Humanity In An All-Out Effort to Save Itself From Government

Guest Post by Bernie Suarez


The experience of humanity is driven and defined by our own consciousness, which is a product of our sophisticated brain functions. We are consciousness in every way shape and form. Control of this miracle of consciousness is sought by a few individuals who are actually suffering from a mental (disconnect) disorder.

What psychiatrists sometimes refer to as the psychopathic mind. Unfortunately, one of the characteristics of being a psychopath is that the individual exhibiting the psychopathic behavior has little to no insight into their own actions. In this example, we can say that the "consciousness" is missing from the equation.

This insight to one's own behavior is also a reference for distinguishing who might be considered "normal" and who might be considered schizophrenic "impaired" or "abnormal" This might lend perspective as to why groups of people (as opposed to individuals), such as governments and corporations, are capable of acting and speaking as a group in ways that are destructive to consciousness and mental and spiritual expansion of our species. Ironically, when an individual acts the same way, he may be considered impaired; but groups, however, will get a pass thus allowing (immune) group entities to implement such damage on the species.

One could measure this phenomenon scientifically by documenting physiological body changes that occur when humans are exposed to images or ideas that reflect "non-consciousness" related items (images of war, government oppression) versus measurable body changes seen when exposed to consciousness related items (love, compassion, human rights issues, etc).  Basic vital signs such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure, also brain wave spikes readings, magnetic or tomography images are all factors and signs that might be measured to compare the human physiological responses to the concepts of non-consciousness-related reality versus consciousness and higher purpose.

Government would have us think that it is protecting humanity from itself. This non-conscious force we call government gets its life-force from an artificial set of rules called the legal system which non-conscious government would have you think is the script that your reality is not only based on but controlled entirely by. This is like someone walking into a room and notifying everyone in the room that their consciousness and state of awareness of existence doesn't exist any more. What? You can take someone's money and belongings, and even forcefully do harm to them and imprison them, but how can you steal someone's consciousness? Government's answer to this? By eliminating it or ignoring its existence.

This is one of the prime realities about the concept of government and any group efforts that robs the individual human being of his/her natural state of conscious equilibrium. This is a crime like any other crime, being committed on that individual human being. This can only be appreciated from the standpoint of third party looking down on the species as a whole. When you consider it in this context it is then easy to appreciate this reality. It then becomes easy to see how non-conscious government concepts act as a cancer to the species.

With humanity now swimming in knowledge about itself thanks to technology and the Internet - knowledge which can no longer be ignored - we are only now beginning to see the early results of what happens when truth, awareness and consciousness is triggered by a massive pulse of lies which jolts the consciousness of the species.

Edward Bernays (propaganda) Effect Now Backfiring?

With the current global awakening now accelerating at speeds that must not be pleasing to the globalist gangsters, it is reasonable to reflect back on the concept of propaganda, groupthink and group manipulation for the purposes of a certain agenda. I would like to suggest that it is possible that the global awakening we are seeing may partially and indirectly have been contributed to by Edward Bernays himself. After all, it was Bernays who admitted openly how these mass mind control techniques were A: Real; B: They worked; C: They worked on the masses because they worked on the individual in a perceived group setting. Bernays showed us that humans responded to clever timing, images and messages that appealed to our subconscious urges, imagination and thoughts. Can it be that we are seeing the culmination of many of these factors backfiring against the original CIA/U.S./NWO plans?

They hoped to continue to fool everyone with their propaganda. They planned and executed false flag operations and reinforced them with their planned propaganda, precisely timed talking points, images and sensationalism. But did they ever consider that the propaganda effect would actually wear out after so many decades of continued obvious lies and hypocrisy? Perhaps they did, and perhaps that is why there is so much talk about depopulation as seen in their own Georgia Guidestones. Perhaps the talk by Zbigniew Brzezinski about how much "easier" it is to kill a million people than control them is an admission that they know humanity will factually wake up as a whole and thus a last resort for the psychopath globalists before they must face their doom.

I believe this is all the end result of hundreds of years of propaganda now fully exposed due to the information age. One thing I'll say about Bernays is that he never hid what he was doing. He told you straight forward what he was doing, even writing several books about it.

The global political events we are seeing exposed in real-time are a first of its kind. Because of all the released information and knowledge, and because of the Internet, we can track globalist mafia crimes in real-time in a rather exciting way which has led to the alternative or "New Media." What started off as a truth movement with many little cousin movements all around the world has morphed into one big freedom and consciousness movement. Thankfully, many of the lines that separated us have blurred as humans recognize that they need to come together more than anything else.

Humanity is responding to this non-consciousness force we call government, by coming together and slowly ignoring our political, religious and philosophical differences and instead focusing on the common enemy which is now emerging as the forces that represent non-consciousness that we call governmental control systems. This is at the root of all of our struggles. We hear TV pundits tell us that humans must be controlled by a federal and global unchallenged government. Many of the script-reading advocates for the big government top-down control system just happen to have significant voices in the mainstream media.

No one at mainstream media dare stands for freedom and individual sovereignty. Anyone who does ends up getting fired or being asked to quit. Hollywood TV shows as well as the educational system are all supporting the paradigm of big government. Obama's primary message to Americans seems to be about not listening to those (lunatics? radicals?) that stand for individual freedoms. Obama may actually be the only U.S. president warning America not of tyranny and the need to stand for the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but instead he's warning his sheep to beware of those warning of tyranny.  One of the things the globalists have accomplished is they've made it easy to identify those who are with us and those who are not.

Given the current global awakening in light of all the information and spiraling propaganda mentioned above, we can now simplify the battlefield in such a way that it is easy to identify the enemies of freedom. We can now ask anyone the simple question: Power to the state or power to the people, which one do you choose? Will you side with those that demand freedom and sovereignty from government or will you side with those that feel the people are the property and responsibility of big government, and those who rebel are terrorists? The state or the individual? Choose one and take sides now.

We know where NBC stands, and CNN and all the left-wing Obama supporters. Despite their attempts to sound pro-America, we know where Fox News and the Republicans stand also. When measured with this simple question of State versus Individual it is easy to see that both Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same. They are both controlled by criminal elements in the .1 percent class who want their one world government. It is then easy to see how the human element of humanity that is living and breathing, is now fully awakening to this non-consciousness element we've been calling government.

Now we can observe how humanity will deal with this force that has cycled its way into an over-sized oppressive control mechanism. Humanity is now realizing that freedom is more a realization than anything else. Yes, realizing something is an expression of consciousness and learning or integration of knowledge and the awareness of this newly acquired knowledge.

With humanity now realizing that government is a useless obstacle in the way of human thriving and freedom, I expect we will witness phenomenal things in the coming months and years. I see humanity now actually slowly but surely pulling together in an all-out effort to save itself from government.

I never thought of this concept myself until recently and I don't see any other way to articulate it. This is where we are.  We are now seeing the expression of this reality in many freedom lovers world wide. This was essentially the very same spirit behind the founding of America. This was the spirit behind the Constitution and Bill of Rights and the primary meme of those initial years when America was founded. It doesn't mean that the founding fathers were saints or any of that, it means that the spirit of freedom that drove them to do what they did is back, in fact this modern-day rekindling of freedom is and will be much more intense than what the founding fathers imagined. Humanity is now realizing it didn't finish the job. There is already a track record for getting this freedom thing done, and this track record is serving as a precious guideline for those of us who are new at this.

Let freedom ring, and I look forward to witnessing the end result of this focused effort now closing in on government. No, no one was injured in the writing of this article. Not a shot fired. Consciousness knows no violence, and the desire to thrive and be free is a realization. This battle is strictly mental warfare (as Bernays would have told you) and the transition from rooting for big government to control the people, to empathizing with your own species and connecting with other humans in a conscious way to exercise and celebrate your individual freedom from government is seamless.

Awakening from the matrix cannot be measured with blood, bullets, drones or violence. It (the individual's awakening) can only be delayed with fear - external, engineered, artificial, government-crafted fear. This awakening is being triggered by the realization that the fear of tyranny is much greater than any artificial fears the government can come up with.

The human awakening has thus triggered a long-awaited re-prioritizing of fear within the species, which is rendering the globalists primary weapon of mass deception obsolete. To think, we need only overcome their engineered fears to render the concept of over-controlling big government obsolete. Once we reach this point (and we are very close) we can then focus more on officially implementing all the solutions to the new world order at a mass scale. Till then, mass knowledge of solutions are now spreading globally as part of the awakening despite the fact that many of the solutions are still being contained by government using fear and intimidation.

The day is soon coming when these barriers of fear will dwindle as more and more people resort to being the change they want to see in the world. It's already happening and it's a wonderful thing to see.

Bernie Suarez is an activist, critical thinker, radio host, musician, M.D, Veteran, lover of freedom and the Constitution, and creator of the Truth and Art TV project. He also has a background in psychology and highly recommends that everyone watch a documentary titled The Century of the Self. Bernie has concluded that the way to defeat the New World Order is to truly be the change that you want to see. Manifesting the solution and putting truth into action is the very thing that will defeat the globalists.

What Will Happen When the Dollar Collapses?

The Federal Reserve Is the Enemy of Humanity

The Federal Reserve has been bleeding this country to death for a century. What the dollar bought 100 years ago, can only buy three cents of product today. This means that 97% of the value of our currency has gone into the pockets of the Federal Reserve investors for the past 100 years.

I am amazed at the abject ignorance of the American people and that they think the Federal Reserve is actually part of the federal government. As we like to stay in the alternative media, the Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express. For the record, the Federal Reserve is a privately held corporation which sells stock to preferred insiders. In 1913, a small majority of Congress commissioned the Federal Reserve to control banking in the United States. Without a doubt, this was the worst decision ever made by an act of Congress.

Guest Post by Dave Hodges 

Hitler initiated a false flag event and burned down the Reichstag to gain control over the German government. Could the same happen here in the United States?

My initial response to that question is, does it really matter? The pattern of societal collapse and subsequent governmental enslavement of the American people will be largely the same whether the precipitating incident is a false flag attack or a currency collapse. For the purpose of simplicity, let us call the precursor event to all-out martial law, a currency collapse.

 The Dollar Is Diving

The world is running from the dollar, or should I more accurately state the Petrodollar. Until recently, our dollar was used as the currency of international trading. Further, the dollar was also the reserve currency for oil. All foreign countries wishing to purchase oil from the Middle East, first had to purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve. After FDR took us off the gold standard during the Great Depression and Richard Nixon finished the task of providing America with a totally Fiat currency, the only backing that our dollar enjoys is that of being the reserve currency for both trading and for oil (i.e. the Petrodollar scam).

The major cause of the present  economic calamity is fractional reserve banking. When the government goes to the private Federal Reserve and asks for one trillion dollars, the federal reserve gets to print one trillion for the government, at interest, and $10 trillion dollars for themselves and to lend out at high interest rates. This inflationary practice erodes the value of your dollar while enriching our Federal Reserve investors. Ultimately, the currency upon which we depend on will be destroyed and life as we know it will be changed forever.
The practice of fractional reserve banking should be wholly illegal because it creates a state of permanent inflation for the benefit of a few and sets up economic demise for the many.

A Changing of the Financial Guard

The nations presently running from our petrodollar are India, China, Iran, Japan, South Africa and Australia have signed their own trade agreements and their currency of choice is no longer the dollar!
When the collapse of the dollar occurs, it will literally and figuratively come like a thief in the night, and I do mean overnight!

We are all familiar with the concept of inflation, which is the intentional byproduct of the Federal Reserve.  But I am not just talking inflation, I’m speaking about hyperinflation which is caused by the collapse of the value of the currency resulting in runaway prices. Here are three examples of how quickly a currency collapse can occur when a nation’s money when its money no longer holds it value:

1. In Weimar Germany, from 1922 – 1923, prices  doubled  every three days.
2. In the modern era, in Yugoslavia from 1992-94, witnessed prices doubling every 34 hours.
3. In Zimbabwe, in the two year period from 2007 – 2008, prices doubled  every 25 hours.

History is replete with examples of currency collapses and they typically follow very predictable patterns in which a nation unravels and social chaos, and many times, widespread violence and even genocide becomes part of the national landscape.

What Does a Currency Collapse Look Like?

It can accurately be stated that a lot has been written and rehearsed by the federal government on the topic of the effects of a currency collapse and its subsequent impact on society. NORTHCOM, DHS and FEMA as well as other federal entities have practiced for this eventuality. In each and every scenario, the facts remain the same, human beings and society follows a very predictable pattern of decline when the currency of the day collapses. And normally, the currency collapse comes without any warning to the general public.
When George Soros recently pulled his money from the S&P 500 and from Bank of America, Citibank and JP Morgan, all Americans should have sat up and taken notice. Generally, when the currency collapses, a stock market crash is right on its heels. Because of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, a banking meltdown will immediately occur following the collapse of the stock market because since Clinton’s presidency, banks are now allowed to loan money for investment in the stock market and for down payments for homes. It was irresponsible of Congress to repeal Glass-Steagall, because it made surviving an economic Armageddon a near impossibility just as it did during the 1929 crash.

In a currency collapse, your life savings will be wiped out. From this point on, the effect cascades like a roaring tsunami racing across the open ocean.

Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy demonstrated that gas stations will be bone dry within two days following a complete collapse. Subsequently, commerce will not move. If you are on vacation, you may not make it home. On the second day following a currency collapse, being on the road will be a risky endeavor because of other desperate motorists who will lie in wait to rob other motorists of essential supplies and resources.
With no available fuel, the grocery and drug stores will be empty within one to three days. There will be no food to be had except for that which is decaying in your refrigerator and that in which you can beg, borrow and steal from your neighbors who will also be begging, borrowing and stealing. from your other neighbors. If you have an adequate food and water supply, you better have an adequate gun and ammo supply in order to defend your assets. And when will you sleep? The protection of your critical assets is a 24/7 proposition. Therefore, having a cooperative survival plan is critical.

Without gas, people will stop going to work. Corporations will disappear overnight. Hurricane Katrina showed America that the police cannot be expected to stay on the job more than 48-72 hours as they will be home protecting their families and foraging for food and water like everyone else. The emergence of former police, now operating as gangs, will become common in an effort to secure the products which will ensure survival. Therefore, when your home is under attack, there will nobody to call. Everyone will be on their own.

The elderly and the chronically ill will be the first to die. Too old to defend their assets, the elderly will find themselves overpowered as they will make easy preys of opportunity for the roving gangs. The chronically ill will have no way to procure their medication and even if they survive the looting rampage which will follow a currency collapse, these poor souls will perish without access to their life-sustaining prescriptions.
The money in your wallet will be useless. Cell phones will not work. Heating and air conditioning will not work either and depending on the time of year, the environment could prove deadly to untold numbers of people.

Water treatment plants will stop operating for the same reasons that you will not be able to find a cop during this crisis nobody will be manning the water treatment plants. Toilets will back up and diseases will spread like wildfire. Cholera will become the leading cause of death even surpassing homicide. Something as simple as toilet paper will become a prized commodity. There will be no trash pickup and more disease will result due to the increased rodent population.


Clean drinking water and hunger will become the dominant motivator in society. Roving bands of looters, turned murderers, will sweep through neighborhoods seeking to obtain these critical elements of survival. Young women will sell themselves for a can of food for their children. Society will see the widespread loss of human dignity and self-respect.

Infanticide and euthanasia of the weak will become common events because there will be decided efforts to reduce the amount of mouths to feed. There will be the stark realization that the lights are not coming back on and the ensuing sense of hopelessness will lead to murder-suicides within families and simple incidences of suicide will be used as a means to escape the horrendous circumstances.

Humanity’s Darkest Hour

There will come a time when all the available animals will be devoured and then there will be only one place to turn to for food. History shows thatcannibalism will set in by the beginning of the third week. Extreme hunger will lead to humans hunting humans as an available food supply. There is a real possibility that this could begin to occur within 15-20 days following the currency collapse.

The Government’s Version of the Final Solution

If the establishment military has properly planned, they will move into take control but they will not move quickly. The more death there is, the fewer people there will be to control. Government will typically move in with their solutions towards the end of the second week as has been the case in past economic collapses. The earliest the military could be deployed on the streets would be about four days from the event. Even then, the military cannot be everywhere. Christians should pay particular attention for when the Roman currency was debased in the third century, there was a revolving door for Roman emperors and Christians became the scapegoats for the economic issues. 

To fully understand the relationship that will exist between yourself and the government, Google “Executive Order 13603″. The reasons behind the creation of Executive Order 13603 will soon become readily apparent. You will retain ownership over nothing including food, water, guns, ammunition, your house, your car and even yourself. If you survive, you will be conscripted to work in some capacity in a specialty and location not of your choosing. The provisions for dealing with potential dissidents will go into motion under the NDAA which allows for mass arrest and secret incarcerations without due process. There is one ironclad thing that you can count on, food and water will be used to control the people following the collapse of the dollar

Who Will Help Us?

When past currency collapses occur, organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the UN and the US have appeared to render their predatory version of help in exchange for control of critical infrastructure and other capital considerations. Because of this aid, more people survived in the impacted areas. However, what happens when the top dog collapses? Who would be able to come and render aid in America? Even in a world disgusted by our imperialistic ways would  offer help, could they? Not under the coming circumstances could anyone offer help because they will be in a worse situation.

In short, there will be nobody riding in to rescue the United States. Despite some rebelling against the dollar, the world is still dependent upon our currency. When the currency collapses it will pull the rest of world down with us. The subsequent collapse of global currencies will indeed constitute a major depopulation event and all the elite have to do is wait it out in places like the tunnels under Denver International Airport.
During this time, Americans will truly discover if there really are FEMA camps and what they will be used for. If people want to eat, they will be enticed to go where food is promised. Although you can count on the above mentioned events transpiring in the event of a currency collapse, what lies ahead is unknown to a large extent because the top dog will not have been economically obliterated in modern history.

Conclusion

In addition to what has previously been written, in an economic collapse, we can expect the government to impose travel restrictions and martial law. Life, as we know it will not be recognizable.

Obama is willing to talk about the $17 trillion dollar deficit. However, you never hear the government nor the media discuss the real debt? Our real financial obligations total $240 trillion dollars through programs like social security, Medicare, public pensions and welfare. Subsequently, I want to make one thing abundantly clear; It is not a matter if we are going to have a currency collapse, it is when.  And the when is much sooner than later.  It could happen tomorrow, next month and even next year. We do not have two years left in the American economic engine. A currency collapse is nothing to look forward to, and people who intend on surviving the event should be in the midst of their preparations.

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Dave Hodges is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedom Phoenix, News With Views, and The Arizona Republic. 


The Common Sense Show features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and national sovereignty. You can follow Dave’s work at his web site, on Facebook and Twitter.

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Do You Have A Plan B? "This Is Not A Consequence-Free Environment"

Guest Post by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,

In August 1939, just days before Hitler’s invasion into southern Poland, General Wilhelm List walked the lines of his German 14th Army making final checks and inspections.

He must have thought it strange– between Army Group North and Army Group South, there were over one million German troops hovered on the Polish border. And they weren’t exactly hiding under rocks.
Everyone knew that the invasion was coming. Especially civilians in Poland.
They were surrounded by German forces on three sides. And on 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, effectively acquiescing the fourth side.
It was obvious that the entire country was about to be turned into a war zone.
Yet seemingly unfazed by this prospect, well-to-do locals were on holiday at the seaside, or keeping cool up in the Carpathian mountains.

Sixty miles to the north of List’s 14th Army, people in Krakow were a enjoying warm summer days in Blonia Park and on the banks of the Vistula River near Wawel Castle.
It was as if they were completely oblivious to the enormity of the consequences about to befall them.
After all, the government and local papers were telling them to not worry. Poland had prepared some basic defenses, and their military commander Edward Rydz-?mig?y was supposed to be a strong general.

They had been told to be confident. So they were confident.
On the first of September, 1939, Hitler’s armies invaded. And despite suffering massive military losses, the Polish government spread all sorts of misinformation on the radio, telling its people about phony victories against the invading German hordes.
None of this was true. And within hours, a multi-year military occupation began that would turn people’s lives upside down.

Looking back, it’s like watching a cheesy horror flick where some idiot character obliviously walks into the dark room where the killer is lurking.

Human beings have a natural tendency to ignore obvious warning signs and take the path of least resistance. It’s a much simpler prospect to stick our heads in the sand than to acknowledge uncomfortable truths and risks.

There are plenty of those today.

Last year, the United States government took in $2.6 trillion in total tax revenue. Yet they spent $2.5 trillion just to cover mandatory spending (like Social Security) and interest on the DEBT.

Bear in mind that 10,000 people per day become eligible for Social Security benefits… and the debt gets bigger every year. They are growing much faster than the government’s tax revenue.
And it is an arithmetic certainty that they will soon fail to collect enough tax revenue to even cover mandatory entitlements and interest on the debt.

US economic growth ground to a halt in the first quarter of this year, and was later revised to be negative. And governments across the West are now so desperate for growth they’re counting prostitution and cocaine sales in their GDP figures.

Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet to the point that, after subtracting its unrealized losses, there’s just $3.1 billion in equity to back over $4.3 trillion in assets.
That gives the Fed a margin of safety of just 0.07%… meaning the most important central bank in the world that issues the most widely used currency in the world is practically insolvent.

Look… there might not be any army groups encroached on the border. But the warning signs are just as clear as they were back in Poland in 1939. This is not a consequence free environment.
Unfortunately, most people are just as oblivious.

It may be days, weeks, months, or years before anything happens. But intelligent people don’t ignore the obvious risks to their livelihoods and their families.

Intelligent people have a Plan B. Intelligent people put on their seat belts.

The Bilderberg Agenda - Nukes, Nationalism, & Barack Obama

The officially released agenda of the prestigious Bilderberg club meeting (attendees listed here) is not true, claims Russia Today show host Daniel Estulin, a longtime watcher of the ‘secret world govt’ group. He says he obtained the real agenda for this year’s gathering in Copenhagen.  

An insider leaked the list of talking points for the ongoing Bilderberg conference to the investigative journalist last week, he said. The list has nine items, seven of which he shared... from Nuclear diplomacy and the disturbing rise of Nationalism; it was a focus on Barack Obama's foreign policy that drew our attention most closely...

The Bilderberg Group is a six-decades-old club for some of the world’s most influential individuals, politicians, officials, businessmen, academics and European royalty, regularly gathering to discuss global policy issues. Critics accuse them of acting as a shadow unelected government, would-be rulers of the world, which take decisions affecting billions of people behind closed doors, with little regard for the needs or wishes of the general population.

In an apparent bid to dissipate these accusations, this time Bilderberg made its official agenda public. Among the 12 topics for this year’s conference were “the new architecture of the Middle East,” “Ukraine” and “The future of democracy and the middle class trap.”
However, the leaked 'real' agenda is as follows...

The Bilderberg Agenda... (7 of 9 topics)

1. Nuclear diplomacy and the deal with Iran currently in the making.

The club has long been cautious of a possible alliance between Russia, China and Iran. The deal that would lift Western pressure from the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program would affect this possibility.

2. Gas deal between Russia and China.

It came amid a serious political crisis in Ukraine, which threatens Russia’s supply of natural gas to European nations. Moscow has diversified its gas trade by sealing a long-term contract with Beijing. Potentially, China may replace the EU as the prime energy trade partner for Russia, a situation which strengthens Moscow’s position in Ukraine by undermining Washington’s effort to isolate Russia and Kiev’s leverage through its control of transit gas pipelines.

3. Rise of nationalist moods in Europe.

The agenda was formed before the latest European Parliament elections, which cast a spotlight on the trend. Populist eurosceptic parties are winning the hearts of Europeans from the UK to Greece to Hungary, dealing a blow to the union’s unity. A nationally driven and divided Europe would be reluctant to take globalization for granted.

4. EU internet privacy regulations.

Edward Snowden’s exposure of the scale of electronic surveillance on the part of the US National Security Agency and its allies worldwide sparked a major protest from privacy-seeking people. European politicians can’t ignore the calls to protect people’s communication from snooping, which potentially makes data collection more difficult. At least not immediately, as indicated by the apparent scaling down of Germany’s investigation into the NSA’s alleged surveillance.

5. Cyberwarfare and its potential effect on internet freedoms.

The destructive potential of cyber attacks is growing rapidly as reliance on the internet in all aspects of life rises. But the threat of state-sponsored hacker attacks is what some governments may use as a pretext for clamping down on the internet, undermining its role as a medium for the sake of security.

6. From Ukraine to Syria, Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

Critics of the US president blame him for betraying America’s leadership overseas, citing failures to defend American interests in Syria and lately in Ukraine. Obama’s newly announced doctrine calls on scaling down reliance on military force and using diplomacy and collective action instead. Bilderberg members will discuss whether this policy is doomed.

7. Climate change.

This is a regular topic for many high-ranking discussions, not only the Bilderberg conference in Denmark. People suspicious of the elites call climate change a euphemism for the artificial deindustrialization of some nations, with the goal of keeping the global economy under the control of transnational corporations and the expense of potential hubs of economic growth.

New Massive Federal Database To Hold Financial Information of 100s Of Millions of Americans

  

Guest Post by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

As many as 227 million Americans may be compelled to disclose intimate details of their families and financial lives -- including their Social Security numbers -- in a new national database being assembled by two federal agencies.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National Mortgage Database Program to include personally identifiable information that reveals actual users, a reversal of previously stated policy.

FHFA will manage the database and share it with CFPB. A CFPB internal planning document for 2013-17 describes the bureau as monitoring 95 percent of all mortgage transactions.

FHFA officials claim the database is essential to conducting a monthly mortgage survey required by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and to help it prepare an annual report for Congress.
Critics, however, question the need for such a “vast database” for simple reporting purposes.
In a May 15 letter to FHFA Director Mel Watt and CFPB Director Richard Cordray, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, charged, "this expansion represents an unwarranted intrusion into the private lives of ordinary Americans."

Crapo is the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Hensarling is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Critics also warn the new database will be vulnerable to cyber attacks that could put private information about millions of consumers at risk. They also question the agency’s authority to collect such information.
Earlier this year, Cordray tried to assuage concerned lawmakers during a Jan. 28 hearing of Hensarling's panel, saying repeatedly the database will only contain “aggregate” information with no personal identifiers.
But under the April register notice, the database expansion means it will include a host of data points, including a mortgage owner’s name, address, Social Security number, all credit card and other loan information and account balances.

The database will also encompass a mortgage holder’s entire credit history, including delinquent payments, late payments, minimum payments, high account balances and credit scores, according to the notice.
The two agencies will also assemble “household demographic data,” including racial and ethnic data, gender, marital status, religion, education, employment history, military status, household composition, the number of wage earners and a family’s total wealth and assets.

Only 12 public comments were submitted during the 30-day comment period following the notice's April 16 publication.

The mortgage database is unprecedented and would collect personal mortgage information on every single-family residential first lien loan issued since 1998. Federal officials will continue updating the database into the indefinite future.

The database held information on at least 10.1 million mortgage owners, according to a July 31, 2013, FHFA and CFPB presentation at an international conference on collateral risk.
FHFA has two contracts with CoreLogic, which boasts that it has “access to industry’s largest most comprehensive active and historical mortgage databases of over 227 million loans.”
Cordray confirmed in his January testimony that CoreLogic had been retained for the national mortgage database.

The credit giant Experian is also involved in the mortgage database project, according to an FHFA official who requested anonymity.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, who sits on the Hensarling panel and who has followed the mortgage database's development, said he was “deeply concerned” about the expansion.
“When you look at the kinds of data that are going to be collected on individuals, just about anything about you is going to be in this database,” he told the Examiner in an interview.

Critics of the database span the financial spectrum, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions.

In a May 16 letter to FHFA, NAFCU's regulatory affairs counsel, Angela Meyster, said the database "harbors significant privacy concerns" and "NAFCU believes greater transparency should be provided by the FHFA and CFPB on what this information is being used for."

Meyster told the Examiner that "it goes back to the breadth of information that they’re asking for without really speaking to what they will be used for."

Meyster said she was unconvinced. "It seems they’re just adding information and they’re not really stating where it’s going or what it’s going to be used for. There’s no straightaway answer. They say they are trying to assemble as much information that they can."

Neugebauer agreed. "Why are we collecting this amount of data on this many individuals?" he asked in the interview.

The Chamber of Commerce said that while Congress did ask for regular reports, it never granted FHFA the authority to create the National Mortgage Database.

“Congress did not explicitly require (or even explicitly authorize) the FHFA to build anything resembling the NMD,” the Chamber told Watt in its May 16 letter.

Cordray in his testimony told the House, "We’re making every effort to be very careful" but he could not promise there would never be a data breach.

Neugebauer said the hacker threat is real. "If someone were to breach that system, they could very easily steal somebody’s identity."

Meyster said she doubts the government can protect the data. “We’re essentially concerned that these government systems don’t have the necessary precautions to make sure that individual consumers are identified through the database,” she said.

Computerized theft of government and commercial data is a major concern for federal officials. Indictments were made public last week for five Chinese military members who allegedly hacked into the computer systems of six American corporations.

A December report from the Government Accountability Office on breaches containing personally identifiable information from federal databases shows unlawful data breaches have doubled, from 15,140 reported incidents in 2009 to 22,156 in 2012.

A May 1 White House report on cybersecurity of federal databases also recently warned, "if unchecked, big data could be a tool that substantially expands government power over citizens.”

How Inflation Helps Keep The Rich Up And The Poor Down

Guest Post by Jorg Guido Hulsmann via the Ludwig von Mises Institute,

The production of money in a free society is a matter of free association. Everybody from the miners to the owners of the mines, to the minters, and up to the customers who buy the minted coins — all benefit from the production of money. None of them violates the property rights of anybody else, because everybody is free to enter the mining and minting business, and nobody is obliged to buy the product.

Things are completely different once we turn to money production in interventionist regimes, which have prevailed in the West for the better part of the past 150 years. Here we need to mention in particular two institutional forms of monetary interventionism: (fraudulent) fractional reserve banking and fiat money. The common characteristic of both these institutions is that they violate the principle of free association. They enable the producers of paper money and of money titles to expand their production through the violation of other people’s property rights.

Banking is fraudulent whenever bankers sell uncovered or only partially covered money substitutes that they present as fully covered titles for money. These bankers sell more money substitutes than they could have sold if they had taken care to keep a 100-percent reserve for each substitute they issued.

The producer of fiat money (in our days, typically, paper money) sells a product that cannot withstand the competition of free-market moneys such as gold and silver coins, and which the market participants only use because the use of all other moneys is severely restricted or even outlawed. The most eloquent illustration of this fact is that paper money in all countries has been protected through legal-tender laws. Paper money is inherently fiat money; it cannot thrive but when it is imposed by the state.

In both cases, the production of money is excessive because it is no longer constrained by the informed and voluntary association of the buying public. In a free market, paper money could not sustain the competition of the far superior metal moneys. The production of any quantity of paper money is therefore excessive by the standards of a free society. Similarly, fractional reserve banking produces excessive quantities of money substitutes, at any rate in those cases in which the customers are not informed that they are offered fractional-reserve bank deposits, rather than genuine money titles.

This excessive production of money and money titles is inflation by the Rothbardian definition, which we have adapted in the present study to the case of paper money. Inflation is an unjustifiable redistribution of income in favor of those who receive the new money and money titles first, and to the detriment of those who receive them last. In practice the redistribution always works out in favor of the fiat-money producers themselves (whom we misleadingly call central banks) and of their partners in the banking sector and at the stock exchange. And of course inflation works out to the advantage of governments and their closest allies in the business world. Inflation is the vehicle through which these individuals and groups enrich themselves, unjustifiably, at the expense of the citizenry at large. If there is any truth to the socialist caricature of capitalism — an economic system that exploits the poor to the benefit of the rich — then this caricature holds true for a capitalist system strangulated by inflation. The relentless influx of paper money makes the wealthy and powerful richer and more powerful than they would be if they depended exclusively on the voluntary support of their fellow citizens. And because it shields the political and economic establishment of the country from the competition emanating from the rest of society, inflation puts a brake on social mobility. The rich stay rich (longer) and the poor stay poor (longer) than they would in a free society.

The famous economist Josef Schumpeter once presented inflation as the harbinger of innovation. As he saw it, inflationary issues of banknotes would serve to finance upstart entrepreneurs who had great ideas but lacked capital. Now, even if we abstract from the questionable ethical character of this proposal, which boils down to subsidizing any self-appointed innovator at the involuntary expense of all other members of society, we must say that, in light of practical experience, Schumpeter’s scheme is wishful thinking. Credit expansion financed through printing money is in practice the very opposite of a way to combat the economic establishment. It is the preferred means of survival for an establishment that cannot, or can no longer, sustain the competition of its competitors.

It would not be uncharitable to characterize inflation as a large-scale rip-off, in favor of the politically well-connected few, and to the detriment of the politically destitute masses. It always goes in hand with the concentration of political power in the hands of those who are privileged to own a banking license and of those who control the production of the monopoly paper money. It promotes endless debts, puts society at the mercy of monetary authorities such as central banks, and to that extent entails moral corruption of society.

Why They Hate Peace

 A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. -James Madison



Guest Post By Ron Paul

 [Editor’s Note: This is a selection from the last chapter of Ron Paul’s A Foreign Policy of Freedom.]

The most succinct statement about how governments get their people to support war came from Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials after World War II:

Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

It is rather frightening that a convicted Nazi war criminal latched onto an eternal truth!
It should be harder to promote war, especially when there are so many regrets in the end. In the last 60 years, the American people have had little say over decisions to wage war. We have allowed a succession of presidents and the United Nations to decide when and if we go to war, without an express congressional declaration as the Constitution mandates.

Since 1945, our country has been involved in over 70 active or covert foreign engagements. On numerous occasions we have provided weapons and funds to both sides in a conflict. It is not unusual for our so-called allies to turn on us and use these weapons against American troops. In recent decades we have been both allies and enemies of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the Islamists in Iran. And where has it gotten us? The endless costs resulting from our foolish policies, in human lives, injuries, tax dollars, inflation, and deficits, will burden generations to come. For civilization to advance, we must reduce the number of wars fought. Two conditions must be met if we hope to achieve this.

First, all military (and covert paramilitary) personnel worldwide must refuse to initiate offensive wars beyond their borders. This must become a matter of personal honor for every individual. Switzerland is an example of a nation that stands strongly prepared to defend herself, yet refuses to send troops abroad looking for trouble.

Second, the true nature of war must be laid bare, and the glorification must end. Instead of promoting war heroes with parades and medals for wars not fought in the true defense of our country, we should more honestly contemplate the real results of war: death, destruction, horrible wounds, civilian casualties, economic costs, and the loss of liberty at home.

The neoconservative belief that war is inherently patriotic, beneficial, manly, and necessary for human progress must be debunked. These war promoters never send themselves or their own children off to fight.
Some believe economic sanctions and blockades are acceptable alternatives to invasion and occupation. But these too are acts of war, and those on the receiving end rarely capitulate to the pressure. More likely they remain bitter enemies, and resort to terrorism when unable to confront us in a conventional military fashion.
Inflation, sanctions, and military threats all distort international trade and hurt average people in all countries involved, while usually not really hurting the targeted dictators themselves. Our bellicose approach encourages protectionism, authoritarianism, militant nationalism, and go-it-alone isolationism. Our government preaches free trade and commerce, yet condemns those who want any restraints on the use of our military worldwide. We refuse to see how isolated we have become. Our loyal allies are few, and while the UN does our bidding only when we buy the votes we need, our enemies multiply. A billion Muslims around the world now see the US as a pariah.

Our military is more often used to protect private capital overseas, such as oil and natural resources, than it is to protect our own borders. Protecting ourselves from real outside threats is no longer the focus of defense policy, as globalists become more influential inside and outside our government.
The weapons industry never actually advocates killing to enhance its profits, but a policy of endless war and eternal enemies benefits it greatly. Some advocate cold war strategies, like those used against the Soviets, against the unnamed “terrorists.” It’s good for business!
Many neoconservatives are not bashful about this:

Thus, paradoxically, peace increases our peril, by making discipline less urgent, encouraging some of our worst instincts, and depriving us of some of our best leaders. The great Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke knew whereof he spoke when he wrote a friend, “Everlasting peace is a dream, not even a pleasant one; war is a necessary part of God’s arrangement of the world. … Without war the world would deteriorate into materialism.” As usual, Machiavelli dots his i’s and crosses the t’s: it’s not just that peace undermines discipline and thereby gives the destructive vices greater sway. If we actually achieved peace, “Indolence would either make (the state) effeminate or shatter her unity; and two things together, or each by itself, would be the cause of her ruin …” This is Machiavelli’s variation on a theme by Mitterrand: the absence of movement is the beginning of defeat. (Michael Ledeen, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership)

Those like Ledeen who approvingly believe in “perpetual struggle” generally are globalists, uninterested in national sovereignty and borders. True national defense is of little concern to them. That’s why military bases are closed in the United States regardless of their strategic value, while several new bases are built in the Persian Gulf, even though they provoke our enemies to declare jihad against us. The new Cold War justifies everything.

War, and the threat of war, are big government’s best friend. Liberals support big government social programs, and conservatives support big government war policies, thus satisfying two major special interest groups. And when push comes to shove, the two groups cooperate and support big government across the board — always at the expense of personal liberty. Both sides pay lip service to freedom, but neither stands against the welfare/warfare state and its promises of unlimited entitlements and endless war.