The Man Who Fired The Shot Heard ’Round The World

In II Samuel 19 there is the story about an often-overlooked man by the name of Barzillai. He was a Gileadite who helped save King David’s life. The Scripture says of him: “He was a very great man.” Today, I’m going to tell you about a very great man. In fact, I’m going to talk about several great men.

I am reminded of these men, because tomorrow I have the distinct honor of speaking at a giant freedom rally on Lexington Green, Massachusetts, on the occasion of the 238th anniversary of the famous Battle of Lexington and Concord. If you live within driving distance, please come and join us. Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, will also be speaking at this event. I believe the rally begins at 2pm local time.

In truth, April 19, 1775, should be regarded as important a date to Americans as July 4, 1776. It’s a shame that we don’t celebrate it as enthusiastically as we do Independence Day. It’s even more shameful that many Americans don’t even remember what happened on this day back in 1775. For the record, historians call this day, “Patriot’s Day.” More specifically, it was the day that the shot heard ’round the world was fired. It was the day America’s War for Independence began.

Being warned of approaching British troops by Dr. Joseph Warren and Paul Revere, Pastor Jonas Clark and his male congregants of the Church of Lexington (numbering 60-70) were the ones that stood with their muskets in front of the Crown’s troops (numbering over 800), who were on orders to seize a cache of arms which were stored at Concord and arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock (who were known to be in the area, and who had actually taken refuge in Pastor Clark’s home).

According to eyewitnesses, the king’s troops opened fire on the militiamen without warning, immediately killing eight of Pastor Clark’s parishioners. In self defense, the Minutemen returned fire. These were the first shots of the Revolutionary War. This took place on Lexington Green, which was located directly beside the church-house where those men worshipped each Sunday. Adams and Hancock were not apprehended. A few of Pastor Clark’s men led them to safety as their Christian brothers were preparing to stand in front of the British troops. Sam Adams and John Hancock owed their lives to Pastor Clark and his brave Minutemen.

According to Pastor Clark, these are the names of the eight men who died on Lexington Green as the sun rose on April 19, 1775: Robert Munroe, Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, all of Lexington, and one Mr. Porter of Woburn.

However, by the time the British troops arrived at the Concord Bridge, hundreds of colonists had amassed a defense of the bridge. A horrific battle took place, and the British troops were routed and soon retreated back to Boston. America’s War for Independence had begun!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these two elements of American history are lost to the vast majority of historians today: 1) it was the attempted gun confiscation and seizure of two patriot leaders by British troops that ignited America’s War for Independence; and, 2) it was a local church pastor and his male congregants that mostly comprised the Minutemen who fired the shots that started our great Revolution.

With that thought in mind, I want to devote today’s column to honoring the brave preachers of Colonial America–these “children of the Pilgrims,” as one colonial pastor’s descendent put it.

It really wasn’t that long ago. However, with the way America’s clergymen act today, one would think that preachers such as James Caldwell, John Peter Muhlenberg, Joab Houghton, and Jonas Clark never existed. But they did exist; and without them, this country we call the United States of America would not exist.

Caldwell was a Presbyterian; Muhlenberg was a Lutheran; Houghton was a Baptist; and no one really seems to know what denomination (if any) Jonas Clark claimed, although one historian referred to Clark as a Trinitarian and Calvinist. But these men had one thing in common (besides their faith in Jesus Christ): they were all ardent patriots who participated in America’s War for Independence, and in the case of Jonas Clark, actually ignited it.

James Caldwell

James Caldwell was called “The Rebel High Priest” or “The Fighting Chaplain.” Caldwell is most famous for the “Give ’em Watts!” story.

During the Springfield (New Jersey) engagement, the Colonial militia ran out of wadding for their muskets. Quickly, Caldwell mounted his horse and galloped to the Presbyterian church, and returning with an armload of hymnals, threw them to the ground, and hollered, “Now, boys, give ’em Watts!” He was referring to the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts, of course.

The British hated Caldwell so much, they murdered his wife, Hannah, in her own home, as she sat with her children on her bed. Later, a fellow American was bribed by the British to assassinate Pastor Caldwell–which is exactly what he did. Americans loyal to the Crown burned both his house and church. No less than three cities and two public schools in the State of New Jersey bear his name.

John Peter Muhlenberg

John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia, when hostilities erupted between Great Britain and the American colonies. When news of Bunker Hill reached Virginia, Muhlenberg preached a sermon from Ecclesiastes 3 to his congregation. He reminded his parishioners that there was a time to preach and a time to fight. He said that, for him, the time to preach was past and it was time to fight. He then threw off his vestments and stood before his congregants in the uniform of a Virginia colonel.

Muhlenberg was later promoted to brigadier-general in the Continental Army, and then to major general. He participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He went on to serve in both the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

Joab Houghton

Joab Houghton was in the Hopewell (New Jersey) Baptist Meeting House at worship when he received the first information regarding the battles at Lexington and Concord. His great-grandson gives the following eloquent description of the way he treated the tidings:

“[M]ounting the great stone block in front of the meeting-house, he beckoned the people to stop. Men and women paused to hear, curious to know what so unusual a sequel to the service of the day could mean. At the first, words a silence, stern as death, fell over all. The Sabbath quiet of the hour and of the place was deepened into a terrible solemnity. He told them all the story of the cowardly murder at Lexington by the royal troops; the heroic vengeance following hard upon it; the retreat of Percy; the gathering of the children of the Pilgrims round the beleaguered hills of Boston; then pausing, and looking over the silent throng, he said slowly, ‘Men of New Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren of New England! Who follows me to Boston?’ And every man in that audience stepped out of line, and answered, ‘I!’ There was not a coward or a traitor in old Hopewell Baptist Meeting-House that day.” (Cathcart, William. Baptists and the American Revolution. Philadelphia: S.A. George, 1876, rev. 1976. Print.)

Jonas Clark

As I said at the beginning of this column, Jonas Clark was pastor of the Church of Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775, the day that British troops marched on Concord with orders to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, and to seize a cache of firearms. It was Pastor Clark’s male congregants who were the first ones to face-off against the British troops as they marched through Lexington. When you hear the story of the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington, remember those Minutemen were mostly Pastor Jonas Clark and the men of his congregation.

On the One Year Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Clark preached a sermon based upon his eyewitness testimony of the event. He called his sermon, “The Fate of Blood-Thirsty Oppressors and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People.” His sermon has been republished by Nordskog Publishing under the title, “The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington.”

Order the book containing Clark’s sermon at:

“The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington”

Of course, these four brave preachers were not the only ones to participate in America’s fight for independence. There were Episcopalian ministers such as Dr. Samuel Provost of New York, Dr. John Croes of New Jersey, and Robert Smith of South Carolina. Presbyterian ministers such as Adam Boyd of North Carolina and James Armstrong of Maryland, along with many others, also took part.

Numerous Baptist preachers participated in America’s War for Independence, so many that at the conclusion of the war, President George Washington wrote a personal letter to the Baptist people saying, “I recollect with satisfaction that the religious societies of which you are a member have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the firm friends to civil liberty, and the preserving promoters of our glorious Revolution.” It also explains how Thomas Jefferson could write to a Baptist congregation and say, “We have acted together from the origin to the end of a memorable Revolution.” (McDaniel, George White. The People Called Baptists. The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1918. Print.)

And although not every pastor was able to actively participate in our fight for independence, because so many pastors throughout colonial America preached the principles of liberty and independence from their pulpits, the Crown created a moniker for them: The Black Regiment (referring to the long, black robes that so many colonial clergymen wore in the pulpit). Without question, the courageous preaching and example of colonial America’s patriot-pastors provided the colonists with the inspiration and resolve to resist the tyranny of the Crown and win America’s freedom and independence.

I invite readers to visit my Black Regiment web page to learn more about my attempt to resurrect America’s Black-Robed Regiment. Go to:

Black Regiment

Readers should know, too, that a brand new book co-authored by me and my constitutional attorney son, Tim, entitled, “To Keep Or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns,” will be released in just a few days. This book examines the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and proves conclusively that nowhere does God expect His people to surrender their arms in the face of any would-be tyrant. With hundreds of references, we show from both Natural and Revealed Law that the right of self-defense, the right to keep and bear arms, is a God-ordained right and responsibility. This book is sure to be a blockbuster. To order the book, go to:

Keep Your Arms

This is the fighting heritage of America’s pastors and preachers. So, what has happened? What has happened to that fighting spirit that once existed, almost universally, throughout America’s Christian denominations? How have preachers become so timid, so shy, and so cowardly that they will stand apathetic and mute as America faces the destruction of its liberties? Where are the preachers to explain, expound, and extrapolate the principles of liberty from Holy Writ?

I am absolutely convinced that one of the biggest reasons America is in the sad condition that it is in today is because the sermons Americans frequently hear from modern pulpits deal mostly with prosperity theology, entertainment evangelism, feelgoodism, emotionalism, and Aren’t-I-Wonderful ear tickling! One man recently wrote and told me that his ears had been tickled so much in church that he had calluses on them.

This milquetoast preaching, along with a totally false “obey-the-government-no-matter-what” interpretation of Romans 13, have made it next to impossible to find Christian men with the courage and resolve to stand against the onslaught of socialism, corporatism, and, yes, fascism that is swallowing America whole.

Tim and I also wrote a book entitled, “Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission.” This book examines Romans 13, and the rest of Scripture, and shows that nowhere does God demand that His people yield to wicked and unjust government. To order this book, to go:

“Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission”

As we celebrate Patriot’s Day tomorrow, please remember Jonas Clark (along with James Caldwell, John Peter Muhlenberg, Joab Houghton, and the other brave pastors of colonial America). “He was a very great man.”

Christian: It’s Time To Vote With Your Feet

I confess right out of the gate that this column is not going to be enjoyable for me to write. It may not be enjoyable for some to read. But the time has come that it has to be said. If Christians truly have any intentions of helping to preserve liberty for their children and grandchildren, they must put rhetoric, tradition, friendship, and personal feelings aside and take action. Christian: it is time to vote with your feet.

And while many people who never darken the doors of a church love to cast stones at preachers and churches, I have been in the Gospel ministry all of my adult life. I have pastored for over 37 years. I know the inner workings of church work; I personally know hundreds of preachers; I understand how preachers think; I have attended hundreds of church meetings and fellowships, and hundreds of pastors’ conferences and seminars. I know what it’s like to balance a church budget, counsel families in need, stand with a congregation in good times and bad. There isn’t an area of church work with which I am not very familiar. And I can also say that for over 37 years, I have never desired or attempted to harm another man’s ministry. And that is not the intention of this column.

However, the time has come in America to tell it like it is. These are not ordinary times. Our country is on the precipice of tyranny and oppression like we have not seen since the days of Colonial America before our War for Independence. It is no hyperbole to say that what we do–or don’t do–now will determine the state of freedom in America for the next 50 years or more. To make no decision is to decide for tyranny. We can no longer pretend that what we do doesn’t matter.

One of the most glaring differences between Colonial and modern America is the attitude of our pastors.

In 1770-1776 (and actually for many years previous to this period), Colonial pastors (of all denominations) lit the fire of freedom in the hearts of their congregants like no generation has ever seen–before or since. The British Crown was so frustrated with these patriot-pastors that they coined a moniker for them. They were called, “The Black (or Black-Robed) Regiment.” In truth, Colonial pastors were more influential in the “holy cause of liberty” (Patrick Henry) from their pulpits than any military regiment on the battlefield. And, yes, many pastors in Colonial America also fought on the battlefields in our War for Independence.

Today’s pastors, on the other hand, are mostly noted for saying absolutely NOTHING about the attacks that are currently being waged against our liberties. And when I say NOTHING, I mean absolutely NOTHING. About the only thing they seem to be able to do is pass out some slanted “voter guides” every Presidential election. But most don’t even do that. A few (a very few) will encourage their congregations to protest abortion; some (again, a very small number) will preach a “pro-life” sermon on “Sanctity of Life” Sunday each January. But most deliberately and stubbornly refuse to take a public position on any subject that has the air of being “political.”

Should we really wonder why our country is teetering on the precipice of oppression and slavery?

When Bible stories such as Daniel And The Lion’s Den, The Three Hebrew Children And The Burning Fiery Furnace, or the stories of Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson are told, they are taught simply as allegories or explained away as being for “another time.” The practical application of myriads of Bible examples of resistance to tyranny is NEVER TAUGHT in the vast majority of most churches today. NEVER!

I preached a message last Sunday to the people of Liberty Fellowship entitled, “Shepherd Or Hireling?” The text was John 10. To watch the video of this message, go to:

“Shepherd Or Hireling?”

In this chapter, Jesus said, “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.” (John 10:12, 13 KJV)

Jesus made it clear that the central difference between a true shepherd and a hireling (hired hand) was that the shepherd was willing to fight and die for the protection of the sheep, while the hired hand was not willing to risk his life for the sheep.

Pastors are depicted as being shepherds. Is it not then the central duty of the pastor to be willing to fight and die for the protection of his people? When he sees the wolves approaching, does he run away and leave the sheep to the slaughter or does he confront the wolves and fight to the death to protect them?

Ladies and gentlemen, the wolves are attacking the flock! Those mangy, mad, maniacal monsters are attacking the lives and liberties of the American people (including the Christian people in our churches) with a vengeance. When they attempt to strip us of our right to defend ourselves with arms, they are attacking the very lives and liberties of our homes and families. Life is a precious gift of Almighty God, and anyone who would make our children and families vulnerable to death and destruction by wicked and evil men is tantamount to a mad wolf that attacks the life of a little lamb.

How dare our shepherds (pastors) stand silent and mute in the face of such evil? How dare they refuse to sound the alarm? How dare they piously proclaim that God “has not called” them to perform this most fundamental duty of a shepherd? Does not their refusal to fight, does not their silence, does not their fear and inaction prove that they are not really shepherds at all, but merely hirelings? I believe so.

And knowing that what I am about to say will be misinterpreted by some, I say it still: preaching the Gospel, by itself, will NOT save America. And these preachers who hide behind the mantra that the only thing God has called them to do is preach the Gospel, and that only preaching the Gospel will save America, are either themselves seriously deluded or are despicable cowards hiding behind the veil of pretended spirituality.

America has had more Gospel preaching during the last 50 years than any nation in history. There are more churches, more Christian schools, more Gospel radio and television programs, more missionary endeavors, more inner-city missions and shelters, more Bible publications, and more Gospel influence in America during the last 50 years than in any country in the history of the world.

And what has happened to America over the last 50 years? Our historic Christian culture has been turned into rank hedonism and licentiousness; legal abortion has taken the lives of over 60 million innocent unborn babies; a blatant police-state is proliferating; more babies are being born out of wedlock than at any time in history; and now we are facing the tyrannical attempt to ban and confiscate America’s premier self-defense tool: the semi-automatic rifle. And all of this happened, and is happening, while hundreds of thousands of pastors and churches across the land “preach the Gospel.”

Again I say, preaching the Gospel, by itself, will not save America. Christians have to be taught how to understand; how to discern the difference between good and evil; the principles of law and justice; jurisdictional authority; and the principles of Christian resistance. As long as pastors refrain from teaching these essential and necessary truths, our nation will continue its slide into tyranny and oppression–all the Gospel preaching going forth notwithstanding.

I ask you: if the only thing God expected us to do was preach the Gospel, why did He give us a voluminous Bible, which is filled with examples, principles, teachings, and truths relating to virtually every important area of life? If one takes only those Scriptures that deal specifically with the Gospel, he or she is going to have a very small Bible, my friends. The stories of the Old Testament, for example, were written for “our learning.” (Romans 15:4) Hebrews 11 challenges us with the examples of Old Testament men and women who were “not afraid of the king’s commandment,” who did not fear “the wrath of the king,” who “subdued kingdoms,” “waxed valiant in fight,” and who “turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”

Furthermore, the Apostle Paul spent about as much time in jail as he did out of jail. And, of course, he was thrown in jail for breaking the unjust, evil laws of men. Every apostle except John was killed by tyrannical governments because they refused to submit to unjust laws. How First Century Christians chose to resist versus how free men and women in Colonial America chose to resist is material for another day. The point is, THEY ALL CHOSE TO RESIST.

The story of God’s people, from the beginning of time, is the story of people who refused to submit to tyrannical, unjust laws and chose to “obey God rather than men.” Yet, modern American pastors refuse to resist. They choose to sheepishly comply with the unjust laws of evil, wicked men. And they refuse to be the courageous shepherds for their people. It’s time to say it: any pastor who will not warn his church of the impending tyranny that is sweeping our land, any pastor who refuses to take a stand for the right of the people in his congregation to keep and bear arms–and, therefore, be able to protect the precious gift of life that has been given by God–and any pastor who stands silent while evil men trample the God-given liberties that were purchased at so awful a cost by our Christian forebears must be regarded, not as a shepherd, but as a hireling. It really doesn’t matter how nice he is, or how educated he is, or how charming he is, or how inspirational his sermons are, or how sincere he is: if he refuses to stand and fight the wolves, he is a hireling, not a shepherd.

By the way, to see the list of pastors around the country who have vowed to fight for the right of their flocks to keep and bear arms, go to:

Second Amendment Pastors

It’s time to speak plainly. The time for politeness and timidity is behind us. Any pastor who refuses to take a stand of resistance to the evil forces of tyranny that are now sweeping as a horde of locusts upon us is as guilty of the loss of our nation’s freedoms and liberties as are the evil despots who perpetrate these atrocities. He is as guilty of the death and destruction of his people as the hireling who flees in the face of the wolf is guilty of the death and destruction of the sheep.

Let me ask you a question: would you vote for a legislator or senator who would strip you of your right to keep and bear arms? Would you passively and indifferently continue to support such a one simply because of his or her political party or nice personality or inspirational speeches? Would you not determine such a one to be a dangerous threat to your liberties, and to the safety and security of your children, and reject him or her with your vote? Sure you would. So, why would you continue to support a pastor who facilitates these ravenous beasts?

Christian, it’s time to vote with your feet and leave these silent, sheepish pastors and find a shepherd-pastor who will fight for the lives and liberties of your homes and children.

It’s time for a reality check: if your pastor is not warning the flock, alerting the flock, and fighting for the life and freedom of the flock, he is helping to put the chains of slavery and oppression upon the necks of your children and grandchildren. If he is not engaged in the fight to preserve the liberties of our nation, he is helping to put the chains of slavery and oppression upon the necks of your children and grandchildren. If your pastor refuses to publicly take a stand against the wolves of our land, he is facilitating and enabling those wolves to tear and shred the life and flesh of our country.

As I studied what God said about His shepherds in the Old Testament, I came upon this fascinating passage from the book of Amos: “Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.” (Amos 3:12 KJV)

Do you see the picture of the shepherd God paints in this passage? The shepherd fights for his sheep so fiercely and ferociously that he fights the lion even when the sheep is half-devoured. If he is only able to save two legs or an ear, he fights like a wild man for every part of the sheep. This is how a true shepherd is supposed to fight.

We need pastors to stand up and fight for the lives and liberties of their flock like wild men (figuratively speaking). We need pastors to scratch and claw and bite for every last little bit of life and liberty of our country. Anything less is to wear the mark of a hireling for all eternity.

Christian, cast your vote! Choose a side! The line in the sand is being drawn between liberty and tyranny. Your pastor cannot be neutral, and neither can you!

I dare say that if every Christian across America who, in his or her heart, truly believes in liberty were to flee these say-nothing hirelings and run to shepherds who are genuinely standing for truth and liberty in our land, we could turn the ship of state around almost overnight. This is more important than the “youth program” or “children’s ministry” or “senior-saints program” or “music program,” or nice buildings or “my friends are there,” or any number of other things that so many people seem to think is so important about which church they attend.

Ladies and gentlemen, the survival of our republic is at stake! For God’s sake, and for the sake of your children, don’t just complain, VOTE WITH YOUR FEET!

P.S. Remember, too, that my attorney son and I are now in the process of publishing a blockbuster new book entitled, “To Keep Or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns.” This book conclusively shows that nowhere does the Bible teach that God’s people are supposed to sheepishly give up their arms in the face of tyranny. In fact, the Bible teaches just the opposite. This book is absolutely must-reading for every Christian (or non-Christian) who desires to know the truth about what the Bible teaches relative to the right of people to keep and bear arms. We are taking pre-orders now. It’s possible that the first printing of this book will be sold out even before it is printed. Orders are coming in feverishly. If you want a first edition copy of this new book, go to:

Keep Your Arms

Gun Confiscation – Last Refuge of The Tyrant

Few polarizing subjects are more hotly debated than gun control. Usually lost in the fray of emotional diatribes to ban guns, are the historic empirical foundations of our forefathers who fought a revolution to escape from imperial tyranny. The true reality in today’s AmeriKa is that individual liberty is the most despised activity that any citizen can exert in their lives. Both the popular state worship culture and the authoritarian hoodlums that run the government are so fearful of armed independent citizens, that they are eager to burn the Bill of Rights. Face it, the government is committed to force you to be a ward of the state and will kill you if you resist.

Because of government school propaganda, those indoctrinated during the last several decades are woefully lacking in the knowledge of their own heritage. Phyllis Schlafly writes in, The Founding Fathers On Right To Bear Arms, and reminds of the essence in the Second Amendment.

James Madison: Americans have “the advantage of being armed” — unlike the citizens of other countries where “the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Patrick Henry: “The great objective is that every man be armed. . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun.”

George Mason: “To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

Samuel Adams: “The Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

Alexander Hamilton: “The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”

Richard Henry Lee: “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”

“The chief reason America has remained a free country is the widespread private ownership of firearms. Individual ownership of guns made the American Revolution possible. The principal purpose of the Second Amendment was to maintain our freedom from government. It is an insult to our heritage to imply that the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment just to protect deer hunters.”

End of story, but the beginning of the gulag. Before bleeding hearts start their vicious attacks on the gun toting culture, a critical examination of your own national allegiance must be questioned. Do you freely give your loyalty to the principles upon which the nation was founded or do you simply pledge your obedience to an imperium empire?

Consider that public officials are terrified of an armed citizenry because they are well aware that their personal safety might someday be confronted. Their outlaw edicts and coercive submission is recognized as a dictatorship. However, an armed insurrection is so remote, based upon the overwhelming lack of character and courage of most populace denizens. Facing an enemy on a battlefield would be more an exercise of genuflection and public remorse for daring to oppose the institutional establishment.

The current state of the art of weaponry, as any viewer of the TV military channel knows, is so advanced that open conflict against the Federal Stasi would result is suicide by cop. Homeland Security is designed to be the domestic Gestapo. Any thinking and liberty-loving person must conclude that President Barack Obama acts as if he is a potentate.

Rule by executive orders is a formula for tyrannical governance. Gun registration builds the database for constabulary confiscation. An organized knock at the door means that abolition of banned munitions from the “Cold Dead Hands” will look more like a visit from an IRS tax auditor than an assault from the nearest SWAT team.

Too many people accept that subjects must be intimidated into compliance of surrender. The threat of armed defiance is less likely than meek regimentation for transport to a FEMA camp. All those body bags will be used more effectively, when people’s opposition to being re-educated fails, than for dragging out your remains from your own house.

The practical prospects to use violence against a well funded and equipped force of government storm troopers is problematic at best. The solution to marital law thuggery is to repatriate the military legions stationed globally in the expansion of the empire. Somewhere within the ranks of the active military, the means to confront Emperor Obama exists. The military oath states:

“I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

Careerist politicians, a tenured judiciary and an entrenched and escalating bureaucracy that consolidates the central government monster have systematically dismantled the Constitution. The repressive regime would have you believe that the Bradley Manning’s in the military machine are traitors just as much as Benedict Arnold. Hitherto, the certainty that going it alone resistance allows for the enormous capacities of the Intelligence Community apparatus to target any lone individual.

Remember the predictive example of the American crypto-anarchist, James Dalton Bell. “He created the idea of arranging for anonymously sponsored assassination payments via the Internet, which he called “assassination politics”. Since the publication of the “Assassination Politics” essay, Bell was targeted by the federal government of the United States. He was imprisoned on felony charges of tax evasion in 1997.”

Folks, let’s get real. Violent subversion just provides an excuse for even greater levels of repression. Likewise, gun confiscation has more to do with instilling universal fear in the minds of ordinary law abiding; translate – valid constitutional laws, than removing firepower out of your home.

Since the system dreads an armed citizenry, the criminal syndicates that divvy up their ruling fiefdoms, fear an informed population even more. Knowledge is required, but action must accompany an awakening that the totalitarian government thrives because civil society obeys the despotism of their feudal master.

Per the pernicious mass media, civil conduct is defined as surrendering your guns in order to repent out of a fictitious guilt or a bogus empathy for innocent victims. Insultingly, the pressitute media professes to be the purveyor of altruism. Never will you hear one utterance about the foundations of individual natural rights that underpins rightful authority for personal and community liberty.

The Second Amendment of the Constitution was written to protect society from the instinctual tendencies of a tyrannical government. Where is the outrage from a horror-struck public? The laundry list of dictatorial politicians from California to Illinois and in New York has identified themselves as enemies of the people.

The disgusting “Gabby Gifford’s” executive order that is being engineered by the Biden comrades will prohibit the manufacture and sale of a comprehensive range and types of weapons and accessories. Administrative fiat out of the barrel of a government regulation is more dangerous than a Glock pistol pointed at your head from a FBI agent. Many civil servants still restrain their oppressive actions to the appearance of legal conduct. However, the tyrants that make policy are bent on destroying the will of the public to oppose the transformation of America into a total police state.

The system will implode when enough genuine patriotic resistors organize a modern day Committee of Correspondence. The Tree of Liberty requires heroes. Unfortunately, most compliant citizens are cowards.

The rush to purchase guns demonstrates that a groundswell of public awareness is growing. The hoops designed to make gun ownership burdensome or personal carry permits nearly impossible to obtain, need to be endured and applied for in greater numbers.

By sending a loud and clear message to the establishment elitists, the righteous citizen militia will undertake the legitimate role of the Minute Men. Treason against the people has been official policy for decades. Now is the time to revolt against the TSA mindset that is calculated to condition the acquiescent and the timid from exercising their basic rights.

A countrywide day of protest leading up to a national strike of civil disobedience is the inherent response to government tyranny. Engage in a public dialogue at your local assembly. Organize events that demonstrate the resolve and bravery of our ancestors. Stand up to oppressive authority and defy the illicit tactics of the goon squads.

The system is playing a bluff. Push back now will spare bloodshed later. Never initiate any action that can be construed as violent behavior. Public political speech is the most skillful weapon to use, when exposing the oppressors.

The “War on Liberty” needs to be fought for the minds and hearts of all judicious thinking citizens. Guns are not the issue, recapturing your heritage and exercising your God given rights is the struggle. The state of war is on. Fight it with fervor, while maintaining your dignity. Nothing less would dishonor your defiant forebearers.

How To Identify The True Enemies Of Freedom

The greatest and most often exploited weakness of any revolution for freedom is the inability of the downtrodden populace to identify the true enemy.  History is littered with the shattered remnants of rebellions that were built upon legitimate causes but suffered because of misdirection and faulty assumptions.  For centuries, the real culprits of tyranny have found ways to redirect the ire of those they harmed in their quest for power, usually by offering a tempting scapegoat that appeals to the public’s darker impulses; their biases, their prejudices, their fears, etc.  Usually, this ends in an even more pervasive totalitarian environment as the insurgents and the scapegoats decimate each other while the elites sit back and enjoy the show.

Even the most successful battles against despotism, like the American Revolution, often only had a distant sense of who they were really fighting against.  This is what makes the 21st Century extraordinarily unique in the annals of civilization.  For the first time in human record, the common man has all the information necessary to examine and define the real culprits behind his subjugation.  The truth is at our fingertips, all we have to do is reach out and take it…

Because of the decentralized nature of information flowing through the alternative web media, our ability to generate opposition to organized elitism has never been greater.  However, this also means the stakes have never been higher.  The establishment understands well that their criminality is clearly visible, and eventually, they will be personally subject to the rage of the people.  The next fight could very well be the last for them.

Their playbook may be old, but the tactics they use can always be applied on a grander and more terrible scale.  Not only will they pursue whatever menacing distractions necessary to occupy the attentions of the public, they will also attempt to pose as guiding lights in the darkness they themselves created.  They will hide behind broad generalized target groups; fabricated boogie men, branded and prepackaged like franchise coffee shops on every street corner of America’s collective psyche.  Terrorists, traitors, saboteurs, whatever ethnic group happens to be convenient at the moment, whoever is easiest to present as a target for our projected malice; false enemies will be rolled out like a nightmare buffet.

If our nation and the rest of the world have any chance of achieving peace and liberty, it will be because those who choose to dissent against the totalitarian tide focus on the authentic virus invading and assimilating our culture.  Some call them “elitists”, “collectivists”, “centralists”, etc.  They sometimes even refer to themselves as such, but the most prominent and useful label today is that of “globalist”.   That said, we must ask what it is that defines these people?  What makes them who they are?  The following is a list of behaviors and characteristics that have been common to oligarchs through most of history.  Regardless of how a political or financial leader presents himself through rhetoric, if he displays these properties in action, he is more likely than not an opponent of individual freedom and an adversary to the principles of honor and conscience that all good men strive for.

1)  They Seek Centralization Of Power 

Does your favorite political candidate, corporate “guru”, or media shill have a history of promoting globalization, economic harmonization, socialization, etc., sacrificing the protections of sovereignty in the name of some “greater good” that never seems to come?  Does every action they take only appear to benefit a select elite?  Do they regimentally remove options and choices from the system?  Do all of their solutions ultimately lead to the same outcome?  Do all the roads they build converge towards less liberty for the masses and more control for government?  Is their answer for every crisis to remove checks and balances and borders?  Do they constantly claim that sovereign and Constitutional protections get in the way of “progress”?  Do they use phrases like “the greater good” or “sustainable development” on a regular basis?  Add them to your list of potential mass murderers, and unfriend them on your social media accounts.  They do not have your best interests at heart…

2)  They Enforce Policies Despite Widespread Disapproval 

In any healthy Republic, the political class is supposed to be the servant of the people.  Their employment is supposed to be predicated on their willingness to hear and understand the wishes of their constituency.  If a bill or policy arises that threatens the civil liberties or financial safety of the people, and they call for a representative to oppose it, that is exactly what he is supposed to do.  If he does otherwise, and supports a damaging or unconstitutional bill while fully aware of massive voter resistance, it means he is not in fear for his job, which means his job has not necessarily been secured by our votes, which means he is likely working for somebody else; somebody who will benefit from the bill in question.

Two perfect examples would be the passage of the banker bailout bills, and the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act.  Both were vehemently opposed by a majority of Americans on both sides of the so called political “aisle”, and yet, they were given a majority support by our representatives in government.  This reveals an ulterior motivation within our government that is, to put it bluntly, treasonous.  If they voted for a liberty killing bill, then cross them off your roster of principled leaders and add them to your list of enemies…

3)  They Find Ways To Rationalize Any Behavior 

Sociopaths and psychopaths operate on their own personal form of twisted rationalism.  The magic of pure cold logic untempered by conscience or intuitive wisdom is that truth can become whatever we want it to become as long as our inner voice remains repressed.  For them, any crime can be vindicated as long as a perceived benefit can somehow be derived.  For a globalist oligarch, however, psychopathy goes far beyond mechanical moral relativism.  They are well aware that their actions are an affront to human conscience, and, they couldn’t care less.  Instead, they use rationalism as a way to manipulate the public into accepting their maniacal behavior so that they can continue without interference.

Globalists are so convinced of their own intellectual superiority that they feel no desire for redemption, or to compartmentalize their own evil.  They embrace that evil fully as if it were a form of strength.  One weakness of this philosophy is that it comes with a strange obsession; a desperate drive to inject moral relativism into all people around the globalist.  This exposes an inherent reliance on surrounding environment, and dependency on one’s environment to reinforce a belief system is a significant psychological weakness.

The great power that truth holds over the empire of lies is that the truth is not contingent on mass perception; it exists regardless of how many people believe in it.  It is autonomous.  The truth has its own soul, and arises from the ashes again and again without the benefit of mass recognition.  Lies and perverted rationalizations require an astounding amount of energy and armies of the ignorant in order to exist.  A foundation of lies is inferior, and thus, anyone who depends upon the existence of that foundation is also, by association, inferior.  Globalist are, therefore, a sub-species, an unnecessary and outdated remnant of social evolution that should be allowed to finally fade out and die away.

4)  They Promote Economic Dependency

Anyone who consistently tells you that you need them in order to survive has something to gain by your dependency.  A good person or government seeks to make people INDEPENDENT and self reliant, so that they can survive on their own merits and participate in the construction of their own destinies.  A manipulative person or government needs people to believe that without the services the despot provides all will come to ruin.  Totalitarian control cannot exist unless WE hand that control to them.  If the man before you claims that there is no other way to live except through him or his system, no matter how charmingly he phrases it, add him to your list as a danger to your freedom.

5)  They Belong To A Think Tank

I am usually apprehensive about using a broad brush to paint any single group or subset as fully criminal and beyond repair.  This kind of methodology is used daily by globalists to create rifts in societies and lure people into destroying each other.  However, I have tried to the utmost of my ability to find an influential think tank with ties to the government in our modern era that does not display the despicable behaviors listed so far, and for the life of me, I can’t find a single one.  From the the CFR, to the Rand Corporation, to the Washington Institute For Near East Policy, you will find the many of the same exact writhing globalist tapeworms and most certainly the same exact philosophies of moral relativism on display.  If they belong to a mainstream think tank, they are not a friend to liberty.

6)  They Cast No Reflection In The Mirror

Or perhaps I’m thinking of a different kind of monster…

7)  They Promote Military Force As The Primary Means To Achieve Their Ideological Objectives

Do they confront the dynamic of every social and diplomatic problem with the use of military force and the death of those who disagree with them?  Does every conflict between them and another culture end with the destruction of thousands if not millions?  Do they flaunt a distinct kind of “my way or the highway to hell” kind of attitude?  Do they seem to crave war to the point that they are willing to manufacture excuses to fire the first missile?  If they are a warmonger, then they are your enemy, even when they happen to be trying to kill people you don’t necessarily like at the moment.

8)  They Offer Promises They Never Intend To Keep

If a politician promises to end an illegal war and pull American troops from the battlefield if elected to office, and then doesn’t, or, pretends to pull troops out while maintaining permanent bases and shifting private Blackwater-style contractors into the field to take their place, then he is a liar.  It’s that simple.  If a central banker promises fiat printing and massive stimulus programs will unfreeze credit markets and generate an employment recovery within a couple of years, and the fiscal situation only becomes worse afterwards, then he is a liar.  It’s that simple.

If a person in a position of power continuously makes promises that are impossible to fulfill, or that he obviously knows cannot be fulfilled, then he is buying time.  But buying time for what?  Well, usually, he is buying time so that he can consolidate more power, and he is hoping the public will be duped into giving that power to him in exchange for false hopes and empty dreams.  Any entity, corporate or governmental, that is unable to attain the public’s consent without conning them, is an enemy to the welfare of the public, and should be removed like a throbbing tick.

9) You Wouldn’t Leave Your Children Alone With Them

Ask yourself, could you leave your children in a room with this person or group and feel safe about it?  If the answer is an honest “No”, then how could you leave your country and your children’s future in their hands instead…?

In the coming years, the American people will face numerous threats; some real, some imagined in the sterile conference rooms of a black-hearted think tanks.  But, the most terrifying threat to our cultural roots of free thought, expression, and prosperity is wielded by a very particular and exclusive group of thin-blooded ego-maniacs.  Identifying them is not difficult.  Hiding their true nature is nearly impossible for a person or institution whose narcissism is so pronounced.  They adore their own insanity and wish to share it with the world.  If they fit the profile listed above, it is a guarantee that they will wreak havoc upon your life, directly or indirectly, someday.  Know who they are, so that when that time comes you know who to blame, and who to bring to justice.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

U.S. Commander: Ramadan Fasting Made Them Do It!

Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, says one possible explanation for a spike in killings of American troops by their Afghan partners is the strain of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended on August 18. He said that while the reasons for the killings are not fully understood, the effect of Ramadan fasting is “likely among the causes.” There have been at least 32 attacks so far this year, killing 40 coalition members—mostly Americans—ten of them in August.

“The idea that they will fast during the day places great strain on them,” Allen said, adding that the stress may have been compounded by Ramadan falling during the heat of summer and the height of the fighting season. He acknowledged that hunger and heat may not be the primary causes for the killings, but it is among many “different and complex reasons for why we think this may have increased” lately.

Welcome to the Ramadan-Induced Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Presumably next year, the U.S. Army is going to set up counseling centers and group therapy sessions for the Afghan soldiers and policemen who cease to be responsible for their actions due to the “great strain.”

As for the “different and complex reasons,” in Allen’s account the words “Islam” and “jihad” did not make an appearance. In addition to the mental “strain” of fasting, he also cited Taliban infiltration of Afghan security forces and unnamed “personal Afghan grievances” against U.S. troops. Back in Washington, Colonel Lapan, spokesman for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff commented, “we don’t know what’s causing [the attacks], and we’re looking at everything.” As for the experts, Mark Jacobsen, a defense specialist at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and a former senior NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, said Allen’s theory about the role of Ramadan in the attacks is “very reasonable.” John Agoglia, an executive at IDS International, which provides cultural awareness training for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, said in an interview that the insider attacks were partly linked to a Taliban effort to “psychologically dislocate” Afghans from their American trainers and advisers.

While the Fasting Factor is a demented fantasy, the insistence on the “infiltration” by the Taliban and its “psychological dislocation” campaign is factually incorrect. As The New York Times reported on August 18, the military has analyzed the attacks and the results have been worrisome: “Only a handful of the 31 attacks this year have clearly been a result of Taliban activity like infiltration. That suggests a level of malaise or anger within the Afghan forces that could complicate NATO’s training program, which relies on trust and cooperation.”

“Could complicate” implies that this has not happened yet, which is ridiculous. In May 2011, a U.S. Army study established that killings of Americans and other NATO troops by Afghan soldiers and policemen were not “rare and isolated events.” In ten months (July 2010-May 2011) over thirty were murdered by Afghan national security forces. The problem escalated following the alleged burning of Qurans at an American military base last February, when two American officers were killed by their Afghan “colleagues” inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul. After that incident Gen. Allen withdrew his men from Afghan government facilities, while NATO personnel in the capital had to limit their contact with Afghan government institutions to cell phones and e-mail. Another crisis started on March 11, when an American sergeant killed 16 unarmed Afghan civilians in a village near Kandahar. The “insider killings” reached a new high after that incident, steadily escalating to two deaths a week in August.

The primary reason for the killings is the religiously inspired animosity most Afghans feel for the infidel in general, and Americans in particular. It is driven by the eminently orthodox dogma of jihad—supported by countless examples through history—that if a Muslim land is occupied by infidels, it is obligatory for the Muslims to resist the kufr—soldiers and civilians alike—and kill them, while pretending to be their friends if this facilitates the desired outcome.

A war waged by non-Muslims in a predominantly Muslim land is inevitably a religious war.  This explanation—which is at least worthy of serious consideration by the military authorities, for the sake of the dead and others who are in harm’s way—is not allowed into the discourse of top field commanders, their professional advisors and political masters. They act like oncologists who willfully won’t, or else are not allowed to, diagnose metastatic cancer. Their political masters prefer to stick to their politically correct dogmas than to accept an explanation that is at odds with their world view. As a result, American and allied soldiers die.

In Afghanistan, the hatred of the infidel occupier is combined with studied contempt of Afghans of all political hues for the rhetoric of “partnership,” with which the American political and military establishment remains infatuated. No partnership is possible. History tells us that Muslim soldiers can respect and obey non-Muslim masters, but not in this case. They will do so only when the “infidel” officer commands Muslims from a clear-cut position of indisputable authority.

During World War II, close to 400,000 Punjabi Muslims volunteered for the British Indian Army. From 1936 until the partition in 1947, Muslims from different parts of the Subcontinent accounted for about a third of the Indian Army personnel. Coming mainly from the traditionally martial communities in today’s Pakistan, they were hugely over-represented in the all-volunteer force. They were commanded mostly by British officers, invariably so above the rank of major. Before 1939, they were on station duty in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Aden, the Gulf, Burma, Malaya and Hong Kong—some of the hottest places on Earth. During the war they fought mostly in East Africa, North Africa, Syria, Tunisia, Malaya, Burma, and Italy—except for the last, lands and regions no less hot and often even less hospitable than Afghanistan itself. There is no record, however, of “insider attacks” presenting a problem—Ramadan or no Ramadan.

In the Russian Empire, following the conquest of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Muslim territorial regiments—commanded by Russian officers—were established in those territories that were granted autonomous status, such as the Emirate of Bukhara or the Khanate of Khiva. Elsewhere, regiments of Muslims were incorporated into the regular army—e.g. the Muslim cavalry of Dagestan, the Crimean Tatar squadron—but they were also officered by Russians. They were reliable, loyal, fought well, and endured the Ramadan, it seems, with no great stress—or at least we have no such record.

In our own time, Muslims are significantly over-represented in the French Army—accounting for a fifth of the rank-and-file—but most of their officers are French. While the loyalty of these soldiers is considered uncertain if they were asked to restore law and order in the restive Muslim banlieus, insider attacks are not a problem and an assiduous Internet search has failed to find any link between their disciplinary or behavioral problems and Ramadan fasting.

Last but not least, their German officers were full of praise for some hundreds of thousands of Muslims who served as volunteers, mostly in the Waffen SS, between 1941 and 1945. They came from the Crimea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kosovo, Central Asia—an ethnically and racially diverse group—and yet there is no record of insider killings or the Ramadan Syndrome.

Poor General Allen. He is facing a new, altogether unprecedented phenomenon. And poor Afghan soldiers. They are under such strain…

Americans Are Being Prepared For Full Spectrum Tyranny

Totalitarian governments, like persistent forms of cancer, have latched onto the long history of man, falling and then reemerging from the deep recesses of our cultural biology to wreak havoc upon one unlucky generation to the next.  The assumption by most is that these unfortunate empires are the product of bureaucracies gone awry; overtaken by the chaotic maddening hunger for wealth and power, and usually manipulated by the singular ambitions of a mesmerizing dictator.  For those of us in the Liberty Movement who are actually educated on the less acknowledged details of history, oligarchy and globalized centralism is much less random than this, and a far more deliberate and devious process than the general unaware public is willing to consider.

Unfortunately, the final truth is very complex, even for us…

One cannot place the blame of despotism entirely on the shoulders of globalists.  Sadly, the crimes of elites are only possible with a certain amount of complicity from subsections of the populace.  Without our penchant for apathy and fear, there can be no control.  That is to say, there is no power over us but that which we give away.  We pave the road to our own catastrophes.

In the end, a tyrant’s primary job is not to crush the masses and rule out of malevolence, but to obtain the voluntary consent of the citizenry, usually through trickery and deceit.  Without the permission of the people, subconscious or otherwise, no tyranny can survive.

As with the oppressive regimes of the past, America has undergone a dramatic transformation, heavy with fear and ignorance.  Our tradition of elections has been corrupted and negated by the false left/right paradigm, and the leaderships of both defunct parties now seek only to elevate a select minority of men bent on globalization.  Our Constitutional liberties have been dismantled by legal chicanery.  Our principles have been diluted by intellectual games of rationalism and moral relativism.  Our country is ripe for conquest.

Americans battle over whose side is most to blame; Democrat or Republican, while ironically being disenchanted with both entities.  For some people, the thought of holding each party equally accountable, or accepting that they are essentially the same animal, never crosses their minds.

While this irrelevant farce of a debate rages on, the true culprits plotting the demise of our Republic gain momentum, and implement policy initiatives that the public should and must take note of.  In the past year alone, many blatant steps towards the Orwellian gulag have been openly administered.  A carnival of peddlers and freaks and greasy popcorn overwhelms our senses, but the stench of this cheap circus still tickles our noses, and if we use our eyes for even a moment, certain dangerous trends reveal themselves.  Here are just a few recent events that bear a dire warning; the ultimate assault on freedom in this nation grows near…

Acclimation To Subservience 

Every totalitarian state worth its salt has its own goon squad.  The Nazi’s had the “Brownshirts”, the Soviets had the “Militsiya” and the “Voluntary People’s Brigade”, the Communist Chinese have the “Chengguan”, etc.  In America, however, all tyrannical measures are given innocuous bureaucratic labels to mislead and distract the masses.  In this country, we have the Transportation Security Administration…

The TSA has become the most hated alphabet agency in the U.S. in perhaps the fastest time on record.  It has violated the personal rights of more people on a daily basis in my view than the IRS, DEA, and the ATF combined.  Clearly, this slobbering demon child of the Department of Homeland Security is being molded for something quite terrible and grand.

When confronted by the public on the use of irradiating and intrusive naked body scanner technology, the agency responded by allowing their blue handed ghoul army to molest our nether-regions.  When confronted by state and local governments on their absurd tactics, the TSA threatened economic blockades and airport shutdowns.  The organization then began expanding its jurisdiction to bus and train stations and even our highways when it introduced the VIPR program and implemented random roadside checkpoints in Tennessee last year.  But, this behavior is nothing compared to what is next on the horizon: a compromise…

Beware of government agencies bearing gifts.  The TSA along with the International Air Transport Association has announced a new methodology of “less intrusive” passenger screening measures, in order to address the concerns of the public over pat downs and irradiating naked body scanners.  This SOUNDS like a step in the right direction, and a proper response to the grievances of the citizenry.  Instead, it turns out to be a refined example of totalitarianism in motion, and a perfect lesson in how the masses can be duped into handing over their inherent freedoms.

Revamped security protocols call for biometric data collection, including fingerprint and retina scans, and a tunnel which combines multiple detection systems into one area (who knows how radioactive this will end up being):

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2012-06-19/Faster-better-airport-security-checkpoints-not-that-far-off/55693916/1 

The mainstream article above makes this development sound like a win/win scenario for everyone, painting biometric data collection as a matter of convenience, but it also reveals the true design of the system; to illicit voluntary subservience:

“The key to speeding up checkpoints and making security less intrusive will be to identify and assess travelers according to the risks they pose to safety in the skies. The so-called riskiest or unknown passengers would face the toughest scrutiny, including questioning and more sensitive electronic screening. Those who voluntarily provide more information about themselves to the government would be rewarded with faster passage…”

They enforce destructive anti-personal rights policies then pretend to acquiesce by replacing them with a technocratic nightmare grid which requires the cataloging of our very genetic essence in order to function.  The only remaining injustice left would be to apply this grid to the rest of the country outside of the airports and train stations, which I assure you, they plan to do.

Militarization

Last week, I covered the disturbing use of armored vehicles (APC’s or urban tanks) in open training regiments on the streets of St. Louis by the U.S Army, despite the fact that all of their exercises could have easily been accomplished on any number of military bases across the country.  The action is an obvious attempt to condition the American populace to the sight of military units operating in a policing capacity:

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/866-military-tanks-on-st-louis-streetsbut-why

I received multiple letters from current serving military who stated that in all their years in the armed forces they had never seen such a brash mishandling of public relations or an overstepping of bounds when it came to the restrictions of Posse Comitatus.  It was encouraging to hear from military men and women who did not agree with or condone this kind of psyop activity on the part of our government.

Though the St. Louis event is not isolated, I believe it does represent an escalation.

Remember the controversy over the Mayor of Toledo and his refusal to allow 200 Marines to conduct urban combat drills on the public streets of his city in 2008?  The media clamored to crucify this public official; one of the few who had any sense whatsoever in his head:

http://voices.yahoo.com/toledo-mayor-faces-backlash-ousting-marines-896105.html

Or the tactical exercises using helicopters and combat troops over LA and Chicago early this year?

http://www.lapdonline.org/newsroom/news_view/50045

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/04/17/city-black-hawk-helicopter-flights-were-just-a-training-exercise/

During each one of these events, city officials and local media attempted to inoculate the public with claims that they were “simply exercises”.  This argument misses the point entirely.  Whether or not these are “exercises” is not the issue.  The issue is that this training could be done ON BASE.  Using public streets and running drills within cities is absolutely unnecessary given the vast resources already available to the military, unless, of course, the goal is to BE SEEN by the public and to influence them to view the sight of armed troops around them as “normal”.

Add to this the fact that many of these military training exercises are being conducted in tandem with local police departments, and you have a recipe for the utter militarization of our society, turning peace officers into combat soldiers, and combat soldiers into law enforcement mechanisms; a juxtaposition that will soon lead to unmitigated disaster.

Arms Race Against the People?

When a country is quietly preparing for war, the first signs are usually revealed by a disclosure of armaments.  If stockpiling is taking place without a warranted threat present from a legitimate enemy, there is a considerable likelihood of aggression on the part of that nation.  America has gone well beyond the psychological process of militarization and has begun the extensive arming of particular agencies whose primary purpose revolves around the domestic.

The DHS, for instance, placed an order for over 450 million rounds of hollowpoint .40 cal ammunition in April of this year:

http://rt.com/usa/news/dhs-million-point-government-179/

And it placed an order for over 7000 new semi-automatic combat rifles chambered in .223 (5.56 by 45mm NATO) immediately after:

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=d791b6aa0fd9d3d8833b2efa08300033&tab=core&tabmode=list&=

While local police through federal programs (like the 1033 Program) are being given millions of dollars in free military equipment, including body armor, night vision equipment, APC’s, aircraft, first aid supplies, weapons, surveillance equipment, Kevlar helmets, gas masks and filters, vehicles, etc.:

http://www.ogs.state.sc.us/surplus/SP-1033-index.phtm

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/cops-military-gear/all/

All of this equipment, though issued to state agencies, is still heavily tracked and regulated by the federal government, making it clear that these “gifts” come with strings attached:

http://www.newsherald.com/articles/program-103291-state-law.html 

And finally, new FAA regulations will soon allow the dispersion of tens of thousands of predator drones with armament capability in the skies of the U.S. over the course of the next few years:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/7/coming-to-a-sky-near-you/

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211

Now, anyone with any logic would ask who it is that the government is arming itself and local police to fight against?  Al Qaeda?  Let’s not be naïve…

The passage of the NDAA and its provisions for the indefinite detainment of ANY person, even an American citizen, under the laws of war has ended the debate over government intent in terms of domestic action.  FBI Director Robert Mueller’s admission that he “did not know” if assassination programs would be used against American citizens also heaped evidence on the matter.  The bottom line?  Our government wishes to label and treat citizens as enemy combatants.  Of course they would then organize armaments to follow through on their policy.

Pulling The Trigger 

All despotic systems have another distinct similarity; they each began with a series of trigger events which opened the door to tighter controls over the population.  The most immediate trigger event for the U.S. is the looming peril of a collapsing economy followed by inevitable civil unrest.  With the EU currently in debt shambles, global markets are on the verge of a considerable breakdown.  The Federal Reserve response will be predictable; QE3 and massive stimulus all around to mitigate the crisis.  This time, though, the go-to Keynesian quick fix will not work in the slightest.  In fact, it will make matters more untenable by placing the world reserve status of the dollar at risk.

Everything that has happened so far in the markets this year has been easy to foresee.  Alt-Market predicted the economic slowdown around the world and the collapse of overall demand using the Baltic Dry Index as a gauge back in January:

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/540-baltic-dry-index-signals-renewed-market-collapse

We also predicted the accelerated turmoil in the EU in light of the recent election results in France and Greece:

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/765-economic-alert-if-youre-not-worried-yetyou-should-be

If alternative economic analysts can predict these developments despite the manipulated statistics spewed out by the government every month, then I think the government and our central bank has a tremendously transparent view of what is coming down the road in terms of financial distress.  I believe the establishment is very well aware of a potential crisis event, economic or otherwise, that is barreling down upon the U.S.  I believe the evidence shows that they are preparing for this eventuality in a command and control fashion, without alerting the public to the coming implosion.  I believe they will use the despair that flows forth from the fiscal wreckage as an excuse to institute martial law.

Call it “crazy”.  Call it “conspiracy theory”.  Call it “coincidence”.  Call it “fear mongering”.  Whatever you like.  I find it far more insane to shrug off the strange and twisted behavior of our power structure, and simply hope that it’s all irrelevant to the future.  Whenever I run into starry eyed historical romanticists who look back in astonishment at the tyrannies of the past and wonder out loud, “How could those people have not known where their country was headed?!!”, I think of where we are today.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

A Story For Patriots’ Day

This is a story about Patriots’ Day, April 19, and Patriot Day, September 11, and is about better days in the United States, when a man could be known and elected President even with truly ”gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions” lurking in his past.  It is also a story about Paul Revere.

Listen  my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
On the Eighteenth of April in Seventy-five.
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”1

And so it was that Paul Revere, his father nez Apollos Rivoire,2  galloped from town to town in the wee hours of the morning of April 19, 1775, warning the townspeople in Eastern Massachusetts that British Regulars were planning to stage surprise raid on the towns for guns and gunpowder.  Instead, the Redcoats were surprised by local militia defending their homeland security.  That morning took place the battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, first battles of the American Revolution, and the date became a much-honored state holiday in Massachusetts, Patriots’ Day, not to be confused with Patriot Day, September 11, officially marking the first day of the first decade of the War Against Terror.

Paul Revere was a man of many talents.  On the date of his ride he was described in a British “who’who” of American rebels as a “silver smith.”3   His silver “is regarded as one of the outstanding achievements in American decorative arts.” 4   His copper cooking ware has been known for centuries as “Revere Ware” although with the loss of 500 American jobs in the nineties,it is now manufactured in India.  He was a dentist, although the story that he made George Washington’s falsies, is disputed.  He was one of the instigators of the Boston Tea Party, although he also served to protect the ship against vandals after that event.  And he was a skilled engraver of copper plates.  He is said to have been present at the Boston Massacre, and his engraving of the events there brought folks to a fever pitch, about ready to organize a lynch mob against the British Regulars who shot five Boston citizens at the Massacre.

The British had quartered regiments equal to approximately one fourth of the population in
Boston to enforce the taxes that were to be the subject of the Tea Party, and relations were, to say the least, strained.  British soldiers were regularly pelted with stones and snowballs.  As depicted in Revere’s engraving, the Massacre took place, appropriately enough, in front of the Old State House,

 which has been the site of as many significant events in American history over the last two and a half centuries as the Capitol itself.  Take a good look, for instance, at the balcony, which you can see above the gun smoke in Revere’s engraving.  That’s one of two spots where the Declaration of Independence was read to the assembled masses on July 4, 1776, and again by British Queen Elizabeth on July 4, 1976.

But Paul Revere’s depiction of a defenseless and unarmed gathering being shot at by a line of red-coated marksmen, is said to have been better politics than reporting.  What apparently occurred was that a British soldier was doing sentry duty when a boy taunted him with something like, “Why won’t you pay the bill for your wig?” whereupon the soldier belted the boy, whereupon the boy recruited help and so did the soldier, whereupon a crowd gathered who began pelting the soldiers with stones and snowballs and someone, either a soldier or someone from the crowd, yelled “Shoot them,” whereupon the soldiers began shooting, leaving five dead. One man taunts another over a wig, and five men end up dead. “When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?”5  One of the five,  a leader of the crowd, Crispus Attucks, an African-American who has subsequently been considered one of the heroes of colonial American history, was depicted by Revere as white.

Revere’s engraving circulated in Boston and its surroundings, and the public became incensed at the British soldiers who had shot five citizens dead.

Fearful for their careers and even their lives, all the lawyers approached to defend the soldiers refused.  John Adams was, like Barack Obama a Harvard-educated lawyer who would later be President, but there, apparently, the similarities end,  Adams stepped forth, declared that the Redcoats had the right to a fair trial and that he would defend them.  He did so, and well.  Most of the British soldiers were acquitted, based essentially on self-defense.  For many months Adams was treated as a traitor.  His legal business dropped by half. A few months after the trial, there is the notation in his journal, “Never in more misery my whole life.”   But in his old age, the retired President was able to look back at his defense of the British soldiers in 1770 as “one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.”7  ]  And so it was.

If the Revolution had its Boston Massacre, then the War on Terror had its 9/11.  But Patriots’ Day is not to be confused with Patriot Day.  Barrack Obama did not perceive things as had John Adams.  When the alleged perpetrators of the killings in Boston were arrested, they received a fair trial and were even acquitted.  When the alleged mastermind of 9/11was caught, he was summarily shot dead, apparently on orders of President Obama.  No arrest, no trial, no opportunity to give his side of what actually occurred.. And now the
President’s “right” to have the country’s perceived enemies shot on sight, even on American soil – no arrest, no trial – has been established by law.John Adams, where are you when we need you?

1 The full text of the poem, required of many a
school child in Massachusetts to be put to memory, is:

Paul Revere’s Ride Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,–
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

http://poetry.eserver.org/paul-revere.html  

2. Like many an American patriot,
Paul was born of political refugees from Europe.
http://legacy.mckinneyisd.net/Campuses/school_websites/glenoaks/Library/Resources/RachelWa
lkerRevere.htm

3 “Tory Account of Whig Leaders Before the
Revolutionary War,”
http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/life-times-link/191-tory-account-of-whig-leaders-befor
e-the-revolutionary-war

4 History of American Women,
http://legacy.mckinneyisd.net/Campuses/school_websites/glenoaks/Library/Resources/RachelWa
lkerRevere.htm

The Man Who Fired The Shot Heard ’Round The World

April 19, 1775, should be regarded as important a date to Americans as July 4, 1776. It’s a shame that we don’t celebrate it as enthusiastically as we do Independence Day. It’s even more shameful that many Americans don’t even remember what happened on this day back in 1775. For the record, historians call this day, “Patriot’s Day.” More specifically, it was the day that the shot was fired that was heard ’round the world. It was the day America’s War for Independence began.

Being warned of approaching British troops by Dr. Joseph Warren, Pastor Jonas Clark and his male congregants of the Church of Lexington (numbering 60-70) were the ones that stood with their muskets in front of the Crown’s troops (numbering over 800), who were on orders to seize a cache of arms which were stored at Concord and to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock (who were known to be in the area, and who had actually taken refuge in Pastor Clark’s home).

According to eyewitnesses, the king’s troops opened fire on the militiamen almost without warning, immediately killing eight of Pastor Clark’s parishioners. In self defense, the Minutemen returned fire. These were the first shots of the Revolutionary War. This took place on Lexington Green, which was located directly beside the church-house where those men worshipped each Sunday. Adams and Hancock were not taken. They owed their lives to Pastor Clark and his brave Minutemen–albeit eight of those men gave their lives protecting Adams and Hancock.

According to Pastor Clark, these are the names of the eight men who died on Lexington Green: Robert Munroe, Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, all of Lexington, and one Mr. Porter of Woburn.

By the time the British troops arrived at the Concord Bridge, hundreds of colonists had amassed a defense of the bridge. A horrific battle took place, and the British troops were routed and soon retreated back to Boston. America’s War for Independence had begun!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these two elements of American history are lost to the vast majority of historians today: 1) it was attempted gun confiscation by the British troops that ignited America’s War for Independence, and 2) it was a pastor and his flock that mostly comprised the “Minutemen” who fired the shots that started our great Revolution.

With that thought in mind, I want to devote today’s column to honoring the brave preachers of Colonial America–these “children of the Pilgrims,” as one Colonial pastor’s descendent put it.

It really wasn’t that long ago. However, with the way America’s clergymen act today, one would think that preachers such as James Caldwell, John Peter Muhlenberg, Joab Houghton, and Jonas Clark never existed. But they did exist; and without them, this country we call the United States of America that would not exist.

Caldwell was a Presbyterian; Muhlenberg was a Lutheran; Houghton was a Baptist; and no one really seems to know what denomination (if any) Jonas Clark claimed, although one historian referred to Clark as a Trinitarian and a Calvinist. But these men had one thing in common (besides their faith in Jesus Christ): they were all ardent patriots who participated in America’s War for Independence, and in the case of Jonas Clark, actually ignited it.

James Caldwell

James Caldwell was called “The Rebel High Priest” or “The Fighting Chaplain.” Caldwell is most famous for the “Give ’em Watts!” story.

During the Springfield (New Jersey) engagement, the colonial militia ran out of wadding for their muskets. Quickly, Caldwell galloped to the Presbyterian church, and returning with an armload of hymnals, threw them to the ground, and hollered, “Now, boys, give ’em Watts!” He was referring to the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts, of course.

The British hated Caldwell so much, they murdered his wife, Hannah, in her own home, as she sat with her children on her bed. Later, a fellow American was bribed by the British to assassinate Pastor Caldwell–which is exactly what he did. Americans loyal to the Crown burned both his house and church. No less than three cities and two public schools in the State of New Jersey bear his name.

John Peter Muhlenberg

John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia, when hostilities erupted between Great Britain and the American colonies. When news of Bunker Hill reached Virginia, Muhlenberg preached a sermon from Ecclesiastes 3 to his congregation He reminded his parishioners that there was a time to preach and a time to fight. He said that, for him, the time to preach was past and it was time to fight. He then threw off his vestments and stood before his congregants in the uniform of a Virginia colonel.

Muhlenberg later was promoted to brigadier-general in the Continental Army, and later, major general. He participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He went on to serve in both the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

Joab Houghton

Joab Houghton was in the Hopewell (New Jersey) Baptist Meeting House at worship when he received the first information regarding the battles at Lexington and Concord. His great-grandson gives the following eloquent description of the way he treated the tidings:

“[M]ounting the great stone block in front of the meeting-house, he beckoned the people to stop. Men and women paused to hear, curious to know what so unusual a sequel to the service of the day could mean. At the first, words a silence, stern as death, fell over all. The Sabbath quiet of the hour and of the place was deepened into a terrible solemnity. He told them all the story of the cowardly murder at Lexington by the royal troops; the heroic vengeance following hard upon it; the retreat of Percy; the gathering of the children of the Pilgrims round the beleaguered hills of Boston; then pausing, and looking over the silent throng, he said slowly, ‘Men of New Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren of New England! Who follows me to Boston?’ And every man in that audience stepped out of line, and answered, ‘I!’ There was not a coward or a traitor in old Hopewell Baptist Meeting-House that day.” (Cathcart, William. Baptists and the American Revolution. Philadelphia: S.A. George, 1876, rev. 1976. Print.)

Jonas Clark

As I said at the beginning of this column, Jonas Clark was pastor of the Church of Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775, the day that British troops marched on Concord with orders to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, and to seize a cache of firearms. It was Pastor Clark’s male congregants who were the first ones to face-off against the British troops as they marched through Lexington. When you hear the story of the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington, remember those Minutemen were Pastor Jonas Clark and the men of his congregation.

On the One Year Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Clark preached a sermon based upon his eyewitness testimony of the event. He called his sermon, “The Fate of Blood-Thirsty Oppressors and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People.” His sermon has been republished by Nordskog Publishing under the title, “The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington.”

Order the book containing Clark’s sermon at:

www.NordskogPublishing.com

Of course, these four brave preachers were not the only ones to participate in America’s fight for independence. There were Episcopalian ministers such as Dr. Samuel Provost of New York, Dr. John Croes of New Jersey, and Robert Smith of South Carolina. Presbyterian ministers such as Adam Boyd of North Carolina and James Armstrong of Maryland, along with many others, also took part.

So many Baptist preachers participated in America’s War for Independence that, at the conclusion of the war, President George Washington wrote a personal letter to the Baptist people saying, “I recollect with satisfaction that the religious societies of which you are a member have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the firm friends to civil liberty, and the preserving promoters of our glorious Revolution.” It also explains how Thomas Jefferson could write to a Baptist congregation and say, “We have acted together from the origin to the end of a memorable Revolution.” (McDaniel, George White. The People Called Baptists. The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1918. Print.)

And although not every pastor was able to actively participate in our fight for independence, so many pastors throughout colonial America preached the principles of liberty and independence from their pulpits that the Crown created a moniker for them: The Black Regiment (referring to the long, black robes that so many colonial clergymen wore in the pulpit). Without question, the courageous preaching and example of colonial America’s patriot-pastors provided the colonists with the inspiration and resolve to resist the tyranny of the Crown and win America’s freedom and independence.

EU Bonds Rollover Debt with a Chinese Bailout

The financial press is inundated with the most ominous reports of an EU meltdown. The downturn in economic activity and little growth all comes down to the unsustainability in servicing the debt obligations. Sovereign countries bailouts only pile on even more debt. European banks are tied to a Euro dominated currency, while the political union is anything but unified. Any serious student of European history inescapably concludes that the perennial ambition to orchestrate a single patchwork of diverse cultures and interests into a pan European brotherhood is always doomed. A consensus fraternity based upon socialistic economics feeds the inevitable default. However, never fear the banksters will not suffer, as the globalists prepare to use their next crisis, to consolidate their grip of world dominance.

Greece is the Sarajevo in the start of the next currency world war. A containable matter ready to snowball into a full-scale mobilization of competing factions, poses the unwinding of world markets. Never underestimate the inventiveness of financial ministers to paper over an impending default with more debt. Bloomberg reports, “The following is an English translation of a statement made by Government spokesman and Minister of State Elias Mosialos after a conference call between Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy today, received by e-mail from Mosialos’s Athens office.”

“In response to the rumors of the recent days it was emphasized by all that Greece is an integral part of the eurozone.

“Greece is determined to meet all its commitments to its partners, ensuring in this way the full implementation of the support program.

“The decisions taken by the Cabinet in recent days and the additional measures announced lead to meeting fiscal targets for 2011 and 2012 and the creation of primary surpluses. This will fortify the Greek economy, relieve the public debt burden and reinforce the country’s growth prospects.”

The distinctive difference and shortfall of the Euro from the U.S. Dollar (actually Federal Reserve note) is that the former is competing money, to the later world’s reserve currency status. No restraint is in effect that prevents mandatory acceptance of the U.S. Dollar as settlement payment, since creating unlimited credits is the prerogative of the reserve currency. As long as regimes fear their own demise from either bombing drones or the ending of new credit, the shell game continues.

Therefore, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner backs an American infusion of even more debt created Dollars to rescue the EU banking system, you know the race to the bottom has begun. Market Watch reports, “The European Central Bank, the Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and the Swiss National Bank announced they will each conduct additional dollar tenders in an effort to provide liquidity through the end of the year. The central banks said the auctions are coordinated with each other and the U.S. Federal Reserve.”This effort will not alter the fundamental plight that faces Europe. As the crunch intensifies, Greece will be sacked. If the British Museum refuses to return the Parthenon, or Elgin Marbles, what would make anyone think that the byzantine Brussels bureaucracy would share any of the renowned fairness and compassion of the goddess Athena? Annihilating Greek democracy is all in a day’s work for the European Commission.

So what is the proposed EU solution? European Commission presidentJose Manuel Barroso announces,

“He will “soon” present proposals for eurozone states to issue joint bonds, a way to even out interest rates among the single currency area’s 17 nations. Such “eurobonds” are currently opposed by Germany and could require a new round of painful EU treaty negotiations.”

Reuters lays out the conflict. “Germany, which is the euro zone’s most powerful economy and enjoys the lowest sovereign borrowing costs, would stand to lose most if such bonds were introduced as it would effectively end up having to underwrite weaker, more risky member states. As a result, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is adamantly opposed.”It needs to be recognized that the German economy is the only thread that keeps the EU alive. The political reality is that what Germany could not conquer militarily, she accomplished by way of her industry and positive trade balances.

Examine two separate bond proposals.

1) Bruegel, a Brussels-based think-tank whose research frequently informs EU policy, last year put forward a proposal for separate ‘red’ and ‘blue’ bonds. Under the plan, euro zone bonds — blue bonds — would be issued jointly and collectively up to the value of 60 percent of each euro zone member state’s gross domestic product (GDP). Borrowing beyond that level would require an individual state to issue red bonds without the collective guarantee of the euro zone, with the market likely to charge a higher yield to reflect the additional risk.

The disparity in financing costs between blue and red bonds — potentially, a jump of more than 50 percent by some estimates — would be a big incentive for euro zone countries to bring their debts rapidly down to below 60 percent of GDP, the limit originally targeted by the EU.

2) Separately, Berlin-based economist Hans-Joachim Dubel has proposed creating European sovereign bonds — dubbed ‘purple’ bonds — that are part-insured by the EU’s rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).

Each bond would be split into senior and junior tranches, with the senior section, around 60 percent of the total, insured by the EFSF and its successor, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

The ESM would become a monoline bond insurer that in the event of a default would pay investors quickly and in full on 60 percent of their assets, while the junior debt could be restructured. Such junior debt could trade separately after a default.

The dual structure of the bond would mean sovereigns are charged a higher interest rate than for blue bonds, reflecting the implicit 40 percent first loss carried by the uninsured junior tranche. So the mechanism would still provide an incentive to avoid excessive debt issuance when times are good.

It is not hard to envision why Angela Merkel is reluctant to turn over the fruits of a German work ethic and advanced engineering to subsidize a continent of fainéant ingrates.

So where will the money come from to rollover existing government debt or finance the additional sums required to keep the socialist experiment intact? The globalists have an answer, their own ingenious Reich, called China. The Chinese communists are the ultimate banksters’ tool. Their model for economic control is the product of the same clan of London and New York financiers who set the stage for European conflicts designed to move the planet into a vortex of their intention.

The Globe and Mail offers up this account.

“Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has outlined conditions that Europe must meet before China will increase support for debt-laden Europe in a sign of Beijing’s reluctance to be cast as a savior for the global economy.His top condition was the long-standing demand that Europe recognize China as a full “market economy,” a technical definition that would benefit Chinese companies involved in trade disputes.”

The McClatchy-Tribune Information Service also reports.

“As the global economy slowly recovers, we still face a host of uncertainties and destabilizing factors,” Wen Jiabao said at the opening of the World Economic Forum’s meeting in the north-eastern port of Dalian.

“Under these circumstances, the Chinese economy is closely linked with the global economy,” he told 1,500 delegates from 90 nations at the meeting that has come to be known as the “Summer Davos.”

The way to view the Chinese money machine needs to acknowledge that the globalists want to use the same coolie labor structure for the entire world. Europe is slated to adopt the type of a New World Order that strips all sovereignty from individual countries. China has an undemocratic culture and a rigidly proscribed regiment for political dissenters. The bondage of European debt financed by a PRC slave system is straight out the funding of the Nazi regime playbook.

When Wen Jiabao patronizes the EU, he is instructing the masses to accept the dictates of the EU Commission. The purpose of keeping the phony bond obligations roll over scheme is to use the extortion payments for additional real assets acquisitions and control by the very bankers that designed the collapsing and fake international trading framework.

EU beggars acquiesce to tyrants. Their long record of internal conflict seldom focuses on the underlying masters of the financial fraud. China is the new capital of the banksters’ Babylon. Its location is an armed camp and protectorate of the Mattiods. Their assets are the direct result of the global free trade deception.

The best hope for Europe is that Germany, not Greece, leave the EU. As long as Eastern Europeans and Middle East immigrants clamor to tap into the wealth of “Teutonic Fatherland”, the notion of a United States of Europe will suffer from the same invasion and fate as America. ”He, who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.” - Confucius

How The Media Covers Bilderberg Meetings

The mainstream media blackout of the annual Bilderberg meeting is finally crumbling. Yet the prevarication machine continues to reinforce the delusional official line from on high. For decades, the sinister world cabal operated in the shadows of secrecy and disinformation. The timely analogy is the initial way the disgraced Anthony Weiner responded to his self-inflicted indiscretion. Ignore any rogue inquiry about the nature of their agenda or plots on forthcoming plans. High-handedness is the hallmark of their demeanor, just as arrogance is the basic character component of this pit-bull Congressional egomaniac.

For the world’s most powerful elites, Bilderberg meetings are not sessions of chance. Peccadillos in personal affairs often are the norm, but when it comes to controlling the planet, only a strictly managed media message is acceptable. Now that the original denial, ala area 51 nonexistent ploys no longer flies, desperate PR spinning, surfaces. Public apathy used to fuel the secrecy of Bilderberg discussions and decisions. However, media silence was the engine that kept the sleight of hand deception pointing in a different direction.

Weiner everyday and all day long, is symptomatic of the celebrity culture built to keep people living lives of utter desperation. As the government education experiment achieved undisputed success in destroying independent and coherent thought, the Bilderberg overlords felt confident that there would be little blowback to their totalitarian collectivism. Nevertheless, the rapid obliteration of economic and social society is the harsh reality, no longer concealed, from even the most brain dead serf. Case in point is that large media conglomerates cannot exhort their version of political news in the homogeneous manner once enjoyed. Readership and ratings forecast a dying dinosaur.

CNBC is a good example of unwatchable propaganda. Corporatist’s cheerleaders write the business reporting. An article by Peter Guest Rich, Famous and Powerful Converge at Bilderberg spins the truly ridiculous.

Andrew Kakabadse is professor of international management development at Cranfield University. For his recent book “Bilderberg People,” co-authored with Nada Kakabadse and Ian Richardson, Kakabadse interviewed a number of past attendees in order to understand how the network of global influence works.

“The people we talked to are quite genuine. Mostly they don’t understand the conspiracy bit, because they say when you go there what you find is people of all sorts of varying views. But the fact that they’ve been invited is indicative of the position that they’ve reached in life,” he said.

As the world teeters on a fabricated collapse of incalculable debt, the Bilderberg consortium readies the next escalated stage of enslavement. The good news is that a capitalist tool media outlet is beingforced to play a frantic cover-up for their sponsors. If you think that GE really sold off controlling interest of their media empire, the same “global enterprise” of acceptable current events proceeds according to their master designs. The schedule or tactics may alter, but the goal is constant.

None dare call it conspiracy is still a required “PC” composite mindset to get on air. Thinking people know better and call it reality history. In the nearly forty years since Gary Allen wrote his influential book, more citizens have come to understand the nature of pervasive globalism. However, the technological procession towards dependent regimentation is frightening. The wild card in the mix of communication is the internet. Plutocrats are unable to stamp out dissent on the internet. The effective ability to expose, challenge and resist Bilderberg grand scheme causes is these oligarchs’ deepest concern and is a prime objective for elimination.

When an individual awakens from their induced slumber, grass roots activism has the potential to blossom. Mark Dice has a video that suggests a simple strategy in, Pressuring the mainstream media to cover Bilderberg 2011. The key word is PRESSURE.The Drudge Report is setting the real news cycle. Linking to Bilderberg items gets traction. Coverage from the likes of the Alex Jones team is at an all time high. Insider reporting from Jim Tucker is unstoppable. The excuses for remaining ignorant are few. People need to alter their pathetic lifestyle and act upon all this information.

The targeting of activists as terrorists is a basic strategy of the globalist cowards. Apply an elementary test to this outlook. The list of recent attendees to Bilderberg meetings is readily available. These tyrants continue to live privileged lives. Their physical safety is seldom if ever challenged. Their protective measures are formidable. You seldom hear or read about protesters penetrating their private cocoon. In an older age the chant, off with their heads would be acted upon. However, the prey for violent terrorism never includes these elites as objects of harm.The hoax of terrorism, shaped by these elites, only serves their interests. The essence of the threat of extremist oppression originates at the Bilderberg conferences. Since they are virtually immune from terrorist attacks, it is insulting to think that unfeigned militants would leave the Bilderberg clan off the list for retaliation. When the phony media reports that our very existence depends upon exterminating terrorists, they intentionally point to the wrong suspects.

The Anthony Weiner pattern of unaccountable and patronizing behavior demonstrates a sickness in the political class. Required resignation from office for lying in the post Bill Clinton era has become only an option. Even the minimal standard of public shame does not apply to Bilderberg Mattoids. Disgraced politicians may eventually leave or not run for re-election, but if you are on the Bilderberg approved blueblood list, your influence and assignment in the globalist scheme continues.

Weiner gate is not substantial news. It is the typical New York City Metrosexual story of being sexually excited by eggs or maybe Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin is just a hen. According to the changeling Chris Matthews in “Maybe She’s Partly Responsible” Matthews believes Rep. Anthony Weiner’s wife may be “partly responsible” for his sexual misconduct because the Congressman said she was aware of his behavior before they were married. Transcript below:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: “Yeah, but he says his wife knew. He laid it out on her.”

JOHN FEEHERY, Republican strategist: “Which is a terrible, terrible mistake.”

MATTHEWS: “Well, maybe she’s partly responsible if she knew about it?”

The irrelevance of the Weiner scandal in the greater scheme of things should be self-evident. But what is the responsibility of the typical subjugated slave living on the global plantation, when they know that the Bilderberg elites manipulate the despotic hegemony?

Mark Anderson from the American Free Press video gives a succinct outline.

Steve Watson’s point in the report, Dear Mainstream Media, We Think You Might Want To Cover This… states the obvious about attendee:

” . . . Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Chris R. Hughes, Co-founder of Facebook, Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, Craig J. Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft Corporation, and Reid Hoffman, Co-founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn.

That alone should be enough to focus the attention of the mainstream media.

Alas, apparently, no, that is not enough to perk their collective interest.

Then lets factor in that also in attendance are the Vice President of the European Commission, the President of the European Council, the Director General of the World Trade Organization, the President of the European Central Bank, the President of The World Bank, and the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme.”

The New American draws attention that the blackout stranglehold is softening.

“Other mainstream reports, however, were more friendly to Bilderberg critics. “It’s a shame the attendees are still so phobic of attention, seeing as how this year there’s shaping up to be more press interest than ever. People and the media have finally started noticing this quiet little conference at the centre of the storm,” noted a piece in the U.K. Guardian, pointing out that the cabal played a crucial role in the creation of the European Union.”

Smart money says that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the anointed Bilderberg selection to butte heads against Obama. His praises in an American Thinker article seems opportune. Yet the political horse race is even more immaterial than the distraction of a weiner gone wild. Nevertheless, the corporatists’ media preoccupations with meaningless elections deserve mention when a menacingjunto shapes the political process.Oppressed people of the world need to force the media into a ”commune state of shame” for protecting Bilderberg sociopaths. A spontaneous effort of applying pressure on the organizations that own and set reporting on programming content is a starting point. Escalation to a national boycott of their media venues and advertising revenue is the common language these elites understand. MSNBC Chris Matthews is a prime enabler who needs to learn the meaning of “I am partly responsible because I knew about Bilderberg“.

The continual breakdown of society is a designed result of the global elites. Each of us has a responsibility to take this warning to friends, family and strangers alike. Become your own media message and use every means of non-violent resistance as a model for your gospel of universal liberation.

The Strange World of NSA Mind Control

“Whatever you think of Gaddafi and Mussa Kussa … they were good and they were good counter-terrorism partners.” Gen. Michael V. Hayden Former NSA and CIA Director

The surveillance society is a secretive apparatus of intrusion and deception. An enigma within a disinformation perception of reality is at the core all activities of spooks. One of the most pervasive and all reaching agencies is the NSA. The National Security Administration officially is a cryptologic intelligence agency whose primary function is Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID), which produces foreign signals intelligence information, and the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), which protects U.S. information systems. The General Accounting Office defines the nature of the structure of the NSA.

“The National Security Agency (NSA) is a combat support agency within the Department of Defense (DOD) established by presidential directive in 1952. NSA has two separate missions: signals intelligence and communications security. For signals intelligence, NSA manages all U.S. signal collection and processing and produces signals intelligence in accordance with DOD and DCI priorities. For communications security, NSA provides leadership, products, and services to U.S. agencies that need to protect their information and communication systems from foreign exploitation. NSA is headed by a three-star flag officer, who reports to the Secretary of Defense. About 80 percent of the NSA workforce is civilian.”

A relative comparison, back in 1996 and pre 911 government of the size and disclosed budgets of intelligence agencies, indicates the colossal scope of the NSA. Casual public observers got an introduction to the world of surreptitious surveillance in the movie Enemy of the State or from news reports that their smart phones are actually tracking devices, even when turned off. But an unbelievably weird episode of freakish propositions, resembling a flickThe Men Who Stare at Goats sequel gone mad, lurks in the bowels of restricted files on an Exaflop Supercomputer.

Have you ever head of Lt. Col. Michael A. Aquino? Aquino as high priest of the temple of set, arguably the world’s most prolific satanic institution and a former disciple of Anton LaVey (founder of First Church of Satan), is reportedly a master psychic, good at psionics, and rumored the highest ranking member of the NSA. The NSA site lists former Directors and has General Keith B. Alexander, United States Army as the current head of the agency.

Are we supposed to believe that a devil worshipper can serve at the highest levels of the military industrial security complex? Can such claims be credible?

View the video Michael Aquino, Satanic Mind-Control Cults and the Aquino NSA connection to enrich your confidence in the work of the intelligence communities. Bizarre at the least, but Jeffrey Steinberg of Executive Intelligence Review sheds light on From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory in How Military PsyOps Plan to Control your Mind.

“The “MindWar” paper was disturbing, for reasons beyond its fascistic and occultist content. For one thing, Colonel Vallely’s co-author was a PSYOP Research & Analysis Team Leader named Maj. Michael A. Aquino.

Furthermore, Vallely and Aquino’s MindWar scheme is remarkably similar to the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program launched by the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon, under the direction of Irangate figure Adm. John Poindexter. Ostensibly, the Total Information Awareness global propaganda and mega-data-mining plan was scrapped after a series of negative news stories, but Pentagon sources have reported that the program was merely “taken into a black box.”

Watch the video about this military Mind War paper and then EDUCATE YOURSELF: PROJECT BLUEBEAM for the application of the tenants of these projects.Aquino writes in November 2003 in the introduction addendum to his original Mind War paper the following:

“With the arising of the Internet in the 1980s, however, Mind War received an entirely unexpected – and somewhat comic – resurrection. Allusions to it gradually proliferated, with its “sinister” title quickly winning it the most lurid, conspiracy-theory reputation. The rumor mill soon had it transformed into an Orwellian blueprint for Manchurian Candidate mind control and world domination. My own image as an occult personality added fuel to the wildfire: Mind War was now touted by the lunatic fringe as conclusive proof that the Pentagon was awash in Black Magic and Devil-worship.

Now that this absurdly comic opera has at least somewhat subsided, I thought that it might be interesting to make a complete and accurate copy of the paper available, together with an Introduction and some historical-hindsight annotations to place it in reasonable context. After all it did – and perhaps still does – have something worthwhile to say.

Within the U.S. military, PSYOP has habitually been relegated to a back-seat as a “force multiplier”. The principal strategic decisions are made in consideration of traditional political and military interests and goals. Only then is PSYOP invited to the table, to help achieve already-agreed-upon missions more efficiently.

MindWar reverses this sequence. Psychological means for achieving victory – essentially through convincing the enemy that he really wants to bring his national policies into harmony with ours – are fashioned in support of basic political goals. The use of “ordinary” military force (bombs, bullets, etc.) is regarded as a “last resort” in circumstances wherein MindWar by itself fails”.

The crucial question avoided by the military and intelligence community is who actually is the enemy? The recent announcement of the top brass switch at CIA and the Department of Defense illustrates that the wheels of coordinated policy remain the same. TheWashington Post reports, “Petraeus’s nomination triggered some grumbling among CIA veterans opposed to putting a career military officer in charge of an agency with a long tradition of civilian leadership.”

The funnel effect of protecting favored covert projects and sharing denial of information among agencies continues. But, what never ceases is the onward march for greater control over the minds and behavior of citizens, since they are seen as the enemy of the totalitarian Pentagon structure that obeys the unlawful orders of their oligarchic masters. If this system of false patriotism is not Devil-worship, then what would you call devotion to a technocratic regime that directs their surveillance apparatus as a means to deceive and subjugate the local population?

The NSA is more dangerous to the ordinary citizen than the clandestine operatives that play their spy games. PSYOP is more pervasive domestically than internationally. The target of the black art that NSA electronics employ is designed to read your email, listen to your phones and monitor your travel activities. Cyberspace databases are core functions that the National Security Agency uses to create achieves on individuals. Just who are the lunatics when a government routinely monitors every aspect of behavior?

Allowing a wing nut like Aquino access to the secretive corridors of cryptologic intelligence might seem strange, but promoting PSYOP as a useful tool against domestic populations is the very definition of a sinister society.

The mere idea that a Project Bluebeam is a plausible strategy option in the PSYOP world of government officials should scare the bejesus out of you.Project Bluebeam is designed to usher in the New World Order with a one-world government, a one-world army, a one-world religion, a cashless society and micro-chipped populations controlled by a central computer. The elite of the world would not be subject to this fascist control system but would run it and enjoy its spoils.The NSA is well positioned to do the housekeeping of the database. If a Michael Aquino is part of the military information management infrastructure used to be the data depository of centralized regimentation, why would it be so preposterous for that same government to use satanic practices in the performance of their assignments?

Rational individuals, schooled in historic investigation, should not automatically dismiss the length and depths that evil rulers use to enslave societies. If the subject of mind control interests you, consider a review of the NSA Mind Control and Psyops. The theme of this material addresses methods used to influence and manipulate thinking and behavior.

“Subliminal Implanted Posthypnotic Suggestions and Scripts Using Acoustically Delivered and Phonetically Accelerated Posthypnotic Commands without Somnambulistic Preparation in the Subject for Intelligence and Counterintelligence Applications by the United States National Security Agency.”

Another source to review is Domestic Surveillance and Mind Control Technology. Under NSA Signals Intelligence Use of EMF Brain Stimulation, another diabolical technique is examined.

“Without any contact with the subject, Remote Neural Monitoring can map out electrical activity from the visual cortex of a subject’s brain and show images from the subject’s brain on a video monitor. NSA operatives see what the surveillance subject’s eyes are seeing. Visual memory can also be seen. RNM can send images direct to the visual cortex, bypassing the eyes and optic nerves. NSA operatives can use this to surreptitiously put images in a surveillance subject’s brain while they are in R.E.M. sleep for brain-programming purposes.”

The NSA Ft. Meade complex is more imposing than the CIA Langley operation. The illicit skullduggery and Sub Rosa elements that dominate your lives are occult disciples. Aquino may just be idolizing what other NSA practitioners are hiding beyond closed doors. Thomas Reynolds, played by Jon Voight in Enemy of the State said: “The only privacy that’s left is the inside of your head”, may have been asleep at the switch during his RNM sessions.

We killed Osama bin Laden. Trust us.

By Kimberly Dozier and David Espo…

Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite American forces Monday, then quickly buried at sea in a stunning finale to a furtive decade on the run.

Long believed to be hiding in caves, bin Laden was tracked down in a costly, custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military academy.
“Justice has been done,” President Barack Obama said in a dramatic announcement at the White House while a crowd cheered outside and hundreds more gathered at ground zero in Manhattan to celebrate the news.

The military operation took mere minutes.

U.S. helicopters ferrying elite counter-terrorism troops into the compound identified by the CIA as bin Laden’s hideout — and back out again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot in the head, officials said, after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault.

Three adult males were also killed in the raid, including one of bin Laden’s sons, whom officials did not name. One of bin Laden’s sons, Hamza, is a senior member of al-Qaida. U.S. officials also said one woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, and two other women were injured.

The U.S. official who disclosed the burial at sea said it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial.

“I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing suddenly stopped. Then more thundering, then a big blast,” said Mohammad Haroon Rasheed, a resident of Abbottobad, Pakistan, after the choppers had swooped in and then out again.

Bin Laden’s death marks a psychological triumph in a long struggle that began with the Sept. 11 attacks, and seems certain to give Obama a political lift. But its ultimate impact on al-Qaida is less clear.

The greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. is now considered to be the al-Qaida franchise in Yemen, far from al-Qaida’s core in Pakistan. The Yemen branch almost took down a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas 2009 and nearly detonated explosives aboard two U.S. cargo planes last fall. Those operations were carried out without any direct involvement from bin Laden.

The few fiery minutes in Abbottobad followed years in which U.S. officials struggled to piece together clues that ultimately led to bin Laden, according to an account provided by senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.

Based on statements given by U.S. detainees since the 9/11 attacks, they said, intelligence officials have long known that bin Laden trusted one al-Qaida courier in particular, and they believed he might be living with him in hiding.

Four years ago, the United States learned the man’s identity, which officials did not disclose, and then about two years later, they identified areas of Pakistan where he operated. Last August, the man’s residence was found, officials said.

“Intelligence analysis concluded that this compound was custom built in 2005 to hide someone of significance,” with walls as high as 18 feet and topped by barbed wire, according to one official. Despite the compound’s estimated $1 million cost and two security gates, it had no phone or Internet running into the house.

By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to “pursue an aggressive course of action,” a senior administration official said. Over the next two and a half months, the president led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.

Obama made a decision to launch the operation on Friday, shortly before flying to Alabama to inspect tornado damage, and aides set to work on the details.

The president spent part of his Sunday on the golf course, but cut his round short to return to the White House for a meeting where he and top national security aides reviewed final preparations for the raid.
Two hours later, Obama was told that bin Laden had been tentatively identified.

CIA director Leon Panetta was directly in charge of the military team during the operation, according to one official, and when he and his aides received word at agency headquarters that bin Laden had been killed, cheers broke out around the conference room table.

Administration aides said the operation was so secretive that no foreign officials were informed in advance, and only a small circle inside the U.S. government was aware of what was unfolding half a world away.
In his announcement, Obama said he had called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari after the raid, and said it was “important to note that our counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding.”

One senior administration told reporters, though, “we were very concerned … that he was inside Pakistan, but this is something we’re going to continue to work with the Pakistani government on.”

The compound is about a half-mile from a Pakistani military academy, in a city that is home to three army regiments and thousands of military personnel. Abbottabad is surrounded by hills and with mountains in the distance.

Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan’s security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied it, and in a statement the foreign ministry said his death showed the country’s resolve in the battle against terrorism.

Whatever the global repercussions, bin Laden’s death marked the end to a manhunt that consumed most of a decade that began in the grim hours after bin Laden’s hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center twin towers in Manhattan and the Pentagon across the Potomac River from Washington. A fourth plane was commandeered by passengers who overcame the hijackers and forced the plane to crash in the Pennsylvania countryside.

In all, nearly 3,000 were killed in the worst terror attacks on American soil.
Former President George W. Bush, who was in office on the day of the attacks, issued a written statement hailing bin Laden’s death as a momentous achievement. “The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done,” he said.

Article from: news.yahoo.com

War is Expensive

Priced in Freedom…

“One million dead Iraqis, 4 million displaced Iraqis, a destroyed country, 4,754 dead American troops, 40,000 wounded and maimed American troops, $3 trillion of wasted US resources, every dollar of which is a debt burden to the American population and a threat to the dollar as reserve currency, ten years of propaganda and lies about terrorism and al Qaeda connections, an American “war on terror” that is destroying countless lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and which has targeted Iran, and which has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the US Constitution, and the civil liberties that they guarantee”.  Excerpted from “The Shame of Being an American” by Paul Craig Roberts

“A child a day dies in war-related violence in Afghanistan. Children die in roadside explosions. They die in airstrikes. They die after militants lure them to carry suicide bombs, usually without their knowledge. They die in firefights. They are executed by the Taliban after being accused, sometimes correctly, of spying for the Afghan National Army. They are tiny pawns in a futile and endless war. They are robbed of their childhood. They live in fear and surrounded by the terror of indiscriminate violence.”  Chris Hedges

Wars are costly; the welfare state is even more costly.  Wars and welfare have pushed the United States of America to the edge of bankruptcy.  Like families that max out multiple credit cards the interest on the debt is beginning to infringe on essential items in the national budget. The status of the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency is in jeopardy and our people will face a deteriorating standard of living for generations.

We live in a world that is being impacted by the agendas of multiple malicious centers of power. Truth seekers often have a favorite culprit.Some write about the Illuminate, others concentrate on the Jesuits, others specify the Rothschild and Rockefeller banking interests, Zionist Jews are often indicted, in United States the Council on Foreign Relations is a popular culprit; the Masons and the Protocol of Zion are frequently mentioned; there are the Bilderbergers, the globalists, the elite, the Vatican, the Bohemian Grove, the British Royal family, the Bush family, Skull and Bones, and others; many suspects but no one seems to know how the orders are transmitted.

A powerful force is controlling world events; the evidence is irrefutable.  Serious suspicions about the 9/11 tragedy are ignored by our media and our government; the same is true with questions regarding the birth place of President Obama.  Our media no longer critiques our government, instead it seems to be part of our government.  Decisions are made and policies are discussed as if all that has transpired during the Twenty First Century has been reported with complete accuracy. Yet thousands of citizens have serious questions. The dichotomy is almost as astounding as the brain washing that allows it to continue.  The existence of conspiracies is avoided in all public discourse, there is no honest review of the United Nations, the disastrous results of the trade treaties, the plan behind illegal immigration, the apocalyptic nature of the rise of open homosexuality, the ownership and control of the press and media, the aberrant nature of current Christian theology, the atrocities of neo-Israel, the theft of United States wealth, or the control of our government; any issue that might suggest nefarious forces in our nation is carefully avoided.

David Rockefeller wrote in his memoirs that he is working for world government and is proud of it and we know that knowledgeable people have predicted it is coming ”In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all”, Strobe Talbot, 1992.  In 1950 James Warburg, a carbon copy of his father, Paul Warburg,  said, “We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest.”

Nothing happens by chance, the War in the Middle East is part of the conspiracy to advance world hegemony.  It is also part of the rape and murder of the United States of America; a rape and murder that has been so well planned and executed that gullible citizens still cast their votes for the perpetrators.  In one of  the plethora of low grade, propagandized movies that spews from Hollywood the villain who is seeking a life saving procedure from his unjustly imprisoned captive said that he not only wanted the victim to perform the procedure but he wanted him to “want to perform the procedure”.  Propaganda has been so successful in America that as our raped and badly beaten nation is about to lapse into unconsciousness its citizens “want to” continue the process.  They seek to rally the “good guys” but they are often mistaken about who they are.

The moral and financial ruin began when congress passed and President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1917. Henceforth a hidden agenda was accompanied by clever propaganda and our nation became an instrument of world conquest.  Wars are population control instruments that allow the conspirators to gain a better grip on public opinion while they siphon off massive amounts of wealth.  Millions were killed and maimed during WWI.  It was fought to end all war but two decades later we fought in another world war.  The international propaganda machine was so effective that somewhat similar individuals like Abraham Lincoln and Adolph Hitler were successfully portrayed as opposites; Lincoln is revered while Hitler is hated.  The Korean War, a United Nations initiative, quickly followed WWII; then there was the Vietnam War and the military exercises conducted by President Reagan.  The true objective of all these wars has become increasingly evident in the Twenty First Century as the United States military is being used to control the nation and to bring the entire world to its knees.  Please take time to read about this travesty here.

Wars require huge amounts of money and bankers provide it to both sides.  Germany required monetary backing for both WWI and WWII.  The money was provided through some of the nations that were German enemies.  The Russian Revolution required financial backing and in spite of the controversy over Jewish involvement there is no doubt that financial support came from the United States.

Paul Craig Roberts rails against the symptoms but he has not found the cancer.  He does not believe in conspiracy theories.  He blames Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi for telling American authorities Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as a ploy to get rid of Saddam Hussein.  He mentions that the “Bush/Cheney Regime, of course, knew this, but “Curveball’s” lies were useful to their undeclared agenda”. Roberts fails to expand on the “undeclared agenda”, the “oligarchs”, or the “ruling elite” which would lead to the conspiracy theory Roberts avoids.  He claims the War in Iraq has “destroyed the Bill of Rights, the US Constitution, and the civil liberties that they guarantee”.  But he does not heed President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s contention that “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way”.   In an interesting development, CBS’s Sixty Minutes interviewed Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi and claimed he was entirely to blame for the mistaken invasion of Iraq. Two President Bushs invaded Iraq; the first started it and the second finished it.  It was part of the international agenda before anyone heard of al-Janabi.

The idea that a consortium of like minded individuals is controlling our government; writing the disastrous legislation, controlling the agenda of our elected leaders, designating and creating our enemies, and bankrupting our nation is apparent to anyone with eyes to see.  However, one wonders who gives the orders and through what channel they are transmitted.  Who ordered President George W. Bush to spend the national ire over 9/11 on Iraq and Saddam Hussein when neither Iraq nor Hussein had anything to do with 9/11?  Was it Donald Rumsfeld; if so, who gave the order to him?  Why would Paul Craig Roberts blame Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi when he knows that Janabi was only used as a convenient excuse and as the imperial action went forward his contribution was non-consequential?

The heat is on to improve the image of President George W. Bush and his administration.  Oprah Winfrey has given the Bush family extensive air time.  She recently interviewed the former president about his new book, “Decision Points”. In an earlier program his wife, Laura, previously promoted her book.  The daughters and mommy and poppy Bush have also been guests.  The interviews were cozy presenting the Bush family as neighborly.

Donald Rumsfeld is making the rounds.  His interviewers challenge policies of the Bush Administration but his answers are allowed to stand.  I believe it is all designed to open the door for President Bush’s brother former Florida governor Jeb Bush to enter the national political scene.

In a review of his 800 page book, ”Known and Unknown” Brian Lamb interviewed Rumsfeld on C-Span. I have not read the book but it apparently provides a defense for the actions of the George W. Bush Administration.  The Lamb interview presented Rumsfeld as an aging, affable, insider who is totally convinced of the righteousness of his opinions.  He spoke as a man brain washed into believing his own propaganda.  The interview was calm except when Lamb mentioned many telephone calls equating the  Project for the New American Century (PNAC) with a conspiracy.  At the word “conspiracy” Rumsfeld bristled and advised Lamb not to use the word.  He said that President George W. Bush had not signed PNAC.   Lamb did not elicit the fact that both Rumsfeld and Jeb Bush were intimately involved.

I am not a complete fan of the United States Constitution, but the Founders were well aware of the dangers of concentrated power and constructed a document designed to prevent it.   However, power amassed by the governing document of the new nation was too quickly evident in its tyrannical actions during the Civil War. Concentrations of power are always dangerous and world government will create a potential social disaster.

Accumulations of wealth and accumulations of production capacity create power centers and social problems. Perpetual corporate mergers have marked the past several decades.  When corporations merge power is concentrated.  We are living in an economy that no longer caters to the customer.  Slowly giant corporations have secured enough clout to thumb their collective noses at individual consumers; being pseudo-monopolies their concern is no longer with individuals but with masses.

Counting the dead soldiers and estimating the horribly disproportionate killing and dispossessing of innocent civilians is not the only cost of United States wars.  The cost to society is huge.  Returning soldiers are marred by the nihilistic cruelty of battle; like the child that is too soon initiated to sex, the civilian role of former soldiers is often tainted. Mass killing of innocents cheapens the value of human life and watching comrades die shatters peace.  War leaves an indelible stain on the personality of those involved. Many are mentally ill. Their illness distorts the society of the nation. The tenderness needed to sustain proper family relationships has often leaked away in battle replaced by a callus detachment.

War separates families leaving men and women alone and vulnerable.  If there are children they are deprived of one and sometimes both of their parents.  Life’s course is interrupted and the perception of time is distorted.  Violence is magnified and peaceful patience diminished.

The moral cost of war may be its most devastating characteristic.  During the American Civil War Smokey Row in Nashville, Tennessee, became as famous as prostitutes were rampant.  Pornography became an industry and venereal disease a scourge.  Lonely soldiers destined for mortal danger are vulnerable and wives deprived of their husbands tend to roam.  The result is a moral free fall.

The regimentation that is an essential part of military life is an unnatural threat to individual initiative and military leave tends to produce an overweening sense of freedom that often results in behavior that in another setting would never occur.

Patriotism is a pervasive American idol.  When patriotism becomes an idol national pride justifies actions that are morally wrong.  According to the International Committee of the Red Cross modern warfare as it is conducted by the United States of America produces a death ratio of 10 civilians for one soldier.  That means for every hundred soldiers who die a thousand civilians are killed.  Gross annihilations of the civilian population are wrong even if the war is justified and our armies are busily engaged in these killings in nations that are not and have never been a threat. We are killing to accumulate power – the ultimate idol.

War assists world government and those who support it are supporting their own captivity.   I no longer exchange emails with some of the warmongers but still my incoming mail is full of patriotic references to the troops and stories of bravery that perpetuate the quest for nationalism, victory, and the arrogant pride that results. Love for America has become confused with support for military actions.  Brave soldiers are cited as examples to be emulated.  The enemy is anyone or any nation that defies our imperial intentions. As immoral as it may be Americans love and perpetuate empire.

In a rambling swan song one truth seeker wrote: “Right now no one will read this — you are too transfixed by the rape and humiliation of Japan — the taking down of these good people  — you watch it all, not with a thought of helping them — but just as the audience to a horror movie  — the only talent any of you have  — sitting passively and watching horror movies and horror realities — between the two there is no difference as far as all of you are concerned.”

He is right about the horror movie.  I suspect he will be back.  Writers tend to become pregnant with information.  Paul Craig Roberts retired but was soon back.

The world has forgotten God, the One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They have gone their own way and are ripe for captivity.

In a passage that seems strange to most modern ears, King David after he had impregnated another man’s wife and sent her husband off to be killed in battle confessed before God, “Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done evil in Thy sight –“; again, in the Twenty First Chapter of Deuteronomy a murdered corpse was found, the murderer was unknown.  Following the sacrifice of a heifer this prayer was offered, “Forgive Thy people Israel whom Thou hast redeemed, O Lord, and do not place the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of Thy people Israel.  And the blood-guiltiness shall be forgiven them.”

When facing the suffering of sin and injustice the first thought of modern Christians is to punish the perpetrators.  Humanism causes us to think of the creation before we think of the Creator.  All sin in first against God and second against His creation.

For a decade American armed forces have been killing innocent civilians at a ratio of ten to one. And that is only our current guilt; think of the bloodshed by previous generations.  We are a blood-guilty nation.  We have violated other nations and shed innocent blood.  We have sinned against God and we continue to do so!   It is not from men that we need forgiveness but from God, Himself!

In Praise of Caldwell, Clark, Houghton, And Muhlenberg

It really wasn’t that long ago. With the way America’s clergymen act today, however, one would think that preachers such as James Caldwell, Jonas Clark, Joab Houghton, and John Peter Muhlenberg never existed. But they did exist; and without them, it is this country we call the United States of America that would not exist.

Caldwell was a Presbyterian; Muhlenberg was a Lutheran; Houghton was a Baptist; and no one really seems to know what denomination (if any) Jonas Clark claimed. But these men had one thing in common (besides their faith in Jesus Christ): they were all ardent patriots who actually participated in America’s War for Independence.

James Caldwell

James Caldwell was called “The Rebel High Priest” or “The Fighting Chaplain.” Caldwell is most famous for the “Give ’em Watts!” story.

During the Springfield (New Jersey) engagement, the colonial militia ran out of wadding for their muskets. Quickly, Caldwell galloped to the Presbyterian church, and returning with an armload of hymnals, threw them to the ground, and hollered, “Now, boys, give ’em Watts!” He was referring to the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts, of course.

The British hated Caldwell so much, they murdered his wife, Hannah, in her own home, as she sat with her children on her bed. Later, a fellow American who had been bribed by the British to assassinate the preacher murdered Caldwell. Americans loyal to the Crown burned both his house and church. No less than three cities and two public schools in the State of New Jersey bear his name.

John Peter Muhlenberg

John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia, when hostilities erupted between Great Britain and the American colonies. When news of Bunker Hill reached Virginia, Muhlenberg preached a sermon from Ecclesiastes chapter 3 to his congregation. He reminded his parishioners that there was a time to preach and a time to fight. He said that for him the time to preach was past and it was time to fight. He then threw off his vestments and stood before his congregants in the uniform of a Virginia colonel.

Muhlenberg later was promoted to brigadier-general in the Continental Army, and later, major general. He participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He went on to serve in both the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

Joab Houghton

Joab Houghton was in the Hopewell (New Jersey) Baptist Meeting House at worship when he received the first information regarding the battles at Lexington and Concord. His great-grandson gives the following eloquent description of the way he treated the tidings:

“[M]ounting the great stone block in front of the meeting-house, he beckoned the people to stop. Men and women paused to hear, curious to know what so unusual a sequel to the service of the day could mean. At the first, words a silence, stern as death, fell over all. The Sabbath quiet of the hour and of the place was deepened into a terrible solemnity. He told them all the story of the cowardly murder at Lexington by the royal troops; the heroic vengeance following hard upon it; the retreat of Percy; the gathering of the children of the Pilgrims round the beleaguered hills of Boston; then pausing, and looking over the silent throng, he said slowly, ‘Men of New Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren of New England! Who follows me to Boston?’ And every man in that audience stepped out of line, and answered, ‘I!’ There was not a coward or a traitor in old Hopewell Baptist Meeting-House that day.” (Cathcart, William. Baptists and the American Revolution. Philadelphia: S.A. George, 1876, rev. 1976. Print.)

Jonas Clark

Jonas Clark was pastor of the church in Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775, the day that British troops marched on Concord with orders to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, and to seize a cache of firearms. What most historians fail to acknowledge, is that it was Pastor Clark’s male congregants who were the first ones to face-off against the British troops as they marched through Lexington. When you hear the story of the “Minutemen” at the Battle of Lexington, remember those Minutemen were Pastor Jonas Clark and the men of his congregation. Yes, it was Pastor Jonas Clark and his men who fired that “shot heard ’round the world.”

On the One Year Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Clark preached a sermon based upon his eyewitness testimony of the event. He called his sermon, “The Fate of Blood-Thirsty Oppressors and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People.” His sermon has been republished by Nordskog Publishing (www.NordskogPublishing.com) under the title, “The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington.”

Of course, these four brave preachers were not the only ones to participate in America’s fight for independence. There were Episcopalian ministers such as Dr. Samuel Provost of New York, Dr. John Croes of New Jersey, and Robert Smith of South Carolina. Presbyterian ministers such as Adam Boyd of North Carolina and James Armstrong of Maryland, along with many others, also took part.

So many Baptist preachers participated in America’s War for Independence that, at the conclusion of the war, President George Washington wrote a personal letter to the Baptist people saying, “I recollect with satisfaction that the religious societies of which you are a member have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the firm friends to civil liberty, and the preserving promoters of our glorious Revolution.” It also explains how Thomas Jefferson could write to a Baptist congregation and say, “We have acted together from the origin to the end of a memorable Revolution.” (McDaniel, George White. The People Called Baptists. The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1918. Print.)

And although not every pastor was able to actively participate in our fight for independence, so many pastors throughout colonial America preached the principles of liberty and independence from their pulpits that the Crown created a moniker for them: The Black Regiment (referring to the long, black robes that so many colonial clergymen wore in the pulpit). Without question, the courageous preaching and example of colonial America’s patriot-pastors provided the colonists with the inspiration and resolve to resist the tyranny of the Crown and win America’s freedom and independence.

I invite readers to visit my Black Regiment web page to learn more about my attempt to resurrect America’s Black-Robed Regiment. Go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=23

This is the fighting heritage of America’s pastors and preachers. So, what has happened? What has happened to that fighting spirit that once existed, almost universally, throughout America’s Christian denominations? How have preachers become so timid, so shy, and so cowardly that they will stand apathetic and mute as America faces the destruction of its liberties? Where are the preachers to explain, expound, and extrapolate the principles of liberty from Holy Writ? Where are the pastors to preach the truth about Romans chapter 13?

I invite readers to watch or download my message series on “The True Meaning of Romans 13.” I brought three messages on this subject so far. The fourth and final message will be delivered this Sunday, February 20, at 2:30pm (MST). To watch the first three messages on Romans 13, which are archived online, go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?cat=16

To watch the fourth and final message on “The True Meaning of Romans 13” broadcasted live this Sunday, February 20, 2011, at 2:30 pm (MST) go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=17

The sermons Americans frequently hear today deal with prosperity theology, entertainment evangelism, feelgoodism, emotionalism, and Aren’t-I-Wonderful ear tickling! This milquetoast preaching makes it hard to find Christian men who even have control of their children, much less the courage and resolve to stand against the onslaught of socialism, corporatism, and, yes, fascism that is swallowing America whole.

America cut its spiritual teeth on the powerful preaching and exemplary examples of men such as James Caldwell, Jonas Clark, Joab Houghton, and John Peter Muhlenberg. We need them as much now as we did then.

America: Why Ur Peeps B So Dumb?

Ignorance and courage in the age of Lady Gaga…

If you hang out much with thinking people, conversation eventually turns to the serious political and cultural questions of our times. Such as: How can the Americans remain so consistently brain-fucked? Much of the world, including plenty of Americans, asks that question as they watch U.S. culture go down like a thrashing mastodon giving itself up to some Pleistocene tar pit.

One explanation might be the effect of 40 years of deep fried industrial chicken pulp, and 44 ounce Big Gulp soft drinks. Another might be pop culture, which is not culture at all of course, but marketing. Or we could blame it on digital autism: Ever watch commuter monkeys on the subway poking at digital devices, stroking the touch screen for hours on end? That wrinkled Neolithic brows above the squinting red eyes?

But a more reasonable explanation is that, (A) we don’t even know we are doing it, and (B) we cling to institutions dedicated to making sure we never find out.

As William Edwards Deming famously demonstrated, no system can understand itself, and why it does what it does, including the American social system. Not knowing shit about why your society does what it makes for a pretty nasty case of existential unease. So we create institutions whose function is to pretend to know, which makes everyone feel better. Unfortunately, it also makes the savviest among us — those elites who run the institutions — very rich, or safe from the vicissitudes that buffet the rest of us.

Directly or indirectly, they understand that the real function of American social institutions is to justify, rationalize and hide the true purpose of cultural behavior from the lumpenproletariat, and to shape that behavior to the benefit of the institution’s members. “Hey, they’re a lump. Whaddya expect us to do?”

Doubting readers may consider America’s health institutions, the insurance corporations, hospital chains, physicians’ lobbies. Between them they have established a perfectly legal right to clip you and me for thousands of dollars at their own discretion. That we so rabidly defend their right to gouge us, given all the information available in the digital age, mystifies the world.

Two hundred years ago no one would have thought sheer volume of available facts in the digital information age would produce informed Americans. Founders of the republic, steeped in the Enlightenment as they were, and believers in an informed citizenry being vital to freedom and democracy, would be delirious with joy at the prospect. Imagine Jefferson and Franklin high on Google.

The fatal assumption was that Americans would choose to think and learn, instead of cherry picking the blogs and TV channels to reinforce their particular branded choice cultural ignorance, consumer, scientific or political, but especially political. Tom and Ben could never have guessed we would chase prepackaged spectacle, junk science, and titillating rumor such as death panels, Obama as a socialist Muslim and Biblical proof that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs around Eden. In a nation that equates democracy with everyman’s right to an opinion, no matter how ridiculous, this was probably inevitable. After all, dumb people choose dumb stuff. That’s why they are called dumb.

But throw in sixty years of television’s mind puddling effects, and you end up with 24 million Americans watching Bristol Palin thrashing around on Dancing with the Stars, then watch her being interviewed with all seriousness on the networks as major news. The inescapable conclusion of half of heartland America is that her mama must certainly be presidential material, even if Bristol cannot dance. It ain’t a pretty picture out there in Chattanooga and Keokuk.

The other half, the liberal half, concludes that Bristol’s bad dancing is part of her spawn-of-the-Devil mama’s plan to take over the country, and make millions in the process, not to mention make Tina Fey and Jon Stewart richer than they already are. That’s a tall order for a squirrel brained woman who recently asked a black president to “refutiate” the NAACP (though I kinda like refutiate, myself). Cultural stupidity accounts for virtually every aspect of Sarah Palin, both as a person and a political icon. Which, come to think of it, may be a pretty good reason not to “misunderstimate” her. After all, we’re still talking about her in both political camps. And the woman OWNS the Huffington Post, fer Christsake. Not to mention a franchise on cultural ignorance.

Cultural stupidity might not be so bad, were it not self-reproducing and viral, and prone to place stupid people in charge. All of us have, at some point, looked at a boss and asked ourselves how such a numb-nuts could end up in charge of the joint.

In my own field, the book biz, the top hucksters in sales and marketing, car salesman with degrees, are put in charge of publishing the national literature. Similarly, ex-Pentagon generals segue from killing brown babies in Iraq into university presidents and CEOs. Conversely, business leaders such as Donald Rumsfeld who fancy themselves as battlefield commanders and imagine their employees as troops to be “deployed,” find themselves happily farting behind Pentagon desks. On the strength of having mistaken Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as a business text, they get selected by equally delusional national leaders to make actual war on behalf of the rest of us.

But the most widespread damage is done at more mundane operational levels of the American empire, by clones of the over promoted asshole in the corner office where you work. At least one study demonstrated that random selection for corporate promotions offset the effect significantly. Research again confirms what is common knowledge around every workplace water cooler in the country.

Save my spot in the gulag, I’m off to Wal-Mart

Cultural ignorance of one sort or another is sustained and nurtured in all societies to some degree, because the majority gains material benefit from maintaining it. Americans, for example, reap huge on-the-ground benefits from cultural ignorance — especially the middle class Babbitry — from cultural ignorance generated by American hyper-capitalism in the form of junk affluence.

Purposeful ignorance allows us to enjoy cheaper commodities produced through slave labor, both foreign, and increasingly, domestic, and yet “thank god for his bounty” in the nation’s churches without a trace of guilt or irony. It allows strong arm theft of weaker nations’ resources and goods, to say nothing of the destructiveness of late stage capitalism — using up exhausting every planetary resource that sustains human life.

The American defense, on those rare occasions when one is offered, runs roughly, “Well you commie bastard, I ain’t ever seen a sweatshop and I got no Asian kids chained in the basement. So I’ve got what the guvment calls plausible deniability. Go fuck yerself!”

Uh, don’t look now, but the banksters own your ass, your country has become a work gulag/police state and the most of the world hates you.

Such a thriving American intellectual climate enables capitalist elites to withhold and ration vital resources like health care simply by auctioning it off to the richest. Americans fail to grasp this because the most important fact (that a helluva lot of folks can’t afford to bid, and therefore get to die early) never gets equal play with capitalist political propaganda, to wit, that if we give free medical attention to low income cleft palate babies, a wave of Leninism will seize the nation. That is cultural ignorance. We breathe the stuff every day of our lives.

But when Americans too poor to buy health care nevertheless vote to retain the corporate auction process, that is cultural stupidity.

(Let us now pause to clutch our hair in our fists and scream AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!)

Like the old song says, “Them that don’t know don’t know they don’t know.” I venture to say that even if they did, they would not know why. Primary truths elude us because of the junk affluence and propaganda. We get buried under a deluge of commodities that suggest we are all rich, or at least richer than most of the world. A mountain range of cheap shoes, cars, iPods, ridiculous amounts of available foodstuffs, and the entire spectacle of engorgement defines, and is enforced as, “quality of life” under materialistic commodities capitalism. The goods we have in our clutches trump the philosophical, or even the most practical considerations. “I may die early eating unidentified beef byproducts soaked in waste chemicals, but I’ll die owning a 65-inch HDTV and a new five speed automatic Dodge Durango with a 5.7 L Hemi V8 under the hood!”

Even the threat of toasting planetary life is not enough to shake Americans loose from this disconnect. As Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Guy R. McPherson points out, “79.6% of respondents to a Scientific American poll are unwilling to forgo even a single penny to forestall the risk of catastrophic climate change. Scientific American readers undoubtedly are better informed than the general populace. And yet they won’t pay a thing to avoid extinction of our species. Kinda makes you warm and fuzzy all over, doesn’t it?”

Let us pray the next generation is a tad sharper.

Taser the tots

The “American Lifestyle,” increasingly suspect as it is these days, is heavily soldiered and policed in the name of keeping we self-defined lotus eaters safe and secure from a jealous outside world. Which according to cultural consensus is a world that is at this very moment is stuffing its under drawers with explosives and buying plane tickets to Moline. Cultural ignorance dictates that the best way to stop foreign terrorists flying into the country is by humiliating American citizens flying out of the country. Go ahead, grope me, X-ray my dick and for god sake don’t let anyone bring a large bottle of shampoo on board. In an obedient, authority worshipping police state, physical insult and surveillance are proof of safety.

It’s profitable too, and not just for scanner manufacturers. The brouhaha over body scanners and crotch groping provide media with titillating fuel for ratings, thereby driving up TV advertising rates, which is passed on in the price of products we buy. So we pay to be insulted, have the hell scared out of us, and to unknowingly have our behavior shaped. Under American style capitalism, this mobius strip of cultural ignorance is called a win-win situation for everybody.

This also conveniently distracts us from the everyday human insult we practice on one another, as a result of state manufactured cultural misinformation — fear. Ten years of orange alerts and post 9/11 fear mongering have led us to draw some paradoxical cultural conclusions.

Let us briefly careen off into one of these paradoxes. For instance, that we can taser our way to domestic security and tranquility. Yes, it’s ugly business, but tasing the citizenry must be done. And besides, in these days of high unemployment, it’s a paycheck for somebody — usually, the guy who sat behind us in grade school happily eating chalk.

With taser packing police officers in thousands of schools, even grade schools (a weird enough cultural statement to begin with — needless to say, the resulting deaths and injuries of school kids have personal injury lawyers shouting eureka and contemplating new recreational sail craft moored at Martha’s Vineyard. Such are the rewards of righteous works through cult-ig.

In any case, the chance at a juicy lawsuit is accepted as a satisfactory offset to any screaming and writing in our school hallways. What are 50,000 volts and a little nerve damage, compared to a shot at paying off the credit cards, upgrading the family ride, and maybe remodeling the kitchen too?

But we gotta stick to the subject of cultural ignorance here, mainly because I wrote the title first and am determined to maintain some illusion of a theme here, or at least bullshit the reader into thinking that I have.

Soooo . . .

It can be safely said that cultural ignorance consists of the rational, sensible questions that never get asked. But it also includes the weird ones that are. For instance, one of the questions asked regarding tasering school kids is: What is the allowable weight range of a child to be tased? (Taser manufacturers say 60 pounds.) Somehow, by this geezer’s prehistoric reasoning, that sounds like the wrong question, not to mention one that by its nature leads us away from the cultural truth.

The truth is that we live in a society which sanctions semi-electrocution of its own children on the grounds that it is not fatal, and therefore not true electrocution. It springs from the same streak of cultural cruelty that deems semi-drowning by water boarding not to be torture because it is seldom fatal.

This is not to be uncharitable to American communities willing to pony up tax money for school tasers. They’ve amply demonstrated their affectionate commitment to their children by bringing creationism and pizza-for-breakfast into the schools. But there remains the question, “What kind of community comes up with the idea of tasering its own children?”

The information racketeers

It is the job of our combined institutions to manage cultural information so as to deny the harmful aspects of the rackets they protect through legislation and promote through institutional research. That’s why research shows that cell phone microwaves cause long term memory loss in rats, but do not harm people. Evidently, we are of different, more bullet proof mammalian material.

Our hyper capitalist system, through command of our research, media and political institutions, expands upon and disseminates only that information which generates money and transactions. It avoids, neglects or spins the hell out of information that does not. And if none of those work, the info is exiled to some corner of cyberspace such as Daily Kos, where it cannot change the status quo, yet can be ballyhooed as proof of our national freedom of expression. Here come the rotten eggs from the Internet liberals.

Cyberspace by nature feels very big from the inside, and its affinity groups, seeing themselves in aggregate and in mutual self reference, imagine their role bigger and more effective than it is. From within the highly directed, technologically administrated, marketed-to and propagandized rat cage called America, this is all but impossible to comprehend. Especially when corporate owned media tells us it is.

Take the world recent shaking WikiLeak’s “revelations” of Washington’s petty misery and drivel, which are scarcely revelations, just more extensive details about what we all already knew. Come on now, is it a revelation that Karzai and his entire government is a nest of fraudulent double-crossing thieves? Or that the US is duplicitous? Or that Angela Merkel is dull? The main revelation in the WikiLeaks affair was the U.S. government’s response — which was to bring US freedom of speech policy firmly in line with China’s. Millions of us in cyber ghettoes saw it coming, but our alarm warnings were shouted inside a cyberspace vacuum bell jar.

Bear in mind that I am writing this from outside the US borders and media environment, where people watch the WikiLeaks story unfold more in amusement than anything else.

The WikiLeaks affair is surely seismic to those whose asses ride on the elite diplomatic intrigues. But in the big picture it will not change the way the top lizards in global politics, money and war have done business since the feudal age — which is to say with arrogant disregard for the rest of us. Theirs is an ancient system of human dominance that only shifts names and methodologies over the centuries. Two years from now, little will have changed in the old, old story of the powerful few over the powerless many. In this overarching drama, Obama, Hillary and Julian Assange are passing players. Watching the sweaty, fetid machinations of our overlords with such passionate involvement only keeps us from seeing the big picture — that they are the players and we are the pawns.

Still, I for one am in favor of giving Assange the Médaille militaire, the Noble Prize, 15 virgins in paradise and a billion in cash as a reward for his courage in doing damned well the only significant thing that can be done at this time — momentarily fucking up government control of information. But “potentially stimulating a new age of U.S. government transparency,” (BBC) it ain’t.”

Which brings us to back to the question of cultural ignorance. For ten points, why was Julian Assange forced to do what the world press was supposed to be doing in the first place?

Bulletin: PayPal has caved to government pressure to pull WikiLeak’s PayPal account for contributions. However, the feds generously let PayPal keep its porn and prostitution clients.

The transparency scam

It is a form of cultural ignorance to believe that at some point or other, we were more in charge and that our government was somehow more transparent in the past. Societies declining into obsolescence understandably resist looking forward, and hang onto their past mythologies. Consequently, both liberals and conservatives in America feed on myths of political action which died in Vietnam. The results are ludicrous. Tea Partiers attempt to emulate the 1960s protest gatherings by staging rallies sponsored by the richest beneficiaries of the status quo. For the average TP participant, the goal, near as I can tell, is to “start a new American Revolution,” by wearing foodstuffs, screaming, threatening, and voting for nitwits. Media pundits proclaim the Tea Party “a historic populist movement.”

Neither populist, nor authentic movement, the Tea Party may yet prove historic, however, by seriously fucking things up more than they already are. Spun entirely from manufactured spectacle (and thus void of cohesive political philosophy or internal logic), the Tea Party lurches across the political landscape bellowing at the cameras and collecting the victims of cultural ignorance in sort of a medieval idiots crusade. But to the American public, seeing the Tea Party on television is proof enough of relevancy and significance. After all, stuff doesn’t get on TV unless it’s important.

Progressives also fancy a revolution, one in which they participate through the Internet petitions, and media events such as the risk free Jon Stewart Rally to Restore Sanity, where no one risked even missing an episode of Tremaine. Seeing people like themselves on television was proof fighting the good fight. The Stewart rally was nonetheless culturally historic; we will never see a larger public display of post modern irony congratulating itself.

In the historical view, cultural ignorance is more than the absence of knowledge. It is also the result of long term cultural and political struggle. Since the industrial revolution, the struggle has been between capital and workers. Capital won in America and spread its successful tactics worldwide. Now we watch global capitalism wreck the world and attempt to stay ahead of that wreckage clutching its profits. A subservient world kneels before it, praying that planet destroying jobs will fall their way. Will unrestrained global capitalism, with all the power and momentum on its side and motivated purely by machinelike harvesting of profits, reduce the faceless masses in its path to slavery? Does a duck shit in a pond?

Meanwhile, here we are, American riders on the short bus, barreling into the Grand Canyon. With typical American gunpoint optimism, we’ve convinced ourselves we’re in an airplane. A few smarter kids in the back whisper about hijacking and turning the bus around. But the security cop riding shotgun just strokes his taser and smiles. Not that yours truly has the ass to take on the security surveillance state. Hell no. I jumped out the window when the bus shot past Mexico.

What America needs is some balls

GOP honcho Mitch O’Connell says what America needs is for Republicans to finish beating the snot out of Obama, and strengthen the already rich by eliminating taxes for them and shifting the burden onto us. Obama says America needs to find bipartisan cooperation with the party of ruthlessness. Elton John says that America needs more compassion (Thanks, we never noticed).

What America really needs is a wall-to-wall people’s insurrection, preferably based on force and fear of force, the only thing oligarchs understand. And even then the odds are not good. The oligarchs have all the legal power, police, jails and prisons, surveillance and firepower. Not to mention a docile populace.

Shy of open insurrection, a nationwide refusal to pay income taxes would certainly shake things up. But broader America is happy in the sense they know happiness as an undisturbed regimen of toil, stress and commodity consumption. Despite the way it looks in the news, most Americans remain untouched by foreclosure, bankruptcy and unemployment. So risking loss of their work-buy-sleep cycle in an insurrection looks to be sheer lunacy to them. Like cows, they are kept comfortable in the pure animal sense to be milked for profit. Animal comfort kills all thoughts of revolution. Hell, half of mankind would be thrilled with the average American’s present material situation.

And besides, revolutionary history does not exist for Americans. The 20th Century’s successful revolutions in Russia, Germany, Mexico, China, and Cuba are wired into our minds as history’s evil failures, because all but one were Marxist. (The only successful non-Marxist revolution of the 20th Century was Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution).

So if we are talking change through revolt, we’re necessarily talking about deconditioning because the thing we fear already has a life deep in our own consciousness. Deconditioning from cultural ignorance is at the heart of any insurrectionary politics.

Deconditioning also involves risk and suffering. But it is transformative, freeing the self from helplessness and fear. It unleashes the fifth freedom, the right to an autonomous consciousness. That makes deconditioning about as individual and personal act as is possible. Maybe the only genuine individual act.

Once unencumbered by self-induced and manufactured cultural ignorance, it becomes clear that politics worldwide is entirely about money, power and national mythology, with or without some degree of human rights. America still has all of the above to one degree or another. Yet for all practical purposes, such as advancing the freedom and the well being of its own people, the American republic has collapsed.

Of course, there is still money to be made by the already rich. So the million or so people who own the country and the government use their control to convince us that there is no collapse, just economic and political problems that need to be solved. Naturally, they are willing to do that for us. Consequently, the economy is discussed in political terms, because the government is the only body with the power to legislate, and therefore render the will of the owning class into law.

But politics and money are never going to fill what is essentially a public vacuum that is moral, philosophical and spiritual. (The latter was instantly recognized by fundamentalist Christians, disfigured by cultural ignorance, as they may be.) Not many ordinary Americans talk about this vacuum. The required spiritual and philosophical language has been successfully purged by newspeak, popular culture, a human regimentation process masquerading as a national educational system, and the ruthlessness of everyday competition, which leaves no time to contemplate anything.

Still, the void, the meaninglessness of ordinary work and the emptiness of daily life scares thinking citizens shitless, with its many unspeakables, spy cams, security state pronouncements, citizens being economically disappeared, and general back-of-the-mind unease. Capitalism’s faceless machinery has colonized our very souls. If the political was not personal to begin with, it’s personal now.

Some Americans believe we can collectively triumph over the monolith we presently fear and worship. Others believe the best we can do is to find the personal strength to endure and go forward on lonely inner plains of the self.

Doing either will take inner moral, spiritual and intellectual liberation. It all depends on where you choose to fight your battle. Or if you even choose to fight it. But one thing is certain. The only way out is in.

Source: Joe Bageant

That Republican 2010 Landslide and What It Means

Conventional wisdom has that the Republican Party will kick butt in the midterm elections. Soon the actual results will be posted. Trusting that electronic machines are accurate is totally another matter. What is certain is that incumbents face an uphill battle to retain their privileges. Will it make a meaningful difference if the GOP takes control of the House of Representatives and even the Senate? How many times have you heard this is the most important election ever?

Old horse warriors from hard fought campaigns seldom believe their own party line rhetoric. Political pronouncements are worth about as much as a mailer that arrives a day late. Elections are a spectacle, especially in off years. The more that people yearn for substantive change the further out of reach it turns out to be. Why is disappoint the norm?

It starts with the political culture and it ends with the next crop of political hacks. Folks, elections thwart the will of the people because the party structure is designed to prevent true reformers from being elected. Even in the rare instance that an actual hero is fortunate enough to carve out a majority tally, the legislative body he or she enters abhors any rebellious attitude of changing systemic corruption.

Add to this dilemma the shoddy record Republicans chalked up when they were last the majority. Joyful celebration of a GOP landslide only helps DC real estate brokers. That is exactly the reason why so many people refuse to participate in the process. How many election cycles do you have to endure before you admit that incumbents only leave, when told that their time of serving the political elite is up? Both Republicans and Democrats are clones about power distribution. Indoctrination into party boot camp is the regiment drill for freshman legislators.

Back in 1945 Frank Chodorov wrote these words,

“It is this transference of power from voter to elected agents that is the crux of republicanism. The transference is well-nigh absolute. Even the constitutional limitations are not so in fact, since they can be circumvented by legal devices in the hands of the agents.

If we quit voting. Such abstinence would be tantamount to this notice to politicians: since we as individuals have decided to look after our affairs, your services are no longer needed.

Remember that the proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution. As soon as the nonvoting movement got up steam, the politicians would most assuredly start a counterrevolution. Measures to enforce voting would be instituted; fines would be imposed for violations, and prison sentences would be meted out to repeaters”.

Just consider how much worse the political environment has deteriorated since the end of World War II. For political junkies who want the latest score board examine Election Projections. The more significant races are among Governors, with a projected loss to Democrats of seven seats. When redistricting comes after the 2010 census, Republican governors have the opportunity to redraw state districts to their advantage. Gerrymandering is a bipartisan practice.

The Hill reports a Midterm blowout: 50 or more Dem seats set to fall in the election.

“The Hill’s data confirm other public polling and expert predictions, some of which put the historic wave even higher than the 52 seats Democrats lost in 1994 and the 71 they lost in 1938.

Pollster Stuart Rothenberg wrote Tuesday that Democrats face the potential of “a political bloodbath the size of which we haven’t seen since the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

The coattails of a large voter turnout will demonstrate a discontent over the ultra extremists that surround the Obama junta. Do not be deceived that Republicans have finally found religion. They just are the “out party” and the “in party” has pushed the envelope of State/Capitalism to the brink. Although the excitement of reversing Obamacare is appealing, the practical reality is that the POTUS will veto any rational attempt to prevent the wholesale destruction of the American economy and health care.

How far will the Democrats go? Answer how foul is the stench of voter fraud!

In the home state of Senator “Boss” Harry Reid, you get this KVVU report from Las Vegas.

“Clark County election officials insisted on Tuesday that electronic voting machines were not malfunctioning at polling locations are some voters complained that Sen. Harry Reid’s name had been pre-selected.

Controversy arose after Boulder City resident Joyce Ferrara complained to FOX5 that when she went to vote for GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle, Reid’s name was already checked.

“Something’s not right,” Ferrara said. She claimed her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen”.

No doubt the machine did not malfunction, they are designed to register the intended result of selection of the elite’s choice. Voter fraud is a core Democratic principle and along with their union partners, is practiced with all the intensity of a serial killer. Watch, Top Union Official Caught on Tape Discussing Voter Fraud.

If the Democrat leadership is so fearful of a Republican takeover, what should the public fear from a GOP possible controlled House, Senate or Statehouses? Two viewpoints clash with their answer.

Bruce Walker in the article, Good News for GOP and Great News for Conservatives, reasons,

“What does this conservative majority mean? It means that Democrats reject the label of “liberal” and embrace “moderate.” It means the left, who invariably tag all conservatives as “far-right-wing,” “ultra-conservative,” or some insulting term, indeed recognize the existence of ordinary conservatives who favor smaller government, lower taxes, states’ rights, restoration of traditional moral values in schools and media, and the de-politicization of everyday life. There is a vast gulf between Stalinists who occupy the choke points of education, information, government, and entertainment in America and us, the huge conservative majority. This disconnect is so vast that there are two Americas: the ocean of conservatives and the small, delusional islands of leftists whose ignorance of America is so profound that they might as well be colonial governors from some European kingdom. It means that “Flyover Country” includes much more than those states called “Jesusland.” Flyover Country is all of America, except for imperial enclaves in Washington, Manhattan, Hollywood, and those leftist monasteries called universities. Even Gallup concurs: conservatives outnumber liberals in every state of the union”.

Mr. Walker expresses the key insight that recognizes that America is fundamentally divided. The split is irrevocable and necessary. What possible common ground can a country share with Statists that plot to destroy the essence of the Republic?

The victim culture of the left has a different viewpoint. Mary Shaw in her essay, If Republicans win, concludes,

“If the Republicans win enough of the less highly publicized House races throughout this nation, the Democrats could lose its majority on that side of Congress, likely rendering the House as incapable of productive work as the Senate has been in the past two years.

If the Republicans win these elections, it will further embolden the Tea Partiers for 2012. (Can you say “President Palin”?)

And, if the Republicans win these elections, it will be a direct result of the stubborn attitudes of the disappointed Democrats who chose to stay at home and let it happen”.

This analysis is as lame as the fantasies of “do-gooders” who want the government nanny to usher in an age of universal plenty, as long as it does not come out of the pockets of the privileged elites. Only a political novice would claim that sincere Tea Party advocates would support a NeoCon like Sarah Palin. No wonder fair weather Democrats seldom vote; not out of principle, but because they are too confused to “get it”.

The Republican Party’s attempt to co-opt the spontaneous spirit of the Tea Party geneses illustrates the panic that both entrenched parties have from a true populist movement. The mind dead voters who continually vote for the lesser of two evils, or adhere to the squishy William Buckley rule guarantee perpetual servitude. “The Buckley Rule is, ostensibly, that you vote for the most electable conservative option (in the primary) against a Democrat in November”.

Getting beyond the inevitability that only a Democrat or Republican has the right to rule is totally un-American. Mr. Chodorov’s option makes more sense than conferring your sacred consent to a corrupt governance system. The Last Hurrah warns, “some of you condemn the Electoral College for not reflecting the Will of the People? Think again. Making the ‘Machine’ the final judge of what is a fair election is like giving the keys to your house to your neighborhood rapist”. Democrats seek to register illegal aliens for voting. Republicans voted for the Patriot Act. How can either be trusted? A GOP landslide will be the last test for Republicans. If they fail, no need to revisit the topic of elections. Yes, Mr. Chodorov a revolutionary change is necessary.

There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen. ~ Author Unknown

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right. ~ H.L. Mencken, 1956

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