THE WORLD HAS LOST ONE OF ITS BEST
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 -- 12:38 AM EDT
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Gore Vidal, Elegant Author, Dies at 86
Gore Vidal, the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of American civilization, died on Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where he moved in 2003, after years of living in Ravello, Italy. He was 86.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, his nephew, Burr Steers, said by telephone.
Mr. Vidal was, at the end of his life, an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right. Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their talent. He published some 25 novels, two memoirs and several volumes of stylish, magisterial essays. He also wrote plays, television dramas and screenplays. For a while he was even a contract writer at MGM. And he could always be counted on for a spur-of-the-moment aphorism, putdown or sharply worded critique of American foreign policy.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
NATO “Weather War” Warned “Out Of Control” As Global Food Fears Rise
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1602.htm
...this historic US drought, whose situation is only worsening, with almost two-thirds of the United States being affected, fears of a catastrophic global food crisis have arisen causing Robert Thompson, former director of agriculture and rural development at the World Bank and currently a visiting scholar at Washington's Johns Hopkins University, to warn today, “This is a once- or twice-a-century drought, and it's more severe than anybody has been preparing for…”
...this historic US drought, whose situation is only worsening, with almost two-thirds of the United States being affected, fears of a catastrophic global food crisis have arisen causing Robert Thompson, former director of agriculture and rural development at the World Bank and currently a visiting scholar at Washington's Johns Hopkins University, to warn today, “This is a once- or twice-a-century drought, and it's more severe than anybody has been preparing for…”
The exception to Thompson’s warning that no one is preparing for a global food crisis appears to be the United States whose US Army forces have now joined their Homeland Security Department in placing “urgent orders” for massive amounts of riot equipment.
A Message from NBC About Its Olympics Coverage
LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—Today NBC Sports issued the following message to viewers of its prime-time coverage of the 2012 Olympic Games in London:
Dear NBC Viewers:Last night, millions of you were thrilled to see the U.S.A.’s Missy Franklin win the gold medal in the hundred-metre backstroke race. That is, you would have been thrilled, except that just before the race we showed promos of Missy Franklin appearing on the Today show with the gold medal she won for the hundred-metre backstroke race.If you’ve been watching NBC in prime time the past few nights, you’ve probably noticed how, night in, night out, we’ve been wrecking the Olympics for you. All we can say is, our bad. At NBC we’re just not used to broadcasting things that people want to watch.But all that’s about to change.
Tonight, for those of you who like watching the Olympics without having every moment drained of its entertainment value, we are launching a new premium service called NBCFree: the Olympics without any contributions from NBC whatsoever.For only $29.95 you can watch the Olympics with no spoilers, no maudlin “personal narratives,” and no promos for NBC’s new fall shows like that egregious one with the doctor and the monkey we show like every five minutes. And for $39.95, no Ryan Seacrest.So contact your cable or satellite provider and order NBCFree today. And if you don’t? Well, all we can say is, we already know what other medals Missy has won, and we’re not afraid to tell you.Sincerely,NBC
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/07/a-message-from-nbc-about-its-olympics-coverage.html#ixzz22GSfcgKP
THE LAW IN SIMPLE TERMS
A GOOD WEBSITE TO INVESTIGATE TO LEARN HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS WHEN DEALING WITH ANY GOVERNMENT OR LAW ENFORCEMENT ENTITY.
http://www.meetup.com/Law-In-Simple-Terms/
http://www.meetup.com/Law-In-Simple-Terms/
"How to Handle Police Encounters in a Police State"
http://www.meetup.com/Law-In-Simple-Terms/messages/boards/thread/18688362
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsN5_FGHqj4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J5S45UCLkGY
HOW TO HANDLE THE POLICE AT YOUR DOOR (PART ONE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsN5_FGHqj4&feature=watch_response
HOW TO HANDLE THE POLICE AT YOUR DOOR (PART TWO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pZFghBa8v8
MORE TERRY INGRAM VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE (THE ENTIRE LIST)
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=TERRY+INGRAM&oq=TERRY+INGRAM&gs_l=youtube.12..0.43464.53094.0.61397.12.10.0.2.2.0.322.1881.3j1j5j1.10.0...0.0...1ac.xfRBS6PlLGw
How handle POLICE STATE encounters - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsN5_FGHqj4&feature=player_embedded
How handle POLICE STATE encounters - Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J5S45UCLkGY
HOW TO HANDLE THE POLICE AT YOUR DOOR (PART ONE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsN5_FGHqj4&feature=watch_response
HOW TO HANDLE THE POLICE AT YOUR DOOR (PART TWO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pZFghBa8v8
MORE TERRY INGRAM VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE (THE ENTIRE LIST)
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=TERRY+INGRAM&oq=TERRY+INGRAM&gs_l=youtube.12..0.43464.53094.0.61397.12.10.0.2.2.0.322.1881.3j1j5j1.10.0...0.0...1ac.xfRBS6PlLGw
“Tanks for Cops”: A New U.S. Government Program
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2012/07/03/tanks-for-cops-a-new-u-s-government-program/
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/cops-military-gear/all/
BE SURE TO READ ALL THE LINKS IN THIS ONE
“There’s been an unmistakable trend toward more and more militarization of American law enforcement,” Norm Stamper, former Chief of the Seattle Police Department and author ofBreaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing, told Danger Room. During his tenure in Seattle, he clamped down on the WTO protests in 1999, the infamous “Battle in Seattle.” It’s a response he now calls “disastrous.”
Small-Town Cops Pile Up on Useless Military Gear
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/cops-military-gear/all/
BE SURE TO READ ALL THE LINKS IN THIS ONE
“There’s been an unmistakable trend toward more and more militarization of American law enforcement,” Norm Stamper, former Chief of the Seattle Police Department and author ofBreaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing, told Danger Room. During his tenure in Seattle, he clamped down on the WTO protests in 1999, the infamous “Battle in Seattle.” It’s a response he now calls “disastrous.”
According to Stamper, having small local police departments go around with tanks and military gear has “a chilling effect on any effort to strengthen the relationship” between the community and the cops. And that’s not the only danger. “There’s no justification for them having that kind of equipment, for one obvious reason, and that is if they have it, they will find a way to use it. And if they use it they will misuse it altogether too many times,” said Stamper. What happened a year ago in Arizona, when marine veteran Jose Guerena was shot down during a drug raid that found no drugs in his house, could very well be an example of that misuse.
PAUL B. FARRELL: THE REAL CRASH IS DEAD AHEAD
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-real-crash-is-dead-ahead-as-2008-is-forgotten-2012-07-31
the scariest fact is that America’s warring politicians, CEOs and Super Rich can’t even see the obvious link between the 2012 social-media bubble and the 2008 Wall Street credit bubble that nearly bankrupted our monetary system and forced Congress and the Fed into bailing out our too-big-to-manage banks to an estimated $29.7 trillion in cash, credits, cheap money loans and debt relief.
the scariest fact is that America’s warring politicians, CEOs and Super Rich can’t even see the obvious link between the 2012 social-media bubble and the 2008 Wall Street credit bubble that nearly bankrupted our monetary system and forced Congress and the Fed into bailing out our too-big-to-manage banks to an estimated $29.7 trillion in cash, credits, cheap money loans and debt relief.
Monday, July 30, 2012
The Nauseating Grief of Diseased America
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-nauseating-grief-of-diseased-america.html
But every murder committed by the United States government, every murder ordered by Obama, represents a tragedy exactly like Aurora to someone. But it is not someone most Americans happen to know or recognize -- even if only to recognize the person as a fellow human being -- and it is therefore as if it never occurred.
But every murder committed by the United States government, every murder ordered by Obama, represents a tragedy exactly like Aurora to someone. But it is not someone most Americans happen to know or recognize -- even if only to recognize the person as a fellow human being -- and it is therefore as if it never occurred.
MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST ARTICLE
The Rapidly Approaching Demise of Japan (Martin Armstrong, July 30th, 2012)
LinkedIn Profile Collusion Among Terminated UBS Libor Traders?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/linkedin-profile-collusion-among-terminated-ubs-libor-traders?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29
all the other various IR derivatives which will blow up next as the Libor inquiry gets deeper and deeper into the Swiss rabbit hole. But before the global media juggernaut gets there, in about 6-8 weeks, we will do a quick roster of several voluntarily "retired" UBS traders, all of whom are now "looking for new challenges" and a rather amusing finding.
all the other various IR derivatives which will blow up next as the Libor inquiry gets deeper and deeper into the Swiss rabbit hole. But before the global media juggernaut gets there, in about 6-8 weeks, we will do a quick roster of several voluntarily "retired" UBS traders, all of whom are now "looking for new challenges" and a rather amusing finding.
ROMNEY’S GAFFES WORSEN IN ISRAEL
ROMNEY’S GAFFES WORSEN IN ISRAEL
TEL AVIV (The Borowitz Report)—The Mitt Romney Gaffe Express pulled into a new station today, leaving its conductor’s hopes of proving himself to be a nimble statesman in tatters.
Mr. Romney’s troubles began in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to whom he presented gifts of a HoneyBaked ham and a wheel of cheddar cheese.
After Mr. Netanyahu ordered both gifts removed from his residence and destroyed, Mr. Romney went on to address the Knesset, where he congratulated the Jewish people on building the pyramids.
“Ann and I saw them during a cruise we took to the Middle East, and they were magnificent,” he told the stunned legislators. “As accomplishments go, building the pyramids isn’t up there with saving the Olympics, but you should still feel very, very proud. Nice job.”
Sensing that his remarks were not going over as well as intended, Mr. Romney improvised: “No, really. Incredible building job you did. If any of you would like to work on our house in La Jolla, just say the word. Only thing is, you’ll have to work Saturdays.”
Mr. Romney’s day concluded with an awkward moment at the West Bank, where he attempted to deposit ten million dollars.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/07/romneys-gaffes-worsen-in-israel.html#ixzz22A773EhG
Putting Romney’s tax returns in presidential context
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/07/25/putting-romney%E2%80%99s-tax-returns-in-presidential-context/
The controversy over what’s hiding in Mitt Romney’s unreleased tax returns continues. But even without the missing filings, putting his 2010 and 2011 tax numbers in context is strikingly informative. It dramatically shows what an outlier Romney is on a few basic tax and income dimensions.
FANTASTIC CHARTS THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND
The controversy over what’s hiding in Mitt Romney’s unreleased tax returns continues. But even without the missing filings, putting his 2010 and 2011 tax numbers in context is strikingly informative. It dramatically shows what an outlier Romney is on a few basic tax and income dimensions.
FANTASTIC CHARTS THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND
Infographics: Using The Olympic Rings To Show Vast Inequalities
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670344/infographics-using-the-olympic-rings-to-show-vast-inequalities#1
THE FIVE RINGS REPRESENT THE FIVE CONTINENTS
THE COLORS REPRESENT EACH CONTINENT
Oceania: blue
Europe: black
Americas: red
Africa: yellow
Asia: green.
BEST TO GO TO THE WEBSITE AND ZOOM THE VIDEO TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE TEXT BELOW THE RINGS. THERE IS A SLIDE SHOW OF EACH SUBJECT AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE (SEE LEFT RIGHT ARROWS) SO YOU CAN STUDY EACH DIAGRAM. VERY ENLIGHTENING.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670344/infographics-using-the-olympic-rings-to-show-vast-inequalities#1
THE FIVE RINGS REPRESENT THE FIVE CONTINENTS
THE COLORS REPRESENT EACH CONTINENT
Oceania: blue
Europe: black
Americas: red
Africa: yellow
Asia: green.
BEST TO GO TO THE WEBSITE AND ZOOM THE VIDEO TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE TEXT BELOW THE RINGS. THERE IS A SLIDE SHOW OF EACH SUBJECT AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE (SEE LEFT RIGHT ARROWS) SO YOU CAN STUDY EACH DIAGRAM. VERY ENLIGHTENING.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670344/infographics-using-the-olympic-rings-to-show-vast-inequalities#1
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Paul Craig Roberts: Syria: Washington's Latest War Crime
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32003.htm
Obama has not said why his government is so desperate to overthrow the Syrian government. The current president was an eye doctor in London who was brought back to Syria to replace his father, who had passed away, as president of the country. Washington is reticent about its real motives, which it masks with high-sounding humanitarian rhetoric, but Washington’s motives are transparent.
One motive is to get rid of the Russian naval base in Syria, thus depriving Russia of its only Mediterranean base.
A second motive is to eliminate Syria as a source of arms and support to Hizbullah in order that Israel can succeed in its attempts to occupy southern Lebanon and acquire its water resources. Hizbullah’s fighters have twice defeated the Israeli military’s attempts to invade and to occupy southern Lebanon.
A third motive is to destroy the unity of Syria with sectarian conflict, as Washington destroyed Libya and Iraq, and leave Syria to waring factions to dismember the country, thus removing another obstacle to Washington’s hegemony.
MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST ARTICLES
Dow Jones Rally
New Banking Trace Rules
It use to be that $10,000 was the reporting limit where banks are supposed to let the IRS know you received money.
Well, any money you send or receive, that number is now $3,000.
This Sovereign Debt Crisis is getting so bad and unemployment is really running closer to 17%, that pretty soon if you find a quarter in a parking lot a surveillance camera will send a picture to the IRS and they will fine you $1,000 for cheating them out of their 15 cents. This is all about money now.
Raw milk advocate James Stewart seized by armed bounty hunters driving vehicles with no plates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYTP9C7jtrI
Shocking video from Thursday, July 26th, 2012, at approximately 6:00 pm in Ventura, California. James Stewart, the 65-year-old raw "milk man" and founder of Rawesome Foods, was assaulted near his home today by three armed men driving unmarked luxury vehicles with no license plates. Carrying firearms on their hips and dressed in gangster-style street clothes, Satanic T-shirt imagery and tattoos, they claimed to be making an "arrest" and verbally assaulted James, sprayed his face with PEPPER SPRAY, forced his head against a car and screamed, according to witnesses, "You better listen to me or you're gonna have a bad f*ckin' day!"
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Ralph Nader: The Criminal Injustice System
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31987.htm
From the lethal drug wars on our city streets to the crowding out of civil cases from the federal and state dockets clogged by these drug cases, to the blocking of proven, superior ways to deal with the entire problem by innovative judges, thoughtful scholars and prominent advocacy groups, the time is ripe for change.
From the lethal drug wars on our city streets to the crowding out of civil cases from the federal and state dockets clogged by these drug cases, to the blocking of proven, superior ways to deal with the entire problem by innovative judges, thoughtful scholars and prominent advocacy groups, the time is ripe for change.
Draghi Just Pulled Out His Bazooka… How Long Before the Crash?
http://gainspainscapital.com/?p=2014
Draghi is pulling a classic Central Banker stunt: verbal intervention. If Draghi could in fact solve this mess, he would have already done so. The EU Crisis started in 2010 after all. And here we are, over two years later, and even Greece, which only comprises 2% of EU GDP, has yet to see its problems solved.
If the ECB cannot solve Greece’s problems, how on earth could it solve those of Spain or the entire EU for that matter?
The answer is obvious: it can’t.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Why do we need a central bank?
http://www.sovereignman.com/finance/why-do-we-need-a-central-ban/
Abolishing central banks and their core functions would have the happy and non-trivial side effect of reintroducing something akin to sound money into the world economy, rather than live with permanent inflation and have the entire economy held hostage by banking interests.
Abolishing central banks and their core functions would have the happy and non-trivial side effect of reintroducing something akin to sound money into the world economy, rather than live with permanent inflation and have the entire economy held hostage by banking interests.
Glenn Greenwald: The Obama GITMO myth
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31970.htm
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/
New vindictive restrictions on detainees highlights the falsity of Obama defenders regarding closing the camp
What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp). What made Guantanamo such a travesty — and what still makes it such — is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. President Obama’s so-called “plan to close Guantanamo” — even if it had been approved in full by Congress — did not seek to end that core injustice. It sought to do the opposite: Obama’s plan would have continued the system of indefinite detention, but simply re-located it from Guantanamo Bay onto American soil.
Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention — the defining injustice of Guantanamo — as his own policy.
...while the Obama administration inherited the Guantánamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies. It is unimaginable that the Obama administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the right to confront one’s accusers. . . . .The Obama administration’s announcement today contradicts everything the president has said about the need for America to return to leading with its values.
...while the Obama administration inherited the Guantánamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies. It is unimaginable that the Obama administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the right to confront one’s accusers. . . . .The Obama administration’s announcement today contradicts everything the president has said about the need for America to return to leading with its values.
Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, research reveals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens?newsfeed=true
A far-reaching new study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put parts of Africa back on its feet – and even solve the euro crisis
A far-reaching new study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put parts of Africa back on its feet – and even solve the euro crisis
A LINK BETWEEN ALLEGED AURORA SHOOTER'S FATHER AND THE BANKING SCANDAL?
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1600.htm
Robert Holmes, whose “blueblood” family links go back to the Mayflower, is known throughout the global banking community as being the creator of one of the most sophisticated computer algorithms ever developed and is credited with developing predictive models for financial services; credit and fraud risk models, first and third party application fraud models and internet/online banking fraud models.
Robert Holmes is currently the senior lead scientist with the American credit score company FICO
Holmes recently completed his work on what is called one of the most sophisticated computer algorithms ever developed that not only uncovered the true intent of this massive fraud (the Libor manipulatior), but is, also, able to trace the Trillions of Dollars “lost” to the exact bank accounts of the elite classes who have stolen it.
Robert Holmes, whose “blueblood” family links go back to the Mayflower, is known throughout the global banking community as being the creator of one of the most sophisticated computer algorithms ever developed and is credited with developing predictive models for financial services; credit and fraud risk models, first and third party application fraud models and internet/online banking fraud models.
Robert Holmes is currently the senior lead scientist with the American credit score company FICO
Holmes recently completed his work on what is called one of the most sophisticated computer algorithms ever developed that not only uncovered the true intent of this massive fraud (the Libor manipulatior), but is, also, able to trace the Trillions of Dollars “lost” to the exact bank accounts of the elite classes who have stolen it.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
JACOB HORNBERGER: Indifference to the Sanctity of Life
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-07-23.asp
While it’s too soon to know what motivated that Aurora, Colorado, shooter to kill and maim all those people, one thing seems clear: Whatever his motive was, it wasn’t personally directed toward the victims. It seems as though he didn’t care who he shot, who he killed, who he maimed. The shooter just had no regard for the sanctity of innocent life.
He’s not the only one, however. For the past 11 years, the U.S. government, operating through its military and intelligence forces, has had the same indifference to the sanctity of human life displayed by that killer in Aurora, Colorado.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Noam Chomsky: The Magna Carta Shredded Before Our Eyes
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31929.htm
This column is adapted from an address by Noam Chomsky on June 19 at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland, as part of its 600th anniversary celebration.
This column is adapted from an address by Noam Chomsky on June 19 at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland, as part of its 600th anniversary celebration.
MARTIN ARMSTRONG: Post-Office New Rules – You cannot mail cash
Here are the regulations of the US Post Office now prohibits mailing:
“Money (coins, cash, currency, paper money and negotiable instruments equivalent to cash such as endorsed stocks, bonds and cash letters).”
We tried at three Post Offices and listing the content as “coins” led to a refusal to accept the package. Trying to explain the “Roman” coins were not negotiable, proved fruitless. No doubt professional coin dealers were NEVER intended to be shut down. Obviously, being in that business probably led to some moron calling and being told they were not negotiable under the rules.
Marine Corps creates law enforcement battalions
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iHdKlLMtYe8LzYNdeAlUHxaKI5NQ
The Marine Corps has created its first law enforcement battalions — a lean, specialized force of military police officers that it hopes can quickly deploy worldwide to help investigate crimes from terrorism to drug trafficking and train fledgling security forces in allied nations.
The Corps activated three such battalions last month. Each is made up of roughly 500 military police officers and dozens of dogs
Congress Mocks Ron Paul While Libor Scandal And Debt Scandals Threaten World Banking
http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/congress-mocks-ron-paul-while-libor-scandal-and-debt-scandals-threaten-world-banking/
One of the most pathetic Washington Post stories about banking is the retirement of Ron Paul. Bernanke and the corrupt members of the House Banking Committee all laugh at him while smugly patting themselves on the back…right in the middle of yet another of zillions of banking scandals. The real scandal, of course, is the collapse of all sane oversight for bankers who then ran amok and by creating way, way too much credit, have caused the entire global banking system to collapse.
One of the most pathetic Washington Post stories about banking is the retirement of Ron Paul. Bernanke and the corrupt members of the House Banking Committee all laugh at him while smugly patting themselves on the back…right in the middle of yet another of zillions of banking scandals. The real scandal, of course, is the collapse of all sane oversight for bankers who then ran amok and by creating way, way too much credit, have caused the entire global banking system to collapse.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Obama Plan To Shatter “Permanent War Economy” Panics Global Elites
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1599.htm
Not being understood by the American people is that the operation of a “permanent war economy” makes President Obama the Chief Executive Officer of the United States Military-Industrial Complex controlling the largest single block of capital resources the world has ever known and that has spent this year alone nearly $1.5 Trillion.
To be noted is that this combination of [economic, political, and military] powers in the same hands has been a feature of statist societies—communist, fascist, and others—where individual rights cannot constrain central rule.
£13TRILLION: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore-economy
A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
Friday, July 20, 2012
US Military Reveals Coup Plan To Topple Obama
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1598.htm
Most ominously for the American people are new reports being leaked by the US Military about Obama stating that his“mentors”, who include those of his inner circle, have long advocated the overthrowing of the Constitution and have openly discussed the “eliminating” of the estimated 25 million US civilians they believe would oppose them and not be able to be“reconditioned” in their planned reeducation camps.
To how Obama would “eliminate” such a staggering number of armed Americans, this report continues, would be by his unilaterally imposing on his nation the United Nations Small Arms Treaty many experts are warning will be the largest gun grab in US history.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Where Is The Line For Revolution?
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/916-where-is-the-line-for-revolution
the idea is not so far fetched. We have a global banking system that is feeding like a tapeworm in the stagnant guts of our economy. We suffer an election system so fraudulent BOTH sides of the political spectrum now represent a hyper-rich minority while the rest of us are simply expected to play along and enjoy the illusion of choice. We have a judicial body that has gone out of its way to whittle down our civil liberties and to marginalize our Constitution as some kind of “outdated relic”. We have an executive branch that issues special orders like monarchical edicts every month, each new order even more invasive and oppressive than the last. And, we have an establishment system that now believes it has the right to surveil the citizenry en masse and on the slightest whim without any consideration for 4th Amendment protections.
the idea is not so far fetched. We have a global banking system that is feeding like a tapeworm in the stagnant guts of our economy. We suffer an election system so fraudulent BOTH sides of the political spectrum now represent a hyper-rich minority while the rest of us are simply expected to play along and enjoy the illusion of choice. We have a judicial body that has gone out of its way to whittle down our civil liberties and to marginalize our Constitution as some kind of “outdated relic”. We have an executive branch that issues special orders like monarchical edicts every month, each new order even more invasive and oppressive than the last. And, we have an establishment system that now believes it has the right to surveil the citizenry en masse and on the slightest whim without any consideration for 4th Amendment protections.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Paul Craig Roberts: War On All Fronts
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31910.htm
It looks as if an over-confident US government is determined to have a three-front war: Syria, Lebanon, and Iran in the Middle East, China in the Far East, and Russia in Europe. This would appear to be an ambitious agenda for a government whose military was unable to occupy Iraq after nine years or to defeat the lightly-armed Taliban after eleven years, and whose economy and those of its NATO puppets are in trouble and decline with corresponding rising internal unrest and loss of confidence in political leadership.
It looks as if an over-confident US government is determined to have a three-front war: Syria, Lebanon, and Iran in the Middle East, China in the Far East, and Russia in Europe. This would appear to be an ambitious agenda for a government whose military was unable to occupy Iraq after nine years or to defeat the lightly-armed Taliban after eleven years, and whose economy and those of its NATO puppets are in trouble and decline with corresponding rising internal unrest and loss of confidence in political leadership.
FROM THE DAILY RECKONING
| A Crisis Veiled in Public Spectacle | |||
You can’t help but feel sorry for the bankers. Yesterday, one of them was so upset and humiliated he tended his resignation — at a Senate hearing. One after another the bankers mount the scaffold. Goldman, JP Morgan, Barclays...and now HSBC. One loses money. Another rigs LIBOR rates. One fiddles an entire nation’s books. And another helps terrorists, drug dealers and money launderers with their banking needs. That last charge is the one leveled against HSBC yesterday, causing the bank’s chief of compliance to quit, on the spot. Here’s the accusation:
Here’s what really happened: The feds created a funny money, back in the early ’70s. Unlike the gold-backed dollar, this one was almost infinitely flexible. It would allow the financial system to create trillions-worth of new cash and credit, vastly expanding the amount of debt in the system...and greatly increasing the profits of the banking sector. The financial industry — the dispenser of the need money — set to work, creating fancy new ways to move the new money around. Each time it closed a deal, it made a profit. Naturally, it was encouraged to find all manner of clever ways to make deals. Then, when the credit bubble blew up in ’08-’09 many of these tricks of the trade didn’t look so clever. They looked sinister. Stupid. Or crooked. “When the tide goes out,” says Warren Buffett, “you see who’s been swimming naked.” It is not a pretty sight. Billions of dollars were lent to people who shouldn’t have been allowed to borrow lunch money. And now, there are losses — trillions worth. The real question — the only question of great significance since the blow-up — is: who will take the losses? Or, to put it another way: How will the system be cleaned up? Who will decide who wins and who loses? Mr. Market or Mr. Politician? Let investors and speculators take the losses...or put them on savers and taxpayers? Who will lose? The rich? Or the rest? We’ve given you our answer many times: let Mr. Market sort it out. He’s completely impartial. He’s honest. He’s fast. And he works cheap. In a flash, back in September-December of ’08, he probably would have wiped up the floor with the bankers. In a real crash, few of the big banks would have remained standing. Investors and lenders who had put their money in them...and who had invested in the things their phony credits supported...would have lost trillions. The rich wouldn’t be so rich anymore. And we’d now be in some phase of real recovery with many new financial institutions. But we’re not in a position to impose our will on the world. And the politicians are. So, they’ve decided to do it another way. Instead of allowing Mr. Market to do his work they make their own choices...generally trying to direct the losses towards groups of people who don’t make campaign contributions...and don’t know what is going on. That is, towards the masses...and the unborn... The idea has been to kick the can as far down the road as possible...borrowing and printing trillions more dollars to prop up the financial system...while also parading a few bankers through the streets with nooses around their necks. The press insults them. The mob spits upon them. The public spectacle continues... ..and nothing really changes. Regards, Bill Bonner, for The Daily Reckoning |
Car buyer mistaken as terrorist
http://www.ajc.com/business/car-buyer-mistaken-as-1478371.html?printArticle=y
The credit report Cortez had seen long before she walked into the dealership was clean. She had excellent credit, and she had no inkling that she was linked to a Colombian woman with a similar name wanted for drug trafficking. But like so many other consumers, Cortez didn't realize that the credit reports issued to businesses are not the same as those given to consumers.
The credit report Cortez had seen long before she walked into the dealership was clean. She had excellent credit, and she had no inkling that she was linked to a Colombian woman with a similar name wanted for drug trafficking. But like so many other consumers, Cortez didn't realize that the credit reports issued to businesses are not the same as those given to consumers.
HUMOR: A FEW MORE BANK SECURITY QUESTIONS
Dear Ameri-Bank customers,
In light of recent fraudulent activity in the Ameri-Bank system, we are taking additional security precautions. That is why, before logging into your account, we ask that you select from the following security questions:
What is your childhood pet’s real name?
What street did you really grow up on?
What is really your favorite Jane Austen novel?
Who is your least favorite nephew?
What was the last name of your first grade teacher’s second husband?
What was your mother’s maiden waist size?
What street would you have preferred to grow up on?
What is your youngest daughter’s wingspan?
Who is your eldest son’s favorite dad?
What street did you really grow up on?
What is really your favorite Jane Austen novel?
Who is your least favorite nephew?
What was the last name of your first grade teacher’s second husband?
What was your mother’s maiden waist size?
What street would you have preferred to grow up on?
What is your youngest daughter’s wingspan?
Who is your eldest son’s favorite dad?
If you could be any animal, what is that animal’s middle name?
What is your porno name? (Middle name + Street you grew up on)
What is your circus name? (Name of your most German relative + Wacky noise)
What is your pet’s porno name? (Regular pet name + “St. Cloud”)
If you could have lunch with any black U.S. President, who would it be?
If you could have lunch with Albert Einstein or Adolf Hitler, what would you order?
Are you even hungry?
What is your favorite Will Smith golf movie?
Who is your all-time favorite city comptroller?
What is your least favorite ethnicity?
If you could travel anywhere in the world, wouldn’t that be great?
On what day are you going to die?
Who is your favorite Wu-Tang Clan member, excluding O.D.B., Ghostface, Rza, Gza, Raekwon, and Method Man?
What is Mario Lopez’s greatest asset?
Hey, remember Deion Sanders?
He was the best.
So what do you bench?
Squat?
What about pull-ups? How many pull-ups can you do?
And what’s your middle name again?
“Guinevere”? Huh. That’s cool.
Are you single?
Looking to meet someone?
What’s your opinion of I.T. guys who work at banks?
I see.
Well, good luck accessing your account.
What is your porno name? (Middle name + Street you grew up on)
What is your circus name? (Name of your most German relative + Wacky noise)
What is your pet’s porno name? (Regular pet name + “St. Cloud”)
If you could have lunch with any black U.S. President, who would it be?
If you could have lunch with Albert Einstein or Adolf Hitler, what would you order?
Are you even hungry?
What is your favorite Will Smith golf movie?
Who is your all-time favorite city comptroller?
What is your least favorite ethnicity?
If you could travel anywhere in the world, wouldn’t that be great?
On what day are you going to die?
Who is your favorite Wu-Tang Clan member, excluding O.D.B., Ghostface, Rza, Gza, Raekwon, and Method Man?
What is Mario Lopez’s greatest asset?
Hey, remember Deion Sanders?
He was the best.
So what do you bench?
Squat?
What about pull-ups? How many pull-ups can you do?
And what’s your middle name again?
“Guinevere”? Huh. That’s cool.
Are you single?
Looking to meet someone?
What’s your opinion of I.T. guys who work at banks?
I see.
Well, good luck accessing your account.
Illustration by Maximilian Bode.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2012/04/a-few-more-bank-security-questions.html#ixzz210kRAIAs
ANDY BOROWITZ: Romney Campaign Releases First Picture of V.P. Pick
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/07/romney-campaign-releases-first-picture-of-vp-pick.html
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/07/romney-campaign-releases-first-picture-of-vp-pick.html#ixzz210SCaZNx
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Republican Presidential choice Mitt Romney shocked the political world today by releasing a picture of his choice for Vice-President—a man who, political insiders admit, was on nobody’s short or long list.
The photo shows Mr. Romney’s Veep pick, whose face was immediately recognizable to millions of Americans, wearing his trademark top hat and carrying what appears to be a moneybag, with currency of various denominations trailing behind him.
The Romney campaign issued scant information about the source of his running mate’s wealth, saying only that he had made his money “in real estate” and would not be releasing his tax returns.
Davis Logsdon, a political scientist who studies the history of Vice-Presidential selection at the University of Minnesota, called the choice of running mate who might be even wealthier than Mr. Romney “baffling beyond words.”
“Is Mitt Romney really going to share the stage at the Republican convention in Tampa with a man clutching a bulging sack with a big dollar sign on it?” Mr. Logsdon asked. “Those are terrible optics.”
Moreover, he added, Mr. Romney’s Vice-Presidential choice has political baggage that could prove problematic going forward: “We’re talking about someone who has gotten out of jail multiple times.”
The Romney campaign may have released the picture to distract attention from yesterday’s controversial comment by 2008 G.O.P. nominee John McCain, who said that he passed on Mr. Romney as his V.P. pick because Alaska governor Sarah Palin was a “better candidate.”
Today, Senator McCain attempted to explain his remark: “Romney had all his money hidden in Switzerland. Sarah Palin was better because she had never heard of Switzerland.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/07/romney-campaign-releases-first-picture-of-vp-pick.html#ixzz210SCaZNx
How Wall Street Scams Counties Into Bankruptcy
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31898.htm
For some reason, Wall Street never seems to get the message that bribing government officials -- and paying each other off - - to get access to lucrative municipal-bond underwriting business is illegal. Wall Street has never learned this lesson because the miniscule price it ends up having to pay for misbehaving has absolutely no deterrent value whatsoever.
For some reason, Wall Street never seems to get the message that bribing government officials -- and paying each other off - - to get access to lucrative municipal-bond underwriting business is illegal. Wall Street has never learned this lesson because the miniscule price it ends up having to pay for misbehaving has absolutely no deterrent value whatsoever.
About the Isaac Brock Society
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2011/12/14/about-the-isaac-brock-society/
The United States is one of two countries in the world that taxes its people no matter where in the world they may reside. The other is the terrorist thug nation of Eritrea. The majority of US persons who live abroad are not aware of their filing requirements. But recently, the US government has decided to crack down on those who are not in compliance
the US government has begun, since about 2004, to apply with great pressure a long-neglected requirement of 35-year old law called the Bank Secrecy Act. That requirement is FBAR, the foreign bank account report, which the United States government expects annually from those who have accounts outside of the United States which exceed $10,000 in aggregate.
The fines for failure to file this form are extortionate
The United States is one of two countries in the world that taxes its people no matter where in the world they may reside. The other is the terrorist thug nation of Eritrea. The majority of US persons who live abroad are not aware of their filing requirements. But recently, the US government has decided to crack down on those who are not in compliance
the US government has begun, since about 2004, to apply with great pressure a long-neglected requirement of 35-year old law called the Bank Secrecy Act. That requirement is FBAR, the foreign bank account report, which the United States government expects annually from those who have accounts outside of the United States which exceed $10,000 in aggregate.
The fines for failure to file this form are extortionate
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
25 Signs The Collapse Of America Is Speeding Up As Society Rots From The Inside Out
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/25-signs-the-collapse-of-america-is-speeding-up-as-society-rots-from-the-inside-out
PAUL B. FARRELL: How Bernanke will cause the next crash before 2014
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-bernanke-will-cause-the-next-crash-before-2014-2012-07-17?link=home_carousel
Rich will lose 50% in massive wealth destruction
The Fed’s cheap money policies have favored banks, devaluing the dollar,
destroying the value of stocks, fueling inflation, triggering job losses and
social unrest. In short, the happy conspiracy between the Fed and Wall Street is
suicidal and will take down the rest of America with it.
Monday, July 16, 2012
MATT TAIBBI: Romney's 'Free Stuff' Speech Is a New Low
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/romneys-free-stuff-speech-is-a-new-low-20120713
The biggest office in the world requires someone who buzzes with enough personality to fill the job, and most of them have it.
But Romney doesn’t buzz with anything. His vision of humanity is just a million tons of meat floating around in a sea of base calculations. He’s like a teenager who stays up all night thinking of a way to impress the prom queen, and what he comes up with is kicking a kid in a wheelchair.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/romneys-free-stuff-speech-is-a-new-low-20120713#ixzz20rFwG87p
Tom Junod: What Happens When Assassination Replaces Torture?
ANOTHER ARTICLE BY THE AUTHOR OF
'A LETHAL PRESIDENCY'
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31854.htm
One of the things that concerned me about the Bush administration's commitment to torture in the name of enhanced interrogation, for example, is that Americans were being asked by an ostensibly Christian administration to do it: to commit acts that seemed unjustifiable by any Christian code, and to expose themselves to the risk of judgement, whether in the here and now or in the great beyond.
'A LETHAL PRESIDENCY'
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31854.htm
One of the things that concerned me about the Bush administration's commitment to torture in the name of enhanced interrogation, for example, is that Americans were being asked by an ostensibly Christian administration to do it: to commit acts that seemed unjustifiable by any Christian code, and to expose themselves to the risk of judgement, whether in the here and now or in the great beyond.
COURTESY OF ARMSTRONG ECONOMICS
Jefferson – Words of Wisdom
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
“Asset Forfeiture” in D.C.: Cops Steal Your Car, the Judge Demands Ransom
http://www.republicmagazine.com/news/asset-forfeiture-in-d-c-cops-steal-your-car-the-judge-demands-ransom.html
Here’s how the institutionalized theft called “civil asset forfeiture” works in Washington, D.C.: If the police steal your car, you may eventually get it back – if you’re willing to pay ransom for the privilege of letting a judge decide if the thieves get to keep it permanently.
Here’s how the institutionalized theft called “civil asset forfeiture” works in Washington, D.C.: If the police steal your car, you may eventually get it back – if you’re willing to pay ransom for the privilege of letting a judge decide if the thieves get to keep it permanently.
Training Cops To Lie - Pt 1 FROM 2009
http://www.officer.com/article/10233095/training-cops-to-lie-pt-1
Police lie. It's part of their job. They lie to suspects and others in hopes of obtaining evidence. These investigative lies cover a wide web of deception - a web that can get tangled. Some investigative lies are legal, some are not, and some generate significant disagreement amongst courts, prosecutors, the public and officers themselves.
Police lie. It's part of their job. They lie to suspects and others in hopes of obtaining evidence. These investigative lies cover a wide web of deception - a web that can get tangled. Some investigative lies are legal, some are not, and some generate significant disagreement amongst courts, prosecutors, the public and officers themselves.
Training Cops To Lie, Pt 2
Sunday, July 15, 2012
ALL COMMON SENSE AND JUSTICE HAS GONE FROM THIS WORLD
Briton jailed for four years in Dubai after customs find cannabis weighing less than a grain of sugar under his shoe
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512815/Briton-jailed-years-Dubai-customs-cannabis-weighing-grain-sugar-shoe.html#ixzz20l9oykYq
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512815/Briton-jailed-years-Dubai-customs-cannabis-weighing-grain-sugar-shoe.html#ixzz20l9oykYq
Hidden Government Scanners Will Instantly Know Everything About You From 164 Feet Away
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31871.htm
Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.
Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
A MIND BLOWING ARTICLE FROM 2010
TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS...IT SAYS IT ALL!
Mission Accomplished: The Reagan Occupation and the Destruction of the American Middle Class
by David Michael Green | June 25, 2010 (TWO YEARS AGO)
by David Michael Green | June 25, 2010 (TWO YEARS AGO)
Eighty years ago, something occurred in America that was never supposed to happen. An aristocrat came to the presidency and engineered a policy revolution that created a broad and prosperous middle class where it had not existed as such before.
To do this, Franklin Roosevelt and his party had to rewrite the existing rules of wealth redistribution in the United States such that the traditionally fantastically wealthy overclass (which had grown even fatter as the industrialism of the prior century concentrated wealth yet further) would become merely tremendously wealthy from that point forward, in order to leave enough for others to live a decent life.
Needless to say, this rankled the country club set, but, remarkably, they more or less made peace with this development during the early decades of the post-war era, and largely cooperated with the new economic order. So did their political representatives. The Eisenhower administration was the first chance after twenty years of the New Deal to dismantle the newly created American welfare state, and Ike not only refused to take that opportunity, but famously labeled those in his party who wanted to as "stupid".
If Eisenhower, in his gray suit, black-and-white photos and de rigueur businessman's hat from the era seems quaint today, so does his political restraint. By the 1980s that was ancient history, and remains so to this day, including through (and via) two Democratic presidencies now.
If Americans understood the real ambitions of Ronald Reagan and his puppeteers, and if they knew the degree to which the supposed patriotism of those folks extended beyond falsity and into the far darker waters of being an irritating irrelevance put on purely for show, then they would not only stop seeing Reagan as some sort of national hero, but would also understand that he instead launched a process far more equivalent to an invasion and occupation of this country.
The goal of the right - which cares about America about as much as it does about Burkina Faso - has been to restore the economic order last seen under Herbert Hoover, in which a tiny minority possess vast sums of wealth and there is (therefore) essentially no remaining middle class. It is nothing short of a breathtaking display of a world class greed, worthy of the ages.
It has also been a work of strategic genius (in much the same way one might appreciate the Germans' engineering prowess in figuring out the logistics of how to mass murder ten or twelve million civilians in a year or two), one which has drawn upon deep psychological insights, absolutely sociopathic amoralism, and clever tactics that have all simultaneously pushed in the same direction. In plain English, they hired some politicians of hit-man level moral integrity, who then marshaled fear, insecurity, hate and deceit into a witch's brew of self-destruction that would prove highly attractive to a large segment of the population already sinking from the effects of a global economic order rebalancing after decades of post-war American dominance.
Of course, you couldn't just come right out and say, "Vote for me and I'll give your money to people so rich they can't even imagine what they'll do with it (but they still demand to have it anyhow)", so slightly more subtle tactics had to be employed. It is telling that the most honest thing Barack Obama ever said was when he thought there were no microphones in the room. But he was right when, at a presidential fundraiser in San Francisco he told the wine and cheese set that the right uses guns, god and gays (I would add Gaddafis) to scare people out of their money. I'll believe that Republicans are serious about protecting heterosexual marriage on the day that you can't find half of them prowling the gay bars of DC every night (and you don't even want to know what the other half are into).
This bait-and-switch tactic worked perfectly well whenever it was applied. It didn't hurt that the regressive Billy-Bobs who vote for these folks are as dumb as a tree. With bags of hammers for leaves. But stupid is really only the facilitating quality, and often one that is neither present nor required. What really drives this stuff is fear. If you can turn that into a loathing of fur'ners, fags, bitches, blackies and brownies, you got their vote. Then you can do what you really set out to accomplish in the first place. George W. Bush's 2004 campaign was the paradigmatic example. All year he talked about jamming through a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Big priority. Urgent national issue. The religitarded across America just about peed themselves, they were so excited. Then he gets elected and is brazen enough to announce that there'll be no such effort, after all, and that his signature legislative initiative will be an attempt to hand over the fat Social Security pot of money to Goldman Sachs. The redneck dolts with their Bush/Cheney '04 bumper-stickers didn't know what to think. So, of course, they just didn't.
Meanwhile, to say that this kleptocratic revolution worked really well is only untrue by means of the verb tense employed. It is still working really well. And the final leg of Reagan's March to the Sea is now upon us. Chunks of middle class body parts have been hacked off, bit by bit, over the decades, 'til there's little remaining anymore. Remember how they told us that 'free trade' wouldn't decimate our jobs, our unions and our bargaining power? Is that why little old ladies serve Happy Meals at McDonald's all across the country, assuming they're lucky enough to get that job? Remember how they said that massive tax cuts for the wealthy would be 'revenue neutral' and would jump-start the economy? Which is confusing since the national debt doubled under George W. Bush, and then he proceeded to hand us the worst economy since the Great Depression. Remember how they told us that we needed to slash wasteful government spending on benefits? Now that we've become the ones who need those, they're gone. Remember when they said that government is our enemy and corporations should be free to do whatever they want? You know, like spill oil or trade derivatives?
There's another little trick that is about to become especially prominent in the coming years. When Reagan came to office and began his "voodoo economics" project of nearly quadrupling the national debt, after having promised to cut it instead, many people were puzzled by this. Personally, I figured that they just did the math and realized that in the real world (where governments sometimes live but campaigns rarely do) something simply had to give. If you slash tax revenues and massively increase military spending, guess what's gonna happen to your budget? Others, however, saw a more nefarious game being played, and perhaps they were right. This is the idea that they intentionally ran up deficits so large that the national government would be forced to do what it otherwise would not, which is to slash spending on popular entitlements and other social programs.
Whether or not the conspiracy was real, it is the case that the federal government is running humongous deficits every year, which pile up further on the massive national debt. And it is also the case that we are now hearing a rising chorus on the right - especially from the tea party know-nothings - about slashing government spending as the top priority for Washington. Even though, according to the principles of Keynesian economics, this is the last thing we should be doing during a recession.
And, of course, something tells me that as the pinch is increasingly felt, the call for cuts won't be in the domain of military spending, even though our allocation there is obscenely out of proportion to any imaginable threat in the world, and is roughly equal to what almost the entire rest of the world spends on defense - that's one country equal to almost two hundred others, combined. I'm also guessing that we won't be raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans either, even though they pay far less than they did in the pre-Reagan era, when the country was generally very prosperous, and even though they often pay a lower percentage in taxes than the secretaries and janitors who work for them. No, we can't touch those folks.
Instead, the intense pressure now will be to finish the job of eviscerating the middle class and transferring every last nickel of their wealth to the oligarchs who fancy themselves masters of the universe. Unemployment insurance, for example. Never mind that we have ten percent official unemployment and closer to twenty percent in reality, or that whole cities like Detroit are being wiped out. The Republican minority in the Senate, along with the Democratic "moderates" there, are now refusing to extend expiring unemployment benefits (which are already a pittance when they exist). Nine hundred thousand laid-off workers have thus lost their meager sub-subsistence benefits, and that number will grow to more than a million-and-a-half in a few days now. Guess why. Because regressive senators - including John Kerry and Maria Cantwell - are holding unemployment insurance extensions hostage to protecting a loophole that allows wealthy fund managers to be taxed on their profits at an obscenely low percentage rate. How's that for national priorities? How's that for compassionate conservatism?
Next, inevitably, will come entitlements. Indeed, most of the states in the union are already heading that way, cutting pensions for employees. Not to mention certain low priority areas like education, which is getting slashed from California to New York. How long can it be before Medicare and Social Security are put on the chopping block? And why? Because we have our priorities good and straight, pal: a morbidly bloated military and pathetically low tax rates for the wealthiest among us comes first. Then, if we could somehow do it for free I suppose we could allow decent education, or health care, or retirement with dignity for our elders. But, of course, since that can't be done without cost, those things must go.
The other strategic initiative now reaching fruition during the right's three decade-long campaign to massively redistribute wealth in this country - literally, the crime of the century - is the evisceration of the state. This must be done (or, more accurately, it must be done in some respects but absolutely not in others) because the state is the only force capable of standing up to the power of concentrated wealth, and because the state sets the very rules by which such wealth either is or isn't concentrated. It also must be done because the state nominally speaks for the public and the public interest, as against the private interest.
Since Reagan, regressive puppet politicians have been spouting anti-state rhetoric and sarcastic venom with increasing intensity. Saint Ron of Hypocrisy told us that government was the problem, not the solution, seemingly without noticing the irony of his massive military build-up or the government-enforced restrictions the right favors on everything from abortion to gay marriage to euthanasia. Now, as gutted and corrupted regulatory institutions have permitted massively harmful meltdowns ranging from Wall Street to coal mines to oil wells, we are forced to listen to sermons from those on the right about the incompetence of government. Well, yeah. If in fact you staff government regulatory bodies with industry shills who are explicitly ordered not to actually, er, regulate, and if you legislate away their power to effectively do so anyhow, and if you pulverize conscientious whistleblowers to within an inch of their lives, then guess what? That little bit of government will in fact be incompetent. In fact, it will be nearly as bad at the competence thing as, say, all the big banks on Wall Street (which had to be rescued by the, uh, government), or all the big auto companies in Detroit (ditto), or British Petroleum, or Enron, or the savings-and-loan industry, or...
And so, despite the astonishing illogic of it all, the American people now clamor for more harm to be brought upon themselves and more of their money to be looted for the further enrichment of the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population. It certainly doesn't help that the supposed "party of the people" is every bit as much a part of the problem as anyone else, and arguably far more so given the extra measure of disingenuousness involved. From NAFTA to WTO to welfare 'reform' to the Telecommunications Bill, Wall Street never had better friend in the White House than Bill Clinton. That is, until Barack Obama simply outright changed the address of Goldman Sachs' headquarters to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As we speak, the president and his party in Congress are busy gutting meaningful 'reform' of the shamelessly gluttonous finance industry, just as their masters have ordered them to do. And if you think Obama's bad now, wait until after November. Like Clinton in 1994, he will take the trouncing he's about to receive in the election as a signal to move even further to the right.
And thus the Reagan Occupation inches closer yet to a full-blown "mission accomplished". The middle class is on its knees and shrinking fast. Unions have been broken into irrelevance. Government, supposedly an agent of the public interest, has become a complete tool of those it is meant to monitor. Both political parties are fully owned by the oligarchy. The public has been brainwashed into seeing its allies as enemies and its enemies as allies. We have been drained of hope that any actor on the horizon can come to our rescue.
Bad policy choices by self-serving politicians? Would that 'twere only thus.
We are occupied.
To do this, Franklin Roosevelt and his party had to rewrite the existing rules of wealth redistribution in the United States such that the traditionally fantastically wealthy overclass (which had grown even fatter as the industrialism of the prior century concentrated wealth yet further) would become merely tremendously wealthy from that point forward, in order to leave enough for others to live a decent life.
Needless to say, this rankled the country club set, but, remarkably, they more or less made peace with this development during the early decades of the post-war era, and largely cooperated with the new economic order. So did their political representatives. The Eisenhower administration was the first chance after twenty years of the New Deal to dismantle the newly created American welfare state, and Ike not only refused to take that opportunity, but famously labeled those in his party who wanted to as "stupid".
If Eisenhower, in his gray suit, black-and-white photos and de rigueur businessman's hat from the era seems quaint today, so does his political restraint. By the 1980s that was ancient history, and remains so to this day, including through (and via) two Democratic presidencies now.
If Americans understood the real ambitions of Ronald Reagan and his puppeteers, and if they knew the degree to which the supposed patriotism of those folks extended beyond falsity and into the far darker waters of being an irritating irrelevance put on purely for show, then they would not only stop seeing Reagan as some sort of national hero, but would also understand that he instead launched a process far more equivalent to an invasion and occupation of this country.
The goal of the right - which cares about America about as much as it does about Burkina Faso - has been to restore the economic order last seen under Herbert Hoover, in which a tiny minority possess vast sums of wealth and there is (therefore) essentially no remaining middle class. It is nothing short of a breathtaking display of a world class greed, worthy of the ages.
It has also been a work of strategic genius (in much the same way one might appreciate the Germans' engineering prowess in figuring out the logistics of how to mass murder ten or twelve million civilians in a year or two), one which has drawn upon deep psychological insights, absolutely sociopathic amoralism, and clever tactics that have all simultaneously pushed in the same direction. In plain English, they hired some politicians of hit-man level moral integrity, who then marshaled fear, insecurity, hate and deceit into a witch's brew of self-destruction that would prove highly attractive to a large segment of the population already sinking from the effects of a global economic order rebalancing after decades of post-war American dominance.
Of course, you couldn't just come right out and say, "Vote for me and I'll give your money to people so rich they can't even imagine what they'll do with it (but they still demand to have it anyhow)", so slightly more subtle tactics had to be employed. It is telling that the most honest thing Barack Obama ever said was when he thought there were no microphones in the room. But he was right when, at a presidential fundraiser in San Francisco he told the wine and cheese set that the right uses guns, god and gays (I would add Gaddafis) to scare people out of their money. I'll believe that Republicans are serious about protecting heterosexual marriage on the day that you can't find half of them prowling the gay bars of DC every night (and you don't even want to know what the other half are into).
This bait-and-switch tactic worked perfectly well whenever it was applied. It didn't hurt that the regressive Billy-Bobs who vote for these folks are as dumb as a tree. With bags of hammers for leaves. But stupid is really only the facilitating quality, and often one that is neither present nor required. What really drives this stuff is fear. If you can turn that into a loathing of fur'ners, fags, bitches, blackies and brownies, you got their vote. Then you can do what you really set out to accomplish in the first place. George W. Bush's 2004 campaign was the paradigmatic example. All year he talked about jamming through a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Big priority. Urgent national issue. The religitarded across America just about peed themselves, they were so excited. Then he gets elected and is brazen enough to announce that there'll be no such effort, after all, and that his signature legislative initiative will be an attempt to hand over the fat Social Security pot of money to Goldman Sachs. The redneck dolts with their Bush/Cheney '04 bumper-stickers didn't know what to think. So, of course, they just didn't.
Meanwhile, to say that this kleptocratic revolution worked really well is only untrue by means of the verb tense employed. It is still working really well. And the final leg of Reagan's March to the Sea is now upon us. Chunks of middle class body parts have been hacked off, bit by bit, over the decades, 'til there's little remaining anymore. Remember how they told us that 'free trade' wouldn't decimate our jobs, our unions and our bargaining power? Is that why little old ladies serve Happy Meals at McDonald's all across the country, assuming they're lucky enough to get that job? Remember how they said that massive tax cuts for the wealthy would be 'revenue neutral' and would jump-start the economy? Which is confusing since the national debt doubled under George W. Bush, and then he proceeded to hand us the worst economy since the Great Depression. Remember how they told us that we needed to slash wasteful government spending on benefits? Now that we've become the ones who need those, they're gone. Remember when they said that government is our enemy and corporations should be free to do whatever they want? You know, like spill oil or trade derivatives?
There's another little trick that is about to become especially prominent in the coming years. When Reagan came to office and began his "voodoo economics" project of nearly quadrupling the national debt, after having promised to cut it instead, many people were puzzled by this. Personally, I figured that they just did the math and realized that in the real world (where governments sometimes live but campaigns rarely do) something simply had to give. If you slash tax revenues and massively increase military spending, guess what's gonna happen to your budget? Others, however, saw a more nefarious game being played, and perhaps they were right. This is the idea that they intentionally ran up deficits so large that the national government would be forced to do what it otherwise would not, which is to slash spending on popular entitlements and other social programs.
Whether or not the conspiracy was real, it is the case that the federal government is running humongous deficits every year, which pile up further on the massive national debt. And it is also the case that we are now hearing a rising chorus on the right - especially from the tea party know-nothings - about slashing government spending as the top priority for Washington. Even though, according to the principles of Keynesian economics, this is the last thing we should be doing during a recession.
And, of course, something tells me that as the pinch is increasingly felt, the call for cuts won't be in the domain of military spending, even though our allocation there is obscenely out of proportion to any imaginable threat in the world, and is roughly equal to what almost the entire rest of the world spends on defense - that's one country equal to almost two hundred others, combined. I'm also guessing that we won't be raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans either, even though they pay far less than they did in the pre-Reagan era, when the country was generally very prosperous, and even though they often pay a lower percentage in taxes than the secretaries and janitors who work for them. No, we can't touch those folks.
Instead, the intense pressure now will be to finish the job of eviscerating the middle class and transferring every last nickel of their wealth to the oligarchs who fancy themselves masters of the universe. Unemployment insurance, for example. Never mind that we have ten percent official unemployment and closer to twenty percent in reality, or that whole cities like Detroit are being wiped out. The Republican minority in the Senate, along with the Democratic "moderates" there, are now refusing to extend expiring unemployment benefits (which are already a pittance when they exist). Nine hundred thousand laid-off workers have thus lost their meager sub-subsistence benefits, and that number will grow to more than a million-and-a-half in a few days now. Guess why. Because regressive senators - including John Kerry and Maria Cantwell - are holding unemployment insurance extensions hostage to protecting a loophole that allows wealthy fund managers to be taxed on their profits at an obscenely low percentage rate. How's that for national priorities? How's that for compassionate conservatism?
Next, inevitably, will come entitlements. Indeed, most of the states in the union are already heading that way, cutting pensions for employees. Not to mention certain low priority areas like education, which is getting slashed from California to New York. How long can it be before Medicare and Social Security are put on the chopping block? And why? Because we have our priorities good and straight, pal: a morbidly bloated military and pathetically low tax rates for the wealthiest among us comes first. Then, if we could somehow do it for free I suppose we could allow decent education, or health care, or retirement with dignity for our elders. But, of course, since that can't be done without cost, those things must go.
The other strategic initiative now reaching fruition during the right's three decade-long campaign to massively redistribute wealth in this country - literally, the crime of the century - is the evisceration of the state. This must be done (or, more accurately, it must be done in some respects but absolutely not in others) because the state is the only force capable of standing up to the power of concentrated wealth, and because the state sets the very rules by which such wealth either is or isn't concentrated. It also must be done because the state nominally speaks for the public and the public interest, as against the private interest.
Since Reagan, regressive puppet politicians have been spouting anti-state rhetoric and sarcastic venom with increasing intensity. Saint Ron of Hypocrisy told us that government was the problem, not the solution, seemingly without noticing the irony of his massive military build-up or the government-enforced restrictions the right favors on everything from abortion to gay marriage to euthanasia. Now, as gutted and corrupted regulatory institutions have permitted massively harmful meltdowns ranging from Wall Street to coal mines to oil wells, we are forced to listen to sermons from those on the right about the incompetence of government. Well, yeah. If in fact you staff government regulatory bodies with industry shills who are explicitly ordered not to actually, er, regulate, and if you legislate away their power to effectively do so anyhow, and if you pulverize conscientious whistleblowers to within an inch of their lives, then guess what? That little bit of government will in fact be incompetent. In fact, it will be nearly as bad at the competence thing as, say, all the big banks on Wall Street (which had to be rescued by the, uh, government), or all the big auto companies in Detroit (ditto), or British Petroleum, or Enron, or the savings-and-loan industry, or...
And so, despite the astonishing illogic of it all, the American people now clamor for more harm to be brought upon themselves and more of their money to be looted for the further enrichment of the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population. It certainly doesn't help that the supposed "party of the people" is every bit as much a part of the problem as anyone else, and arguably far more so given the extra measure of disingenuousness involved. From NAFTA to WTO to welfare 'reform' to the Telecommunications Bill, Wall Street never had better friend in the White House than Bill Clinton. That is, until Barack Obama simply outright changed the address of Goldman Sachs' headquarters to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As we speak, the president and his party in Congress are busy gutting meaningful 'reform' of the shamelessly gluttonous finance industry, just as their masters have ordered them to do. And if you think Obama's bad now, wait until after November. Like Clinton in 1994, he will take the trouncing he's about to receive in the election as a signal to move even further to the right.
And thus the Reagan Occupation inches closer yet to a full-blown "mission accomplished". The middle class is on its knees and shrinking fast. Unions have been broken into irrelevance. Government, supposedly an agent of the public interest, has become a complete tool of those it is meant to monitor. Both political parties are fully owned by the oligarchy. The public has been brainwashed into seeing its allies as enemies and its enemies as allies. We have been drained of hope that any actor on the horizon can come to our rescue.
Bad policy choices by self-serving politicians? Would that 'twere only thus.
We are occupied.
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