been slowed down, at the expense of making the underlying problems even worse. How much worse? Investor Bob Chapman says ". . . we are about to experience the worst economic collapse sine [sic] 1348. The stock market is topping out readying itself for its most disastrous fall in history. . . . You are about to enter a world of chaos from which few will survive unscathed. A world of no banks, no public facilities, no food and rampaging gangs of desperate people. Unemployment of 50% and little law and order. Violence will be rife." Chapman has an annoying habit of being right in his economic forecasts, so I find his extreme views more credible than I wish I did. Nor is Chapman alone; others are also warning that the financial and economic problems of the West are far worse than most believe and that the actions being taken in response to those problems are, for the most part, making things worse. Well-known investment guru Marc Faber sees a crash so dire that he recommends protecting your property with high voltage fences, barbed wire, booby traps, military weapons and Dobermans. Economist John Williams of Shadowstats.com paints a similar picture to Chapman's and Faber's in an interview by Karen Roche of The Energy Report:

TER: Clearly you see us spiraling out of control.

JW: We've been talking about an economic recession, but we are headed for something far worse. I define a depression as a 10% peak-to-trough contraction in the economy. In terms of the broad economy, we're not down 10% in GDP yet. So while we're not formally in depression, we're certainly seeing it in a number of indicators and I think we'll be in a depression, with GDP down 10%, in the near future.

A contraction greater than 25% peak-to-trough puts you in a great depression. That is what I envision, but we'll be taken there by hyperinflation and a resultant cessation of normal commerce.

TER: Hyperinflation means different things to different people. How do you define it?

JW: My definition has been and will remain very simple. When the largest-denomination note in circulation—the $100 bill in the case of the U.S. dollar—has the same value as toilet paper, you have a hyperinflation. You saw that in the Weimar Republic. People papered their walls with money.

TER: I think you've said that the only reason that Zimbabwe's economy survived is because they started using dollars as black market currency.

JW: But you don't have anything like that in the United States as a backup. We're going to have a much rougher time in the U.S., of all places, than they had in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was able to function because people could exchange the local currency into dollars, and then buy things with the dollars, so the economy continued to function. Without some kind of a backup system, as the currency becomes worthless you'll see disruptions to key supply chains. When people don't have food, you end up in very dangerous circumstances. [Emphasis added]

Whether such a nightmare scenario comes to pass or not (it certainly fits with many historical examples of the inflationary/State-overgrowth endgame, from ancient Rome to modern Zimbabwe), there is no question that America and most of the Western nations are headed for a long period of hard times. Stunning debt levels, unfunded and unpayable entitlements, government intrusion and taxation to the point where wealth creation is heavily discouraged, government increasingly favoring corporations over the citizenry as a whole, a corrupt monetary system designed for the ongoing stealth extraction of wealth from the citizens (a system nearing the end of its lifespan; i.e., fiat currencies are so debased that public trust in them is evaporating), and other factors combine to make clear that the great mass of people in the United States and in many other countries are facing times of severe hardship.

Once again: all of this financial and environmental destruction was unnecessary. Honest and effective regulation would have prevented it, and prevented much other damage besides.

As the world falls apart, know that the coercive State is the direct and unambiguous cause of the disaster. Using the State as regulator is a major element here, but in fact, as Ringo's Law reminds us, everything the State does causes harm. The combined damage from all government actions has finally reached the point where the system itself is collapsing. Do not let anyone tell you that even more government is the answer.

The Path to a Healthy and Civil Society

Much that the State does is nothing but crime and corruption – no surprise given that the foundation for the State is coercion, a serious crime in itself.

But some things now done by the State are necessary – business regulation, air traffic control, and environmental protection, for examples. This does not mean the State must do those things; such things can and must be done by civilized means if civilization is to survive long-term. If we want a civil, free, and compassionate world, then we must behave in civil fashion: Everything must be done (and funded, where funding is necessary) without initiating coercion against peaceful human beings. We must abolish the crime of coercion, not only when used against traditional slaves but when used by anyone, against anyone, other than in defense.

Societies have been run in criminal fashion via coercively-funded States for thousands of years, and the results are clear: war, terror, torture, outright murder including genocide and democide, needless poverty, massive theft from the people for benefit of an elite, widespread environmental destruction, and emotional damage on a vast scale. Even using coercion only for funding (i.e., taxation) ensures that a government will increasingly do things its citizens do not want done – including things against their own interests. "Lack of customer satisfaction" is the least of the problems created by using a psychopathic, coercive system to run entire nations. States committed a quarter-billion murders in the 20^th Century – in addition to many millions of war dead and all the other crimes committed by governments, from torture to unjust imprisonment. Why on Earth do we put up with this?

It is long past time for us to stop giving psychopaths the tool they need to create such horrors. Coercion is a crime, legally in most jurisdictions and certainly in human terms, and there is no excuse, nor any good reason, for using coercive structures to run society.

Proper, honest, and effective regulation is only one of the critical elements of civil society that we have lost. By allowing the coercive State to assume ever-more of the normal, important functions of society, we have inevitably become a less civilized society.

Coercion has brought us to where we are, on the brink of a nightmare. We either begin creating a more civilized world – a world of love and freedom; of compassion and respect for the rights of all, including for the young – or the two great evils of widespread emotional damage and technologically-empowered tyranny will increasingly tear our world apart.

Occupy Wall Street Does Not Focus On The Pigs

2011-09-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Guest Post, Stefan B. from SGTRepot

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
–Thomas Jefferson

If you’ve never taken the time to read George Orwell’s Animal Farm, I’ll do my best to sum it up in a paragraph or less (spoiler alert): An allegory of the Bolshevik Revolution that lead to the creation of the Soviet Union, the story begins on Manor Farm, with a pre-revolutionary fervor growing popular among the farm animals. Suddenly aware that the farmer reaps all the benefits of their hard labor, and led by the pigs, the animals chase the farmer off, and rename ‘Manor Farm’ as ‘Animal Farm’. Finally free of human oppression, the Animals set off to create an animal utopia. A place where all animals would be equal, and all animal needs would be met by the state (er, I mean farm). A place where the use of advanced technology would make it so that eventually machines would do all of the work for them. A place where they would never need to use money, as the oppressive humans had done. Of course, things gradually go sideways, the promises of utopia unwind, and the pigs rise up to rule over all the other animals. By the end, life is much worse for all the animals (except the pigs). The pigs, eventually walking on two legs, become completely indistinguishable from the humans who had ruled before them.

By the end of the book, the reader is forced to one of two conclusions: Either the pigs should have never been trusted by the other animals to lead the revolution, or the animals should have kept a much tighter reign on the pigs, to prevent the necessary positions of power from being so grossly abused. The reality that we face, much like the reality that the farm animals faced, is that we thought we had appointed more trustworthy pigs. Pigs who were looking out for us. Pigs who wanted us to have all the best. Pigs who wanted us to retire in comfort. Pigs who wanted us to have all the basic necessities like housing, and food, and medi-care, and yearly vacations, a pension, cheap gas, $5 foot-longs, and all the Viagra that fiat currency can buy. In short, we thought we voted for more benevolent pigs.

Well… They are pigs, stupid. What did you think they would do? It should have been obvious from the get-go that they were going to eat everything.

I find myself more disturbed than excited by the general nature of the #OccupyWallStreet protestors. Rather than seeking to remove the pigs, it seems that a good solid majority of them are really asking for the pigs to simply be less… well, pigs. A majority of them certainly seem to want our leaders to become “Robin Hood” pigs… Pigs who will take from the rich animals, and give to the poor animals… all the while ignoring the fact that their dream of a “JOBS for ALL @ Union Wages” society is still run by pigs… Pigs who eat everything.

At the heart of this debate is the question of wealth redistribution vs. wealth creation. In general, I do not hear the protestors demanding that the government get out of our way, remove senseless regulations, lower taxes, cut entitlements, allow for sound money to compete with fiat currencies, reduce the size of the federal government, allow states to manage more of their own affairs, end the military Keynesianism spending, and deconstruct the police state grid (FEMA, TSA, Homeland Security, Patriot Act, etc, etc…). Instead, they want the government to create jobs, “put people over profits” (whatever that means), provide every possible social service under the sun, end child poverty, build schools, provide houses, food, cheap fuel, and a comfortable pension… all while screaming “Shut Down Wall Street!“, as if the financial heart of the entire nation has nothing at all to do with the funding all of the entitlement programs that they believe the pigs should be providing for us, with our own funds.

Let us start by accepting the basic reality that jobs do NOT create wealth. Were that the case, Ethiopia could solve all their poverty problems by having the government hire everyone to dig holes, and fill them back up again. Pay the people in a national currency, and then everyone will have enough currency so that they can afford to eat, right? No… there is still no food to buy, because everyone is digging holes for a living, and nobody is growing any food. It is actually very simple, you see. If you want to have enough food for everyone, you need to produce enough food for everyone. If you want to have enough gasoline for everyone, you need to drill enough oil for everyone. If you want to have enough housing for everyone, you need to build enough homes for everyone. This stuff really isn’t rocket science, when you take a few steps back.

Wealth comes from P-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-O-N, not from redistribution. You can redistribute all the wealth in the world, but if you’re going to PRODUCE less goods, the standard of living will drop, irregardless of all the redistribution schemes under a clear blue sky. No amount of government promises will change this reality. America’s production sector has all but packed up and moved away. Flip over almost anything in your house for me, and fill in the blank:

“Made in __________”?

Even the vast agriculture industry of the heartland, which is real production, depends on large amounts of imported oil, mostly from Canadian oil-sands. The only products that America produces are little green pieces of paper, and the weapon systems to be used against nations that don’t want to trade their labor and resources in exchange for those little green pieces of paper. It really is one hell of a racket, if you are the guy printing the paper.

You need to ask why there’s no NFL games to stimulate the Ethiopian economy, and why they can’t end their poverty situation by hiring everyone to teach in schools, and to be policemen, or take census surveys, or be prison guards, or doctors, or lawyers, or firemen, or prostitutes, or politicians (ooops, I named the same profession twice in a row there… I could hit the backspace, but why stop now? I’m on a roll…). None of these professions PRODUCE anything. They add NOTHING to the real economy except tax revenue for the government; more redistribution. I’m not saying that we do not need a service sector in the economy, only that it does not produce any REAL wealth. Obviously, society will benefit from a sound education system, but having everyone with a university degree does not, in and of itself, produce any real wealth for society. It is only the increased PRODUCTION that comes from having a better educated society that increases our overall wealth. Smarter people, making better decisions for themselves, to produce more, using less.

Wealth comes from the people who bring abundant cheap energy to market, and those who grow food, and those who produce livestock. Wealth comes from the companies building automobiles, and the mines bringing industrial metals to market. Wealth comes from the infrastructure that we build, and the houses we construct. Wealth comes from PRODUCTION. The Keynesians want you to believe that wealth comes from spending. They want you to believe that wealth comes from destroying a bunch of houses, and the boom in spending that it takes to rebuild them all again. So they champion ideas like ending the recession by spending on all the necessary preparations for a space alien invasion. You can’t generate wealth by printing & spending currency foolishly, or by working to replace something that you already previously owned.

So, the next time that you are listening to a news clip of some protestor on the streets, ask yourself if the person you are listening to is demanding more wealth production, or more wealth redistribution. Time and again, it is absolutely clear that we have been conditioned to demand the latter, even while it adds nothing more to the wealth pool which we all draw from.

We don’t need more benevolent pigs. We need to make ourselves some bacon.

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” –John F. Kennedy

~We Are All in This Mess Together.

The American Way Abandoned

2011-09-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Guest Post
By Dan Beaulieu

Instilled deep within us is the pride of what it means to be an American. That pride is derived from the notion that, in our country, our values and our way of life is superior to those of other countries. Indirectly, that pride pays homage to our founding forefathers for establishing and protecting those values in our Bill of Rights.

Our founding forefather’s vision for America was based not only on their recent emancipation from the British oppression, but also from their collective knowledge of history and mankind’s past mistakes. They understood the evolutionary process of how a society could transform from freedom to totalitarian empire by studying the mistakes of so many failed governments that came before us. With that knowledge, they created a safeguard; the Constitution was written to shield us from the otherwise inevitable fate of tyranny and ultimate self-destruction.

I can’t articulate enough just how privileged America is to have a heritage of such great revolutionary thinkers. These intellects have sculpted America into the greatness that it became and their words still resonate to this day, hundreds of years after their deaths. However, just as most privileged children naturally do, we live our lives simply pursuing our own priorities while taking for granted the great gift of liberty bestowed upon us. We fail to understand the necessity of demanding that our legislators remain diligent in upholding the constitution.

“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” - Thomas Jefferson

It’s the nature of the government, to continually expand and rarely, if at all, retract. These expansions are almost always at the peril of our constitution; our personal liberties. The income tax is a perfect example of this unconstitutional expansion. Although there have been taxes dating back to antiquity, the first U.S. income tax legally declared was in 1861 as a “temporary tax” to pay for the Civil War, which then expired in 1871. The income tax was tried again in 1894 but was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. However, in 1913 they found a way to pass the income tax, by writing a 16th amendment. The income tax was passed into law under President Woodrow Wilson after the 16th Amendment was ratified.

It won support by the masses under the guise that it would only affect 1% of the richest Americans. “Soak the Rich” was the twisted banner the people rallied to. Just a few short years later the tax didn’t just include the rich, it expanded to incorporate the vast majority. This example displays both the relentless persistence and the deceitfulness that we were warned to keep in check.

Oftentimes, when these intrusive laws are sold to us, the lawmaker first designates a purported evil. In the case of the income tax it was “the rich”, drawing them up as unethical thieves who are leeching off the poor anyway. The privileged children buy into the propaganda and rally support to justify battle against an ostensible evil. This evil takes many shapes: race, creed, class and sexual alignment to name a few. We must never give into this, as selling out our fundamental principles only opens the door for totalitarianism.

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” - Thomas Paine

It is my personal belief that the decline of our founder’s moral virtues greatly accelerated in the dawn of the 1900’s. Between bad legislation, central economic planning, wealth redistribution, war propaganda, unconstitutional and undeclared wars, military occupation, the nanny welfare state, the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency along with the conception of hundreds of tax funded bureaucracies. They, in concert, brought on the complete annihilation of our forefather’s vision, and welcomed even worse legislation into existence…

The precipice of desecration came shortly after September 11th 2001, where, for security, we traded our civil liberties and welcomed with open arms The Patriot Act. This horrific legislation represents the worst transgression against our civil liberties that we have ever encountered. A Trojan horse of sorts, just as with the income tax in 1913, we bought into an evil, and sold out our principals to combat it. The impulse to accept such a devastating law rested in the obvious anger, fear and strong desire for vengeance which clouded our prudence to fully deliberate what exactly we were signing on to.

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin, 1759

Since the Patriot Act’s incarnation we are so far removed from our roots and fundamental morals we now employ… Freedom of speech zones, security checkpoints, unwarranted surveillance, torture, indefinite detention, forced inoculations, sneak and peak searches. This act violates everything that our Bill of Rights stands for. We have turned our back on our moral values in the name of “The War on Terror”... in fear.

You might ask yourself what the motives are for such transgressions, and although I believe that answer is centered on control, I know it is extremely multifaceted, simply meaning that there is no specific answer. So I once again draw reflection on Thomas Jefferson’s logic, “It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” Once we failed to be vigilant in the protection of our founder’s great gift, that our “general nature” will slowly consume our freedoms.
One of the worst unconstitutional displays of control is Obama’s new Super Congress (link) which has usurped all power from the congress, thus silencing the voices of the American people. Make no mistake, America is now an oligarchy.

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right and raises at first, a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” - Thomas Paine

Have we ushered in the age of the Orwellian big brother society? When the people of the United States have come to the point of openly applauding the idea of a colossal razor wire barrier (link) that encompasses our borders, I think it’s apparent, that we truly have strayed from American fundamental principles. This whole notion brings frightening images of the berlin wall to mind; images of prison guard towers with razor wire glistening from the searchlights. What a disturbing vision for America, our Army standing at the border as we deign to the level of North and South Korea.

Big Brother is truly watching us all. Since 9/11 our privacy has been drastically diminished. Between the TSA groping’s in airports, subways, football games and even proms we are no longer secure in our persons. With wiretapping and warrantless sneak & peak searches we are no longer secure in our homes. We now see video monitors installed at banks, fast-food restaurants and Wal-Marts with looped videos of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano urging us to spy on our neighbors saying, “If you see something, say something”. This is designed to invoke a constant state of tension and fear of looming terrorist threat. Legislation has come forth which would allow the government to take over the screens on your smart phone for urgent Presidential Addresses. The underlying message of “give up your freedoms and the government will keep you safe” prevails.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Has the age of the Military Industrial Complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about come to fruition? Our politicians bequeath cartels and handouts to colossal conglomerates in trade for career-making campaign funding. These large super companies own financial institutions, energy companies and healthcare establishments amongst a great many other things. They control our data flow through printed and televised media which gives them the opportunity to portray events or legislation in a light that benefits their cause. At the same time the same company will also produce the various tools and weapons of the war. Our government then gives other countries our tax dollars in the form of foreign aid with the condition that they use that aid to buy our (company’s) munitions.

This conflict of interests insures perpetual war, dishonest media coverage and a duopoly of corrupt lobbyist and bureaucrats in our political system. It also has particularly negative effects on our economy and small businesses. Driving our work overseas and underselling the more heavily regulated and taxed small business. This has killed the American entrepreneur and the dream of our forefathers… This is not how America was to be.

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” - Thomas Paine

The revolutionary war wasn’t just a war of muskets, steel and blood; it was a revolution of ideas. Once again, and long overdue, the notion of revolution has finally risen to the mainstream once again. The American people are reeducating themselves on the Constitution, studying economic policy and rethinking our role in the world. Although our movement is swimming against the current of big business, political interest and the mainstream media, we are within striking distance of reinvigorating the American Dream. But we need to choose the correct leader to hold the torch as the path is dark.

“…every generation needs a revolution...” “…at least once every 20 years…” “…a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.” – Thomas Jefferson

I believe right now that there is one amongst us. He’s the only top-tier candidate running for Presidency that offers us real change and a return to constitutional sanity both financially and morally. He has been called the professor, the prophet and the Thomas Jefferson of our time. With him the sun will set on the dark ages of intellect, and bring forth a new day. We must defend the American Pride that is our heritage by upholding the constitution. You can choose to stop buying into the duo-political system that enslaves us and vote for an idea. You can choose to save the American Dream.

“I am an imperfect messenger, but the message is perfect.” – Ron Paul

Some people believe the constitution is out-dated and simply will not work in today’s age, but logic perseveres, our founders were not simple men. America is just a newborn child in comparison to our civilization as a whole, and even in ancient times there were governments. Each fallen Empire became a testament of man’s “general nature” and how it shifts governments into Empires. Studying the triumphs and failures of man kinds past, our founding fathers created the constitution to stop history from repeating itself. We cannot be so vein as to think their logic doesn’t transcend both time and technology, as their logic was forged from 10,000 years of civilization. Their logic is sound.

Regardless of opinion, let’s look at the facts. We’re hated globally for our occupation, we’re $14.7 Trillion in debt, and we’re being spied on and groped by our own government. We’re broke and on the verge of collapse (Link).

History is about to repeat itself one way or another: Collapse or Revolution.

Editors note:

When we fail to uphold justice for all we invariably put our own freedom in jeopardy. Taxing the rich may sound like a good idea, if your not rich. However, why should one be forced to contribute more than another. I would rather level the playing field and remove the loopholes that the rich have over the poor to increase their wealth. Why does a convicted felon lose his second amendment right to bear arms if he has truly paid his debt to society. Does he lose his right to expression or freedom of religion, a fair trial, the right to be secure about his person? So why does he lose his second amendment right? Because he may do something? This land is about the freedom of the individual and the responsibilities that go along with those rights. You have the right to freedom of speech, however, if you yell FIRE in a crowded theater you have misused your right and must have an equal responsibility for that misuse. If we misuse our freedoms then we should be held accountable for that misuse not before because we might. Americans have forgotten what freedom is, true freedom. Many would argue that we must control human behavior for societies sake and make more laws. It is precisely that kind of sentiment that has brought us to a world with so many laws it is impossible to live without breaking them. If we can pass enough laws we shall all be criminals. What makes America different is that it holds the freedom of individuals over all else. - NewAmericaNow

Original Article

EU debt crisis being used to consolidate political control

2011-09-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

"If the eurozone were to split, it is difficult to imagine for the European Union not to split as well. It is difficult to imagine Europe to be as safe as it is now without the European Union." -- Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski (AP)

Guest Post

Eric Blair

Ahh yes. Fear is being laid on thick as another "crisis" is being used in an attempt to consolidate political power. This time-honored tactic looks like it is now getting the final push in Europe as financial leaders and presidents alike call for a United States of Europe to avert collapse.

The message is clear coming from the establishment: form a more centrally-controlled political and economic union or you will suffer.

Unfortunately, that's not a prediction, but a promise.

It's become obvious that this has been the plan all along. "If you have a currency union, you certainly also need more elements of a political and of an economic union. That was clear from the outset when we started this project some 10, 15 years ago," said the Luxembourg finance minister Frieden.

However, many nations have not been so quick to give up their sovereignty and economic independence. Therefore, a good crisis is needed, followed by a coordinated chorus of experts to sway public opinion and policy.

Earlier this month former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, set the stage for solution by calling for a United States of Europe. "The current crisis makes it relentlessly clear that we cannot have a common currency zone without a common fiscal, economic and social policy." He added: "We will have to give up national sovereignty. From the European Commission, we should make a government which would be supervised by the European Parliament. And that means the United States of Europe."

New IMF chief, Christine Lagarde, warned that developed economies have entered a "dangerous new phase" because of a "vicious cycle" of weak economic growth and feeble political leadership. Singing the same tune, Lagarde recommends a collective solution; "Without collective, bold, action, there is a real risk that the major economies slip back instead of moving forward." Incidentally, debt was not mentioned as part of the problem.

George Soros recently claimed that a European treasury is needed to avoid a depression. Soros warned, "Even if a catastrophe can be avoided, one thing is certain: the pressure to reduce deficits will push the euro zone into prolonged recession. This will have incalculable political consequences." Leaving no room for discussion, Soros states, "There is no alternative but to give birth to the missing ingredient: a European treasury with the power to tax and therefore to borrow."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner has not publicly endorsed a policy, but he's demanding more "forceful action." Geithner is also echoing calls for more unity; "What's very damaging is not just seeing the divisiveness in the debate over strategy in Europe but the ongoing conflict between countries and the [European] Central Bank." In other words, individual nations and the European Central Bank must unite the policies.

And the Federal Reserve continues to do its part to prop up the European Central Bank to prevent global contagion while policies are coordinated. As the Washington Post reports, "Worried that a mounting debt crisis in Europe could trip up the global economy, the Federal Reserve opened its vault Thursday to the central banks of other countries in an effort to head off a crippling shortage of dollars." No dollar figure was given for these short-term currency swaps, but after the first tens of trillions, who's counting?

So, the perpetrators of the so-called crisis are speaking in one voice to avoid disaster; Give us more control over taxation and policy and we'll maintain the misery at current levels. Even though the financial crisis was manufactured specifically for this power grab, the threat of collapse remains very real as the banks can turn out the lights anytime they want. If threats fail to bring all dissenting nations into the fold, they'll simply make good on their promise to tighten the debt/austerity screws until the tortured submit to their demands. This obvious cycle must be broken unless the European nations prefer a global dictatorship as described by Nigel Farage during a recent European Parliament debate:

Will there be a revolution to maintain sovereignty, or will the banksters get the political control they have long sought?

Gold is a Good Investment in a Corrupt Matrix, But Self-Sufficiency is Real Wealth

2011-09-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

Guest Post - Julian Rose

The great rush to find a safe haven financial investment has led many supposedly savvy citizens to put their money into gold. This has caused the value of the precious metal to soar, reaching over $1,800 per ounce, giving investors a sense of security that their money is safe and likely to hold its value.

However, in a world undergoing seismic social, economic, and environmental convulsions that are growing by the day, gold may not prove to be the solution to our future security that many are hoping for.

If one stands back from the spinning vortex of speculative financial roulette that preoccupies the world's media and many of her better-off citizens, one will observe that unfortunately gold is inedible (some will say 'fortunately') and is less easy to turn into plough shears than other base metals. A fact that has not gone unnoticed by globally oriented financial investors. These speculators have recently started pouring money into agricultural land holdings as a hedge against higher food prices, set against a guaranteed demand for world staples like wheat, rice, maize and sorghum. Unfortunately the objective of such investment policies are not benign, but rather are symptomatic of the same convulsive profit driven motives that have catalysed the wild economic swings of the past decade.

So, where to turn when turmoil is encompassed by inflated egos, unashamed greed and rabid exploitation?

The answer to this starts by firstly recommending careful consideration of the circumstances that have brought us to this point. Then, a plan of action which offers a longer term commitment to a saner and perhaps 'simpler' model of everyday living – one which shifts decisively away from the present day crony capitalist and consumerist ethos that has brought our planet to the brink of asset stripped ecocide and unchecked human inequality.

In seeking to raise our awareness of the background to this unprecedented upheaval, it soon becomes apparent that there is some other force operating behind the front line villains picked out as being responsible for the rising and falling fortunes of the global economy. Those 'in the news' are often simply puppets of this unseen regime which appears to be intent upon a far-reaching domination of global events for its own ends. The regime appears to be composed of a rather small group of very wealthy individuals and corporations that have established a controlling influence over both national governments and the international financial institutions that form the lynch pin of the global economy. It is a mostly shadowy cartel whose field of influence includes such institutions as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. Its leaders are also strategically placed to control events within the European Union, the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and the Pacific Rim economic zone.

Banking empires, weapons cartels, pharmaceutical giants, oil magnates and food and seed monopolies are well represented within this club, which exercises decisive control over all our lives without us ever really noticing it. At their behest, moral codes and human values are flaunted and dispensed with with reckless abandon, and brutal wars are started in foreign countries with almost complete impunity.

One soon becomes aware that the fascist regime of the last Great War did not end with the Nuremburg trials, but re-established a formidable foothold within Western and North American society – performing this stealthy manoeuvre right under our half-closed sleep-filled eyes.

The fact that this state of play is successfully disguised as 'democracy', is proof of their cleverness and our stupidity.

Recognising this state of affairs for the first time can be a shock, especially if one has pinned their faith in the status quo to see us through these “troubled times”. However, reality it is, and once we have absorbed the truth there can be no turning back. Which brings us once again to the question: Where does one turn when all around is turmoil?

The answer is – firstly we have to turn to ourselves; to recognise that we are complicit in allowing such a dark agenda to have become adopted right in our midst. After all, we live in what citizens of Europe and North America like to refer to as a “modern democracy”. Yet it is we, ourselves, who have repeatedly put our faith in autocratic charlatans who freely exercise the levers of despotic power. It is we who have handed responsibility to run our affairs to those who are masters of spin, deception and propaganda. It is we who have filled the role that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain filled on the cusp of World War II when he held up a scrap of paper and declared it to contain Hitler's promise that Nazi Germany would never invade the United Kingdom. We too, like Chamberlain, have appeased ourselves in submitting our destinies to the diktats of the corporate vandals and the smiling politicians in their pay.

We have freely allowed ourselves to be duped into a state of virtual paralysis by a corporate-backed media whose agenda has nothing to do with “raising awareness” but a great deal to do with keeping us busy with the trappings of superficial consumerism and mindless entertainment. The vast propaganda machine that pumps out the relentless message that we should strive ceaselessly to acquire the means to purchase our pleasures from the glittering shelves of the global market place.

However, these shelves are now beginning to lose their luster, and we are beginning to lose the scales from our eyes. We can begin to see that we confused this 'virtual reality' with actual reality. The world turns out not to be a hypermarket after all, but a sentient being in an advanced stage of severe fever; poisoned, polluted and exploited almost beyond recognition - by us – the trolley pushing, brand seeking puppets of the global corporate elite. That small cartel marching on its robotic way to the grand take over of every last bankable asset on planet earth, as well as all those who, consciously or unconsciously, submit to becoming pawns in its sinister master plan.

But now its time to take back our power and to take firm control of our destinies. We can still make this choice – its not too late. Nobody with the means of survival needs to be a slave – and nobody with some land needs to go without food. We are fast becoming aware that 'money in the bank' is no guarantee of our future security. As dying state and private financial institutions increasingly empower themselves to reach ever deeper into our pockets, we struggle to grasp the fact that much of what they steal goes straight into the pay cheque of the brightest scavengers and the bonuses of already bloated bosses. We barely seem to notice when our revenue payments are utilised to further crank up the deadly imperialist war machine so it can bludgeon its way through yet more oil and mineral rich countries in order to fulfill insatiable material addictions and barely disguised neo-colonial ambitions.

However, behind all events is a law of karma which states “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” And just as the despotic forces of imperialism appear to be wresting decisive control over mankind, strong voices of reason and truth are rising to challenge its dominion. Among the genocidal acts of nefarious despots, we are witnessing the dawning of fresh visions of another way mankind can look after itself and this sentient planet upon which we all reside.

In fact we have arrived at something of a watershed; one where it will no longer be possible to sit on the fence and not commit to a resolution of this age old conflict, one way or another.

Thus, those now fretting about how and where to securely invest their financial savings, just might find that cosmic Lila has brought them to an auspicious karmic fork in the road of life. Pointing to the left – a signpost saying “Financial Security” and to the right a sign saying “Voluntary Simplicity.”

Those whose priority is to preserve their wealth will take the left fork and they will put their money into gold. Those who seek to deepen their awareness and move beyond material dependency will choose the right fork. Those who turn left may find themselves still in familiar territory with no lack of advisers on how to put up barriers against uncertainty and change. However this will merely ensure an extended contract with the dark ways of the old regime. For those who turn right will be a challenge of a very different nature: how to shift away from old material dependencies and towards a simpler and more harmonious relationship with the non material values of existence; the universal energies that are held back by materialistic indulgence. Those who take this path may wish to consider investing whatever funds they possess (individually or collectively) in some fertile land capable of producing good quality, ecological food, fuel and fibre for their daily needs. Thus taking control of their destinies and ultimately achieving independence from the clawing centralised control system which feeds upon the compliant serfdom of its participants.

The more we can free ourselves from this unholy contract, the less power it will have over us and our World, and the more realised we will become in the fulfilment of our deeper needs and creative aspirations. Once the collapsing institutions of the status quo have dragged all that has value into the cauldron of its hastening demise – where we find our next meal, how we generate our energy and where we acquire pure water – will become of paramount importance. The skills of the land will be at a premium, whereas the skills of money making will become a useless impediment.

We can start right now. We can take our money out of the mainstream banks which fund the oppressive institutions of this planet, and put it instead into ethical investment institutions, local ecological food and farming ventures, local human scale renewable energy initiatives and/or the thousands of localised land-based and artisan ventures now springing up all over the planet. We can, right now, begin to end years of energy sapping compromise and finally put our money where our hearts are. Because when the corporate gods are toppled and the lights go out, we will need to be prepared.

This preparation process can catalyse a new and positive interaction at the community level. One where we start purchasing the basic necessities of life from those who are already operating humane, responsible and environmentally benign enterprises; and not those who are exploiting the last seams of planetary wealth for their personal profit and power.

So to those who think they will find their salvation in precious metals, I would countenance them to think again. One cannot eat gold.

Julian is a British pioneer organic farmer, writer and activist. He is currently President of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside which is leading the fight against GMO in Poland. He is author of “Changing Course for Life – Local Solutions to Global Problems”

http://www.changingcourseforlife.info

The Official 9/11 Fairy Tale

2011-09-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this…

Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah…

Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes…

And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defense system the slip…

Unphased by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely…

Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two… and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically – through their own mass – at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.

Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground… only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI…

…Meanwhile down in Washington…

Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing…

Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little…

Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world’s most heavily defended building…

…all without a single shot being fired…. or ruining the nicely mowed lawn… and all at a speed just too fast to capture on video…

…Later, in the skies above Pennsylvania…

So desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that otherwise would not be possible until several years later…

And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, it crashes into a Shankesville field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants… except for the standard issue Muslim terrorists bandana…

…Further south in Florida…

President Bush, our brave Commander-in-Chief continues to read “My Pet Goat” [with] a class full of primary school children… shrugging off the obvious possibility that his life could be in imminent danger…

…In New York…

World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously…

While back in Washington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz shake their heads in disbelief at their own luck in getting the ‘New Pearl Harbor’ catalyzing event they so desired to pursue their agenda of world domination…

And finally, not to be disturbed too much by reports of their own deaths, at least seven of our nineteen suicide hijackers turn up alive and kicking in mainstream media reports…

It is very sad that most Americans believe this account without question. The tasks of memorizing and regurgitating information in public schools has actually produced a population that does not question and obeys.

One Man's Terrorist is Another Man's Freedom Fighter

2011-09-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

What would drive someone to risk his life, maybe even intentionally give up his life, in order to blow something up and kill a bunch of people? It's an intellectual cop-out to just declare that "evil" is to blame, and to pretend that we don't need to understand any more than that.

As a mental exercise, consider the question of what it would take to make you resort to violence. Presumably, you wouldn't just kill people for fun, or because you're in a bad mood. There would have to be something happening that was so drastically wrong and unjust (from your point of view), and that nothing else would stop it, that you would decide that violence was your only option. Such angry desperation is, in most cases, caused by "government" action. This doesn't take much theorizing, since many terrorists openly advertise the fact that their actions are in response to some "government" military action or other "policy" that the terrorist sees as a horrible injustice. In other words, terrorism is almost always a byproduct of "government." When the proverbial "little guy" is being continually victimized by a huge, powerful, organized gang of thugs (e.g., "government"), that's when he begins to think that the only power he has left is the power to do harm.

Unfortunately, most Americans don't recognize that their own nationalistic, militaristic pack mentality is identical to the perspective of the "terrorists" that Americans love to hate. Consider "9/11," which the U.S. tyrants will be reminding you about quite loudly for the next week or so. Many Americans perceived the events of 9/11 as an abomination so horrible that the only acceptable response was bloody violence. The suffering and deaths of all those innocents was so heinous that the perpetrators (or those imagined to be the perpetrators) had to be destroyed by any means necessary! So far, that's understandable. But then comes the usual follow-up: "...and any country harboring those responsible would deserve the vengeance and wrath of our righteous war machine!"

Trouble is, that sums up the mentality of every terrorist in the world. Ironically, what drives people to that mentality is almost always someone else who has the same mentality. The classic terrorist wants to use violence and intimidation to coerce a foreign power into changing its evil ways. That's also exactly what the United States military does. Am I calling the U.S. military a bunch of terrorists?

Damn right I am!

The state mercenaries of this regime have the same short-sighted, irresponsible perspective as the state mercenaries of every other: "We are the good guys, our enemy is evil, our fight is righteous, and any collateral damage we cause is unfortunate, but necessary, and is ultimately acceptable because of our noble goal!" Sound familiar? That is the mentality of every "government" military, and every other terrorist organization in the world.

Not only does "government" cause terrorism; "government" is terrorism. In fact, in defining the term "terrorism," the only way the U.S. parasite class could make the definition not apply to itself was to put the term "subnational" in the definition. In other words, the United States tyrants define "terrorism" to mean a group that is not a "government," but that nonetheless has the gall to do what every "government" in the world does on a daily basis: using threats and violence to serve a political end.

The only way to break the cycle of violence is for people to grow up, and adopt a coherent, principled moral code that does not give exceptions based on statist mythology. For example, stealing is bad. If it's called "taxation," it's still bad. Murder is bad. If it's called "national defense," it's still bad. And so on. If people would give up the most dangerous superstition--the notion that a magical thing called "authority" can make bad things into good things--most of the world's problems. and almost all of the world's terrorists, would vanish.

Whenever someone claims to be doing something for "the nation," or for "the common good," or for "society," it usually means they want an exemption from morality; they want to be allowed to do bad things, in the name of some greater good. That's what every cop, every soldier, and every other terrorist does, under the guise of "national defense" and "law enforcement": using immoral violence "in the name of" something else, in the hopes that as a result, he won't be held personally responsible for his own actions.

On an individual basis, most people understand and accept that threatening people and using violence is justified only when used defensively. It's not okay to use force to steal someone's stuff. It is okay to use force to stop someone from stealing your stuff. It's not okay to violently assault someone. It is okay to use violence to stop someone from assaulting you. Yes, there can be occasional gray areas, but the general idea of the non-aggression principle is pretty simple.

So no, killing innocent people, because the regime they live under does bad things, is not okay. It's not okay if you're a middle eastern terrorist, or if you're a U.S. soldier. On the other hand, using violence to try to stop aggressors is justified, whether the aggressors are private or "government." (In most cases, trying to forcibly resist thugs who imagine themselves to be representing "authority" tends to be very hazardous and counter-productive, but that doesn't mean it isn't morally justified.)

The United States government, as it gets ever more oppressive and vicious, is going to force more and more people into positions where they see violent retribution as their only recourse. Any injustice can be made "legal," and those who resist "legal" injustice are always branded as "criminals." If they resist forcefully, they are also dubbed "terrorists." As long as the unthinking order-obeyors do as they're told, and violently impose the will of their masters upon the rest of us, there will be no chance of a peaceful resolution to the growing police state. I know of only two things that can make an agent of "authority" not obey an immoral order: 1) a conscience; 2) a bullet. And, with some notable exceptions (such as IVAW and Oathkeepers), I haven't seen much evidence of cops or soldiers having consciences.

(I still urge anyone who knows someone in the military or in "law enforcement," or who knows someone thinking of joining, to give him a copy of my book, "The Most Dangerous Superstition." You might just be saving his life.)

Given the current state of things, I view some sort of violent conflict between the parasitic ruling class and their human livestock as inevitable. That being the case, as the megalomaniacs in power make a dash toward totalitarianism, I hope the victims of state aggression retain the moral integrity to target only the actual aggressors, and don't adopt the viewpoint of terrorists and "governments" the world over: that it's okay to target innocents, in order to serve some supposedly righteous larger goal. Achieving a society without aggression is the larger goal; the largest goal of all, in fact. So when the time comes, aim carefully.

Original Article

Preppers Shall Inherit the Earth

2011-08-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

When some of us look at our current world situation, we see a catastrophic human crisis emerging within view. If you are not seeing what is emerging, YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.

There are several key issues that are coming together to ensure a Darwinian culling of the human species and that my friends is no exaggeration.

Currently, we as a global species, are relying on dwindling global resources coming from distant places for our day to day survival and many are completely unaware of how fragile that supply chain is. We take for granted how the very essentials of daily life magically appear in our local stores for our thoughtless consumption. How our food is grown or raised, how it makes it's journey from the farm to the table, how clean water gets into our homes and how cheap reliable energy powers our everyday lives without a thought.

What of our ability to purchase those goods from others? Our everyday life is consumed with the activity of making money. Fore it is, we are told, with money that we can acquire what we need for our survival and amusement. Our global system has made it so, without money, without this paper, that buys less and less with every ticking second, that we find ourselves in the "civilized world" unable to survive without it for long.

It has become very clear, to those that are paying attention, that the path humanity is on, is headed for a cliff. Human being naturally have an inclination to avoid the unpleasant. When most people face something unpleasant in their lives, like a bad relationship or a situation that no longer serves them, they most often put off, ignore or distract the mind with behaviors or mind altering substances hoping that the situation shall somehow right itself without facing difficult choices. Of course, this type of denial is psychologically harmful, and the reason for most depression, as we live our lives ignoring rather than facing difficulties in our personal lives with meaningful corrections that will lead to a more satisfying situation.

Our society is but a mere reflection of our collective inclinations. We, as a species, have a very serious situations in our world that we need to face but the collective response is increasingly that of denial, myopia, apathy and our choice to ignore the perils that await our near future in the hopes that they too may find magical solutions that do not exist. Our politicians obsessed at kicking the can till the next election fail to serve us because we, as people of our respective nations, fail to serve ourselves in societies where ignorance is bliss.

What I am about to say is not fear mongering, but a call to all to take a long hard look at the danger that approaches so that we can act with reason and not react with blind fear. If we as people are fully aware of the risks we can act proactively and mitigate those risks with intelligent thought and appropriate actions.

That being said, I would like you to consider the following issues:

The global financial system, which is based on every increasing debt, is on the verge of total collapse. The Dollar and all the currencies around the world are quickly losing their value and thus what we are able to buy with the same amount of currency becomes less and less.

It is very likely in the near future that the Dollar will become worthless as a means of exchange in the global market place.

Our leaders will fix this, won't they? Why, they have a solution, don't they? Just raise the debt ceiling, right?

Who will lend to us, should we decide to take on more debt? In order to borrow there must be a lender. Who might that be? Everyone is loaded with debt? All the currencies are losing value. Why should anyone hold anything that buys less or becomes worthless the longer you hold it?

What happens when countries who sell us things stop taking dollars or the items they sell become prohibitively expensive?

How will we import the things we need when others decide not to sell us these things or we can no longer afford them?

Well we will bring it in ourselves, won't we?

How?

We need energy in the form of fuel to bring items from afar. The farther the item the higher the energy costs to acquire them. But wait, we don't have enough natural energy supplies to sustain the system because we must import it at a cost that will be getting greater. Yes folks, what happens now?

It is quite clear that we have a dilemma rapidly developing in our world.

Things will magically stop appearing at the local stores. Power and goods will become increasingly expensive and unattainable. Unemployment will continue to increase to the point were government will not have the resources to manage or help.

So what are we to do?

There is a growing movement of people who are taking proactive steps to control their destiny. These people, dubbed "Preppers", are people from all walks of life, all political persuasions, all ethnicities and races who have come to the conclusion that danger is in fact a likely reality in the near future. These people , by no means, have all the answers to the many problems that face us or a crystal ball to see into the future, but they are quite sure they should not leave their well being and the well being of their families in the hand of their less than competent leaders. They have seen the writing on the wall and prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

These people are storing food and water for themselves and their families in case of some unforeseen event that may interrupt their supply of life's necessities. These people are stocking up in items that may help them in a world unlike the world we have today. The items they store are not items which need disposable parts but items that have served their ancestors in a time before life's current conveniences. Some are even planning beyond food storage as the length of such a crisis may be far longer than their supplies will last. Many who can, are migrating to places were they will be able to sustain themselves with livestock and planted harvests. These people are re educating themselves with information in the art of self sufficiency that has been lost to this generation. They are buying weapons to defend themselves from the lawlessness that would ensue in the absence of law enforcement.

People who can not leave their urban environments are growing rooftop gardens and keeping rabbits and chickens in an attempt to offer some renewable source of nutrition in addition to their food sources. Goats have become more common in the suburbs as a reliable alternative to dairy sources. People are becoming proactive because unconventional times require unconventional solutions. These people are becoming less and less fringe and more and more mainstream. The people are becoming more and more aware that our leaders have no such solution and the world is quickly headed to a global disaster of epoch proportions.

When the dust settles, those people called Preppers, shall inherit the earth.

Obama Reminds Me of The Cat

2011-08-24T10:44:00.001-07:00

When I saw this picture of Obama

I immediately thought of the similarities with this one

God help this country and the world from these lunatics that claim to represent us.

Global Architects Anticipated Violent Response to Globalization

2011-08-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

The political outlook of Oslo terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik was revealed in his 1,500 page manifesto. Breivik ranted about multiculturalism and expressed anti-islamic views in light of a growing immigrant population in Norway. While this attack displays hallmarks of a staged event, it opens up a wider picture of advancing globalization and the global architects anticipation of true violent resistance.

"further progress will require greater American sacrifices"

Globalization and trends to world governance have become regular headlines throughout the world. As these trends continue, resistance to losses of sovereignty and globalization are increasing. This is coming as little surprise to the social planners who have foreseen the rise of world government, and actively participated in its formation.

Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted in his book, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, that the formation of the world system would require “sacrifices” on part of Americans that will harm America’s favorable position in the world. Brzezinski states,

“The nation-state is gradually yielding its sovereignty… In the economic-technological field, some international cooperation has already been achieved, but further progress will require greater American sacrifices. More intensive efforts to shape a new world monetary structure will have to be undertaken, with some consequent risk to the present relatively favorable American position.”

As America stands on the brink of default, the United States position in the world power structure is falling dramatically. $16 trillion has been looted from the country to secretly bail out foreign banks.

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense stated in 2007 that “…growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite.”

James P. Muldoon, Jr., Senior Fellow of the Center for Global Change and Governance at Rutgers University, writes in The Architecture of Global Governance that the transition to the international system will emerge out of ‘chaos’,

“For some, the disarray of traditional relationships in international affairs indicates a dangerous deterioration of the international order and portends collapse of the system into chaos or anarchy… an inevitable consequence of the transformation of the international system into a global system. In some respects, both are right. The international order has indeed deteriorated into ‘disorder’ in large measure, but there is growing evidence that a global system is emerging out of this ‘chaos.’”

What better way to frame a debate than to demonize your opponent?

This is exactly what happened in Canada in 2007 when protesters rallying against the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North Amerca (SPP) were infiltrated by disguised policemen. They began throwing rocks at their fellow cops in an attempt to frame the peaceful crowd. The Quebec provincial police later admitted to infiltrating the group.

We cannot fall into the trap of agent provocateurs, for the act of violent resistance will only empower this system further. Peaceful action and a successful information warfare campaign on part of the alternative media are our best tools.

Original Article

The Crossroads of History are Upon us

2011-08-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

An era of “Absolute totalitarian global control,” an “Age of Transitions”; The mysterious “Singularity.” It has been written that “We can no more imagine the political order of this new world than a group of chimpanzees in the forest can comprehend what goes on among humans in a nearby village.” We have approached the crossroads of history. The choices that we make now – on every level of society – will shape the road that we choose to embark upon.

A Scientific Dictatorship is operating under national security, outside of public scrutiny. Technocrats with access to undisclosed future technology and classified intelligence are making decisions on public policy without debate. The “two souls” of the world, one that fully embraces the untrammeled expansion of technology, and the other that holds on to “outmoded” ideas of faith and tradition are at odds. Fred Charles Ikle, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy under President Reagan, outlines this divide in his book Annihilation from Within.

“Unabomber” Ted Kacynski’s attacks are a vivid example of the societal chasm that Ikle is speaking of. Just today “anti-tech extremists” opposed to nanotechnology sent letter bombs to academics in Mexico. According to Mexico State Attorney General Alfredo Castillo, “The ITS is a movement that, in accordance with its ideals, opposes any development of neo- or nanotechnology anywhere in the world, and they are linked to attacks in several different countries of Europe, including Spain and France.”

C. Dale Walton, writing in Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century, states that countries which hold on to ethical systems which hold back development of revolutionary technologies will lose strategic ground.

Globalization is expanding in lock step with the technological revolution, yet another issue sparking opposition from around the world. In truth, the elites constructing this global system have anticipated violent resistance, and have actively enabled – and staged – such violence. Out of chaos emerges greater control. In the words of H. G. Wells, writing in his 1940 book The New World Order,

“…when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people … will hate the new world order, be rendered unhappy by the frustration of their passions and ambitions through its advent and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents…”

The recent Norway terror attacks were held up by the media as an example of an extremist response to increasing immigration. The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the massive unrest in the U.K., admitted that globalization has played a key role in creating the circumstances leading up to the present riots. The article also admits that the artificial booms in housing were created as a smokescreen for bankers to engage in massive looting, giving a sense of false prosperity to the new middle class. As reported,

“The middle classes only tolerated this,” Albert Edwards of Societe Generale notes, “because central bankers created housing booms to keep the impoverished middle classes borrowing and spending to give them the illusion of prosperity and stop them from revolting.”
The crossroads are indeed upon us. Every indicator from all branches of society are pointing to more unrest in response to a variety of issues that will touch the lives of everyone on the planet. As violent acts are committed or staged by the establishment, more people will demand greater and greater government control in the name of protection from the revolutionaries.

Original Article

The U.S. Military's Plan for London-Like Riots

2011-08-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

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With British Prime Minister David Cameron authorizing the use of rubber bullets and water canons in wake of the turbulent London riots spreading through Britain, questions have been raised about how authorities in the U.S. would respond to a similar domestic disturbance threatening the nation’s stability. According to National Journal‘s White House correspondent Marc Ambinder the U.S. already has a game plan in place. “If what happened in London ever happened in the US, the military has plans — CONPLAN 3501 and 3502 — to suppress the ‘insurrection,’ hetweeted. The mysterious reference to a numbered military plan generated a flurry of interest on Twitter as NPR host Michele Norris shot back:”I want to know more about the military’s plan to suppress any potential ‘insurrection.’– CONPLAN 3501 and 3502????”

Interestingly, the CONPLAN (which stands for an “operation plan in concept format” at the Pentagon) Ambinder referenced is a popular subject among conspiracy theorists and critics of martial law. According to the public policy organization GlobalSecurity.org, CONPLAN 3502 is the U.S. military’s plan for assisting state and local authorities in the event of a riot or major civil disturbance: “Tasks performed by military forces may include joint patrolling with law enforcement officers; securing key buildings, memorials, intersections and bridges; and acting as a quick reaction force.”

It derives its constitutional backing from Article I, Section 8 stating that “Congress shall have power… to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions” and is rumored to have been activated during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, during the 1999 Seattle WTO riots and during the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. But, according to Nate Jones at the National Security Archive, “because historic Garden Plot activity was classified and current activity likely remains so, it is difficult to discern exactly how many times Garden Plot was evoked.” What jarred Jones upon looking at internal military documents, were the “indicators of potential violence,” which were especially racially oriented:

According to Global Security, the federal government’s power to control civil disturbances was increased in 1970. Here’s an outline of what that involved:

375,000 National Guardsmen and 14,000 Army Reservists had been trained in riot control as the year closed. The Army National Guard conducted, at the expense of regular training, sixteen hours of refresher civil disturbance training. Some states also carried out civil disturbance command post exercises in conjunction with local and state civil authorities. The Army Reserve had three infantry brigades which were part of the federal military contingency force for the control of civil disturbances. These units also conducted sixteen hours of refresher civil disturbance training at the expense of primary training. This additional responsibility of the Reserve Components called for their immediate availability in times of natural disasters, civil disturbances, and other emergencies.

Update: Ambinder also points to an Army slideshow detailing more about CONPLAN 3501. One of the slides has a breakdown of what army officers are in charge of which areas of the country. Click the link to see the whole slideshow.

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Source: Atlantic

Warning Against Empire

2011-08-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State in the administration of President James Monroe, offered a toast to his native America on July 4, 1821. The Republic was yet young, just 45 years after declaring its independence of Great Britain. The glories of its destiny were mainly to come. But the glories foreseen by Adams, the son of America’s second President and destined to be its sixth, were not triumphs of conquest, but rather the majesty of a nation leading truly by the force of example instead of the example of force.
For America, said Adams, with the same voice by which it spoke itself into existence, similarly held forth to other lands the “hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice and of equal rights. She has in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining our own.”

Alas, respecting the independence of other nations has not been the hallmark of American foreign policy in the post-World War II era, and even less so in the 20 years since the demise of the Soviet Union. As for our own independence, we have been surrendering it, piece by piece, to the United Nations, to the World Bank, to the International Monetary Fund, and to myriad other international organizations we have created to perpetuate our dependence on foreign rulers, foreign alliances, and foreign capital to keep our nation going. We have all but made of America a debtors’ prison, enslaving future generations with a level of debt that will force them to choose between lives of crushing poverty or national bankruptcy and a stain on the honor of the United States of America that will last for decades, perhaps centuries, possibly forever. Were they honest, the “progressives” in American political life would admit they regard national sovereignty as an antiquated concept. Their allegiance is to their capital, and the capital to which they pledge allegiance is not Washington, D.C., or any of our state capitals, but the capital of accumulated wealth that will become greater as the economies of nations go under. There will, in the end, be one flag, one nation, one currency. And one set of rulers over all. This was not the kind of republic John Quincy Adams saluted on July 4, 1821.

Nor would Adams be taken in by the claims of the United States as world liberator, set out upon the lands and seas of the world to dethrone tyrants, capture flags, and set the captives free. “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be,” Adams said. Prayers are not to be dismissed nor neglected in this age of “enlightenment.” More things are wrought by prayer, Tennyson said, than the world has dreamed of.

“But,” Adams continued in tribute to his blessed America, “she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” In other words, America has not as her mission to bring “regime change” to lands other than her own — not even in lands where the people are captive to unspeakable tyrants. For America, said Adams, “is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice and benignant sympathy of her example.” Long before Americans were compelled to don blue helmets and sent to fight under the banner of the United Nations, the America of John Quincy Adams knew that “by once enlisting under banners other than her own, were they even banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.” Sound familiar?

How often in the past half-century has America, fighting under standards other than her own, been drawn into foreign wars “beyond the power of extrication,” as Adams warned? “The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force,” Adams foresaw. “She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.”

The vision John Quincy Adams articulated in 1821 is still the right road map for America. Her “glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield; but the motto upon her shield is Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”

The siren song beckons America toward the broad road that leads to the graveyard of empires. We would do well to heed voices of the past that urge us to follow the paths of our forebears. Concerning the lure of empire, there is a simple and faithful warning:

Don’t go there!

Original article

THIS COUNTRY DEFAULTED LONG AGO

2011-07-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

“There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” – Ludwig von Mises

The final collapse of our credit expansion boom approaches. We have a choice over the next week. We could voluntarily abandon further credit expansion by voting for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution or we can raise the debt ceiling, pretend to cut spending far in the future, and allow our currency system to experience a catastrophic final collapse.

We’ll take what’s behind door #2 Johnny. The vested interests in Washington DC and Wall Street only care about power and wealth. They will never abandon credit expansion. It’s their drug. They must have it. They are addicted to it. They will keep injecting it into our system until they overdose America.

The mainstream media acts as if not raising the debt ceiling by next Tuesday will result in America defaulting. This is a crock. America chose to proceed on a path to default decades ago. We are just finally reaching our destination. Below are the choices we made as a people and a country to default on our obligations and eventually destroy our country:

The enactment of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913 allowing the government to impose a tax on your income, thereby opening Pandora’s Box to a 60,000 page tax code and allowing politicians to sell their votes to the highest bidder.

The signing into law of the Federal Reserve Act by Woodrow Wilson in 1913, transferring control of our currency system to Wall Street banks. The man made inflation created by the Federal Reserve has reduced the purchasing power of the USD by 97% since 1913 and has allowed politicians to promise $100 trillion of benefits to Americans, that can never be delivered.

The Social Security Act signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935, supposedly to help widows and orphans, morphed into a giant ponzi scheme used by politicians to make Americans think it was a retirement plan and the money was in a lockbox. The scam continues, but ponzi schemes always collapse.

Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as a government agency and Freddie Mac was created in 1970 as a quasi-government agency. By promoting home ownership and subsidizing loans to people who should have never gotten loans these agencies caused hundreds of billions in mal-investment. As tools of politicians, they were used to push social agendas. The result will be in excess of $300 billion in losses to the American taxpayer.

The Korean War set a precedent where the President did not need to seek Congress to declare war as required under the Constitution. This has allowed the President the freedom to fight undeclared wars around the world for decades, while spending trillions, with no approval from Congress.

LBJ’s Great Society programs such as Medicare and Medicaid were sold to Americans as cost saving programs that would improve healthcare for all Americans. We now spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare and these two programs have an unfunded liability of almost $100 trillion.

Nixon closing the gold window in 1971 removed all restraint on the Federal Reserve, banks and politicians. With a fiat currency backed by nothing but promises, it was only a matter of time before the greed and corruption of bankers and politicians overcame any self imposed fiscal responsibility. The result has been the National Debt going from $400 billion in 1971 to $14.4 trillion today, a 3,600% increase in 40 years. Meanwhile, GDP only increased 1,350% over this same time frame.

The embrace of consumer debt by the Baby Boom generation beginning in 1980 created an atmosphere of living for today and not worrying about the future. This attitude has left 50% of all the households in the country with a net worth of $70,000 or below.

The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act in 1999 unleashed the hounds of hell upon America, as the soulless blood sucking vampires on Wall Street proceeded to rape and pillage the American economy with their financial derivatives of mass destruction and marketing of debt to the clueless masses. The housing bust and impoverishment of the middle class can be laid at the feet of these evil greedy bastards.

Bush’s unpaid for wars of choice, his reckless tax cuts, and his foolish expansion of a bankrupt Medicare program in the midst of two wars turbo charged the country on its path to default.

By bailing out Wall Street on the backs of the middle class in 2008/2009, the politicians in this country showed their hand. They will protect their fellow power brokers and contributors and throw the American people under the bus. Wall Street controls Congress.

The Keynesian schemes rolled out by Obama and his minions have just added trillions of debt while depressing the economic system and doing nothing to help the average person. The Fed created inflation has inflamed revolution through out the world and further impoverished the middle class who need to eat and fill up their cars.

In the midst of a Depression Obama chose to create a brand new healthcare bureaucracy, add 30 million people into the government controlled system, and commit the US taxpayer to trillions of future healthcare costs.

As you can see, next Tuesday means nothing. The debt ceiling means nothing. We chose to default as a nation many years ago. The destination was certain, only the timing was in question. Time to step on the gas.

“Credit expansion is not a nostrum to make people happy. The boom it engenders must inevitably lead to a debacle and unhappiness.” – Ludwig von Mises

Original Article

7 Essential Rules of Tyranny

2011-07-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

By Brandon Smith

As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately, such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day. For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…

At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness in the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on corrupt establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect the plight of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent indirect threats to their personal safety. They must abandon all responsibility for their destinies, and lose all respect for their own humanity. They must, indeed, become domesticated and mindless herd animals without regard for anything except their fleeting momentary desires for entertainment and short term survival. For a lumbering bloodthirsty behemoth to actually sneak up on you, you have to be pretty damnably oblivious.

The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process of centralization. Once dishonest governments accomplish an atmosphere of inaction and condition a sense of frailty within the citizenry, the sky is truly the limit. However, a murderous power-monger’s day is never quite done. In my recent article ‘The Essential Rules of Liberty’ we explored the fundamentally unassailable actions and mental preparations required to ensure the continuance of a free society. In this article, let’s examine the frequently wielded tools of tyrants in their invariably insane quests for total control…

Rule #1: Keep Them Afraid

People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant’s power comes purely from the application of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful, and easily overthrown. Brute strength is calculable. It can be analyzed, and thus, eventually confronted and defeated. Thriving tyrants instead utilize not just harm, but the imminent THREAT of harm. They instill apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences for standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every corner, whether it’s actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal that they forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have been sufficiently culled.

In other cases, our fear is evoked and directed towards engineered enemies. Another race, another religion, another political ideology, a “hidden” and ominous villain created out of thin air. Autocrats assert that we “need them” in order to remain safe and secure from these illusory monsters bent on our destruction. As always, this development is followed by the claim that all steps taken, even those that dissolve our freedoms, are “for the greater good”. Frightened people tend to shirk their sense of independence and run towards the comfort of the collective, even if that collective is built on immoral and unconscionable foundations. Once a society takes on a hive-mind mentality almost any evil can be rationalized, and any injustice against the individual is simply overlooked for the sake of the group.

Rule #2: Keep Them Isolated

In the past, elitist governments would often legislate and enforce severe penalties for public gatherings, because defusing the ability of the citizenry to organize or to communicate was paramount to control. In our technological era, such isolation is still used, but in far more advanced forms. The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from connecting with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out organized forms of activism.

Through co-option, modern day tyrants can direct and manipulate opposition movements. By creating and administrating groups which oppose each other, elites can then micromanage all aspects of a nation on the verge of revolution. These “false paradigms” give us the illusion of proactive organization, and the false hope of changing the system, while at the same time preventing us from seeking understanding in one another. All our energies are then muted and dispersed into meaningless battles over “left and right”, or “Democrat versus Republican”, for example. Only movements that cast aside such empty labels and concern themselves with the ultimate truth of their country, regardless of what that truth might reveal, are able to enact real solutions to the disasters wrought by tyranny.

In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are enforced. Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required. Checkpoints are instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust each other or to disintegrate entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support. People who work together and organize of their own volition are unpredictable, and therefore, a potential risk to the state.

Rule #3: Keep Them Desperate

You’ll find in nearly every instance of cultural descent into autocracy, the offending government gained favor after the onset of economic collapse. Make the necessities of root survival an uncertainty, and people without knowledge of self sustainability and without solid core principles will gladly hand over their freedom, even for mere scraps from the tables of the same men who unleashed famine upon them. Financial calamities are not dangerous because of the poverty they leave in their wake; they are dangerous because of the doors to malevolence that they leave open.

Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime leads to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance of anything resembling a solution, even despotism.

Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while demanding liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain a proscribed level of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation keeps the masses thoroughly distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously chaining them to the idea that their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end them.

Rule #4: Send Out The Jackboots

This is the main symptom often associated with totalitarianism. So much so that our preconceived notions of what a fascist government looks like prevent us from seeing other forms of tyranny right under our noses. Some Americans believe that if the jackbooted thugs are not knocking on every door, then we MUST still live in a free country. Obviously, this is a rather naïve position. Admittedly, though, goon squads and secret police do eventually become prominent in every failed nation, usually while the public is mesmerized by visions of war, depression, hyperinflation, terrorism, etc.

When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed. The guidelines that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority emerges; an arrogant exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of the public. Finally, police no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards out to keep us subdued and docile.

As tyranny grows, this behavior is encouraged. Good men are filtered out of the system, and small (minded and hearted) men are promoted.

At its pinnacle, a police state will hide the identities of most of its agents and officers, behind masks or behind red tape, because their crimes in the name of the state become so numerous and so sadistic that personal vengeance on the part of their victims will become a daily concern.

Rule #5: Blame Everything On The Truth Seekers

Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their ascent to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed, and instigating even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person or group that dares to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the minds of the masses.

All disasters, all violent crimes, all the ills of the world, are hoisted upon the shoulders of activist groups and political rivals. They are falsely associated with fringe elements already disliked by society (racists, terrorists, etc). A bogus consensus is created through puppet media in an attempt to make the public believe that “everyone else” must have the same exact views, and those who express contrary positions must be “crazy”, or “extremist”. Events are even engineered by the corrupt system and pinned on those demanding transparency and liberty. The goal is to drive anti-totalitarian organizations into self censorship. That is to say, instead of silencing them directly, the state causes activists to silence themselves.

Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an elusive boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention, and their anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the truth, such governments are able to kill two birds with one stone.

Rule #6: Encourage Citizen Spies

Ultimately, the life of a totalitarian government is not prolonged by the government itself, but by the very people it subjugates. Citizen spies are the glue of any police state, and our propensity for sticking our noses into other peoples business is highly valued by Big Brother bureaucracies around the globe.

There are a number of reasons why people participate in this repulsive activity. Some are addicted to the feeling of being a part of the collective, and “service” to this collective, sadly, is the only way they are able to give their pathetic lives meaning. Some are vindictive, cold, and soulless, and actually get enjoyment from ruining others. And still, like elites, some long for power, even petty power, and are willing to do anything to fulfill their vile need to dictate the destinies of perfect strangers.

Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery. Citizen spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons of their communities. People who lean towards citizen spying are often outwardly and inwardly unimpressive; physically and mentally inept. For the average moral and emotional weakling with persistent feelings of inadequacy, the allure of finally being given fifteen minutes of fame and a hero’s status (even if that status is based on a lie) is simply too much to resist. They begin to see “extremists” and “terrorists” everywhere. Soon, people afraid of open ears everywhere start to watch what they say at the supermarket, in their own backyards, or even to family members. Free speech is effectively neutralized.

Rule #7: Make Them Accept The Unacceptable

In the end, it is not enough for a government fueled by the putrid sludge of iniquity to lord over us. At some point, it must also influence us to forsake our most valued principles. Tyrannies are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think. If they can mold our very morality, they can exist unopposed indefinitely. Of course, the elements of conscience are inborn, and not subject to environmental duress as long as a man is self aware. However, conscience can be manipulated if a person has no sense of identity, and has never put in the effort to explore his own strengths and failings. There are many people like this in America today.

Lies become “necessary” in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for “peace”. Torture becomes an ugly but “useful” method for gleaning important information. Police brutality is sold as a “natural reaction” to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those labeled as “terrorists”. Assassination is justified as a means for “saving lives”. Genocide is done discretely, but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don’t discuss it.

All tyrannical systems depend on the apathy and moral relativism of the inhabitants within their borders. Without the cooperation of the public, these systems cannot function. The real question is, how many of the above steps will be taken before we finally refuse to conform? At what point will each man and woman decide to break free from the dark path blazed before us and take measures to ensure their independence? Who will have the courage to develop their own communities, their own alternative economies, their own organizations for mutual defense outside of establishment constructs, and who will break under the pressure to bow like cowards? How many will hold the line, and how many will flee?

For every American, for every human being across the planet who chooses to stand immovable in the face of the very worst in mankind, we come that much closer to breathing life once again into the very best in us all.

Visit Alt-Market or support their Safe Haven State Project to help expand local cooperatives and alternative markets. You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com