Posts by olddog:
June 18th, 2013 by olddog
http://www.newswithviews.com/Schwiesow/jim205.htm
By Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow, Ret.
NewsWithViews.com
One has to acknowledge the cleverness of the socialist agents for state ownership of capital and industry and for tyrannical control over human endeavor, and one must also grant that these did in fact seize upon the war on terror to inauspiciously enable a bureaucratic tyranny that far exceeds any threat from external sources.
911 presented a golden opportunity for these adversaries of republicanism to focus the attention of the American people on phantom international causes so as to obscure and cover-up a domestic agenda that included a dismantlement of the Bill of Rights and an emplacement of central totalistic control in the place of constitutional governance.
Indeed one can imagine that these domestic agents of progressive reform consider the untold billions of dollars spent, and the lives expended, in the international chasing of apparitional guerillas through baron territories to be a small price to pay for the successful and final transition of the nation from states’ rights and participatory democracy to absolutism. It is with great astonishment that one comes to the realization that this transformation came about through, and with the complicity of, the political representatives that were elected by the people to protect their freedoms and to preserve them from government tyranny.
LIVING IN DARK DAYS
A dark and ominous specter hovers over this nation. The country currently meets the definition of a police state. Individualism and personal choice are suppressed and bureaucratic hooliganism is rampant. Subjective federal statutes rule over constitutional ensures, and the U.S. judicial system is rapidly being transformed into an arrangement of people’s courts similar to those of the former Soviet Union and the Third Reich. These increasingly jettison objectivity to affirm and enforce state authority over individual rights.
The U.S. Code – consisting of many thousands of arbitrary statutory laws – is an enemy of the people. These statutes are not laws they are mandates that are specifically adaptive to entrapment and control. One cannot get through a day without violating one or more of these so-called laws; they are all inclusive, intrusive, and invasive to every segment of day to day existence. They comprise a virtual web of controlling measures that enables containment of personal freedoms, and they were specifically drafted to that purpose. The U.S. Code as it exists separates the people from their inherent God-given liberties.
AL CAPONE WOULD HAVE BEEN ENVIOUS OF THE POWER AND IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION THAT GOVERNMENT AGENTS POSSESS
The Department of Justice has become a rat’s nest of sinister intrigue and malfeasance – indeed the Obama/Holder union and appurtenant minions have all the appearances of a crime consortium. Political Gangsterism runs like a thread through the Department of Justice and the malfeasance of the agencies and agents thereof runs the gamut of questionable – if not outright criminal activities; gun-running, subversion of justice, illegal hiring practices and perjury before congressional committees come immediately to mind.
That none have been prosecuted, censored, reprimanded or dismissed for such causes seems to convey the message that these miscreants are beyond any form of accountability or reproof for their blatant in your face infractions. Holder lies in the face of congressional committee members then gives them a virtual middle-finger when they call into question his prevarications. The U.S. Code contains a silly statute that makes it a crime for a citizen to lie to an F.B.I. agent, but the agents and officers of the various agencies within the Department of Justice seem to be able to lie to congressional investigators with impunity. There is something wrong with that scenario, don’t you think?
SATAN IS ALIVE AND WELL
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” -Job 1:6-7
This scripture brings to mind the days when my Dad who might suspect me of some chicanery of one kind or another would make a similar inquiry, to which he would invariably add, “And don’t you lie to me, bud.” It wasn’t necessary for God to add such an addendum to his query of Satan, certainly the omniscient Lord knew where Satan had been and what he had been up to. And if we have been in the spirit and paying attention so do we. The power and influence of the prince of darkness are clearly evident in the works of men.
The corruptness of our people, of our system, and of our leaders makes it exceedingly clear that Satan walks among us. He is indeed the god of this fallen world and the nations of it, including the United States. Every lie that is uttered, every crime that is committed, every inhumanity that is fostered, and injustice that is perpetrated bears witness to his presence among us. He is in fact the titular head of this nation, and the members of the three branches of government do his bidding.
If you love this nation and things of this world above the Lord, the love of God is not in you; your corrupt bones will fall among the ashes when comes the fiery end.
If you believe: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” -Matthew 28:19-20
© 2013 – Jim R. Schwiesow – All Rights Reserved
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June 17th, 2013 by olddog
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/05/statists-use-twisted-logic-to-attack.html#more
By Brandon Smith
In the war for the continued existence of our Nation’s Constitutional principles, I had long wondered whether statists were simply confounded by the Bill of Rights and ignorant of its function or whether they were maliciously inclined, knowing exactly what it means but seeking its destruction anyway. In recent years, I have decided it is a combination of both faults.
Statists are people who view every aspect of society through the lens of government power. If you want to know the primary difference between Constitutionalists and anti-Constitutionalists, you have to understand that some people in this world only want control over their own lives, while other people desperately clamor for control over other people’s lives. Why do they do this? Usually, it’s fear. Fear of the persistent unknowns in life. Fear that they do not have the intelligence or the will to take responsibility for their own futures. Fear that they will be forced to take care of themselves. Fear that their ideologies will be found lacking. Fear that if others are allowed freedom, they will one day indirectly suffer for it.
This fear makes statists easy to manipulate by the establishment and easy to use as a tool for the expansion of government dominance. Because statists are so weak-minded and fainthearted, they become very comfortable with the idea of other people making their decisions for them; and they will always attempt to answer every perceived problem with more government control.
When confronted with a proponent of liberty, the statist typically reels in horror. He has so invested himself in bureaucracy that he sees himself as a part of it. To attack the bureaucracy is to attack him. To deny the validity of the bureaucracy is to deny the validity of his existence. His very personality and ego are tied to the machine, so he will spit and rage against anyone who refuses to conform. This is why it is not uncommon at all to find a wild collection of logical fallacies within the tirades of the average statist. Statists act as though they are driven by reason; but in reality, they are driven by seething bias.
A perfect example of this insanity is the article “There Are No Absolute Rights,” published by The Daily Beast.
Let’s first be clear about the kind of rag we are dealing with. The Daily Beast was launched by Tina Brown, a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker who was also a British citizen until 2005. I would say she’s a kind of female Piers Morgan. For anyone who might take that as a compliment, trust me; it isn’t. Brown and Morgan are European collectivists who immigrated to America just to tell us how our Constitutionally conservative heritage of independence is outdated; meanwhile, the EU is in the shambles of failed socialism. We used to drive such people into the ocean, and now they breathe our oxygen while telling us what is politically “fashionable.”
In 2010, The Daily Beast merged with Newsweek, a magazine notorious for its statist crush on the Federal government (and now out of print). To say that The Daily Beast is a socialist platform and a mouthpiece for the Administration of President Barack Obama is an understatement, but I would point out that the website also tends to agree with politicians and judges on the right that also promote a “living document” interpretation of the Constitution. Whether right or left, if you believe that the Bill of Rights is up for constant interpretation and revision or outright destruction, then you are the bee’s knees in the eyes of The Beast.
The article focuses on gun rights and how silly conservatives foolishly cling to the idea that some lines in the sand should never be crossed in terms of personal freedom. In a rather mediocre and rambling analysis, The Beast uses two primary arguments to qualify this stance, essentially asserting that:
1) Compromises have already been made to the Bill of Rights; therefore, nothing is sacred.
2) Even some Republicans agree with compromises to the Bill of Rights when it comes to other Amendments, so why are we being so childish about “reinterpreting” the 2ndAmendment?
First, the revisionist methodology of the Bill of Rights consistently ignores the history of its writing. The colonists and Founding Fathers of our Nation, having successfully triumphed in a bloody revolution against what many then considered the most advanced elitist military empire on Earth, had absolutely no trust whatsoever in the concept of centralized government. Many of the colonials were anti-Federalists who believed that an overly powerful central government was a threat to future liberty. They felt that an immovable and unchangeable legal shield had to be created in order to ensure that a tyrannical system never prevailed again.
Thomas Jefferson said:
“[A] bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse.”
This statement includes modern governments as well. Technological advancement does not change the rules surrounding timeless inherent moral principles, as much as statists would like to argue otherwise.
The colonials demanded the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution as a prerequisite for the establishment of the Federal government. This means that the Federal government owes its entire existence to a very strict agreement made on the Bill of Rights. By extension, if the Bill of Rights is politically diluted or denied, then the legitimacy of the Federal government must also be denied, for it has violated the very charter that gave it life.
The writer of the article, Michael Tomasky, lists numerous transgressions against our Constitutional protections; but he does not do so in the spirit of activism. Rather, he lists them as examples of how “compromise” on our freedoms is necessary (or somehow inevitable) in the name of the collective good. He claims Republicans are perfectly willing to sacrifice certain liberties, like freedom of speech, privacy or even Miranda rights, in the name of political expediency.
I wholeheartedly agree that our civil liberties have been whittled away by the establishment. I also agree that many so-called Republicans have betrayed the founding values of our culture and even voted to diminish or destroy the 2nd Amendment. But let’s think hard about the faulty logic behind Tomansky’s position. Do two wrongs or hundreds of wrongs really make a right? Tomansky is saying that because we have failed as a society to fully protect our freedoms and because our government has been successful in criminally neglecting them, we should simply give in and relinquish all freedom.
He would respond to this accusation by claiming that he is not calling for the relinquishment of all liberties, only the liberties he thinks are dangerous to society. The problem is, that is not how the Constitution was designed. Amendments can be made, yes. But amendments contrary to the Bill of Rights are not Constitutional as per the original agreement made after the revolution. The Bill of Rights was meant to be sacrosanct, untouchable — period. No Federal law, no State law and no Amendment can be enforced that violates those protections. The Bill of Rights was not created as a rule book for what the people can do; it was created as a rule book for what government cannot do. Once you remove hard fast restrictions like the Bill of Rights from the picture, you give the government license to make its own rules. That is how tyranny is born.
As far as Republican attacks on the Constitution are concerned, Tomasky has obviously never heard of the false left/right paradigm. He finds solace in the totalitarian actions of neocons because neocons are not conservative; they are statists, just like him. Ultimately, there is no right or left. Only freedom and decentralization, or slavery and collectivism. There are those who revel in control, and those who rebel against control. The rest of the debate is nonsense and distraction.
Tomsky opines: “Imagine what conservatives would think of a group of liberals who insisted, while threatening an insurrection, on a pure and absolute interpretation of the Fourth or Sixth Amendment–and imagine how ridiculous they would look to average Americans.”
Actually, any true conservative would be standing right beside those liberals, as many of us in the liberty movement have done in the past in activism against the transgressions of fake conservatives like George W. Bush or Mitt Romney, with his dismal anti-Constitution voting record. Frankly, who cares what “average Americans” think about our battle for what is right? Does Tomasky base all of his personal convictions on what happens to be popular at the moment? I think so.
What statists also don’t seem to comprehend is that there is a factor in the fight over Constitutional law that goes far beyond the Constitution itself.
The Constitution, as a document, is not what we as Americans and human beings obtain our rights from. The Constitution is only a written representation of the inborn freedoms derived from natural law and inherent conscience. We are born with a sense of liberty and that includes a right to self-defense from any enemy, foreign or domestic. No amount of political gaming, twisted rationalizations or intellectual idiocy is ever going to change these pre-existing rights.
Tomasky insists that: “[T]he idea that any right is unrestricted is totally at odds with history, the law, and reality.”
He uses the tired argument that some restrictions on personal liberty, including restrictions on gun rights, are “reasonable” given the circumstances of the times. And, it only follows that he and other statists should be the ones to decide what is reasonable.
I disagree, along with millions of other Americans; and believe me, this is a serious problem for statists. If Tomasky and The Daily Beast want to impose their collective worldview on the rest of us and dismantle our individual freedoms guaranteed in natural law and the Bill of Rights, then I’m afraid they’ll have to fight us for them. In the end, legal precedence is irrelevant. Political precedence is irrelevant. Political party is irrelevant. Historical precedence is irrelevant. The theater of words is irrelevant. Statists need to understand that there is no alternative. There is no “silver bullet” argument that will make us forget what is fundamentally true. There is no juxtaposition of logic that will muddle our resolve or confuse our principles. Some rights are indeed absolute; and we will not yield them, ever. The statist “reality” is a far cry from what actually is; and soon, I’m afraid, they will learn this lesson the hard way.
You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.comJoin Alt-Market.com today and learn what it means to step away from the system and build something better. To contribute to the growth of the Safe Haven Project, and to help us help others in relocating, or to support the creation of barter networks across the country, visit our donate page here: http://www.alt-market.com/donate
OLDDOGS COMMENTS
For absolute linguistic clarity in the destruction of freedom theater, and as a perfect example of the most important attribute of a politician, Brandon Smith excels far above all others I have read, and that is nothing less than, a considerable number of authors. Consider for a moment what kind of world would exist if all people everywhere demanded his level of articulation, and adherence to his principals in their leaders. While I may have obtained the title of professor of profanity in some people’s opinion, Brandon has obtained the title of King of elucidation in mine. Only the legendary H.L. Mencken has even come close to him. It says very little for the intelligence of humanity when they do not demand explicit articulation and acceptance of responsibility to adhere to one’s own postulations, when electing a leader. When a man can explain what he knows, and do what he says, and prove it, I will follow his lead.
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June 15th, 2013 by olddog
http://www.thedailybell.com/29234/Paul-Craig-Roberts-What-is-the-Governments-Agenda
By Paul Craig Roberts
It has been public information for a decade that the US government secretly, illegally and unconstitutionally spies on its citizens. Congress and the federal courts have done nothing about this extreme violation of the US Constitution and statutory law, and the insouciant US public seems unperturbed.
In 2004 a whistleblower informed the New York Times that the National Security Agency (NSA) was violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by ignoring the FISA court and spying on Americans without obtaining the necessary warrants. The corrupt New York Times put the interests of the US government ahead of those of the American public and sat on the story for one year until George W. Bush was safely reelected.
By the time the New York Times published the story of the illegal spying one year later, the law-breaking government had had time to mitigate the offense with ex post facto law or executive orders and explain away its law-breaking as being in the country's interest.
Last year William Binney, who was in charge of NSA's global digital data gathering program revealed that NSA had everyone in the US under total surveillance. Every email, Internet site visited and phone call is captured and stored. In 2012 Binney received the Callaway Award for Civic Courage, an annual award given to those who champion constitutional rights at risk to their professional and personal lives.
There have been a number of whistleblowers. For example, in 2006 Mark Klein revealed that AT&T had a secret room in its San Francisco office that NSA used to collect Internet and phone-call data from US citizens who were under no suspicion. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/interviews/klein.html
The presstitute media handled these stories in ways that protected the government's lawlessness from scrutiny and public outrage. The usual spin was that the public needs to be safe from terrorists, and safety is what the government is providing.
The latest whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has sought refuge in Hong Kong, which has a better record of protecting free speech than the US government. Snowden did not trust any US news source and took the story to the British newspaper, the Guardian.
There is no longer any doubt whatsoever that the US government is lawless, that it regards the US Constitution as a scrap of paper, that it does not believe Americans have any rights other than those that the government tolerates at any point in time, and that the government has no fear of being held accountable by the weak and castrated US Congress, the sycophantic federal courts, a controlled media and an insouciant public.
Binney and Snowden have described in precisely accurate detail the extreme danger from the government's surveillance of the population. No one is exempt, not the Director of the CIA, US Army Generals, Senators and Representatives, not even the president himself.
Anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can find interviews with Binney and Snowden and become acquainted with why you do have very much indeed to fear whether or not you are doing anything wrong.
James Clapper, the lying Director of National Intelligence, who would have been perfectly at home in the Hitler or Stalin regimes, condemned Snowden as "reprehensible" for insisting that in a democracy the public should know what the government is doing. Clapper insisted that secretly spying on every ordinary American was essential in order to "protect our nation." http://news.antiwar.com/2013/06/07/us-spy-chief-slams-reprehensible-leak-of-nsa-surveillance-scheme/
Clapper is "offended" that Americans now know that the NSA is spying on the ordinary life of every American. Clapper wants Snowden to be severely punished for his "reckless disclosure" that the US government is totally violating the privacy that the US Constitution guarantees to every US citizen.
President Obama, allegedly educated in constitutional law, justified Clapper's program of spying on every communication of every American citizen as a necessary violation of Americans' civil liberties that "protects your civil liberties." Contrast the lack of veracity of the President of the United States with the truthfulness of Snowden, who correctly stated that the NSA spying is an "existential threat to democracy."
The presstitutes are busy at work defending Clapper and Obama. On June 9, CNN rolled out former CIA case officer Bob Baer to implant into the public's mind that Snowden, far from trying to preserve US civil liberties, might be a Chinese spy and that Snowden's revelations might be indicative of a Chinese espionage case.
Demonization is the US government's technique for discrediting Bradley Manning for complying with the US Military Code and reporting war crimes and for persecuting Julian Assage of Wikileaks for reporting leaked information about the US government's crimes. Demonization and false charges will be the government's weapon against Snowden.
If Washington and its presstitutes can convince Americans that courageous people, who are trying to inform Americans that their historic rights are disappearing into a police state, are espionage agents of foreign powers, America can continue to be subverted by its own government.
This brings us to the crux of the matter. What is the purpose of the spying program?
Even if an American believes the official stories of 9/11 and the Boston Marathon Bombing, these are the only two terrorist acts in the US that resulted in the loss of human life in 12 years. Far more people are killed in traffic accidents and from bad diets. Why should the Constitution and civil liberty be deep-sixed because of two alleged terrorist acts in 12 years?
What is astounding is the absence of terrorist attacks. Washington is in the second decade of invading and destroying Muslim governments and countries. Civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are extremely high, and in those countries that Washington has not yet invaded, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Syria, civilians are being murdered by Washington's drones and proxies on the ground.
It is extraordinary that Washington's brutal 12-year assault on Muslim lives in six countries has not resulted in at least one dozen real, not fake FBI orchestrated, terrorist attacks in the US every day.
How can something as rare as terrorism justify the destruction of the US Constitution and US civil liberty? How safe is any American when their government regards every citizen as a potential suspect who has no rights?
Why is there no discussion of this in American public life? Watch the presstitutes turn Snowden's revelations into an account of his disaffection and motives and away from the existential threat to democracy and civil liberty.
What is the government's real agenda? Clearly, "the war on terror" is a front for an undeclared agenda. In "freedom and democracy" America, citizens have no idea what their government's motives are in fomenting endless wars and a gestapo police state. The only information Americans have comes from whistleblowers, who Obama ruthlessly prosecutes. The presstitutes quickly discredit the information and demonize the whistleblowers.
Germans in the Third Reich and Soviet citizens in the Stalin era had a better idea of their government's agendas than do "freedom and democracy" Americans today. The American people are the most uninformed people in modern history.
In America there is no democracy that holds government accountable. There is only a brainwashed people who are chaff in the wind.
This column was originally published at PaulCraigRoberts.org and is reprinted here with the author's position. Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He was associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He has had numerous university appointments. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is available here.
OLDDOGS COMMENTS
If it has not yet occurred to you, consider that the government is not concerned with catching terrorists with cyber-warfare, they hate whistleblowers because they are waging cyber-warfare on the American citizens and don’t want us to know it. Their one and only fear is an informed public, and they are doing everything possible to intimidate the people from learning.
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June 13th, 2013 by olddog
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/main-core-a-list-of-millions-of-americans-that-will-be-subject-to-detention-during-a-national-crisis
Waking People Up And Getting Them To Realize That The American Dream Is Quickly Becoming The American Nightmare
By Michael
Are you on the list? Are you one of the millions of Americans that have been designated a threat to national security by the U.S. government? Will you be subject to detention when martial law is imposed during a major national emergency? As you will see below, there is actually a list that contains the names of at least 8 million Americans known as Main Core that the U.S. intelligence community has been compiling since the 1980s. A recent article on Washington’s Blogquoted a couple of old magazine articles that mentioned this program, and I was intrigued because I didn’t know what it was. So I decided to look into Main Core, and what I found out was absolutely stunning – especially in light of what Edward Snowden has just revealed to the world. It turns out that the U.S. government is not just gathering information on all of us. The truth is that the U.S. government has used this information to create a list of threats to national security that the government would potentially watch, question or even detain during a national crisis. If you have ever been publicly critical of the government, there is a very good chance that you are on that list.
The following is how Wikipedia describes Main Core…
Main Core is the code name of a database maintained since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States. Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security. The data, which comes from the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources, is collected and stored without warrants or court orders. The database’s name derives from the fact that it contains “copies of the ‘main core’ or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.”
It was Christopher Ketchum of Radar Magazine that first reported on the existence of Main Core. At the time, the shocking information that he revealed did not get that much attention. That is quite a shame, because it should have sent shockwaves across the nation…
According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.
Of course, federal law is somewhat vague as to what might constitute a “national emergency.” Executive orders issued over the last three decades define it as a “natural disaster, military attack, [or] technological or other emergency,” while Department of Defense documents include eventualities like “riots, acts of violence, insurrections, unlawful obstructions or assemblages, [and] disorder prejudicial to public law and order.” According to one news report, even “national opposition to U.S. military invasion abroad” could be a trigger.
So if that list contained 8 million names all the way back in 2008, how big might it be today?
That is a very frightening thing to think about.
Later on in 2008, Tim Shorrock of Salon.comalso reported on Main Core…
Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as “Main Core,” the database reportedly collects and stores — without warrants or court orders — the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security. According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as “an emergency internal security database system” designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law.
So why didn’t this information get more attention at the time?
Well, if Obama had lost the 2008 election it might have. But Obama won in 2008 and the liberal media assumed that he would end many of the abuses that were happening under Bush. Of course that has not happened at all. In fact, Obama has steadily moved the police state agenda ahead aggressively. Edward Snowden has just made that abundantly clear to the entire world.
After 2008, it is unclear exactly what happened to Main Core. Did it expand, change names, merge with other programs or get superseded by a new program? It appears extremely unlikely that it simply faded away. In light of what we have just learned about NSA snooping, someone should ask our politicians some very hard questions about Main Core. According to Christopher Ketchum, the exact kind of NSA snooping that Edward Snowden has just described was being used to feed data into the Main Core database…
A host of publicly disclosed programs, sources say, now supply data to Main Core. Most notable are the NSA domestic surveillance programs, initiated in the wake of 9/11, typically referred to in press reports as “warrantless wiretapping.” In March, a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal shed further light onto the extraordinarily invasive scope of the NSA efforts: According to the Journal, the government can now electronically monitor “huge volumes of records of domestic e-mails and Internet searches, as well as bank transfers, credit card transactions, travel, and telephone records.” Authorities employ “sophisticated software programs” to sift through the data, searching for “suspicious patterns.” In effect, the program is a mass catalog of the private lives of Americans. And it’s notable that the article hints at the possibility of programs like Main Core. “The [NSA] effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called black programs whose existence is undisclosed,” the Journal reported, quoting unnamed officials. “Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach.”
The following information seems to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.
This stuff is absolutely chilling.
And there have been hints that such a list still exists today.
For example, the testimony of an anonymous government insider that was recently posted on shtfplan.com alluded to such a list…
“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list.If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.
What in the world is happening to America?
What in the world are we turning into?
As I mentioned in a previous article, the NSA gathers 2.1 million gigabytes of data on all of usevery single hour. The NSA is currently constructing a 2 billion dollar data center out in Utah to store all of this data.
If you are disturbed by all of this, now is the time to stand up and say something. If this crisis blows over and people forget about all of this stuff again, the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us will just continue to grow and continue to become even more oppressive.
America is dying right in front of your eyes and time is running out. Please stand up and be counted while you still can.
OLDDOGS COMMENTS
Back to work! Molly got suddenly worse and a call to the surgeon resulted in us taking her in for emergency surgery Tuesday morning. Molly has had a partial ruptured disc removed in her neck, and we are back home as of Wed. night. This morning she had one spell of screaming in pain as I was laying her on her bed, which damned near made me vomit from guilt. Her two left legs are still unusable, but the surgeon assured us they will come back to normal function. Personally, I think he’s full of crap. But all the prayers from you all have not been wasted, as she is a fighter, and we are her guardians around the clock. She is alert but unable to move around, and waiting for Jean to come back in the office with us. I have her on a day bed at my side, and her ears are straight up listening to every sound coming from the kitchen. To all of you who sent well wishes and prayers by email, we all thank you with a sincere heart.
Her photo would not load here, please go to http://anationbeguiled.wordpress.com
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June 10th, 2013 by olddog
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/dhs-source-warns-world-war-about-to-break-out-will-kill-millions-of-people-must-read_06072013
By Mac Slavo
Something is wrong. Very, very wrong.
Our economy is, as it has been for many years, on the brink of collapse. They may not have announced it officially just yet, but recent data suggest that we are most certainly in another recession (we may never have actually gotten out of the first one). While official statistics indicate there is very mild economic growth, the fact is that the growth is coming from monetary expansion driven by the Fed. As more money is slammed into the system prices rise, forcing consumers to pay more for everything from food to stocks. This, in the eyes of the government is growth. In reality, however55% of America’s wealth has been vaporized in the last five years, a quarter of American households are on food stamps, and consumers are tapped out.
In the middle east, things are heating up, with Russia having deployed their Pacific Fleet to the region, and the US putting boots on the ground in Syria as recently as this week.
On the political front, we have the President of the United States, his administration and his subordinates at domestic intelligence agencies, the IRS, the Pentagon and the Justice Department embroiled in scandals and activities that have even their most ardent supporters questioning what is really going on behind closed doors.
Yes, something is wrong. But no one is talking – at least not in an official capacity.
Thus, we are left to connect the dots ourselves with the help of various sources made available through alternative media.
We certainly can’t expect government officials to openly admit that some very bad things have happened, are happening and will likely happen in the future. But there are those inside the halls of our most hallowed and respected institutions that risk their lives to get information out so that we can be prepared for what may well be coming down the pike.
We can downplay anonymous sources and pretend like this is all made up, or, we can simply look around and see what’s going on in the world and put two-and-two together.
A report filed in December of 2012 from a source operating inside of the Department of Homeland Security noted that there would be a massive hit to precious metals around the Spring of 2013. This drop in prices was to be a prime indicator that events would start accelerating. That slide in precious metals prices has happened – to the tune of over 25% in just a few months.
Now, with revelations that the Obama administration has been snooping on journalists, as well as millions of Americans, the same DHS source has revealed that his department has been actively preparing plans to deal with the coming calamity that can be described as nothing short of the ultimate global doomsday scenario.
With our national leadership involved in criminal behavior bordering on treason, there is a real possibility that a crisis, or crises, will be needed to take the focus off of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and all of those involved in an agenda that has militarized our domestic police force, supplanted our most fundamental laws, and impoverished our fellow citizens.
Government officials are some of the dirtiest people on this planet – often concerned with only money, power and their personal advancement. So, it’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that some of them will do whatever it takes maintain their positions.
The following report from the Northeast Intelligence Network is frightening, because it involves you, your family, and and everything you hold dear.
They are getting ready for some serious sh%t to hit the fan. You should be doing the same.
“If anyone thinks that what’s going on right now with all of this surveillance of American citizens is to fight some sort of foreign enemy, they’re delusional. If people think that this ‘scandal’ can’t get any worse, it will, hour by hour, day by day. This has the ability to bring down our national leadership, the administration and other senior elected officials working in collusion with this administration, both Republican and Democrats. People within the NSA, the Department of Justice, and others, they know who they are, need to come forth with the documentation of ‘policy and practice’ in their possession, disclose what they know, fight what’s going on, and just do their job. I have never seen anything like this, ever. The present administration is going after leakers, media sources, anyone and everyone who is even suspected of ‘betrayal.” That’s what they call it, ‘betrayal.’ Can you believe the size of their cahones? This administration considers anyone telling the truth about Benghazi, the IRS, hell, you name the issue, ‘betrayal,’” he said.
“We know all this already,” I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I’ve never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. “You don’t know jack,” he said, “this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine.This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you’re not working for MSNBC or CNN, you’re probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you’re on that list. It’s a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list,” he stated.
“What’s that exactly mean, being on that list, that is,” I asked, trying to make sense of it all.
“It means that there will be censorship under the color of authority of anyone in the U.S. who is attempting to expose what’s going on in our name. It’s about controlling any damning information from reaching epidemic proportions. It’s damage control to the extreme. It’s about the upcoming censorship of the internet in the name of national security. The plans are already in place.These latest reports about “spying eyes” have turned this administration and others connected to it into something very, very dangerous. They feel cornered and threatened, and I’m hearing about some plans they have to shut down the flow of information that is implicating them of wrongdoing. Time is short,” he stated.
“How are they going to do this? How is it even possible?” I asked.
“First, they intend to use the Justice Department to silence journalists like in the Rosen case, but they won’t stop there. They will use a host of national security policies, laws, letters, whatever to take out the bigger threats,” he stated.
Next, they will use some sort of excuse, an external threat, and I believe it will be a combination of the economic collapse and a Mid-East war that will begin in Syria to throttle the information that is accessible on the Internet. And you know what? People will believe it!”
Based on what I’ve seen, most of which I should not have seen, the DHS is co-ordinating efforts with other federal agencies to begin to threaten American citizens with incarceration for non-compliance. You know the old talk of color coded lists? Well, this is what they will be using. People exposing the truth about Benghazi, killing the U.S. Dollar, even those questioning Obama’s legal status and eligibility to be President are the current targets. And they’ve had five long years to get to this point. The ugly truth is that these policies and practices did not start under Obama, but long before. This is about the killing of our Constitutional Republic. The murder of our country and the stripping of our rights. While many have been preoccupied with one issue, few have seen the bigger issue. This is the ‘end game,’ for all the marbles,” he stated.
More to come
“Please,” pleaded my source, “get this information out while you can. Tell people what I’m saying, that we don’t have much time, that after the latest exposure of spying, Obama, Jarrett, Axelrod, and others, including members of Congress, have put their plans into high gear.
This is about the Marxist takeover of America. This is about our country being able to survive another July 4th holiday. This is about a world war about to break out that will kill millions of people, all because of the agenda of this administration.”
“They are very dangerous and will do anything and everything to stop the onslaught of negative information that’s being reported by the main stream media. But only about one quarter of the real information is being reported. The other three quarters will be the game changer. But first, tell people what I’ve said. Let them know that more will follow but get this information out right now while the internet is still relatively free. Do it today.”
My source provided additional information, but I am abiding by his wish to get this much out. I am writing now to let people know that we are in for seriously dangerous times ahead. Deadly times. War, and censorship under the color of authority and under the pretext of of national security. It’s about to get a lot uglier. Stay tuned.
(emphasis added)
Original report at Northeast Intelligence Network via Steve Quayle
We and others have been warning about the surveillance state for years. Look at today’s headlines. It’s now 100% confirmed. Up until this week most Americans didn’t believe it was possible.
We have also warned that the government had turned their security and policing apparatus not against foreign threats, but domestic ones. It should now be clear thatyou are the target.
Likewise, we and others have warned of the real possibility that this ends with a war that will change the very landscape of this planet. There should be no doubt that the chess pieces have already been positioned.
This IS coming. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But in our lifetimes we will see this manifest right before our eyes.
It’s been done throughout history. Government sponsored democide has taken the lives of hundreds of millions of people. For some it’s just a means to an end; nothing more than a statistic.
What makes you, I or our families any different than those who they came for before?
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June 3rd, 2013 by olddog
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/
By Paul Craig Roberts
When Gerald Celente branded the American media “presstitutes,” he got it right. The US print and TV media (and NPR) whore for Washington and the corporations. Reporting the real news is their last concern. The presstitutes are a Ministry of Propaganda and Coverup. This is true of the entire Western media, a collection of bought-and-paid-for whores.
It seems that every day I witness a dozen or more examples. Take May 31 for example.
The presstitutes report that US Secretary of State John Kerry and his German counterpart are working on Russia to convince that country to be a “party to peace” in Syria by not supplying the Syrian government, whose country has been invaded, with arms. Kerry and the Israelis especially do not want Russia to deliver the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Syria.
This was the extent of the presstitutes’ report. The presstitutes made no mention of the fact that the invasion of Syria by al-Qaeda affiliated radical Muslims was organized and equipped by Washington via its proxies in the region, such as Saudia Arabia and the oil emirates. Americans sufficiently stupid to rely on the presstitute media do not know that it is not Syrians who want to overthrow their government, but Washington, Israel, and radical Islamists who object to Syria’s secular non-confrontational government.
One might think that the US media would wonder why Washington prefers to have al-Qaeda governing Syria than a non-confrontational secular government. But such a question is off-limits for the US media.
Israel, unlike Washington which so far hides behind proxies, has actually openly committed war crimes as defined by the Nuremberg trials of Nazis by initiating unprovoked aggression against Syria by militarily attacking the country.
In reporting Kerry’s pressure on Putin, presstitutes made no mention that the Washington-backed attempted overthrow of the Syrian government has run into difficulty, causing president obama to ask the Pentagon to come up with a no-fly plan, which means according to the Libya precedent NATO or US air attacks on Syrian government forces. As the S-300 missiles are a defensive weapon, obama’s plan to send in Western or Israeli air forces to attack the Syrian army is why Kerry is pressuring Russia not to honor its contract to deliver to Syria the S-300 missiles, which can knock US, NATO, and Israeli aircraft out of the sky.
Those who believed that Kerry could have made a difference as president must be disillusioned to see what a warmongering whore he is. In america marketing is everything; truth is nothing.
The real news story is that Washington is trying to convince Putin to acquiesce to
Washington’s overthrow of the Syrian government so that Russia can be evicted from its only naval base in the Mediterranean Sea, thus making it Washington’s sea, Washington’s Mare Nostrum. The american pressitutes put all the onus on the Russian government for not helping Washington to overthrow the Syrian government in order that Washington has another victory over Russia and can start next on Iran.
William Hague, who serves, with Washington’s approval, as British foreign secretary to the shame of a once proud nation, made this clear when he declared: “We want a solution without Assad. We do not accept the stay of Assad.” This is amazing hypocrisy, because the Syrian government is more respectful of human rights than Washington and London.
While Kerry was trying to con Putin, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the obama administration’s immediate priority was removing Assad from power. http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/302773-white-house-no-role-for-assad-in-transitional-government So for the US and UK, “peace” means the overthrow of the Syrian government by force.
Why isn’t the United Nations protesting? The answer is that the countries and their UN representatives have been purchased by Washington. Money talks. Integrity and justice don’t. Integrity and justice are poverty-inflicted. The UN belongs to the evil empire. Washington owns it. The american Empire has the money. It pays for the headlines and for the budget that lets the UN delegates enjoy New York City,
In the world today, integrity is worthless, but money is valuable, and Washington has the money because, as the dollar is the world reserve currency, it can be printed in sufficient quantities to purchase every country’s government, including our own. One year out of office and Tony Blair was worth $35 million. Look at the amazing Clinton riches. According to news report, $3.2 million was spent on Chelsea’s wedding.http://www.goingwedding.com/news_detail.asp?newsid=67
Hague said that the UK and France “seek to end the ban on arming Syrian rebels.” Hague did not explain how the invasion force was armed if there is a ban against arming it. But Hague did tell us who the invading force is: “the Syrian National Coalition,” which consists of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt (still the American puppet), the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, Germany and Italy. Obviously, the talk about a “Syrian rebellion” is pure BS. Syria is confronted with an attempted overthrow of its government by the US and its puppet states. Kerry is trying to convince Putin to let Washington overthrow Syria.
As if this wasn’t enough, also on May 31, I listened to e.j. dionne and david brooks on National Public Radio discuss the state of the obama presidency. Both were protective of “our president.” Neither would dare say: “the military-security complex’s president,” “Wall Street’s president,” “the Israel Lobby’s president,” “Monsanto’s president,” “the mining and fracking president.” obama is “our president.”
Both brooks and dionne agreed that the media had got rid of the Benghazi issue and that the IRS persecution of Tea Party members was under the media’s control and was not a threat to obama. david brooks did acknowledge that there were economic problems ignored and no new ideas. However, the blatant fact that under obama the US is in a constitutional crisis, well described by Dr. Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois,http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35134.htm was not mentioned by NPR’s pundits, who define correct thoughts for the NPR audience, people too busy to pay attention.
In america today, the executive branch in explicit violation of the US Constitution detains indefinitely or murders any US citizen alleged without proof by an unaccountable member of the executive branch to be in any way associated with the broad but undefined term, “terrorism,” even innocently as a donor to hungry or ill Palestinian children. The executive branch clearly violates the US Constitution and US statutory laws against torture and spying on citizens without warrants. Congress does not impeach the president for his obvious crimes, and the Federal Judiciary enables them.
President Nixon was driven from office because he lied about when he learned of a burglary for which he was not responsible. President Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for lying about a sexual affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
President george w. bush took america to wars based on obvious lies, and so did president obama. Both administrations are guilty of war crimes and almost every possible infraction of constitutional and international law. Yet, no presstitute member of the media would dare mention impeachment, and the House would never bring the charge.
There is no doubt whatsoever that in the 21st century presidents, their lawyers, Justice (sic) Department officials, and CIA and black-op operatives have broken law after law, and there is no accountability. For the presstitutes, this is a non-issue. “Rule of law, Constitution? We don’t need no stinking rule of law or Constitution.”
For the presstitutes, the bought-and-paid for-whores for evil, the issues are obama’s stable poll numbers; teenage girls arrested for fighting at a kindergarten graduation ceremony; ”Microsoft’s Bill Gates extended his lead over Mexico’s Carlos Slim as the world’s richest person,” “the $14 million-dollar girl: Beyonce rakes it in.”
Constitutional crisis? What is that? I mean, really, look at Beyonce’s legs. Didn’t you hear, the dollar rose today?
The presstitutes have not investigated any important issue. Not 9/11. Not the accumulation of unaccountable power in the executive branch. Not the demise of the Bill of Rights. Not the Boston Marathon bombing. Not the endless and unexplained wars against Muslims who have not attacked the US.
The Boston Marathon saga reached new levels of absurdity with the FBI’s murder of Ibragim Todashev, who was being pressured to admit to various associated crimes. The presstitutes first reported that Todashev was armed. It was a gun, then a knife, then after the presstitutes duly reported the false information planted on them, which for the insouciance american public was sufficient to explain Toashev’s murder, the FBI admitted that the victim was unarmed.
Nevertheless, he was shot seven times, one to the back of the head. His father wants to know why the FBI assassinated his son, but the presstitutes could not care less. Don’t expect any answer from the american press and TV media or from NPR, an organization that pretends to be a “listener station” but is financed by corporate contributions.
How’s Todashev’s murder for Gestapo justice? Where is the difference? A bullet in the back of the head. And america is the shining light on the hill, the font of freedom and democracy brought to the world courtesy of the military/security complex out of the barrel of guns and hellfire missiles from drones. And relentless propaganda in the schools, universities, and media.
Washington certainly learned from Mao and Pol Pot. You kill them into submission.
But you will never hear about it from the presstitutes.
OLDDOGS COMMENTS
If anyone disagrees with anything Mr. Roberts has published, it is because they are too stupid to know anything about America’s history, and have been brainwashed by the education and media industry. This man should be America’s next President!
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June 1st, 2013 by olddog
http://www.jbs.org/legislation/its-high-time-to-get-us-out-of-the-un
By Larry Greenley
Fifty years of JBS warnings about the UN are coming true.
At the founding meeting of The John Birch Society in 1958, Robert Welch warned of a plan by our political elites to surrender American sovereignty to international organizations, such as the United Nations:
A part of that plan, of course, is to induce the gradual surrender of American sovereignty, piece by piece and step by step, to various international organizations — of which the United Nations is the outstanding but far from the only example….
Just a few years later the JBS established its signature action project, "Get US out! of the United Nations," with the long range goal of creating sufficient understanding about the UN to enable congressional action to end our membership in the UN.
Now fast-forward to the present. On May 28, CQ News reported that "Former Sen. John Kerry’s appointment as secretary of State has given supporters of the Law of the Sea treaty hope that he will revive a longstanding campaign for ratification…."
This is the United Nations Law of the Sea treaty (LOST) that the UN described in 2007, saying LOST's "scope is vast: it covers all ocean space, with all its uses, including navigation and over-flight; all uses of its resources, living and non-living, on the high seas, on the ocean floor and beneath, on the continental shelf and in the territorial seas…. The Convention is widely recognized by the international community as the legal framework within which all activities in the oceans and the seas must be carried out."
In other words, the UN is saying that the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea which administers LOST would have authority over everything, everything, over, on, and under the oceans and seas of the world. If you don't agree with restricting the independence of the United States to this degree, then you're a good candidate for joining in the Get US out! project.
The JBS has recently produced an excellent new tool for convincing others that it's time to end our membership in the UN, a booklet entitled America and the United Nations.
Of course, there are many other good reasons to Get US out! There's the new Obama-backed UN Arms Trade Treaty that was designed to disarm American citizens, and that will likely be presented for ratification by the Senate sometime soon.
There's also the UN's Agenda 21, which large numbers of Americans have become alarmed about during the past couple years. Agenda 21 provides a platform for the eventual total government control over our entire material existence, all in the pursuit of the UN's definition of "sustainable development."
If you agree that it's high time that the United States should withdraw its membership in the United Nations, please contact your senators and representative and let them know you support the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2013, H.R. 75.
Thanks.
Your Friends at The John Birch Society
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May 31st, 2013 by olddog
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/05/30/the-final-nail-in-americas-financial-coffin/
Dave Hodges
Our government is broke, in fact they are beyond broke!
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew
broke since the 2008-09 decisionwas made to cover the derivative debt losses of the criminal banksters. As a result of theirfinancial desperation, the government, on behalf of Wall Street, has become increasingly desperate, aggressive and criminal.
There can be no doubt that most of the aware among us are cognizant of the ongoing government discussions being held about their intentions of requiring every U.S. citizen to put at least a portion of their retirement savings into a government-controlled retirement accounts regardless of whether they have your approval or not.
As I have reported before, Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, has announced that he is “borrowing” from federal pension funds this summer in order to help the federal government meet its debt obligations. Since the national deficit is $17 trillion dollars and the unfunded federal mandated liabilities will exceed $200 trillion dollars in one year, these victimized federal workers will never see their fullretirement. And if you find yourself breathing a sigh of relief because you do not work for the federal government, you have sadly deluded yourself because the government mafia is coming after all forms ofretirement accounts, both pension funds and invested retirements (e.g. 401k’s).
Why Would the Feds Start Their Crime Spree With Federal Retirement Accounts?
If the federal government is planning to steal retirements, would they be wise to steal them incrementally, or all at once? Of course, incremental theft is always preferable because it avoids an initial widespread confrontation with the public. And who better for the federal government to steal from than federal employees because who are they going to complain to?
Federal Employees Are Just the First Wave of Victims.
Our criminal-in-chief has suggested totally new and extremely onerous taxes to pay for Obamacare (e.g. a 5% tax on all home sales). He also has announced that he is expanding welfare program, including a new national sales tax as well as a national transaction tax.
The Treasury department is even discussing a new wealth tax coming to America. It is already in place in countries like France, Spain, and England. For some in France, the tax will reach 100% of earned income. Blue blood money is presently fleeing these countries.
Let’s say you are a small businessman, who despite Obama’s best efforts to destroy your business, becomes successful and begin to gross over $200,000 dollars per year. Your success will be short lived as you will hand over MOST of your income to the Sheriff of Nottingham (i.e. The Federal Government Mafia).
What Is A Citizen to Do?
First, we need to realize that there are morons among us who think it is somehow our duty to bail out the government and Wall Street. After all, the government and its parent companies, the Wall Street corporations, are too big to fail.
Second, you need to realize that it is YOU that must take action to preserve what little the government lets you keep. It is your money and therefore, your responsibility.
Third, you need to be aware of the fact that the government can never pay down the debt that they have acquired. Could the federal mafia pay down the $17 trillion dollar deficit? Yes, but they would need 2-3 generations of responsible fiscal policies to do so. Could the federal mafia ever meet its $200 trillion dollar unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare? The short and best answer is, NEVER. Even if by some miracle we could pay off the unfunded liabilities, totalling almost a quarter of a quadrillion debt, there is even a bigger reason why we can NEVER financially recover. America is doomed to absolute economic failure and there is nothing that can be done. When you understand that we can never pay the debt, and the collapse is evitable, then perhaps you will move to protect what you can.
The Final Nail
America, while you slept, your country was stolen from you. Your country was absconded by all the political misfits and corporate criminals that the disenfranchised former Republicans and Democrats have been trying to warn you about over the last several years.
Laws, originating out of New Deal legislation, written in response tothe Great Depression, provided some measure of protection for the American financial system from the unsavory forces which led to its initial demise in 1929. In 2008, corporate greed, governmental corruption and a populace who is asleep at the wheel, has succeeded in achieving what historians will someday label the “Greatest Depression of 2009.” I say The Greatest Depression of 2009, because that is when this irreversible action called the bailouts commenced. Most of the loyalists in this country objected to the bailouts strictly on philosophical grounds. Very few of us understood how catastrophic the bail outs would prove to be.
When Congress was intimidated into approving a series of bailouts,America signed her own death warrant. The remainder of this article will explain exactly why there is absolutely no way that America can financially survive. History, will clearly demonstrate that destruction of the late, great American economy was entirely self-inflicted.
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
If Americans knew their history, then we would be cognizant of the fact that one of the prime causes of the Great Depression was due tostock investors buying shares on margin (i.e., loans). The passage of the Glass Steagall Act protected Americans from this shady practice by separating commercial banking from this investment practice of stockbrokers. However, with one stroke of his New World Order pen, Bill Clinton’s repeal of the Glass-Steagall act opened the flood gates for the domestic AND foreign infusion of bad credit into both our stock market and banking system. Consequently, both industries stand upon the precipice of collapse in what is quickly becoming the most massive wealth transfer in world history. .
On September 30, 1999 , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sought governmental permission to “relax” (i.e., break) the prudent governmental regulations on sound lending practices and begin to make loansto individuals who were not credit worthy. This spelled the death of the mortgage industry as we once knew it.
The Uptick Rule once prevented companies from crashing due to large scale shorting of company stock. Do you remember it was Goldman Sachs that was fined for shorting mortgages just preceding the bursting of the mortgage bubble?
A company’s stock could not be sold short as long as it was in continuous decline. The short sellers had to wait for an uptick in the stock before engaging in shorting. At the urging of Goldman Sachs and Hank Paulson, the Uptick Rule was retired in 2007 and the rest, as they say, is history.
The elimination of the Uptick Rule is like going to a basketball game and not being able to see the scoreboard. Who’s ahead, who’s behind? Nobody knows but “Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets!” What is your stock portfolio worth? Who knows? Who cares? Somebody wealthy is getting wealthier at your expense and you and your middle class investors are none the wiser. Let me be crystal clear here, the worst parts of today’s financial crisis was orchestrated by Goldman Sachs and Hank Paulson.
The derivative market is the main impetus for the breakdown of the American economy. The rapid increase in the price of fuel during the last several years is a good example of the destructive nature of the derivative market and it is this market which fueled the greatest debt load every visited upon the planet. Most of the price gouging which resulted in unprecedented increases in gas prices, and record oil company profits, was due to speculation in futures and this, again, was led by Goldman Sachs which just happens to be Treasury Secretary’s Henry Paulson’s old company. The derivatives market subsequently collapsed because the rampant speculative nature of futures drove prices, including homes and real estate through the roof. However, the real damage done by the collapse in derivatives is the fact that almost all other forms of financial instruments are tied to this market because they banks pledged their collateral assets to back this market.
A Quick Financial Lesson
In trying to write for the layman, I endeavor to make this as simple as possible. It is not an overstatement to proclaim that if you do not understand the principles discussed in the following paragraphs, you will have little chance in surviving the impending collapse and you will never know what has hit you when the inevitable comes.
Derivatives are not stocks or bonds or anything of tangible value. This is the ultimate money game in which paper derived from other paper, such as futures and options, has served to bolster the balance sheets on Wall Street. Futures and options are exchange and traded derivatives, but the largest group of derivatives is not even traded on the exchanges. These are called “counterparty derivatives” and consist of such financial entities as mortgage backed securities (MBS) and credit default swaps. After assimilating this material it will become obvious why the Federal Reserve is purchasing MBS’ to the tune of $40 billion per month, every month. This process began in September 2013. Of course, you should know that the Federal Reserve is just printing the money out of thin air, thus, making your existing cash supply worth a lot less.
It is estimated that total derivative exposure of the financial system is between one quadrillion and one and a half quadrillion. A quadrillion is 1,000 trillion dollars and the derivative market has largely collapsed.
The entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all the world’s countries in 2009 was approximately 60 trillion dollars. GDP is an economic terms for everything that is produced for sale. The American middle class is being asked to bear the burden of the entire derivatives market which totals over 16 times the net value of the entire planet. The “Bail Out Monies” cannot not come close to covering the shortfall.
Where do you think the bail out money will go? Ask yourself why so many corporate heads are building homes overseas? Why did George Bush build a 100,000 acre ranch in Paraguay? Why is NORTHCOM, a combat organization, engaging in urban riot control training in terms of suppressing civil unrest? And again, we know that DHS has purchased 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition to go with their acquisition of 2700 armored personnel carriers. Are we to believe that all of these factors are unrelated? It is looking more and more like the bailout is actually doing what the name implies. Are we being asked to fund the getaway gifts for those that have stolen so much from the American people?
At one point, America spoke with one voice: “NO BAILOUT FOR THE CROOKS.” “Let Rome burn” was the prevailing feeling. We cheered as the House of Representatives voted down the attempt at further fleecing the American middle class. If the middle class is going down, then so should the Wall Street crooks who put “Mainstreet America” in this predicament. Despite this victory for the people, most Americans were disappointed that the crooks and the corrupt politicians, who put America in this dilemma, were not going to prison.
The no-bail-out-victory of the people was indeed short lived. Eventually, the House, bent to pressure applied by then Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs official, Hank Paulson, in which he said if we did not bail out his former firm and the majority of Wall Street, we would have martial law in the streets. Well, four years later, we are more broke than ever and martial law is imminent.
“Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss” in which our corporate masters are determined to have their way with the assets of American people.
The banksters have us where they want us. We are in an endless, unpayable stream of debt with no hope of escaping unless we repudiate the debt. However, the people who could do that work for the banksters.
The Punch Line
As I will detail in Part Four of this series, there are things that you may do to lessen the impact of the coming collapse. However, I believe with a few common sense actions, it is possible to have a relatively soft landing in the face of the coming collapse. Of course, that assumes that you can protect what you have.
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May 29th, 2013 by olddog
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/05/a-tale
-of-two-countries-one-survives.html
By Dave Hodges
In life, how many times have we seen that two similar men face a set of similar circumstances only to witness two entirely different outcomes? One man meets the challenges, grows stronger and more successful as a result. The other man ignores the crisis at first, hoping that it will go away. When the denials breakdown, the second man feels overwhelmed and succumbs to the problem and his life is subsequently ripped apart.
Nations are like people, they have a character, a personality and a persona. They either have resilience and can bounce back from adversity, or they do not. They either have courage, or they cower in the corner because they are weak and timid in the face of danger. And like with the two men, when countries face the same challenges, one country may thrive and the other country takes a dive.
This article is the story of a tale of two countries. One has stared into the belly of the beast and has survived. The other country is in the process of being devoured by the same beast, but is totally unaware of the ultimate and fatal fate that awaits most of its anesthetized citizens who are drunk and distracted on TV, video games, drugs, consumerism, etc.
Who Am I?
This country was on the brink of economic Armageddon and the government, on behalf of the banksters who had hijacked the government, attempted to steal everything they could before they purposely were going to collapse the system. Goldman Sachs and Wall Street were the central players behind the threat. Yet, the brave and intelligent people of this country found a way to not be taken down by the most corrupt and evil forces on the planet, namely the Wall Street bankers. This country has taken corrective measures, in the face of overwhelming adversity and prosperity is returning this to its citizens. In other words, these may be the only people on the face of the earth who have successfully stared down the globalists and are defeating them. This country has tremendous national character and resolve. Who am I?
If you think it is the United States, put your hands down, your answer is incorrect. The answer is Iceland.
The 2008 World’s Economic Meltdown Began In Iceland
America is ready to enter into the economic disaster zone. Iceland has already been there and their journey was inspired and controlled by Goldman Sachs and fellow Wall Street banksters. Iceland’s journey down the path to economic Armageddon actually began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Iceland’s Prime Minister David Oddsson, began to do the bidding of Wall Street bankers and instituted a set of Reagan-style policies and privatization. According to author, Roger Boyes, as he documents the world’s descent into economic tyranny in his best-selling book,Meltdown Iceland, the fix was in and Wall Street began to financially obliterate Iceland after plundering its hard assets.
Under the globalists from Wall Street, the banking sector grew rapidly, propelled by borrowed money. Icelanders could access credit easily in just the same manner as pre-2008 crash America. Iceland had its own devastating housing bubble as housing prices escalated exponentially and consumption skyrocketed. In order to attract international currency investments, Iceland raised its interest rates to 15% and the same devastating consequences which befell America were visited upon Iceland. In 2003-2004, prices on the Iceland stock market increased 900% before crashing. America, are you nervous yet?
Iceland’s bubble was no different than any other economic bubble. By 2006, what I call the heroin effect kicked in and the average Icelander was 300% wealthier than in 2003, but hopelessly in debt. Iceland was experiencing a 1929 pre-crash America as well as the symptoms of our impending crash in 2013. The citizens were seduced by easy money and acted as if they were addicted to heroin. Meanwhile, the government, banking and corporate debt grew out of control until the time to pay up finally arrived.
By 2008 Iceland’s banks collapsed, it was time for Icelanders to pay for their extravagant ways and 50,000 of its people’s savings were wiped out. Keep in mind that Iceland only has a population of 300,000. If those same numbers were to be visited upon America, we would be looking 50 million Americans having their savings wiped out. Let me ask the same question that I always ask at this point. Do you now understand why DHS has purchased 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition to go with 2700 armored personnel carriers?
The problem for Icelanders became far worse as by 2009, 25% of homeowners went into mortgage default. Please allow me to ask another rhetorical question, do you now see why the Federal Reserve is buying $40 billion dollars in mortgage backed securities each and every month beginning in September of 2012?
People of America, can you spell f-e-u-d-a-l-i-s-m?
Iceland Has More Than Just Snow Balls
From where I sit, the people of Iceland have more courage in their little finger than America has in its entire being. Iceland’s financial failure forced its government to resign or be removed, and it also caused citizens to re-evaluate the merits of their reckless spending, borrowing and consumption. Just how did Iceland do it?
Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson was interviewed earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos on why Iceland has enjoyed such a strong recovery after its completefinancial collapse in 2008, while the rest of the West is still mired in debt, poverty and hopelessness to go with empty promises of an economic recovery.
When asked whether Iceland’s policy of letting the banks fail would have worked in the rest of Europe, Grimsson stated:
Why are the banks considered to be the holy churches of the modern economy? Why are private banks not like airlines and telecommunication companies and allowed to go bankrupt if they have been run in an irresponsible way? The theory that you have to bail-out banks is a theory that you allow bankers enjoy for their own profit their success, and then let ordinary people bear their failure through taxes and austerity.
People in enlightened democracies are not going to accept that in the long run. …
The entire three-minute interview of President Grimmson is listed below:
Imagine that, let the banks fail! Let the criminal bankers take the same risk as any other business venture. Can we imagine Obama ever speaking this way in public?
And nearly five years later, where is Iceland at today? They have jailed the criminal bankers within their country. If they could get their hands on Goldman Sachs officials they would. They impeached and convicted corrupt politicians who were in league with Wall Street, many of whom are serving prison sentences. Iceland is on its way to a full economic recovery while still saying no to the corrupt Goldman Sachs influences in Europe. Iceland is saying no to the Bank of International Settlements. Iceland is a beacon of hope for the rest of the G20 nations including the United States.
Do you remember the former Secretary of Treasury and former Goldman Sachs head, a total criminal, Hank Paulson, who threatened Congress with martial law if Congress did not hand over the nation’s money, both present and future, to Wall Street?
Damage Control Analysis
Both countries, faced economic ruin. However, only one country has prevailed. Going on five years after the Wall Street bailouts, where is America at today? Well, we are nowhere near where Iceland is at today. Let’s look at a few numbers.
Under the Obama administration, the national debt has doubled as it races by the $17 trillion mark. It would now take a whopping $150,000+ per taxpayer to cover the debt. In a moment the $17 trillion dollar debt will seem like a bargain for what lies ahead.
Under Obama, taxpayers are covering $2 billion dollars per day in jobless benefits and other forms of welfare and that number is escalating dramatically. The Big Three in health care coverage, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, are adding $1 trillion dollars per year to the deficit. Social Security is adding $1 trillion dollars per year to the deficit.
It should become clear why Obamacare has a set of eugenics-based treatment exclusions which will significantly lower the Social Security deficit due to the planned kill of the elderly in this country.
The elective wars of occupation are costing the country $700 billion per year. And the debt interest is presently at $1 billion dollars per day. Federal pensions are on the verge of breaking the system. The Civil Service Retirement System has once again accounted for the majority of that unfunded liability. The Civil Service Retirement System debt grew from $634 billion dollars in fiscal year, 2010 to over $741 billion dollars in fiscal year 2011, according to the Office of Personnel Management’s Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund.
Not to worry, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is robbing Peter to pay Paul, as he is raiding Federal retirement programs to cover the failure of not increasing the debt ceiling. Lew announced that the government was taking the unprecedented action of avoiding governmental default through this summer by including tapping into and suspending investments into the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and halting the daily reinvestment of the government securities (G) fund, the most stable offering in the Thrift Savings Plan‘s portfolio. This is all being done as we continue to fund the bailouts. How much of the bailout money has Goldman Sachs paid back?
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is one of the criminal rat pack that have destroyed this country and now Obama has put him in charge of the Treasury Department. As I previously reported, while Lew was employed at Citigroup, he oversaw 113 tax evading accounts in Cayman Island banks. Based upon Lew’s resume, his proclivity for losing money, (i.e. the hedge funds for Citigroup where he lost almost $600 million dollars), one can only assume that is why Obama has appointed Lew to finish the job which will leave you and I with nothing. In Iceland, they imprisoned their bums. In the corrupt, criminal empire of America, these gangsters get promoted.
Now For the Really Big Numbers
It is a fact that our government’s Social Security liability will soon be as big as the national debt. The present unfunded liability of Social Security is presently $8.6 trillion, but that is deceptive because the shortfall quickly balloons to $20.5 trillion. Theunfunded prescription Medicare liability for seniors is $24.8 trillion dollars. Zero Hedge places the Medicare debt at $99 trillion dollars. The unfunded drug liability for seniors is $24.1 trillion dollars.
It is very easy to understand why Lew is going after federal retirements. The Federal Employees Retirement System is reporting a $20.1 billion unfunded liability.
Even more telling is our gross debt-to-GDP figures. The ratio is a staggering 143%. If you thought that $17 trillion dollars in debt was horrific in 2013, wait until 2015 when the amount is predicted to approach 25 trillion in total US national debt. And the numbers get even more frightening. The total US Unfunded Liabilities are estimated at $144 trillion, roughly $1.2 million per taxpayer.
To summarize, the average net assets for an average U.S. citizen are $300,000. The net liability of the U.S. government, shared among its citizens, amounts to almost four times that amount or about $1.2 million per person. And the government’s debt is growing at $1 million every 45 seconds. To cover its annual deficit, it is printing $1 trillion a year of currency that is not backed by any asset except the Petrodollar and that practice is being threatened by China, Russia and India buying Iranian oil in gold. Coupled with that, former World Bank insider, Karen Hudes, speaks to the fact that the World Bank is jeopardizing the American economy by repeated violations of the law. I will be covering these events in the next article in this series, and will be sharing with the reading public on how the World Bank is threatening to bring down the American economy like a house of cards. I am also interviewing Ms. Hudes on my talk show on June 2nd and will further explore these events in detail.
Is It Too Late?
The key to getting the right answer is to ask the right questions. It is not so much a case of it being too late. It is more a case of character, discipline and knowledge. As I have said before, Iceland knows how the world of economics works; Americans know how American Idol works. In other words, I see nothing in our country, at the present moment, which is suggestive of the fact that we have the collective knowledge to understand what is happening to us, so we can accept the sacrifices which would be needed to make a corrective course change as they did in Iceland. I see nothing in our country which is suggestive of the fact that we have the discipline that Icelanders demonstrated in order to pay the price to overcome the banksters and the economic woes that would follow their demise. After all, we have nearly $1 trillion in credit card debt. So much for American discipline. And as far as character goes, American TV, in prime time, is an abomination in the eyes of God with regard to hedonistic sexual practices implied or demonstrated on TV. America, through its media has embraced every form of perversion known to man. I see nothing in our collective character which suggests that we can duplicate the Icelanders.
When the economic poop hits the proverbial fan, Americans, out of options, out of food, out of any life-sustaining resources, will take to the streets and be met by whom? They will be met by (come on say it with me now) “DHS and their 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition and 2700 armored personnel carriers.”
We could do what Iceland did, but we will not. However, there a few things that one can do to have a softer landing after the globalists complete the job of stealing your stocks, your 401K’s, your pensions and your bank accounts. This will be the topic of next article in this series.
Dave 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 asFreedoms 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.
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May 27th, 2013 by olddog
Why Disinformation Works
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/05/23/why-disinformation-works-paul-craig-roberts/
By Paul Craig Roberts
Have you ever wondered how the government’s misinformation gains traction?
What I have noticed is that whenever a stunning episode occurs, such as 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, most everyone whether on the right or left goes along with the government’s explanation, because they can hook their agenda to the government’s account.
The leftwing likes the official stories of Muslims creating terrorist mayhem in America, because it proves their blowback theory and satisfies them that the dispossessed and oppressed can fight back against imperialism.
The patriotic rightwing likes the official story, because it proves America is attacked for its goodness or because terrorists were allowed in by immigration authorities and nurtured by welfare, or because the government, which can’t do anything right, ignored plentiful warnings.
Whatever the government says, no matter how problematical, the official story gets its traction from its compatibility with existing predispositions and agendas.
In such a country, truth has no relevance. Only agendas are important.
A person can see this everywhere. I could write volumes illustrating how agenda-driven writers across the spectrum will support the most improbable government stories despite the absence of any evidence simply because the government’s line can be used to support their agendas.
For example, a conservative writer in the June issue of Chronicles uses the government’s story about the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to argue against immigration, amnesty for illegals, and political asylum for Muslims. He writes: “Even the most high-tech security systems imaginable will inevitably fail as they are overwhelmed by a flood of often hostile and dangerous immigrants.”
The writer accepts all of the improbable government statements as proof that the brothers were guilty. The wounded brother who was unable to respond to the boat owner who discovered him and had to be put on life support somehow managed to write a confession on the inside of the boat.
As soon as the authorities have the brother locked up in a hospital on life support, “unnamed officials” and “authorities who remain anonymous” are planting the story in the media that the suspect is signing written confessions of his guilt while on life support. No one has seen any of these written confessions. But we know that they exist, because the government and media say so.
The conservative writer knows that Dzhokhar is guilty because he is Muslim and a Chechen. Therefore, it does not occur to the writer to wonder about the agenda of the unnamed sources who are busy at work creating belief in the brothers’ guilt. This insures that no juror would dare vote for acquittal and have to explain it to family and friends. Innocent until proven guilty in a court has been thrown out the window. This should disturb the conservative writer, but doesn’t.
The conservative writer sees Chechen ethnicity as an indication of guilt even though the brothers grew up in the US as normal Americans, because Chechens are “engaged in anti-Russian jihad.” But Chechens have no reason for hostility against the US. As evidence indicates, Washington supports the Chechens in their conflict with Russia. By supporting Chechen terrorism, Washington violates all of the laws that it ruthlessly applies to compassionate Americans who give donations to Palestinian charities that Washington alleges are run by Hamas, a Washington-declared terrorist organization.
It doesn’t occur to the conservative writer that something is amiss when martial law
is established over one of America’s main cities and its metropolitan area, 10,000 heavily armed troops are put on the streets with tanks, and citizens are ordered out of their homes with their hands over their heads, all of this just to search for one wounded 19-year old suspect. Instead the writer blames the “surveillance state” on “the inevitable consequences of suicidal liberalism” which has embraced “the oldest sin in the world: rebellion against authority.” The writer is so pleased to use the government’s story line as a way of indulging the conservative’s romance with authority and striking a blow at liberalism that he does not notice that he has lined up against the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence and rebelled against authority.
I could just as easily have used a left-wing writer to illustrate the point that improbable explanations are acceptable if they fit with predispositions and can be employed in behalf of an agenda.
Think about it. Do you not think that it is extraordinary that the only investigations we have of such events as 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing are private investigations, such as this investigation of the backpacks: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/05/20/official-story-has-odd-wrinkles-a-pack-of-questions-about-the-boston-bombing-backpacks/
There was no investigation of 9/11. Indeed, the White House resisted any inquiry at all for one year despite the insistent demands from the 9/11 families. NIST did not investigate anything. NIST simply constructed a computer model that was consistent with the government’s story. The 9/11 Commission simply sat and listened to the government’s explanation and wrote it down. These are not investigations.
The only investigations have come from a physicist who proved that WTC 7 came down at free fall and was thus the result of controlled demolition, from a team of scientists who examined dust from the WTC towers and found nano-thermite, from high-rise architects and structural engineers with decades of experience, and from first responders and firefighters who were in the towers and experienced explosions throughout the towers, even in the sub-basements.
We have reached the point where evidence is no longer required. The government’s statements suffice. Only conspiracy kooks produce real evidence.
In America, government statements have a unique authority. This authority comes from the white hat that the US wore in World War II and in the subsequent Cold War. It was easy to demonize Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism and Maoist China. Even today when Russian publications interview me about the perilous state of civil liberty in the US and Washington’s endless illegal military attacks abroad, I sometimes receive reports that some Russians believe that it was an impostor who was interviewed, not the real Paul Craig Roberts. There are Russians who believe that it was President Reagan who brought freedom to Russia, and as I served in the Reagan administration these Russians associate me with their vision of America as a light unto the world. Some Russians actually believe that Washington’s wars are truly wars of liberation.
The same illusions reign among Chinese dissidents. Chen Guangcheng is the Chinese dissident who sought refuge in the US Embassy in China. Recently he was interviewed by the BBC World Service. Chen Guangcheng believes that the US protects human rights while China suppresses human rights. He complained to the BBC that in China police can arrest citizens and detain them for as long as six months without accounting for their detainment. He thought that the US and UK should publicly protest this violation of due process, a human right. Apparently, Chen Guangcheng is unaware that US citizens are subject to indefinite detention without due process and even to assassination without due process.
The Chinese government allowed Chen Guangcheng safe passage to leave China and live in the US. Chen Guangcheng is so dazzled by his illusions of America as a human rights beacon that it has never occurred to him that the oppressive, human rights-violating Chinese government gave him safe passage, but that Julian Assange, after being given political asylum by Ecuador is still confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London, because Washington will not allow its UK puppet state to permit his safe passage to Ecuador.
Perhaps Chen Guangcheng and the Chinese and Russian dissidents who are so enamored of the US could gain some needed perspective if they were to read US soldier Terry Holdbrooks' book about the treatment given to the Guantanamo prisoners. Holdbrooks was there on the scene, part of the process, and this is what he told RT: “The torture and information extraction methods that we used certainly created a great deal of doubt and questions in my mind to whether or not this was my America. But when I thought about what we were doing there and how we go about doing it, it did not seem like the America I signed up to defend. It did not seem like the America I grew up in. And that in itself was a very disillusioning experience.” http://rt.com/news/guantanamo-guard-islam-torture-608/
In a May 17 Wall Street Journal.com article, Peggy Noonan wrote that President Obama has lost his patina of high-mindedness. What did Obama do that brought this loss upon himself? Is it because he sits in the Oval Office approving lists of US citizens to be assassinated without due process of law? Is it because he detains US citizens indefinitely in violation of habeas corpus? Is it because he has kept open the torture prison at Guantanamo? Is it because he continued the war that the neoconservatives started, despite his promise to end it, and started new wars?
Is it because he attacks with drones people in their homes, medical centers, and work places in countries with which the US is not at war? Is it because his corrupt administration spies on American citizens without warrants and without cause?
No. It is none of these reasons. In Noonan’s view these are not offenses for which presidents, even Democratic ones, lose their high-minded patina. Obama can no longer be trusted, because the IRS hassled some conservative political activists.
Noonan is a Republican, and what Obama did wrong was to use the IRS against some Republicans. Apparently, it has not occurred to Noonan that if Obama–or any president–can use the IRS against opponents, he can use Homeland Security and the police state against them. He can use indefinite detention against them. He can use drones against them.
All of these are much more drastic measures. Why isn’t Peggy Noonan concerned?
Because she thinks these measures will only be used against terrorists, just as the IRS is only supposed to be used against tax evaders.
When a public and the commentators who inform it accept the collapse of the Constitution’s authority and the demise of their civil liberties, to complain about the IRS is pointless.
 Media Disinformation and the Conspiracy Panic Phenomenon
http://www.globalresearch.ca/media-disinformation-and-the-conspiracy-panic-phenomenon/5336221
By James F. Tracy
Global Research
To posit that one’s government may be partially composed of unaccountable criminal elements is cause for serious censure in polite circles. Labeled “conspiracy theories” by a corporate media that prompt and channel emotionally-laden mass consent, such perspectives are quickly dispatched to the memory hole lest they prompt meaningful discussion of the political prerogatives and designs held by a global power elite coordinating governments and broader geopolitical configurations.
Cultural historian Jack Bratich terms such phenomena “conspiracy panics.” Potentially fostered by the coordinated actions of government officials or agencies and major news organs to generate public suspicion and uncertainty, a conspiracy panic is a demonstrable immediate or long-term reactive thrust against rational queries toward unusual and poorly understood events. To be sure, they are also intertwined with how the given society acknowledges and preserves its own identity—through “the management and expulsion of deviance.”[1]
In the American mass mind, government intelligence and military operations are largely seen as being directed almost solely toward manipulation or coercion of unfortunate souls in foreign lands. To suggest otherwise, as independent researchers and commentators have done with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA-Contra-crack cocaine connection, and 9/11, has been cause for sustained conspiracy panics that act to suppress inquiry into such events by professional and credentialed opinion leaders, particularly journalists and academics.
At the same time a conspiracy panic serves a subtle yet important doctrinal function of manifesting and reproducing the apt ideational status quo of the post-Cold War, “War on Terror” era. “The scapegoating of conspiracy theories provides the conditions for social integration and political rationality,” Bratich observes. “Conspiracy panics help to define the normal modes of dissent. Politically it is predicated on a consensus of ‘us’ over against a subversive and threatening ‘them.’”[2] These days especially the suggestion that an official narrative may be amiss almost invariably puts one in the enemy camp.
Popular Credence in Government Conspiracy Narratives
The time for a conspiracy panic to develop has decreased commensurately with the heightened spread and availability of information and communication technology that allows for the dissemination of news and research formerly suppressed by the perpetual data overload of corporate media. Before the wide access to information technology and the internet, independent investigations into events including the JFK assassination took place over the course of many years, materializing in book-length treatments that could be dismissed by intelligence assets in news media and academe as the collective activity of “conspiracy buffs”—amateurish researchers who lack a government or privately-funded sinecure to overlook or obscure inquiry into deep events.
Not until Oliver Stone’s 1991 blockbuster film JFK, essentially an adoption of works by author Jim Marrs, Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, did a substantial conspiracy panic take shape as a response to such analysis thrust upon the public in popular narrative form. This panic arose from and centered around Hollywood’s apt challenge to traditional journalism’s turf alongside commercial news outlets’ typically deceptive interpretation of the event and almost wholly uncritical treatment of the Warren Commission Report.
Shortly thereafter investigative journalist Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series for the San Jose Mercury News demonstrated the internet’s capacity to explain and document a government conspiracy. With Webb’s painstaking examination of the CIA’s role in the illicit drug trade hyperlinked to a bevy of documentation and freely distributed online, the professional journalistic community and its intelligence penumbra fell silent for months.
In the interim the story picked up steam in the non-traditional outlets of talk radio and tabloid television, with African Americans especially intrigued by the potential government role in the crack cocaine epidemic. Then suddenly major news outlets spewed forth a vitriolic attack on Webb and the Mercury News that amazingly resulted in the Mercury‘s retraction of the story and Webb’s eventual departure from the paper and probable murder by the US government.[3]
Criticism of Webb’s work predictably focused on petty misgivings toward his alleged poor judgment—specifically his intimation that the CIA intentionally caused the crack epidemic in African American communities, an observation that many blacks found logical and compelling. So not only did Webb find himself at the center of a conspiracy panic because of his assessment of the CIA’s role in the drug trade; he was also causing mass “paranoia” within African American communities allegedly predisposed toward such thinking.
Since the mid-1990s conspiracy panics have increasingly revolved around an effort by mainstream news media to link unorthodox political ideas and inquiry with violent acts. This dynamic was crystallized in Timothy McVeigh, the principal suspect in the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, who through the propaganda-like efforts of government and major news media was constructed to symbolize the dangers of “extremist” conspiratorial thought (his purported fascination with white supremacism and The Turner Diaries) and violent terrorist action (the bombing itself). Conveniently overlooked is the fact that McVeigh was trained as a black ops technician and still in US Army employ at the time of his 2001 execution.[4]
Through a broad array of media coverage and subsequent book-length treatments by the left intelligentsia on the “radical right,” the alleged lone wolf McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing became forever coupled in the national memory. The image and event seemingly attested to how certain modes of thought can bring about violence–even though McVeigh’s role in what took place on April 19 was without question one part of an intricate web painstakingly examined by the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee [5] and in the 2011 documentary A Noble Lie: Oklahoma City 1995.
The Quickening Pace of Conspiracy Panics
Independent researchers and alternative media utilizing the internet have necessitated the rapid deployment of conspiracy panic-like reactions that appear far less natural and spontaneous to neutralize inquiry and bolster the official narratives of momentous and unusual events. For example, wide-scale skepticism surrounding the May 1, 2011 assault on Osama bin Laden’s alleged lair in Pakistan was met with efforts to cultivate a conspiracy panic evident in editorials appearing across mainstream print, broadcast, and online news platforms. The untenable event supported only by President Obama’s pronouncement of the operation was unquestioningly accepted by corporate media that shouted down calls for further evidence and alternative explanations of bin Laden’s demise as “conspiracy theories.”
Indeed, a LexisNexis search for “bin Laden” and “conspiracy theories” yields over five hundred such stories and opinion pieces appearing across Western print and broadcast media outlets for the week of May 2, 2011.[6]
“While much of America celebrated the dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden,” the Washington Post opined, “the Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists still had questions. For them and a growing number of skeptics, the plot only thickened.”[7]
Along these lines retired General Mark Kimmitt remarked on CNN, “Well, I’m sure the conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this, about why it was done? Was it done? Is he still alive?”[8]
“The conspiracy theorists are not going to be satisfied,” Glenn Beck asserted. “Next thing you know, Trump is going to ask for the death certificate, and is it the real death certificate? And then all hell breaks loose.”[9]
Like 9/11 or the Gulf of Tonkin, the narrative has since become a part of official history, disingenuously repeated in subsequent news accounts and elementary school history books—a history handed down from on high and accepted by compromised, unintelligent, or simply lazy journalists perpetuating nightmare fictions to a poorly informed and intellectually idle public.
This psycho-symbolic template is simultaneously evident in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and Boston Marathon bombing (BMB) events and their aftermaths. Indeed, the brief yet intense Sandy Hook conspiracy panic, and to a lesser degree that of the BMB, revolved at least partially around the “conspiracy theory professor,” who, as a credentialed member of the intellectual class, overstepped his bounds by suggesting how there are many unanswered questions related to the tragedies that might lead one to conclude—as social theorist Jean Baudrillard observed concerning the 1991 Gulf War—that the events did not take place, at least in the way official pronouncements and major media have represented them. It is perhaps telling that critical assessments of domestic events and their relatedness to a corrupt media and governing apparatus are so vigorously assailed.
Yet to suggest that the news and information Americans accept as sound and factual on a routine basis is in fact a central means for manipulating their worldviews is not a matter for debate. Rather, it is an empirically verifiable assertion substantiated in a century of public relations and psychological warfare research and practice. Such propaganda efforts once reserved for foreign locales are now freely practiced in the US to keep the population increasingly on edge.
Still, a significant portion of the population cannot believe their government would lie to or mislead them, especially about a traumatic and emotional event involving young children or running enthusiasts. To suggest this to be the case is not unlike informing a devoted sports fan that her team lost a decisive game after she’s been convinced of an overwhelming win. Such an allegation goes against not only what they often unconsciously accept to be true, but also challenges their substantial emotional investment in the given mediated event.
In a revealing yet characteristic move the reaction by corporate media outlets such as the New York Times, FoxNews, CNN, and in the case of the BMB the New York Times-owned Boston Globe, has been not to revisit and critique their own slipshod coverage of the Newtown massacre or BMB that often bordered on blatant disinformation, but rather to divert attention from any responsible self-evaluation by vilifying the messenger in what have been acute conspiracy panics of unusual proportion.
As a disciplinary mechanism against unsettling observations and questions directed toward political leaders and the status quo, conspiracy panics serve to reinforce ideas and thought processes sustained by the fleeting yet pervasive stimuli of infotainment, government pronouncements, and, yes, the staged events that have been part and parcel of US news media and government collaboration dating at least to the Spanish-American war. Despite (or perhaps because of) the immense technological sophistication at the dawn of the twenty-first century a majority of the population remains bound and shackled in the bowels of the cave, forever doomed to watch the shadows projected before them.
OLDDOGS COMMENTS
It took Mr. Tracy 1717 fancy words to explain that the average American is too stupid to believe anything bad about our government. He was not wrong, but his style of writing is also too much for the stupid people to read. I can do much better by simply stating the truth.
Our government is quite capable of murdering children in mass quantities without losing a wink of sleep, and they get away with it because they have intentionally controlled the education and intellect of most of the adults in America. When confronted with the truth, these stupid people feel like someone accused their daughter of being a whore, and evidence is completely ignored. Cognitive dissonance is the term used to explain their inability to believe anything other than what they want to believe, and the majority of America is infected with it. – 90 words!
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