The Republican Convention and the Ron Paul Revolution

The Grand Old Party produced a scripted appeal to the faithful. The 2012 Republican Party convention in Tampa, designed to sell a filtered image of a country club version of conservatism, begs the historic substance of a traditional embodiment of true timeless values. Hitting a range of obligatory themes is not equivalent to standing for the principles of a constitutional republic. Appealing to the estranged elements of the GOP needs more than words to restore faith and hope. Reasoned policy stands require a refutation of the failure of the Neoconservative agenda. So do not be duped by the language in the platform.

The indomitable Phyllis Schlafly loves the planks, in the article: Republican Party platform best yet.

“It rejects a long list of United Nations treaties, including the treaty on women’s rights, the treaty on the rights of the child, the treaty on persons with disabilities, the arms trade treaty and the Law of the Sea treaty. The platform also rejects Agenda 21, including its proposal for a global tax and various U.N. declarations on the environment.

Altogether, the 2012 Republican Platform is an excellent document written by grass-roots conservatives. It is a true reflection of American values.”

Now how can any red blooded conservative disagree with a political party that rejects the globalism of the United Nations? Well, our distinguished champion at the Eagle Forum engages in wishful thinking, if she believes that the platform is anything more than tomorrows fish wrapper paper.

 

For a concise analysis of the irrelevance of the planks in the platform, view the  video. In politics, deeds count, while rhetoric blows away with the wind.

Judge a campaign by the political handlers and their records. Examine the viewpoints that the political endorsers are committed to their core. The notion expressed by the New York Times in Platform’s Sharp Turn to Right Has Conservatives Cheering may give temporary joy, but the ugly underbelly of the NeoCon purity sect is at work to purge the party of the residual of real conservatives.

You can trust such social outcasts as the John Birch Society, when their columnist, Joe Wolverton II reveals what really transpired at the convention in the article, RNC, Romney Combine to Quiet Ron Paul and his Delegates.

“As we have reported, on August 24 the RNC voted to rob Ron Paul of half of Ryan’s fellow Maine delegates won by the iconic Texas congressman at that state’s Republican convention held in May.

Later that same day the RNC  granting the ruling cabal — and by extension their candidate, Mitt Romney — unchecked power to change the party’s rules.Does the RNC believe that such effrontery will somehow convince the Ron Paul delegates to quietly consent to the coronation of Mitt Romney? Perhaps they believe that flexing their manipulative muscle will pressure Dr. Paul to endorse Romney’s run for the White House.”

The irony of the name of our publication site, Breaking All The Rules, should not be misconstrued as support for the criminal corporatist methods of crushing the grass root activists within the Republican Party. Quite to the contrary, the Ron Paul militants are the essence of the Tea Party revolt. So when the armchair convention watcher settles into their recliner to catch the victory melody for the Amerikan hegemony, as the speakers sing the glory of military superiority to expand the empire, all loyal nationalists hit the mute button. Keep the visuals on in the background so you know whom not to trust.

The exact extent of the methods used to beat down the legitimate Paulist delegates, not reported in the mass media, is appalling. Consider these exerts from a message of a Ron Paul activist, David Andrew Gay, attending the GOP convention:

“Properly elected Ron Paul delegates were stripped from us. And when a motion was made to amend the Credentials Committee Report, it was ignored.

Morton Blackwell, a longtime conservative activist and RNC Rules Committee expert, found himself indefinitely detained – along with the rest of the Virginia delegation.

The RNC’s bus driver responsible for transporting delegates somehow “got lost” for well over an hour until a critical Rules Committee meeting adjourned.

Blackwell and the Virginia delegation were heading up the efforts to defeat new RNC rules proposed by Washington, D.C.-based insider attorneys.

These rules are designed to turn the Republican Party into a top-down organization and strip power away from state parties and grassroots activists of every stripe.”

So much for the “Big Tent” of the Romney GOP, that has all those resurrected Rockefeller Republicans intoxicated from drinking the toxic NeoCon kool-aid. There is a reason why the NeoCons are former Trotskyists.

Note the frustration from Justin Phillips of Tea Party Nation in the YouTube, . It is obvious that Romney is an establishment insider anointed to continue the global governance and has little tolerance for anyone who rejects and challenges the phony conservative pleading.

The magnitude of eradicating Ron Paul supporters and grassroots Tea Party proponents from representation in a possible Romney administration, forecasts a repeat of the 2008 Senator John McCain debacle. The same warmongering support for the rogue Israeli Zionists is a central part of a Romney capitulation to the dark side. Worry not about the oblique Mormon cult influence, when you have the real deal in the likes of NeoCon cultists like Connie Rice conning the nation once again.

Even if you wish to ignore the monumental topic of fostering an American First foreign policy, what would Romney do to restrain the inexplicable power of the Federal Reserve? If the GOP standard-bearer seriously wanted to reconstruct the economy, the most significant step would be to offer the chairmanship of the Fed to Ron Paul. The idea of reappointing Ben Shalom Bernanke to a third term would allow “Helicopter Ben” to become the “manna from heaven” idol of the New World Order.

The prospects of giving the keys to the kingdom to Ron Paul; with the instructions to transition into a debtless created currency, would prove Romney’s credentials as an authentic patriot. Of course, the reality that this would happen is on the same level as enacting the other planks of the platform.

The Irrelevance of the Republican Party, demonstrated at this establishment-orchestrated convention is building a backlash. The social network is abuzz with a call to action. The accomplished cartoonist Kevin George Tuma leads the charge with a posting of a public event on Facebook: .

“A special invitation to members of the Ron Paul Revolution, libertarians, and real conservatives who are fed up with the shady dealings of the Republican Party and its failed and useless ‘Socialist Party B’ ways. Boycott the Republican Party and vote Third party!”

Now for Republican “True Believers” such a movement will be condemned as an endorsement for a second Obama term. Only the meatheads that keep voting for the lesser of two evils, and believe they are making a difference will be sucked, again into the aiding and abetting the global governance of another Republican enabler administration.

When will the public accept that: “Since national elections have proved to be irrelevant,tweedledum and tweedledee charades, what’s the point in getting worked up over the next cycle?” If you doubt the wisdom in this conclusion, join either one of the branded political parties and work on the local level to affect party policy. During this election year, that is exactly what the Ron Paul supporters attempted to accomplish.

How did that turn out?

Until a nationwide movement for a third party coalition is agreed upon as the only plausible option to beat back the corporate controlled media propaganda machine, will the voice of patriotic dissent be heard. This billion dollar presidential campaign changes nothing significant in the consolidation of the financial global gulag.

As fundamentalists pray for a Romney triumph over the diabolical Obama puppet, they will need to obtain their salvation without the Ron Paul loyalists. Would a Romney regime be better than a second Obama term? Well, let us hope so; but that answer ignores the fact that essential and bold re-institution of constitutional and bill of right precepts no longer are part of the Republican hierarchy agenda.

If a mercenary army of a despotic political party can impose a tyrannical security around their GOP convention, why will the same political elites not demand that troops be deployed to close down our open and undefended borders?

Mitt Romney is John McCain lite. The Republican Party power structure will not accept a Ron Paul partisan to gain any significant position of authority. The money interests that control both heads of the two party fake rivalries are unwilling to allow a restoration of the vision for the original Republic.

Unfortunately, Rand Paul still needs to learn this lesson. Now that Ron Paul is ending his term in Congress, the prospect for passing the torch awaits a new champion of liberty.

London 2012 Olympics – The Games Changer

Red Ice Radio has gathered together some of the most important research and opinions on what might be the motivations, the plans, the symbolism, the purposes, and the potential outcomes of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Hours of interviews and examination have culminated in a body of knowledge that breaks down the mainstream narrative and alerts the public to be aware in 2012.

Listen to our entire 2½ hour Olympics Special.

Will there be death? Mayhem? Terrorist attacks?

Will terrible catastrophes usher in a new era of war and control? A New World Order?

Will the stars align and inaugurate a dynamic of peace and goodwill among humanity? A new paradigm of consciousness?

These possibilities and more have been speculated upon for the years leading up to 2012, and now that time is upon us. The London 2012 Olympics have arrived with much anticipation, but whether one sees this as a glorious time to celebrate the union of athletic champions, or instead a cause for raising alarm, is a matter debated by many.

There are plenty of clues that suggests that the Olympic “celebration” and many of the surrounding events and installations are part of an “occult mega ritual”, and one can’t help to wonder exactly who it is supposed to benefit?

According to the Greek history, the first Olympic games were dedicated to the twelve Olympian gods, and were based on ancient mythology and religion. The tradition and special meaning of the games – the heroic competition and the fantastic effort to combine mind, body, and will in a attuned whole – is what energizes the games to this day.

But what other ’special meanings’ can be found in the modern Olympic games?

***

Ian Crane – Ian reasserts the importance of a careful approach to esoteric, occult and conspiratorial subject matters. He also talks about the phenomenal acceleration into global governance unfolding before our eyes and discusses the extraordinary militarization of London: 49,000 troops will be present for the games – but what are they guarding against?

“The London Olympics, in my opinion… are going to be used as a platform to springboard the introduction of global governance.

London is already the most surveilled capital on the planet, but of course what’s coming up in the next few weeks with the Olympics is just unbelievable. We are looking at an area of the city of London literally becoming THE most securitized place on the planet with the possible exception of the West Bank, or Gaza. It is absolutely horrendous.

We’ve got helicopter carriers in the River Thames. We’ve got anti-aircraft missiles being placed on the roofs of apartment blocks around the Olympic area…
The British government is doing its best to encourage long-serving police officers who joined up for all the right reasons to leave, to take early retirement. And what they’re being replaced with is basically thugs….
We are literally seeing the privatization of policing so what we’re ending up with is the equivalent of night-club bouncers policing the streets.

…there’s a situation here where it’s NORMALIZING these outrageous excesses.”

Listen to the interview we did with Ian Crane from May 22, 2008, that started much of this research:

Ian Crane – The New World Order’s Quest for Zion in 2012.

Rik Clay- Rik discusses his findings about the ’Zion Olympics’ in London leading up to the end game year 2012. Rik presents a connection with numerology and synchronicity and delves into: 11:11, pyramid numerology, Solar Eclipse, September Eleventh, The Birth of Christ, Zion, and more.
Rik couples all this with the “new age” and how an “end game messiah” will be presented to us around 2012.

“ If you shuffle the Olympics 2012 logo around, you can spell the word ‘ZION’. Obviously Zion stands for the term ‘New Jerusalem’.

First thing that was brought to my mind was the poem by William Blake. William Blake wrote a poem in the 18th century called “Jerusalem”. Blake was a known 18th century esotericist with connections to the Freemasons. When we talk about Olympics 2012, we’re talking about something that’s been planned for hundreds of years…

…this occult symbology is working on the subconscious, and it’s working on the subconscious of the global population, then it’s got the ability to bring itself forward into matter.

You’ve got a number of roads that circle [the Olympic] site…
All the way around the Olympics 2012 site, which you could call “Zion” if you go with the logo, it’s biblical road names surrounding the whole site. There’s not one road name that’s not biblical. You start looking at that and you think ’what the hell is going on?’

There’s this crazy CGI ‘action film’ on how they’re going to build the Olympic 2012 stadium. This has got it all in it. Basically within 40 seconds of this video there’s four chimneys that stand like an 11:11, but then it moves into the most significant symbology you could ever see – an “Independence Day” style mother ship, little UFOs flying all around. Then it ends in robotic streetwalkers in the middle of London, stomping around the place towards the Olympic stadium.
Does this mean there is a significant event looming for the Olympics?”

David Icke – David interprets an ’energetic’ perspective on the Zion Olympics. He describes mass ritual, symbols and energy vampirism. How many people will be tuning in? What kind of energy and intention will be poured into these events from around the world?

” 2012, whatever we think about it, it’s a focus year…

And of course the most blatant and obvious symbol of the Olympics is the lighted torch. And what do they do? They light the fire and the flame goes throughout the games.
There is a synchronicity of all this, and London, and 2012, that means that it is very, very important to them.

Energy flows where attention goes.

Billions and billions of people worldwide, during the London games are going to be focused on London.

It’s all about energy. It’s all about manipulation of energy, manipulation of information fields, so that you subconsciously, subliminally manipulate people’s perception of reality.”

William Henry – William wonders if the dwellers of Sion will return in 2012. Will there be a disclosure of sorts, heralded by the London Olympics? Williams mentions the return of Quetzecoatl, the feathered serpent and explains how the symbols used during the Olympics are pointing to the opening of a StarGate. Lines blur mythology and iconography – which is light, dark, good or bad?

“You’ve got this rainbow motif going directly connected with Sion, and here we’re talking about these mascots manifesting as rainbow beings of the games…

It’s coincidental, it’s fun, it means nothing… but it might mean a lot actually. It might mean EVERYTHING.
There’s unquestionably another layer of meaning that is here to be interpreted with all this symbolism in London.

…it became clear that this is exactly how a cabal or a New World Order group would introduce this new world religion.
It would be at a global ceremony such as this…

…those with eyes to see get the message.”

Ben Fellows – Ben, an investigative journalist specialising in undercover work, warns that the security is a ridiculous sham and, worse than being simply theatre, is a real threat to the safety of all involved in the London Olympics. After infiltrating the G4S company in charge of security and seeing the alarming failings throughout, he speaks out on the disaster that’s waiting to happen.
The English Home Office now scrambles to ‘fill in the gaps’ with increased troop presence. Will this rectify anything, or is this ’outrage’ a way to dodge accountability if a terrorist event occurs?

“…This is dangerous stuff…

I’m not going to the Olympics. Everyone who knows me has actually given their ticket back … because they don’t want to go because they all feel it’s unsafe as well.

Most of the x-ray operators I spoke to in my class were scared. They were terrified. They’d turn round to me and say “Look, we’re missing, basically, major objects coming through.” I had to actually pretend to be a would-be terrorist. I was given a knife, I was given a gun, I was given this fake IED to go through. The walk-through metal detector don’t pick up the gun or the knife because there’s not enough metal in them. “Here’s a phone, here’s some keys”, and then it went off. The x-ray officer wasn’t even looking in the bag with the IED in it.

The worst case scenario is a dirty bomb, probably which is already in the stadium…

…the Olympic stadium has got quite a lot of radioactive material in the ground. They used to deal with a lot of radioactive material there. And the radioactive material that’s in the ground is something called thorium that has a half-life of about 14 billion years, or something crazy. It’s really devastating stuff…
If a bomb were to go off, even a fairly small sized bomb, thorium has a property to it whereby it becomes a lot more explosive and so it would increase the explosion.

The best case scenario, I suppose, is that they’re just incompetent and out to steal money.

Listen to our entire interview with Ben: here

Chad Stuempke – Chad looks at ancient sacred landscapes, star-gate parks, and deciphers cosmic symbolism found therein. He suggests that our symbolism originates from the cosmos – it’s subconsciously downloaded from the Artisan Architects.

“There’s a LOT of intentional symbolism going on… a lot of it’s backing up the conspiracy theories that have been swirling around, in particular the ’Zion’ and ’New Jerusalem’… in particular the rainbow symbolism, the gateway symbolism, that I believe isn’t necessarily intentional… the Illuminati, so to speak, isn’t behind it.

Over the years I’ve been watching these urban portals and cosmic parks being brought to fruition, in particular special places and special times. I’ve been watching this 2012 Olympic park being built and, coinciding the research, it didn’t take long to realize that a lot of this symbolism is the same things we’ve been looking at previously.
They’re literally bringing into fruition a cosmic park… This may be some sort of symbolic disclosure that’s emanating from the cosmos.

Both aliens and giants have made appearances in opening ceremonies over the last couple of decades. It kinda started in 1984 in Los Angeles. They lowered the… UFO, down into the stadium during closing ceremonies – it was a seven foot, eight inch, ’giant’ as the announcer said, dressed in an alien suit. It got out and talked to the crowd, saluted the crowd. He was proud of the Olympic ideals.”

Bob Schlenker – Bob studies the hidden meanings and patterns found in religion and culture, and ties them into what is unfolding in the London Olympic Games of 2012. He warns that blood rituals and dark societies are driving humanity towards something ominous.

“I look for anything that speaks to me of an occult intent, that there’s a ritual behind it. There’s a number of themes I’ve been tracking in other places, and there’s a cross-threading with the Olympics really heavily.
It’s really sinister. It looks like there’s a threat behind almost all of it.
The nature of the mass ritual suggests some things that really need our attention.

I don’t know who is in the know and who is not, but people do give direction about these things. It’s the way of the occult operations of the Illuminati and the Masons and all the secret societies to announce in advance what’s going on.
It’s part of the rules of engagement.”

Stewart Swerdlow – Stewart cautions people to be watchful in 2012 for false flag attempts, especially under the guise of a dramatic alien war. The powers that be have been embedding symbols and scenarios into our consciousness for years, and 2012 might be the ’end game’ where they employ high technologies and mind control to subvert humanity through fear and horror, and establish a new, unimagined grip upon the globe.

“It is my belief , and I may be wrong, but this might be the perfect opportunity for the Illuminati to stage an alien invasion with billions of people focused on one place on the earth at one time. They can have anything in the sky with the Bluebeam Project, they can use the missiles to fire at them. They can make quite an event.

It’s a time of many things coming together to leave it as a simple event – the Illuminati would never let that happen, of course. It’s the year 2012, so it’s the ‘end times’ according to the Mayan calendar … It is also the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. It is also in London, the center of the global empire, so there’s many factors coming together all at once…

It’s a very symbolic time and we can expect something to happen of a global proportion.”

***

We must all wait and see what will unfold during the 2012 London Olympic Games. It may be that all of these things may occur, or something might happen that we could not possibly have imagined or anticipated. The games might begin and end and nothing of significance will seem to have occurred on the grand stage.

Yet for a time our mass consciousness will have been captured, and the symbolism of the global Olympics will have been driven even more deeply into our psyches.

A new ’normal’ will have been established regarding high security, fractured privacy, and invasive surveillance, at least. An incredible trauma will shape us and make us more pliant and fearful, at worst.

Whatever occurs, the London 2012 Olympics will be seen and remembered as a real game changer.

Source: Henrik Palmgren and Elizabeth Leafloor | Red Ice Creations

Stop the Tyranny of World Government

Bring Back Freedom…

Are we the victims of a conspiracy?  Yes, we are.  Were our Founders victims of nefarious influences from Europe?  Yes, they were.  Are Talmudist Jews seeking to destroy Christian America?  Yes, they are.  Is Judaism at war with Christianity?  Yes, it is.  Has our government been bought and paid for by forces that seek to weaken it and meld it into world tyranny.  Yes, it has.  Is “Illuminati” an apt description of this world’s encompassing evil?   Yes, it is.  Do bankers like David Rockefeller and the European Rothschild families conspire for world domination?  Yes, they do.  Can we indict the Vatican for contributing to the world’s evils? Yes, we can.

The plot for world domination progresses slowly.  The defunct League of Nations was the first contemporary ploy.  It failed but another war created the United Nations which has stuck around and filtered its influence into the world’s legal codes.  NAFTA, GATT, and CAFTA were followed by international business consolidations that made big corporations bigger and destroyed the thousands of small businesses that were no longer able to compete.  Then our government set the stage for exporting American manufacturing capability to Asia and decimated the culture by opened the gates to both legal and illegal immigration.

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) made the United States an international military weapon to be used and consumed in forcing several small and defenseless nations into the power fold.   The economies of China and Russia are still active but eventually they will be subjected to financial trauma like Japan and the United States.

The objective is total world hegemony through centralized power.

Tremendous progress toward world government has been made without substantially changing the everyday lives and freedoms of the citizens of the Free World.  The United States Constitution has been trashed by allowing a foreign born president to remain in office and write despotic laws that legalize holding citizens without trial and without legal representation.  Few, if any, citizens have disappeared from our streets but the legal framework for removing them is in place and facilities to house them have been built.

The entire power structure of our nation, the media, both political parties, and all of government, conduct their affairs as if the massive lies that undergird our policies are unassailable.  They support the veracity of the government story on 9/11 and honor our troops as if they were fighting for our freedom.  They support the presidency of Barak Obama as if his birth in Hawaii is unquestionable. They live and conduct their affairs on a platform of lies.  Congressman Ron Paul, the last vain political hope, has let his constituency down by prematurely discontinuing his campaign and his son, Rand has done the unthinkable by endorsing Romney.   Dr. ”No” will be followed by Dr.”Maybe”.  Wiled pragmatism runs amuck!

Military force is the last phase in the progress of enslavement; it is now being used overseas and will soon be used domestically.

Americans have been living in the midst of a revolution and most of our citizens have not noticed.  Until now, it has not been mostly peaceful.  There have been large protests. Thankfully we have been spared the anarchy of angry, insane rebellion the characterized the French and Russian revolutions.

Nevertheless, preparations are being made to forcibly quell serious resistance by using the United States Army and blunt force will surely accompany the final enslavement.  There may still be resistance but barring unforeseen intrinsic rebellion in the power structure it will be quickly stamped out and the land of the free will become a massive slave plantation.

Christians cultivated and allowed humanism to grow in our nation and being the weed that it is, it has forced out righteousness.  When our Constitution was crafted our nation was populated by Christians. But the Framers encoded rights for all religions allowing evil to take root and flourish.  Christianity has lost the battle; we are under the control of pagans and the Sovereign God has ordained our captivity!

I am a Christian and if God gives me the Grace to remain steadfast my life along with all others who resist a divine revolutionary world government will be in danger.  Paul Craig Roberts writes,   “Human Rights attorneys tell me that as the US Constitution is no longer observed by the executive branch, that I can’t speak freely according to my Constitutional rights, the First Amendment and all, without running the risk of being arrested.”  The religion of humanism has wiped out the very law that allowed it to exist. Laws protecting homosexuals strike at the heart of Christianity.  We no longer enjoy freedom of religion, free speech, free assembly, or the ear of a tyrannical government.  The inevitable tyranny of humanism that I have written about over and over again is upon us!

In 2008 President Bush’s policies marred his reputation.  Voters scrambled to replace him with President Obama whose policies have now diminished his repute.  Political hacks are again claiming this election is the most important in our history; that President Barak Obama must be defeated in order to save the nation.  They are wrong.

President Obama is not the problem.  The government is not the problem.  The Council of Foreign Relations is not the problem.  The Rockefeller and Rothschild families are not the problem.  The Jews are not the problem.  The Vatican is not the problem.  The Bilderbergers, the Club of Rome, the Illuminati, and the other power center groups are not the problem.  The problem is that we have forsaken the Creator of the Universe and replaced Him with humanist groups that are attempting to rule His creation.  The problem is our relationship with the sovereign God Who created the world and everything in it.

The powerful world oligarchs seek centralization; God decentralizes by empowering each person He chooses.  He and His perfect Law could guide the creation into righteousness, freedom, and prosperity.

Christians who seek redemption through the political system are idol worshipers.  They are placing faith in the ability of human sinners to produce righteousness.  All have sinned and fallen short of the mark. None can be trusted to bring freedom and righteousness.  Petitioning and idol and supporting human endeavor over the dominion of God is a grievous sin.  Only God can halt the new world order.  He waits on His people to forsake the idols and to seek Him and His forgiveness.

A Look At How Democrats And Republicans Differ

It is an absolute fact that no matter which of the two major parties in Washington, D.C., is in power, the freedoms and liberties of the American people continue to be eroded. However, this does NOT mean that there are not basic differences between the two parties. The two parties differ greatly on HOW government will take our liberties. Where they are similar is in the fact that neither of them has any interest in preserving liberty. Until the American people awaken to this reality, whatever freedoms we have left in this country are doomed.

Let me ask you a question: does it really matter whether a free man is enslaved by a socialist state or a fascist state? Are the prisons any more accommodating? Are the lashes from the whip any less painful? Is the agony of losing a loved one any less grievous? Is the persecution any less revolting? What difference does it make to a free man if his liberties are stolen by an Adolf Hitler or by a Joseph Stalin?

Do you want a quick reference to the difference between how the Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., are stealing our liberties? When the Democrats control things, America gets more socialism; when the Republicans control things, America gets more corporatism, which is a polite word for fascism. Socialism requires government to own everything, while fascism requires government to control everything. And remember, too, fascists and socialists have always hated each other. Big deal! Fascists and socialists alike hate freedomists, which is why inside-the-beltway Repubs and Dems can’t stand people like Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and yours truly. (Remember the MIAC report identifying the three of us, and our supporters, as being potential “dangerous militia” members?) So who cares which of these two parties happens to be in power? Our freedoms continue to be under siege. That’s why the battle in Washington politics has nothing to do with preserving freedom, but everything to do with HOW government will take freedom. Will they take it by ownership or by control? And, unfortunately, what we have right now is the worst of both worlds: government is using a combination of both ownership and control to steal our liberties. Why? Because except for a very precious few elected civil magistrates (like Congressman Ron Paul), there is no one on Capitol Hill or the White House who remotely understands–or fights for–the principles of liberty.

Even worse is that when the Donkeys and the Elephants do agree, it almost always is in an effort to point the bayonets at the American citizenry. What does it matter whether government owns it or controls it? What does it matter whether it more resembles socialism of corporatism? What it doesn’t look anything like, is FREEDOM!

Take the Democrat/Republican debate over Obamacare. Even if Mitt Romney and the GOP prevail in the November elections, Obamacare will be replaced with Romneycare. And Romneycare will be 85% Obamacare, with a slight shift toward government control and a slight shift away from government ownership. Again, I say, BIG DEAL! What neither party is talking about is that the federal government has no business being in health care. Period! Just like the federal government has no business being in over 90% of everything it is involved in today. But who do you hear saying that in Washington, D.C., except Ron Paul?

Take the issue of the burgeoning surveillance society. What does it matter which major party is in power in Washington, D.C.? The TSA gets more and more obnoxiously tyrannical; abuses of civil liberties under the guise of fighting a “war on drugs” continues unabated; abuses of the Bill of Rights under the guise of fighting a “war on terror” continues unabated; the federal police state continues to grow exponentially; unconstitutional foreign entanglements continue to proliferate; ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

In a book that I have recommended numerous times, “Hitler’s Cross,” Erwin Lutzer writes on page 72, “Through surveillance, wiretaps, spying, and rewarding those who betrayed their friends, Hitler tried to control the citizens of Germany.” On page 73, Lutzer continues the thought saying, “But Hitler did not have the technology to bring every subject of his realm into line.” So, given the technology that is available today, what would Hitler do differently if he were running things in Washington, D.C.? I ask readers to think seriously about that question. What would Hitler do differently?

Today, the federal government monitors virtually every piece of electronic communication. The federal government monitors virtually every major banking transaction. It has spies infiltrated in even harmless organizations all over the country. It threatens people with the loss of their jobs or freedom (or both) to betray their friends. It spies on us with satellites; it spies on us with drones. On July 6, 2012, President Obama signed an Executive Order authorizing the federal government to take control of America’s entire communications industry. In 2006, under President George W. Bush, the US military began planning armed confrontation against the American citizenry. (I have the document in my possession.) And, of course, we must not overlook the Patriot Act which has been authorized and reauthorized under both Republicans and Democrats; the Military Commission Act which was signed by G.W. Bush; NDAA 2012 and 2013 which was signed by President Barack Obama, and which was passed by both Republicans and Democrats. And let’s not forget the federal attack against the Branch Davidians under Democrats Bill Clinton and Janet Reno, and the assault against the Randy Weaver household under Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush.

So, again, pick your poison. Both the socialist-leaning Democrats and the corporatist-leaning Republicans in Washington, D.C., meet together in pointing the bayonet against the American citizenry. And you really wonder why nothing significant changes in this country?

And in this regard, the platforms of the two major parties are completely meaningless! I dare say that Barack Obama has never read the Democrat platform and doesn’t care one iota what it says. I also guarantee you that Mitt Romney hasn’t read the Republican platform and doesn’t care one iota what it says either. Can anyone remember when Republican Presidential candidate, Bob Dole, in a rare moment of candor, publicly admitted that he had not read his party’s platform and didn’t care what it said? Party platforms are for the benefit of rank and file party members to make them feel like their ideas count for something to the party leadership. They don’t!

So, do the Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., differ? Yes! They differ on how our freedoms will be taken from us. They differ on the degree of government ownership and control. They differ on the nuances of political tyranny. Where they are twins is in their lust and ambition for power, in their approval of stripping more and more freedoms from the American people, and in their absolute and total disregard for constitutional government.

Without some sort of “Great Awakening” both politically and spiritually, whatever is left of our liberties is doomed–and both major parties in Washington, D.C., are equally culpable.

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:

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

Watergate to Fast and Furious

The Department of Justice has a long record of acting as the dictatorship of jurisprudence. Acting like council to the mob, the “Consigliore” Attorney General plots protection rackets for the ultimate organized crime syndicate. Eric Holder is the latest in a long line of lawyers that distort and stretch credibility to the theater of the absurd. Making up legal arguments to distort or conceal culpability is a prime prerequisite to serve as the chief law enforcement thug for the current President.

Some four decades ago, the nation suffered through the most critical constitutional crisis of recent times. The Watergate calamity tormented the nation on a daily basis, resulting in a new level of cynicism and disgust. What started as a third rate burglary concluded in the resignation of Richard. M. Nixon. The flawed life of the symbol of the imperial presidency, shamed into submission, vacated office to avoid conviction. Sadly, the prospect that Barack Hussein Obama has the dignity of ignominy to fade away from the White House is most remote.Nixon’s Attorney Generals John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst earned their disgrace for the cover-up, while Holder has built an entire career on sleaze and treason. Some of the inglorious achievements of Holder include his finger prints all over the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Marc Rich Pardon and the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case.Therefore, when the

Fast and Furious scandal became a thorn in the side of the Obama administration, the lackey fixer was called upon to do his stonewall dance. From the contempt vote in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Holder’s tiptoe is not exactly getting rave reviews from the political pundits.The charges of playing partisan politics coming from the Democratic choirs are reminiscent of the Nixon defenders at every disclosure from the Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman damage control team. Remember the hilarious responses from Nixon’s Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler? Compare that comic performance with the idiotic comments from James “Jay” Carney. The only difference is that Obama won’t use the same body language, when  from the backside out of frustration.”Fast and Furious” has not risen to the public outcry of Watergate because of the nature of the mainstream pressitute media. The heralded coverage from the
Washington Post warns Republicans to venture with kid gloves.

“But arguing in a partisan fashion is a loser for Republicans. Already there are GOP leaders who want to promote what they’re doing, not just on the merits of the matter at hand, but by asserting that the Democrats were much worse in their treatment of the Bush Justice Department. That is not a reason to aggressively pursue this tragedy. No Republican or conservative commentator should even raise it. The notion that this is partially motivated by political payback is very damaging to what very little credibility Congress has today, and the approach is belittling to agent Brian Terry, who was killed, and unfair to his family. Also, by the way, it’s the worst political move Republicans can make.”

From Tricky Dick

To Barry Soetoro

Not exactly, the same daring reporting, that Woodard and Bernstein invented, in their quixotic quest to take down the naughty Nixon. Shielding the peccadilloes of the Obama administration is a full time effort for the liberal press, but avoiding the extreme transgression of the DoJ to create another false flag excuse, is indefensible. Therefore, when CBS reports some real news, it becomes a true event!

“Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the “big fish.” But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called “gunwalking,” and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3?. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

“Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.”

Is there an honest man or woman in the Obama administration? Recall the valor of Nixon’s Attorney General, Elliot Richardson and his resignation that precipitated the “Saturday Night Massacre“. Look around for a courageous Deputy AG like William Ruckelshaus in the corrupt den of vipers that serve not an imperial president but a collectivist dictator. Woefully, all you find are careerist stooges who follow orders. When Robert Bork finally, fired independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, his reputation was negatively impacted.No impeachment for this “constitutional lawyer” !!!

Obama acts as tin horn despot in the land of the drug cartel. The federal government is addicted to fiat pronouncements designed to circumnavigate around Congress. Executive orders are de facto usurpation of legislative authority. Executive privilege that spits in the eye of separation of powers is an impeachable offense.

Refusal to instruct Eric Holder to turn over the complete record of “Fast and Furious” documents makes the same mistake that Nixon made when he decided to violate his oath of office. The appearance of withholding evidence of possible sinister disclosures becomes a reality when transparency is abandoned. Coming clean on the decision process and naming names of those responsible for “gunwalking” practices is imperative.

What does the Obama crowd fear? It seems unlikely that a G. Gordon Liddy clone went rogue or a James McCord want-a-be was stealing guns on the side. What the American public needs to know is the E. Howard Hunt figure behind “Fast and Furious”?

Those too young to remember the paralysis and fallout that engulfed the government during Watergate will not appreciate the national danger that arises when an administration is determined to force a constitutional crisis. For all practical purpose, the U.S. Constitution is already abolished. The duty of Congress to reassert its legitimate oversight function is crucial for a second American revolution to remain non-violent.

Ironically, the intent to gut the second amendment was certainly an intended objective behind the gun running operation. The federal authoritarians at ATF are no different from the gang members on a segment of the Sons of Anarchy FX series. Fiction becomes fact when the government enforces their brand of tyranny as national security. When the rubber hits the road and the guns turn on government officers, one would normally hear a deafening scream for accountability.Holder has clearly demonstrated that agent Brian Terry was expendable, and that his family does not fall under the protective umbrella of justice.

The Watergate break-in was purportedly an operation to secure proof that the Cuban government was supplying funds to the Democratic Party. Somehow supplying Mexican drug lords with military grade weapons seems just a little more outrageous.Now, the political climate forty years later is hardly an environment that gives confidence that the people, much less then the government, is committed to lawful accountability. The political impact may be marginable because presently national outrage over any scandal has a very short half-life. The toxic consequences of allowing career criminals to hold public office is the death trap for any democratic regime, much less a constitutional republic.

When Marco Rubio Says Eric Holder Should Resign, some will claim it is just politics. The correct question is why isn’t President Obama demanding the head of Eric Holder? We all know the answer to this question. Crooks keep their soldiers in the fold until they are no longer useful.The manner by which this next escalation of the “Fast and Furious” operation is reported will tell much about the level of decency left in the country. Obama has decided to stretch out the controversy by pushing the Congress to go to court. Not much has changed for the better since the Watergate tragedy. Under Obama, you have a megalomaniac that makes Richard Nixon look tame.

Congress needs to step up and do their duty with bipartisan support. The Rubio demand will soon look meek, as angry citizens’ calls for the resignation of the POTUS himself. The fall election should register public sentiment on the intensity of indignation. Hopefully, a second Obama manic term and administration will be a moot issue.

The Plan to Kick Greece Out of The Eurozone

“Men and women of Greece, it is with a sense of dignity and patriotic duty, that we made the decision not to betray your hopes and aspirations…The pro-bailout parties did not simply want us to support a government that would impose more austerity, they wanted us to agree to measures that would increase poverty and desperation. We didn’t do them the favor.”

– Alexis Tsipras, Chairman of the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza)

The endgame for Greece is now in sight. Attempts to form a unity government have failed and public opposition to austerity is growing. The uncertain political situation has triggered a bank run which drained nearly $900 million in deposits from Greek banks on Monday alone. Panicky Greeks are moving their money out of the country fearing that a default will collapse the banking system or that an unexpected return to the the Drachma will slash their life savings in half. Withdrawals are pushing yields on German bund to historic lows, signalling rising anxiety. Absent the European Central Bank’s Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) program, the Greek banking system would have imploded already taking down creditors in Germany, England and France. But the ECB’s aid will not last forever nor is it unconditional. If the anti-austerity parties take power in Athens, the bailouts will stop, capital flight will accelerate, and the banking system will crash.

No one can say with certainty what the impact of a Greek default will be, but analysts estimate that the losses for financial institutions could be as high as 400 billion euros. That means the ECB may need to deploy emergency funds to backstop teetering banks that could be overwhelmed by the flood of red ink. If the central bank refuses to act as lender of last resort or to intervene with another round of bond purchases, matters will deteriorate quickly as debt-stricken countries slip deeper into crisis. What worries economists is that the Greek virus will spread to other countries that are already battered by high unemployment, negative growth, and rising yields on government debt. A default in Greece would send a message to investors that EZ policymakers are no longer committed to the euro-project. If that belief takes root, a euro-wide (capital) exodus will ensue increasing the chances of a breakup of the 17-member union. There are already signs that this process is underway as banks in both Spain and Italy have seen a steady uptick in withdrawals.

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and newly-elected French President Francois Hollande promised to “consider measures to spur economic growth in Greece” provided that Greece continue to meet the terms of its bailout agreements. While Hollande tried to strike a more sympathetic tone than Merkel, he fully-backed her hardline policies saying that the austerity measures “must to be adhered to.” Hollande did not demand that Merkel amend the policy to include a “pro growth” component as he had promised in his presidential campaign. In fact, he did not veer from Merkel’s policy recommendations at all, which suggests that the difference between the two leaders is merely stylistic. As the Financial Times pointed out in an article on Monday, Hollande is as committed to debt consolidation and balanced budgets as his German counterpart. According to Hollande’s economic advisor, Philippe Aghion, the French president is also an advocate of “supply side” economics (not “Keynesian”) as well as a strong proponent of “labor reforms”, which is code for union busting. In short, Hollande’s liberal-sounding platform seems to have been largely a fraud that was used to win the election. There will be no push for fiscal stimulus under Hollande. Greece will have to meet its deficit targets through internal devaluation, an excruciating process which has failed to end the 5-year long slump.

ECB president Mario Draghi has avoided commenting on recent political developments in Greece, but the bank’s position is clearly stated in this excerpt from a policy paper entitled “A Fiscal Compact for a Stronger Economic and Monetary Union”:

“…the SGP (Stability and Growth Pact) did not succeed in securing fiscal discipline. Good economic times before the crisis were not used to achieve sustainable budgetary positions. Revenue windfalls were spent instead of being used to foster fiscal consolidation, violations of the deficit criterion were only slowly corrected and the debt criterion was largely ignored. The most important reason was that the SGP was only implemented half-heartedly as enforcement of the fiscal rules through peer pressure was weak.

The sovereign debt crisis has demonstrated that unsustainable macroeconomic, financial and fiscal policies of any EMU member amplify each other and affect other euro area countries via negative spillover effects. This, in turn, endangers the financial stability of the euro area as a whole. As a consequence, the ECB repeatedly demanded a “quantum leap” in the EU economic governance framework to ensure the stability and smooth functioning of EMU.” (“Super SGP coming – ECB: “A stronger and stricter fiscal framework is required”, credit writedowns)

In other words, the ECB and the other members of the EZ ruling establishment are as committed to austerity as ever; the sharp downturn in economic activity and the high unemployment have taught them nothing. It’s still thin gruel and hair shirts as far as the eye can see.

On Tuesday, the ECB stopped lending to 4 Greek banks saying that it wanted to “limit its risk” and preserve “the integrity of our balance sheet.” The move came after ECB president Mario Draghi admitted for the first time that Greece could leave the monetary union. Some analysts think that Draghi is using his power to coerce the political result he wants, which is more support for austerity and bailouts. Increasing opposition to austerity in Greece, particularly the rise of the The Radical Left Coalition (Syriza), have put the policy at risk. This may be the ECB’s way of firing a shot over Syriza’s bow and reminding them of the price they will pay for their resistance.

A recently-released paper by Goldman Sachs lays out what will happen if the troika (The ECB, the European Commission and the IMF) suspends its loans to Greece and the government can no longer fund operations or pay salaries. Here’s an excerpt from the document:

“This “stop” in payments would precipitate an immediate fall in economic activity, given the need to abruptly close the primary fiscal deficit …As government arrears fail to get paid, supplies to public sector companies … and hospitals would be disrupted and their output and activities curtailed. In this context, the inflexibility of Greek wages will result in higher unemployment…Whether the banking system remains functional will largely depend on the ECB’s reaction to any troika decision to stop payments to Greece.” (zero hedge)

So, the banks will close, activity will grind to a standstill, and the country will slip further into depression. And yet, this seems to be the direction that Greece is already headed, austerity measures have only deepened the slump. According to der Speigel: “Economic output has shrunk by a fifth, unemployment is at almost 22 percent and youth unemployment is at more than 53 percent. The ranks of the unemployed grew by 95 percent between March 2008 and March 2011.” Even after Greece’s unprecedented “debt haircut” which slashed claims on Greek bonds by 75 percent, the nation’s debt is still an unsustainable 160 percent of GDP. The hopelessness of the situation has not been lost on policymakers in Frankfurt, Brussels and Berlin, all of who now appear to be preparing for a Greek exit from the eurozone.

German leaders in particular have never felt that Greece belonged in the monetary union, but recently, they have been making preparations for the worst-case scenario. Here’s an excerpt from Der Speigel which explains what’s going on behind the scenes:

“For around the last year, a “Greece Task Force” appointed by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has been developing a possible exit resolution. Isolated from the rest of the German Finance Ministry, the group is working out models and scenarios on the potential consequences of a withdrawal, both for the rest of the euro zone and for Greece itself.

The task force’s most important conclusion is that a large share of Greece’s debt is now held by public creditors, most notably the ECB. According to Finance Ministry officials, the Frankfurt-based monetary watchdogs hold between €30 billion and €35 billion in Greek government bonds.

These holdings become dangerous if Greece stops servicing these debts because it is no longer receiving any money from the European bailout funds. This is why crisis experts in Berlin have dreamed up a particularly cunning solution for the problem. They don’t want to completely cancel the tranches from the aid packages the Greeks are scheduled to receive. Instead, under their proposal, the country would have to do without the portion of the aid that was meant to flow into the government coffers to cover pensions, public sector wages and other expenses. But the billions that are earmarked to service the bonds held by the ECB would be paid into a special account, thereby averting problems at the central bank. In return, the ECB has already signaled its intention to resume its program to buy up the government bonds of other debt-ridden countries if they come under pressure following a Greek withdrawal from the euro.

The mechanism essentially amounts to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) paying for up to €35 billion of Greece’s sovereign debt. The last bond held by the ECB matures in 2030.” (“Time to Admit Defeat –Greece Can No Longer Delay Euro Zone Exit”, Der Speigel)

So, a plan is in place to deal with Greece’s exit from the eurozone. German policymakers have made every effort to protect themselves and to make sure that Greece does not become the next Lehman Brothers. Counterparties and bondholders have been compensated, the ECB is on “stand by” with emergency funding, and –if need be–the central bank will resume its sovereign bond purchases (QE) to keep yields within a sustainable range. There is even a plan to assist Greece in its transition back to the Drachma, although the details have not yet been released. All that’s left, is for Greece to refuse to follow through on its bailout agreements–which means a rejection of the structural adjustment program laid out in the reviled 43-page Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The troika will use that as an excuse to cancel all future loans and to kick them out of the union.

This is what’s in store for Greece, banishment; because it refused to cut payrolls and pensions deep enough, because it spent “too much” on life-saving drugs or failed to lift constraints on selling restricted baby food, or because it protected its state-owned enterprises, or didn’t dismantle social security fast enough or crush its unions with sufficient gusto or auction off its national treasures to foreign capital according to plan. Now, after two straight years of penalties, pillaging and plunder, Greece will be removed from the EZ and left to fend for itself.

Dangerous Glass Fibers In Cigarettes

Shocking new research reveals that a specific type of lung cancer many smokers develop comes from tiny tears in their lung tissue caused by microscopic glass fibers, also known as glass wool, found in many conventional cigarette filters. These rips in the epithelial (soft) tissue fuel the development of tumors and cancerous cells due to the constant overload of toxins, namely pesticides, nicotine and ammonia, contained in commercial cigarette smoke.

The filters of typical commercial cigarettes contain microscopic, needle-shaped shards of glass wool (like fiberglass insulation) which escape into the mouth and throat, and then lodge with tobacco tar in the lung tissue, surrounding the alveoli (tiny air sacs) and lead to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), emphysema and eventually lung cancer.

A physician’s assistant (PA) and an intensive care nurse at a major hospital reviewed the damaged lung tissue of several cigarette smokers and said the x-rays looked identical to those of patients exposed to asbestos, and that diagnostic imaging revealed what looked like “ground glass” which settled in the soft tissue near the bottom of the lungs (GGO – ground glass opacity). The interviewed nurse said, “When lung tissue is damaged over and over,it develops lesions, and the cancer plants itself in there like seeds.” (http://www.appliedradiology.com)

According to the PA, the tiny shards penetrate the “lipid bilayer, then embed in the lung tissue, causing the tissue to harden and eventually lose its ability to absorb oxygen.” This damage fuels the development of the same type of lung cancer (mesothelioma) associated with asbestos poisoning. He also explained how smoking destroys the cilia (tiny hairs) that help push excretions/mucus out, and how when smokers sleep, their breathing patterns relax and the “tar deposits creep in on damaged air sacs called blebs, eventually rupturing and collapsing them.” This is why when smokers awake in the morning they canexperience unproductive coughing fitsand/or bronchial spasms.

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1766058/)

Why Fiberglass?

The cigarette filter (butt) acts as a buffer from the extreme heat of the cigarette’s burning chemicals, which can exceed1700 degrees Fahrenheit during inhale.Fibrous glass has the heat-resistant qualities of asbestos, which makes it an efficient material for insulation; however, if you’ve ever been in an attic and got insulation on your skin, you already know how irritating the glass fibers can be, so now imagine what it’s doing to the inside of a smoker’s lungs.

Up to12,000 microscopic glass fibersare tightly bound together, which explains why filters take between10 to 15 years to disintegrate. If the filter were simply cotton rolled tightly in paper, a few rainstorms would break it up and wash it away within weeks. Filters are also constructed to catch the tar and the tobacco particles from coming through, but not entirely.

Although fiberglass is not the same as asbestos, it can be just as damaging to the human body. The long, very narrow fibers penetrate deep into lung tissue and remain there. One study conducted with rats showed thatfibrous glass is a potent carcinogen, leading to changes in the DNA genetic structure and breaking down the immune system. This is one reason smoker’s fight colds, the flu, sinus and bronchial infections for much longer periods of time than non-smokers. (http://tpx.sagepub.com/content/19/4-1/482.full.pdf)

60 years of BIG LIES from BIG TOBACCO

Independent studies reveal that commercial cigarettes with defective filters have been marketed for over 60 years.Mesothelioma, a deadly cancer that develops in the protective lining of the lungs, abdomen, and/or the cavity around the heart, is most commonly associated with asbestos poisoning, but now research reveals thatmore than 10% of those casesare now associated with cigarette smokers with NO history of exposure to asbestos.

The tobacco industry has been negligent in failing to perform toxicological examinations to assess human health risks from inhaling and ingesting these synthetic micro-particles released from conventional cigarette filters. The recent “warning ads” about the effects of smoking are not educational, nor do they help smokers understand strategies for cessation at all. The $54 million campaign full of “stark and graphic advertisements” is nothing more than a ploy to pretend like the U.S.Center for Disease Control(CDC) is trying to help with this massive, preventable health crisis. (http://www.cnn.com)

Thanks to absolutelyno regulationsregarding the ingredients used for manufacturing cigarettes, smokers are susceptible to multiple forms of lung disease, includingdesquamative interstitial pneumonitisfrom ground glass infiltration of the soft tissues,bronchoalveolar cell carcinoma, andpulmonary fibrosis, which are all revealed from specific lung biopsies (HR-CT scans). (http://www.radiologyassistant.nl/en/42459cff38f02)

Since the U.S. government doesn’t help smokers quit, who does?

Once a smoker realizes what they’vereally got themselves into, they can prepare physically and mentally for quitting. 14 And Out is a 60 minute video download which addresses all angles of the smoking addiction, including chemical addiction, behavioral habits, and nutritionfor cleansing the lungs and blood. No other program is so unique that fully addresses replenishing nutrients that have been severely depleted by the 4,000 commercial cigarette chemicals. A preview trailer and testimonials are available at the following link: (http://premium.naturalnews.tv/14AndOut__TV.htm)

14 And Out is a holistic program which is comprehensive and inexpensive, and teaches the smoker how to wean his/herself off cigarettes entirely in 14 days or less. The short course explains how smokers who have switched toe-cigs are still damaging their liver and kidneys by ingesting nicotine, which is the main chemical that feeds the vicious cycle of the smoking addiction. If you’re a smoker with a deep desire toescape the nicotine prison,14 And Out is the way to extend your life.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.appliedradiology.com

http://www.cancer.gov

http://www.radiologyassistant.nl/en/42459cff38f02

http://tpx.sagepub.com/content/19/4-1/482.full.pdf

http://www.asbestos.com/asbestos/smoking/

http://www.oncolink.org/experts/article.cfm?c=3&s=19&ss=99&id=2577

http://www.nytimes.com

http://ats.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/74/5/1635

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1766058/

http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/11/suppl_1/i51.full

http://www.cancer.org

http://www.answers.com/topic/chest-x-ray

http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com

http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/content/155/1/242

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/9/9/977.full

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7810554

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10380162

http://www.cnn.com

Source: Natural News

Someone You Love: Coming To A Gulag Near You

The security and surveillance state does not deal in nuance or ambiguity. Its millions of agents, intelligence gatherers, spies, clandestine operatives, analysts and armed paramilitary units live in a binary world of opposites, of good and evil, black and white, opponent and ally. There is nothing between. You are for us or against us. You are a patriot or an enemy of freedom. You either embrace the crusade to physically eradicate evildoers from the face of the Earth or you are an Islamic terrorist, a collaborator or an unwitting tool of terrorists. And now that we have created this monster it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to free ourselves from it. Our 16 national intelligence agencies and army of private contractors feed on paranoia, rumor, rampant careerism, demonization of critical free speech and often invented narratives. They justify their existence, and their consuming of vast governmental resources, by turning even the banal and the mundane into a potential threat. And by the time they finish, the nation will be a gulag.
This is why the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was contested by me and three other plaintiffs before Judge Katherine B. Forrest in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, is so dangerous. This act, signed into law by President Barack Obama last Dec. 31, puts into the hands of people with no discernible understanding of legitimate dissent the power to use the military to deny due process to all deemed to be terrorists, or terrorist sympathizers, and hold them indefinitely in military detention. The deliberate obtuseness of the NDAA’s language, which defines “covered persons” as those who “substantially supported” al-Qaida, the Taliban or “associated forces,” makes all Americans, in the eyes of our expanding homeland security apparatus, potential terrorists. It does not differentiate. And the testimony of my fellow plaintiffs, who understand that the NDAA is not about them but about us, repeatedly illustrated this.

Alexa O’Brien, a content strategist and information architect who co-founded the U.S. Day of Rage, an organization created to reform the election process and wrest it back from corporate hands, was the first plaintiff to address the court. She testified that when WikiLeaks released 5 million emails from Stratfor, a private security firm that does work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Marine Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency, she discovered that the company was attempting to link her and her organization to Islamic radicals and websites as well as jihadist ideology.

Last August there was an email exchange between Fred Burton, Stratfor’s vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security and a former deputy director of the counterterrorism division of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, and Thomas Kopecky, director of operations at Investigative Research Consultants Inc. and Fortis Protective Services LLC. In that exchange, leaked Feb. 27 by WikiLeaks, Kopecky wrote: “I was looking into that U.S. Day of Rage movement and specifically asked to connect it to any Saudi or other fundamentalist Islamic movements. Thus far, I have only hear[d] rumors but not gotten any substantial connection. Do you guys know much about this other than its US Domestic fiscal ideals?”?

But that changed quickly. Stratfor, through others working in conjunction with the FBI, soon linked U.S. Day of Rage to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

In early September, U.S. Day of Rage, which supported the Sept. 17 call to occupy Wall Street, received Twitter messages that falsely accused it of being affiliated with terrorist groups. The messages came from a privately owned security and intelligence contractor, Provide Security, managed by Thomas Ryan, who works for U.S. military and government agencies, and Dr. Kevin Schatzle, a former FBI, Secret Service and New York City Police Department counterterrorism agent who is on the advisory board of a private intelligence firm that sells technology to profile and interrogate terrorism suspects. On Sept. 1 U.S. Day of Rage received three private, direct Twitter messages that read:

“Now you are really in over your head with this. Muslims from an Afghanistan Jihad site have jumped in. …”

“You seem peaceful, but #Anonymous will tarnish that reputation and FAST! They plan to hack NYPD and Banks for #OccupyWallStreet with #RefRef.”

“Just a heads up. I watched your training videos, but do you realize the #Anonymous relationship/infiltration will cause you MANY problems.”

On Oct. 14, 2011, Provide Security’s Ryan published an article—“The Email Archive of #OccupyWallStreet Movement,” on the Andrew Breitbart Presents Big Government website page—that tied U.S. Day of Rage to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. Ryan said in the article that he had “recruited other people to help U.S. begin the collection of data” from social media sites that included U.S. Day of Rage. The article goes on:

On August 10, 2011, the hacker group, “Anonymous” announced that it would join the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. That’s what sparked my interest in monitoring #OccupyWallStreet.

I reached out to a colleague and asked if he would be interested in studying the protest with me. At first, it seemed disorganized, and we believed it would only be a few hundred protestors.

As we engaged in monitoring its growth, we recruited other people to help us begin the collection of data available via social media. We began mapping out key players, and monitored Anonymous’s efforts to organize protests in the San Francisco Bay area public transportation system (#opBART) in order to detect patterns of key influences.

Then, at the end of August, we were alerted by a fellow researcher that information about USDoR (U.S. Day of Rage, to which Occupy Wall Street is connected) had been posted on Shamuk and Al-Jihad, two Al-Qaeda recruitment sites. We began to take the “Occupy” protest more seriously, and dedicated more time to researching and monitoring.

Days later, Anonymous announced that it would be releasing its new DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) tool. Because of the Al-Qaeda posting, we contacted the New York Field Office of the FBI so they could investigate the potential threat. From that point on, we decided we needed to include the Human Element of Intelligence (HUMINT), and to infiltrate the protestors to map their ties to Anonymous, and to the postings on Shamuk and Al-Jahad.

Though all this sounds like the delusions of the mentally imbalanced, or perhaps mentally impaired, it was enough to trigger a response within the twisted minds of those who work from the shadows of our security and surveillance state. O’Brien, who was working at the time as a digital media architect for a publicly traded energy efficiency firm, was told by the company’s director of federal programs, a former interrogator and foreign language specialist with the Massachusetts Army National Guard, that he had been asked about her by U.S. government agents numerous times. She was pulled off several projects and then pushed out of her job.

Now the engine of conspiracy, which feeds the machine, was in full gear. On Jan. 11, Australian Security Magazine published an article titled “Radical Islam: Global influence in domestic affairs” that directly tied U.S. Day of Rage to radical Islamic groups. It read, in part:

More recently we found the same types of activity by radical Islamists during the planning of the U.S. Day of Rage that was scheduled for September 17th 2011. While it certainly did not take root and there were none of the violent clashes that took place during the UK riots, none the less the same types of people were there seeking to influence proceedings. Those aiming to influence the U.S. Day of Rage followed a similar pattern as the group and individuals we found trying to influence groups for CHOGM [Commonwealth Heads of Government]. Most were looking to promote violent confrontation, while some were spreading low level jihadist propaganda.

One of the plaintiffs in our lawsuit, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an Icelandic parliamentarian who has advocated transparency laws that would clear the way for WikiLeaks to operate in Iceland and helped produce a videoabout the 2007 Baghdad airstrike that killed two journalists and nine other civilians, did not appear in court. Author Naomi Wolf, who, along with Cornel West, has offered to join me, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, the Icelander and three others as plaintiffs, read Jónsdóttir’s affidavit to the court.

In January 2011 Jónsdóttir, although she is not a U.S. citizen, was served by the United States Department of Justice with a subpoena demanding information “about all [her] tweets and more since November 1st 2009.” The demanded information, which she has refused to provide, includes all mailing addresses and billing information, all connection records and session times, all IP addresses used to access Twitter, and all known email accounts, as well as the “means and source of payment,” including banking records and credit cards. The Justice Department subpoenaed records for the period from Nov. 1, 2009, to the present. The foreign minister of Iceland advised Jónsdóttir not to travel to the United States for the court hearing on Thursday, fearing she might be detained, especially after the Justice Department refused to issue a statement in writing stating that she would not be held if she appeared on American soil.

Perhaps the most chilling exchange on Thursday took place between government lawyers and Judge Forrest. The judge, who will probably rule in May, repeatedly asked for assurance that the plaintiffs would not be subject to detention under the NDAA. It was an assurance the two government lawyers refused to give. She asked U.S. Assistant Attorney Benjamin Torrance whether the government would see a book containing the sentence “I support the political goals of the Taliban” as providing “material support” for “associated forces.”

Torrance did not rule out such an interpretation.

“You are unable to say that [such a book] consisting of political speech could not be captured under [NDAA section] 1021?” the judge asked.

“We can’t say that,” Torrance answered.

“Are you telling me that no U.S. citizen can be detained under 1021?” Forest asked.

“That’s not a reasonable fear,” the government lawyer said.

“Say it’s reasonable to fear you will be unlucky [and face] detention, trial. What does ‘directly supported’ mean?” she asked.

“We have not said anything about that …” Torrance answered.

“What do you think it means?” the judge asked. “Give me an example that distinguishes between direct and indirect support. Give me a single example.”?

“We have not come to a position on that,” he said.

“So assume you are a U.S. citizen trying not to run afoul of this law. What does it [the phrase] mean to you?” the judge said.

“I couldn’t offer any specific language,” Torrance answered. “I don’t have a specific example.”

There are now 1,271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies that work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States, The Washington Post reported in a 2010 series by Dana Priest and William M. Arken. There are 854,000 people with top-secret security clearances, the reporters wrote, and in Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2011. Investigative reporter James Bamford wrote in the latest issue of Wired magazine that the National Security Agency is building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah, as part of a secret NSA surveillance program code-named “Stellar Wind.” Bamford noted that the NSA has established listening posts throughout the country to collect, store and examine billions of email messages and phone calls.

If we lose this case it will hand to the vast network of operatives and agencies that investigate and demonize anyone who is not subservient to the corporate state the power to detain citizens and strip them of due process. It will permit the security and surveillance state to brand as terrorists any nonviolent protesters and movements, along with social and political critics, that in the government’s imagination have any trace of connection to al-Qaida or “associated forces.” If the National Defense Authorization Act is not reversed it will plunge us into despotism, leaving us without a voice, trapped in eddies of fear and terror, unsure of what small comment, what small action, could be misinterpreted to push us out of our jobs or send us to jail. This is the future before us. And we better fight back now while we can.

Source: Truthdig

Mexican Drug War Reality TV

Some weeks ago, Mexico’s second largest city was hit by over a dozen narco-blockades. Narcotraficantes shut down over a dozen intersections, evacuated citizens from buses and burned the empty vehicles (one bus driver didn’t get out in time). Meanwhile, the Mexican military executed a daring raid when they landed on Opus Dei school grounds to capture a head narcotics trafficker holed up in the nearby neighborhood.

The official story is that the narcos were retaliating for the Mexican government capture of one of their head honchos or that they were executing a diversion to allow other cartel members to escape the city.

Ironically, they later posted notes around town asking citizens for their forgiveness. It almost feels like this is Gotham and we’re living in a Batman movie, except, here there is no Dark Knight.

The US Agenda

Before we examine the issue further, it is necessary to state some clear facts:

1) The CIA and other US Government agencies have been caught running drugs into the U.S.

2) The DEA has been  laundering money for drug cartels from Colombia to Mexico.

3) The ATF and the White House were caught selling tens of thousands of guns directly to Mexican drug cartels.

4) Attorney General Eric Holder has been caught stating that their goals are to demonize gun possession and create an anti-gun culture with the ultimate purpose of disallowing lawful firearm possession.

5) Operations Fast & Furious as well as Gunrunner were attempts at fomenting such an atmosphere.

6) Under , the U.S. has already divided up the North American continent as being under the common security perimeter of US Northern Command (NORTHCOMM).

Mexican Deep Politics

Dr. Peter Dale Scott is one of the preeminent researchers and authors on the topic of “deep politics” and the global drug trade. We had the great opportunity to  for about an hour on these issues.

In his book , he painstakingly details the nexus between the various actors. In this instance, these are mainly the US government, Mexican government and narco traffickers as well as middlemen in-between (i.e. ).

In 1947, the same year the CIA was created, the US government helped Mexico create its own agency called the Federal Security Directorate (DFS). The U.S. also assisted other countries in creating their own intelligence agencies (i.e. DINA in Chile, SIN in Haiti, etc.).

The CIA-DFS duo has been running drugs ever since. Indeed, the founder of the agency, Colonel Carlos Serrano had been caught in action. At the time, a State Department report noted the “Gestapo” powers of the DFS and how it was used “to get rid of their competition and control the business.” The main point of the DFS was not to stop the flow of drugs but to manage it and fight the communist left.

The DFS was essentially a CIA asset and many assets on the CIA payroll actually went on to become prominent politicians with at least one of them becoming the president of Mexico. Family members would then be drug trade contacts, such as was the case with Raul Salinas. Essentially, the US government was able to manipulate Mexican politics by proxy via the DFS. In a CIA report, out of six assessed Mexican agencies, despite the DFS having the worst record, the CIA went on to say that they would still work with them because they were the most “competent and capable!”

The CIA-DFS-Cartel Triad

Due to a scandal in 1985, the DFS morphed into CISEN at which time it lost its CIA protection because of the murder of a DEA agent. According to Peter Dale Scott, the institutional arrangements between the triad continued up until at least Ernesto Zedillo’s presidency (1995-2001).

One of the interesting things pointed out in American War Machine is that the agencies have their preferred cartels. The CIA and DFS/CISEN have cartels they are aligned with and make sure to support them against the competition. During the 1990s Salinas presidency, agencies and offices such as the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) were up to 95% under narco control at times.

The global drug trade is a key underlying factor in understanding world events. It has become the blood vessel of the global economy without which the system would collapse. It is what provides liquidity to the banks. It makes all those involved, from Afghanistan and Kosovo to Columbia and Wall Street, wealthy beyond imagination. It feeds the Prison-Industrial Complex with its drug offenders. It feeds the Military-Industrial Complex with the resulting violence and arms sales. It feeds the Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex with the outlaw of natural medicine.

More importantly, it provides off-the-record cash for funding acts of terror, assassinations and other black operations by governments. Could you imagine the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) reaction assessing the receipts detailing how official government funds were used for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr?

Other examples might include when Nicaraguan Contras were trained in Veracruz, Mexico by CIA/DFS narco assets. Or the case of E. Howard Hunt, who was deeply involved in the drug trade as well as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Seeing as this is the way the cookie crumbles, I am not a terrible optimist. Decriminalization is the only hope, but there are too many politicians who stand to lose too much (i.e. Hillaryious Clinton). Even the Netherlands is turning back the clock by banning cannabis sales. Only time will tell. In the meantime, keep your noses clean.

Jorge Gato lives in Mexico and is a social sciences educator who is in the trenches daily, warding off severe cases of cognitive dissonance, mass indoctrination and unhealthy reasoning. He writes athttp://dissidentthinker.wordpress.com/.

Source:  The Dollar Vigilante

America’s Addiction to War and Madness

Some historians say the brutal Russian dictator Joseph Stalin said, “God is on the side of the biggest guns.”

Stalin killed something on the magnitude of 24 million people by various means during his reign of terror.  Hitler killed six million along with untold wreckage of humanity.  Estimates show Mussolini killed around 11 million people.  Some African brute in Sudan named Kony killed tens of thousands as announced by Facebook followers trying to stop him.

In the Muslim world, men execute 5,000 women annually for dishonoring the family.  Honor killings can be committed if a woman in anyway displeases her husband or wears jeans or steps out of the house on her own or in any way angers her father or husband. Thousands of other Muslim women suffer from acid being thrown in their faces.  In other words, methodically killing people ensures dominance.

Ten years ago, our own “brutal” President George W. Bush “snapped” and sent, thus far, over two million U.S. soldiers into Iraq and Afghanistan to give goat herders and tribesmen a piece of “shock and awe.”  Results:  over 100,000 civilians killed, hundreds of thousands of children left without families, 2.5 million Iraqi refugees and a completely devastated civilization left in tatters.

Last week, after four deployments in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales “mentally and emotionally snapped.” He executed 16 women and children.  When the inquiry finishes, it will be found that Bates lost his mind, went insane, or suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and transitory brain injury. He’ll be executed or sent to prison for life.

Yet who really stands on the guilty platform for these wars and all their atrocities?  Answer: George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama, the Military Industrial Complex, bankers and the apathetic American people.  That’s who!

Do Bush, Obama or the U.S. military junta care about the individual carnage they perpetrate on millions of Iraqi people or  third world countries like Afghanistan,  filled with tribesmen and sheep herders?

No! Why? Answer: money! Loads and lots of it lining a bunch of corporate and banker pockets!  If the big money people had their way, they would carry on the wars for another 10 to 20 years ad infinitum.

How can they do that?  Answer: they feed off the apathy and non-involvement of  the American people.  The “Great Silent Majority” of the 60s continues today.  With a volunteer Army, the MIC enjoys a never ending supply of naïve and gung-ho kids for their cannon fodder.  Without conscription, no one complains. That’s why Bales as well as millions of combat veterans, in varying degrees, suffer mental and emotional illness brought about by war. (200,000 Vietnam vets committed suicide upon returning home. And counting!)

Why did Bales kill all those people?  I remember my own U.S. Army Infantry training at E82 at Fort Benning, Georgia in June, July of 1968.  My drill instructor, Sgt. Pierce screamed into our ears, “What is your call as an infantry soldier?”

“To kill drill sergeant,” we screamed back.

“I can’t hear you,” he screamed at us.

“To kill drill sergeant,” we screamed back louder.

The U.S. Army teaches young men to kill.  It does not teach or support mental, emotional or moral health techniques.

After the Korean, Vietnam, Desert Storm and Iraq wars, is there any question that the United States of America and her people suffer addiction to wars?  Give any excuse such as the “Dominos effect” or “Gulf of Tonkin” or “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and our citizens cheer our military onward to killing and destroying some supposed enemy 10,000 miles away.

American presidents, through their soldiers, have killed millions of Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqis and Afghans.

It’s really immoral and unprincipled on SO many levels.

It’s like the spurious “War on Drugs” for the past 41 years.  The U.S. government has thrown  37 million kids into jail for smoking a joint.   That’s 37 million ruined lives. In the meantime alcohol and cigarettes kill over 500,000 Americans a year for the past 41 years.  Example: 460,000 annually from lung cancer and 40,000 from traffic and liver deaths give or take a few, not to mention the wife beatings and child abuse from alcohol.   It’s absolutely insane how utterly thick we are as a people to carry on such madness.

Sgt. Bales’ wife, Karilyn Bales, bringing up two kids on her own, wrote a poignant diary of her tribulations as an Army wife.  Her gripping story should be told, but it will be forgotten while the Main Stream Media feeds off Sgt. Bales’ tragedy . (Look for “GI wife’s blog captured worry and sacrifices” by Karilyn Bales in the New York Times by Matt Flegenheimer, March 18, 2012.)

In the meantime, George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama enjoy their wealth, families and their status.  They will remain “untainted and untouched” from the wars they started and continue.  The lives of millions will suffer death and destruction not to mention ongoing misery and mental illness by Iraqis and Afghans.

As to our U.S. Army veterans, who will undo the slogan “To kill drill sergeant!” from their minds and hearts?  Those veterans were once some mother and father’s precious children just like yours—each important by their very essence.

Finally, we, the American people stand guilty with our disinterest and apathy to these 10 year wars.  I haven’t seen any mothers and fathers marching on Washington DC to stop these wars.  In the 60s, the college kids marched to stop Vietnam because they didn’t want to die for nothing.  Today with volunteers, nobody gives a ******.  That’s why these wars continue for 10 bloody years.

How many of us have called up our senators demanding that we exit Iraq and Afghanistan?  Phone your senators:

Otherwise, Obama continues to conjure a war with Iran and the Military Industrial Complex licks its chops while the bankers smack their lips.  Once again, we will send millions of our kids into yet another combat zone via jingoistic fervor to create yet another Staff Sgt. Robert Bales who will kill because that is what the Army trained him to accomplish.   Ironically, we (you) the American people helped him.

How about a new way?  How about talking and listening to one another?  How about a “Department of Peace” to balance our “Department of Defense”?  How about the American people take a deep assessment at what the past four wars have accomplished?  Did those wars stop terror?  Did those wars create peace that we proclaim we desire?  Did those wars bring humanity to a higher moral and spiritual level?  If not, let’s intend peace.  Once we move toward peace, watch the “war paradigm” evaporate as we shift humanity to its highest and best.

“High principle is not bound adhering to low precedent,” said Dr. Ernest Holmes.

Lost Principles and Social Destruction

“…we are here dealing with a totalitarian state of which the philosophy included an utter contempt for the individual… any freedom of thought or action was inconceivable in the Aztec world… dependence and instability were absolute, fear reigned. Death lurked ceaselessly everywhere, and constituted the cement of the building in which the individual Aztec was prisoner… Clearly the spirituality of some aspects of Aztec life must have sprung from an old pre-Aztec tradition, later betrayed…” 

Laurette Sejourne (‘Burning Water’)

The life of a nation, of a culture, is sustained by very few but very critical social circumstances.  These pillars must stand strong, maintained with the utmost care and caution; as one would fight to maintain the beat of his own heart.  If these vital foundations are dissolved or destroyed, the nation and the people contained within are subject to the most heinous of generational afflictions.  The citizenry and all that nurtures their progress, begins to die.  Slowly suffocating in a corrosive atmosphere of dishonor, men turn toward pure self interest at the expense of their greater selves, giving rise to hatred, desperation, and an environment of disturbed malleability that is easily exploited by those who seek power.

Eventually, the entire edifice comes crashing down, sometimes so far into the pits of black and terrible times that it is all but lost, even to memory…

As I look out past the near horizon of this time, and this nation, I see considerable potential for a revitalization of that which is best in humanity.  I see a population that strives for independence.  I see a return to the entrepreneurial spirit of discovery.  I see unhindered freedom of thought and action feeding a fire of creativity that inspires us to unimaginable heights.  I see new expression given license not just by the masses, but by structures of a government which truly follows the will of the common man, and not the will of an elite few.  I see America breathing full, eyes wide open and alive.

However, this potential future would have to come at a considerable cost.

America has so strayed from its founding roots that it now hungers; starving for lack of nutrients from its natural soil.  As with all other catastrophic societies of the past, we have been manipulated and conned into overlooking and over-rationalizing astonishing injustice and in some cases, unmitigated evil.  I frankly don’t know what else to call it.  There are some acts of malevolence that go beyond human weakness and inadequacy and reach into realms of calculation that are so cold, so soulless, there is simply no other way to describe them.  These actions and attitudes tend to run rampant in dying nations but are rarely singled out and criticized by those in the midst of the great fall.  Each begins with the loss of particular principles and inherent morals that are normally prized under more healthy circumstances, but are despised in times of chaos and uncertainty.

This begins with the rise of moral relativism.

All Is “Rational”… 

The concept that our inherent conscience should be set aside at times in order to achieve a “greater good” is a long running philosophy that has led to some of the greatest evils mankind has ever witnessed.  From Plato’s “noble lie”, to Machiavelli’s politics of subversion, to the Marquis De Sade’s insane fantasy world without self limit; such men and those who adopt their ideals have proven that intellect alone is no magic ticket to a well balanced society.  Indeed, intellect without intuitive conscience can be a tool for rationalizing the most horrifying of crimes.

In America today, we have quite a few moral relativists at the helm of our government, and many more who would advise them.

Ralph Peters, a retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel and former campaign adviser to John McCain, known for his array of Islamo-fearmongo books and novels, is, in my view, a perfect example of the moral relativist in action.  Talking points from his writings are parroted constantly by Neo-Cons and now Neo-Libs who feel compelled to defend Barack Obama’s continued blood-letting in the Middle East.  Peters asserts that American troops and warfare tactics must become essentially as monstrous as the enemy we fight in order for victory to be achieved.  This is excusable, in his opinion, because America is the “good guy”, and they are the “bad guys”:

http://www.freeman.org/m_online/apr04/peters.htm

Ironically, Peters often uses the example of Rome’s genocidal attacks on Carthage as a primer for his arguments, loosely comparing the “barbarians” of Carthage to the “barbarian” Muslims of his War on Terror.  His position; that Rome was safest when they were absolute in their brutality.

What Peters ignorantly overlooks (or perhaps deliberately overlooks) is that the fall of Rome was not hastened by outside “barbarians”, but by Rome’s own barbarity and stupidity.  Rome’s elites provoked and gave birth to enemy hoards through their relentless acts of bloodshed across the known world over the course of centuries.  America is set on the same exact path with the help of men like Peters; claiming that our principles stand in the way of our survival, and that all targets are fair game and all means are acceptable as long as we prevail.  The problem is, as Peters admits, one should never declare actual victory in the War on Terror.  Thus, by his own logic, there can be no conclusion, only an endless cycle of death perpetrated in ever more diabolical ways.

Nations that take on this mentality of pure destruction without boundaries lose all high ground in the annals of history.

It is not enough that a country or a culture should survive; it must also be worthy of survival.  Recent debacles in Afghanistan, including the deliberate killing of 16 civilians (which I’m sure Peters would attempt to advocate), show clearly that the longer you try to occupy a foreign nation based on false premises, the more it will eventually start looking like Vietnam, along with the toll of madness and depression that overtakes soldiers after multiple tours of duty fighting a war that makes no sense to them anymore.

Science Supercedes Conscience? 

In the world of Bioethics, Moral relativism has been refined to an artform, and the prominence of bioethical arguments is expanding considerably here in the U.S.  The reason for this can be tied directly to the elitist adoption of environmental activism as a vehicle to promote morally relative social policies.  The field of climate change continues to offer the most ample venue.  If the very future of our planet is supposedly at stake due to the mere creation of carbon emissions, a product of almost every human action, then all aspects of human life come into question and eventually, lend themselves to taxation, regulation, and domination.

Despite the fact that climate research labs like those at the CRU of East Anglia and NASA still refuse to release the source data for their experiments supporting their assertions that man causes global warming, and the fact that East Anglia’s rigged computer modeling methods were exposed through the Climategate emails, the Bioethics community continues to use manmade global warming as the boogieman rationalization for scientific tyranny.  This includes suggestions of medicating the populace in order to make them more “empathetic” to the dangers of climate change:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-engineering-the-human-body-could-combat-climate-change/253981/

The climate change dynamic invariably leads to calls for population reduction.   Arguments have been recently presented stating that because newborn babies do not have fully formed cognition, they are “not yet human” and should be susceptible to legal abortion (of course, men like Steven Pinker, Noam Chomsky, Carl Jung, and many others have proven that there are multiple inherent qualities to children at birth, and Bioethicists have no idea how much of our personality is a part of that, but hey, who am I to argue with a Bioethicist):

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/weird/Killing-Newborn-Babies-141014423.html

For the ancient Aztecs, high priests used the fake threat of the solar eclipse and the swallowing of the sun as a means to control the people and force them to conduct human sacrifice to satiate the bloodlust of their rulers.  In America today, we have high priests in the garb of pseudoscience who use the specter of climate change annihilation to seize similar control and condone clinical human sacrifice to satiate the thirst of environmental elitists for depopulation.

It Always Ends In Cannibalism…

People eating other people is just one of those aspects of extreme decline that the collapse of civilizations seem to elicit.  It goes against all natural law and even our animal instinct, but in a land where principles are rejected wholesale, it can become commonplace.  Most animals avoid turning to cannibalism because their very genetics demand that they continue the species.  This is very difficult to do when one’s own species is self consuming.  Even if conscience were never a question (which it always is), our very DNA should prevent us from such activity.  When it does occur, with extensive participation by the general populace, it is a sure sign of a culture on the edge of a full-on swan dive into epic seventh circle of hell-style calamity.

This is why anyone should feel rather disturbed and sickened at the news that companies like Pepsi, Nestle, and Kraft Foods are working with artificial flavor manufacturer Senomyx, which uses aborted fetal tissue in the creation of its products:

http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/06/01/aborted-fetal-tissue-used-to-test-new-food-additives/

The Senomyx patents which include fetal tissue use (HEK Cell lines that express hetero oligomeric taste receptors) can be viewed here:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=Senomyx&d=PTXT

Senomyx and the companies associated with it have made a wide range of assertions surrounding this practice.  Some deny fetal tissue is used at all.  Others argue that it is only used in the “testing” of certain chemical flavorings.  While the consensus is that human material is not actually present in the final food products of the companies involved, I find it a bit disconcerting to know that dead fetuses are being used to test better flavor enhancements for someone’s next soda or slice of cheese.  Regardless of how you may feel about the issue of abortion, you have to admit that this lack of respect for human remains for the purposes of profit when numerous alternatives exist is chilling.

This news, along with the revelation that hybrid rice containing human DNA has been approved by the USDA, tells me that someone out there REALLY wants the average American to dive into at least lighter forms of cannibalism:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-440302/The-rice-human-genes.html

Given these developments, it is only a matter of time before present technological food practices take another step forward into even more questionable realms.  Is the “Soylent Green” method of cannibalism more acceptable than the Aztec form of cannibalism?  No.  Ultimately, both stem from a complete lack of regard for life; a regard that usually keeps societies from tearing themselves to shreds over the rolling boil of a stew pot.

Moments Of Clarity Lost…

The above examples of undesirable trends are only a taste of the stampede of modern tyranny that we must brace for and defend against in the near term.  The most important factor of all is to understand why a social condition causes us pain.  In regret, and in sadness, that which makes us human is most distinctly felt.  Our inner voice, once lost or forgotten, is difficult to retrieve.  The ease by which the darker side of life presents itself becomes enticing, and, the good we were once capable of fades.

America (and the rest of the world) is at the most important stage of historical life; the stage at which the people choose to leave all reason behind to ride the mangling tides of fate, or, choose to stand and fight for a clarity of sight one could only define as individual destiny.  Regardless of the circumstances we are eventually faced with, one difficult truth remains; without a sense of honor and principle, there can be no liberty, and therefore, no society worth a damn.  Some see this as a handicap in the battle for transparency and truth in our culture.  I do not.

In the end, HOW we fight is just as important as WHY we fight.  The example we set is just as important as the ideals we espouse.  The way we live is just as important if not more important than the length of our time on this planet.  What we leave behind after the dust settles and our land driven forms remain but cast shadows in the minds of generations we will never meet, is what makes us who we are.  Anyone who says that the “ends justify the means”, is not serving the future, but the moment, and that moment will be harsh and fleeting…

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

On The Road To Catastrophe

Subprime At The Car Lot…

“Can you think of a better business model than being a Wall Street bank? You hand out 500 million credit cards to 118 million households, even though 60 million of the households make less than $50,000. You then create derivatives where you package billions of subprime credit card debt and convince clueless dupes to buy this toxic debt as if it was AAA credit. When the entire Ponzi scheme implodes, you write-off $200 billion of bad debt and have the American taxpayer pick up the tab by having your Ben puppet at the Federal Reserve seize $450 billion of interest income from senior citizens and re-gift it to you through his zero interest rate policy. You then borrow from the Federal Reserve at 0% and charge an average interest rate of 15% on the $800 billion of credit card debt outstanding, generating $120 billion of interest and charging an additional $22 billion of late fees…”

– Jim Quinn, The Burning Platform

Have you ever read a better description of how banking really works? It’s just one big looting operation that’s backstopped by the bandits at the Federal Reserve. Just think about it; millions of hard-working people were taken to the cleaners in an $8 trillion mortgage-laundering scam, and yet, not one of the miscreants who concocted the coup has ever seen the inside of a jail. How’s that for justice?

But that’s all “yesterday’s news”, what we’re interested in is today, and in particular, signs that Wall Street is engineering another debtbomb that will blow more holes in middle class balance sheets. Here’s some background from the Wall Street Journal:

“Companies in general are borrowing more this year, in part because investors are willing to buy riskier securities….Gains in the financial firms’ fixed-income businesses, which can account for as much as half of revenue, are putting companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and the J.P. Morgan unit of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. on track to report their strongest numbers since the first quarter of 2011, said bankers and analysts…. (“Bond Trading Revives Banks”, Wall Street Journal)

Okay, so the big boys are licking their chops because yield-starved investors have begun dipping their toes in the water again. It was only a matter of time. When the Fed keeps rates frozen at zero, it’s like putting a gun to the head of a fund manager who has to prove to his clients that he can inflate their nest egg in time for retirement. Here’s more from the WSJ:

“High-yield companies around the world have sold more than twice as much debt this year compared with the final three months of 2011, according to Dealogic….Rising prices of risky assets in the first quarter enabled large securities dealers to buy around $19 billion of distressed mortgage bonds from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and to flip much of it to investment firms, making money in the process, said people familiar with the matter.

The bonds, backed by subprime mortgages and other types of home loans, were originally from the government’s 2008 bailout of American International Group Inc.” (“Bond Trading Revives Banks”, WSJ)

Let’s get this straight; the New York Fed–headed by ex-Goldman alum Bill Dudley, orchestrated the sale of AIGs bundle of subprime MBS? And to whom were those toxic bonds sold? The answer can be found on the New York Fed’s website:

“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (“New York Fed”) today announced that it has sold assets with a current face value of $6.2 billion from its Maiden Lane II LLC (“ML II”) portfolio through a competitive process to Goldman Sachs & Co.”

Surprise, surprise! So, there’s a subprime feeding frenzy and who’s first in the sharktank? You guessed it; G-Sax. I gather that “competitive” in this case, means that the transaction was conducted in the dead of night with just a handful of other well-connected bidders.

All that aside, the gold rush for junk has resumed paving the way for another round of massive speculative leveraging leading to another behemoth credit bubble. But there’s more to this junk-buying spree then meets the eye. This isn’t about high-stakes gamblers flipping a coin and hoping they come up “winners”. Oh, no. This is about Bernanke winking to his buddies so they know what-to-buy before the Fed revs up QE3. Here’s the scoop from the WSJ:

“Investors have piled into mortgage bonds guaranteed by U.S. housing agencies, in a bet that the Federal Reserve will launch a third round of stimulus aimed at the housing market. That buying has sent yields for securities backed by newly originated 30-year mortgages to record lows…

Rates have declined in recent months, driven first by the Fed’s surprise announcement in September that it would start buying mortgage debt again with the proceeds of maturing mortgage bonds. More recently, investors took cues from some Fed officials publicly highlighting the importance of housing to the economic recovery. Speaking to a bankers’ group in Iselin, N.J., on Jan. 6, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Bill Dudley, considered a close ally of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, said “with additional housing policy interventions, we could achieve a better set of economic outcomes.” Other Fed officials recently have raised the call for more action on housing….” (“Investors Place Their Money on Fed”, WSJ)

And, what exactly did Bernanke’s first-round of MBS purchases ($1.25 trillion) do to improve housing, you ask?

Not a thing, although there was a slight blip in housing sales due to the banks withholding inventory. Beyond that, the program was a complete flop. It added no new jobs, did nothing to boost GDP, and did not stem the deluge of foreclosures. It did, however, transform the Fed’s balance sheet into the biggest stinkpile of garbage assets on the planet. (now exceeding $3 trillion) By the way, the Fed still marks its MBS at par when, in fact, their current market value is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 cents on the dollar. That means, someone is going to get a $600 billion haircut when the last of these turkeys are auctioned off.

Here’s more on Wall Street’s high-yield hysteria from an article titled “Buyers take a Shine to “Junk’”:

“Investors of all stripes are once again piling into “junk” bonds. The buyers are coming from both sides of the investing fence—from bond investors eschewing the low yields of U.S. Treasury debt to stock investors seeking protection from swings in the market….The buzz is building, even though the recent returns from junk bonds have been relatively meager….

“At some point it comes down to simple math,” said Edward Perks, who manages funds that mix stocks and bonds for Franklin Templeton Investments. “When you have a 2% yield on the 10-year, generating even high-single-digit returns is difficult.”…

With interest rates near record lows and unlikely to fall further, neither U.S. Treasury bonds nor investment-grade bonds are expected to deliver meaningful returns this year, fund managers say.” (“Buyers Take a Shine to ‘Junk’”, Wall Street Journal)

It’s all just child’s-play for an old graybeard like Fed chairman Pavlov. All he has to do is dial rates down to zero and wait for the salivating to begin. He knows the bigtime fund managers have to plump up their capital or investors will vamoose. What choice do they have? They either dabble in risky bonds and take their chances or head to Vegas; there’s not much in between.

Lastly, there’s this from an article titled “Auto Bonds drive into the Fast Lane”:

“In their quest to find a haven from Europe’s sovereign-debt troubles, some money-market funds are turning to debt backed by auto loans, spurring a barrage of sales and sending interest costs on the debt toward all-time lows.

Some $15.3 billion in auto-related securities have been sold this year, surpassing the $9 billion issued in the same period in 2011, according to Barclays Capital…

Asset-backed securities have been popular among money funds in part because they are backed by tangible assets, making them potentially less risky than other debt. In the case of auto bonds, they are backed by car loans to consumers and dealers. The interest paid on those loans is pooled to pay bond investors….

The demand from the $2.7 trillion money-market fund industry has helped spur more sales, dealers said. It also has pushed short-term risk premiums, or the amount of interest buyers demand over Treasurys or some other benchmark, lower.” (“Auto Bonds Drive Into the Fast Lane”, Wall Street Journal)

Money markets are chasing yield, too, which is another sign of looming disaster. Remember, it was Reserve Primary Fund– the oldest and largest of the money market funds–that froze redemptions after the value of its shares dropped below $1 (aka–”breaking the buck”) on September 15, 2008 shortly after Lehman Brothers defaulted. The news of Primary’s troubles ignited a bank run that siphoned $40 billion from its $62.6 billion stash and triggered a panic that spread across all asset classes sending equities markets plunging. By the time the Treasury provided guarantees on remaining money market deposits, over $170 billion had been drained from other accounts and the financial system was in full-meltdown phase.

But maybe we are overreacting, after all, the banks have improved the way they screen loan applicants to make sure that only people with regular income, decent collateral and a good FICO-score can buy a car on credit, right?

Wrong. This is from Reuters titled “U.S. auto lenders give easier terms, cheaper money”:

“U.S. lenders made more auto loans in the most recent quarter, but took more risks and charged less interest to get the business, according to a report released on Thursday by credit reporting and market information firm Experian Automotive.

Outstanding car loans increased nearly 4 percent to $658 billion at the end of December from a year earlier as borrowers financed larger amounts per car and lenders accepted lower credit scores and gave people more time to pay….

The portion of all loans made to subprime borrowers rose to 41.5 percent from 38.4 percent.

Lenders made loans for an average 110 percent of the value of new cars, which was two percentage points, and for 130 percent of the value of used cars, about the same as a year earlier. The average amount financed for new cars was $17,404 and for used cars $9,015.” (“U.S. auto lenders give easier terms, cheaper money”)

“130 percent of the value of the car”! So you can walk away with extra money in your pocket?

And here’s the punchline: The “top lender” is Ally Financial, the former financing arm of General Motors that is “74 percent owned by the U.S. government.” So Uncle Sam–who had to bail out the whole freaking financial system after the last subprime fisasco–is now “your friendly subprime auto dealer”?

Bottom line: As the economy improves, more investors will move into riskier assets which will increase the probability of another catastrophe. Maybe we should think about regulating the system again?

Nah.

How To Become An American Extremist In Style!

For most of us in America today, childhood was a time of vast and unassailable dreams.  What we could become, what the world could become, was limited only by the strength of spirit setting aloft our ideas, and this strength, as all young people instinctively know, is infinite.  While the possibilities of the future seemed boundless, few of us, including myself, ever considered “political extremism” as a viable lifestyle decision.  Astronaut?  Maybe.  Filmmaker?  Sure.  Enemy Belligerent?  Not so much…

While each of us is ultimately a product of our own decisions and internal choices, even beyond the influences of our environment, the cultural atmosphere of our age certainly determines the manner in which we are able to express our individual character.  The brilliant and talented are sometimes cast into roles of poverty and obscurity.  The obscene and devious often ascend to positions of righteous reverence.  Good men are often painted as villains for centuries, while evil men are regarded as saints for just as long.  The point is, the times in which we live rarely express in an honest way who we really are, unless, of course, we take hold of them tight, and cut out a new path for history to travel…

Those men and women who drive forward without fear or doubt to assert control over their destinies, and force their era to reflect their principles, rather than their principles becoming a side-note to their era, whether honorable or dishonorable, are invariably considered “extreme”.  Most human beings waft about with the tides of time as passengers; spectators watching events unfold from the sidelines.  Those who swim against the currents, or who attempt to change their flow altogether, are usually rare and confounding to the masses.  Therefore, that which the masses consider extremism is often merely that which they consider far outside what they have grown accustomed.

Frankly, history has proven over and over again that the majority is usually wrong about most things.  Groups and collectives do not create, or discover, or advance humanity.  Only individuals are capable of this.  All great concepts begin as seeds within independent people, and then spread like wildfire as they educate others.  A society that strives for artificial normality and collectivist harmonization is a society on the verge of chaos and death.  Only free hearts and minds give man hope of survival.

In my view, that which is extreme is NOT that which violates the boundaries of “normal” society, but which violates the boundaries of inherent truth, and conscience.  In an honest society, an extremist is someone who denies the universal foundations of existence, and tries to play demigod in a fantasy world of moral relativism and rationalized criminality.  A disjointed freak of nature that seeks to impose his twisted will upon others.  Unfortunately, the honest definition of extremism is not the most popular amongst the frothing elitists that reside over the functions of our political structure today.

Life is a bummer like that…

So instead, why not embrace the label that the establishment is so keen to pigeonhole us with, and make it our own?  I have found that the less I care about the critical eye of others, the more free I am to change things for the better.  Certainly, by any standard of our current national leadership and by the throngs that support it, I am an extremist.  Luckily, this does not concern me.  It is not important to be accepted by the mainstream, it is only important to remain objectively correct in one’s position.  In the grand scheme of the world, to be a thorn in the side of so-called “proper society” is a sure fire path to a life without regret.  America was founded by undesirables, and built by non-conformists.  We are a nation whose blood is thick with defiance and outright knock-out revolutionary badass anti-authoritarian hostility.  We cut kings down to size.

At least, we used to…

In modern America, it’s not nice or pleasant or practical to approach political problems with the attitude of a radical.  That puts people off.  And there’s nothing worse than having people not like you, right?  Better to play the game and hope that a better world will simply materialize out of the ether.  Don’t rock the boat, especially when you’re in it…

For those of us in the Liberty Movement, this passive approach just doesn’t satiate our ravenous hunger for the bizarre.  And by “bizarre”, I mean honest.  Our time here is short, and usually ugly, and filled with people and circumstances and disasters and biases and abhorrences and painful moments and sometimes smells that we would much rather not deal with.  The least we can ask for is a little truth.  If I have to be confronted with crusted wheezing gas-bloated nightmare figures like John McCain or Joseph Lieberman, men who would label me a terrorist if they could, then I should be allowed the satisfaction of a concrete fact or two before I am shipped of to the nearest Halliburton run military sanctioned prison facility for re-education and naked dog-piling (which these men seem to particularly enjoy).

The truth is the first and greatest sin in the dark pestilent pit of any active tyranny.  I recommend it highly.  Seek the truth, and ye shall be fined…or jailed.  This is the first step towards a glorious career as an American extremist, and living such a lifestyle can be fun and exciting, if one follows these simple guidelines:

1)  Make A Ruckus 

Identify the imperative issues of the day that most people don’t want to be confronted with……..and then talk about them constantly.  But don’t just talk about them; talk about them intelligently and with an informative stance.  That really drives the willfully ignorant crazy.  Make your position and the facts behind it visible in the mainstream, through writing, videos, protest, graffiti, bumper stickers, tatts, whatever…

The establishment’s first line of defense is not necessarily to suppress the truth, but to keep it on the fringe of society, out of sight of the average citizen.  Your job is to shove the truth in people’s faces, so that they are forced to at least acknowledge that it exists, even if they don’t want to accept it.

2)  Laugh At Petty Authority

Most authority in our modern world is, really, only petty authority.  True authority is fostered by a sense of respect that is earned through leadership by example.  The greatest authorities are those who teach, not those who command, and political governance is null and void if that governance was attained through subversion and lies.

Of course, this view is a proven fast track to the nearest solitary confinement cell, but hey, living such a rock ‘n roll flavored “extreme” existence is not without risks…

Extremists recognize that a dishonest politician is only a conman in a nice suit, and nothing more.  They recognize that a law enforcement official that has no regard for Constitutional liberties, or for human decency, is just a gun toting goon in a badge and costume, and is not due any more respect than a common criminal.  They see alphabet agencies as extensions of a system that no longer holds any principles beyond sustaining its own wretched existence, and rightly look down upon those who would sell out to such cancerous bureaucracies for a paycheck and some undeserved prestige.  They laugh at such people, because in the grand scheme of things, these “great pillars” of our nation are, in fact, tragically ridiculous.

3)  Refuse To Be Pegged With Arbitrary Labels

I once entered into a debate with a long time Democrat over the painfully farcical presidency of Barack Obama.  After discovering that I held the same exact views on George W. Bush, he became frustrated and nearly infuriated, because he could not place me into a preconceived political box.  He complained that my stance could not be readily categorized, and this interfered with his ability to argue with me.

I replied…. “Good!  That’s exactly the way it should be!”

Extremism itself is an arbitrary label, whose definition is shifted by those in power to fit any person or group that happens to get in their way at any particular time.  However, to take this label and make it ours, we definitely can’t allow ourselves to be affiliated with hollow and meaningless political parties like the Democrats or the GOP, not to mention all the prefabricated and shallow philosophical platforms they engender.  Every problem and situation should be approached as new, and should be dealt with using social and legal methods that WORK, as opposed to those that happen to follow a particular party line.  There should be, at bottom, as many political viewpoints as there are individuals, not only two homogenized standards that we are forced to choose from in the hopes that one will be “less destructive” than the other.

4)  Prepare For Life Without Window Shopping

A surefire way to become an extremist today is to suggest preparation for any kind of disaster.  For the average American, there is no such thing as a tomorrow without Happy Meals and Nikes.  To suggest the possibility is akin to dancing naked on the freeway with a Gadsden Flag.  Despite the fact that in countries across the planet setting aside goods for survival is as common as mowing the lawn here in the U.S., many in America can’t fathom adopting such habits.  This is because many still believe that the system will protect them from harm no matter what happens.  The “extremist” thinks differently.

He realizes that there have been too many instances in the past when government was not helpful to those in the midst of catastrophe, and in some cases, was even the cause of greater harm.  He seeks to remove his dependence on this system, and procure the insurance necessary to help himself if the need ever arises.

The Federal Government has seen fit to identify the mere act of prepping as a sign of possible extremism, so, let’s get “extreme”, shall we?  I would rather be extreme and alive, than a non-threatening and law abiding corpse.

5)  Build A Terrifying Gun Collection 

If the contents of your house doesn’t scare the living hell out of your yuppie next door neighbor, then you aren’t an extremist yet.  Time to pay off the layaway on that 50. Cal!

Firearms ownership is a widespread American pastime, and is growing by the month.  However, there seems to be a misconception that this pastime is about our “sportsman’s heritage”, or self defense against local crime.  Nope.  That’s not why the extremist stockpiles an arsenal (an arsenal is defined as however many guns you happen to have when the ATF shows up at your doorstep).  He owns scary guns to defend against rogue governments and the rise of the totalitarian dynamic.  Freaky, I know…

Forget all this sportsman nonsense!  We own weapons to dissuade oligarchy from getting comfortable on our couches!  Our concern is not the wildlife…

6)  Question The Accepted Reality Of Everything

You can’t be an extremist if you believe everything you hear from the TV.  Actually, you can’t be an extremist if you believe ANYTHING you hear on the TV.  An extremist takes absolutely no stock in what the mainstream media says without further investigation, and would rather be caught dead than caught parroting talking points from cable news broadcasts.

Is a certain philosophical or political position suddenly considered “common knowledge”?  Be suspicious.  Is a particular methodology or debate point appearing in every journalistic outlet at the same exact time with the same exact one sided narrative?  Time to pull out the B.S. detector.  Is a politician opening his mouth and talking?  Have a shovel handy…

The extremist’s job is not necessarily to be contradictory just for the sake of contrariness.  It is, though, his job to be critical, discerning, and discriminating against that which doesn’t hold up to the light of candid examination.  While there is always room for a certain amount of “interpretation”, ultimately, if a circumstance rings false, it must be exposed.  Period.

Even if that exposure is harmful to the state of our country or our culture in the short term, deceit left unchecked in the long term is the single greatest destroyer of entire civilizations, and is absolutely unacceptable, especially to the extremist…

I think it is clear that extremists in an environment of despotism are in most cases people who refuse to abandon that which makes humanity whole.  We are, indeed, dangerous, but only to those who would do liberty harm.  A life of conformity is a life wasted, and a life of slavery is no life at all.  Whatever we may be called today, what we leave behind is ultimately what defines us.  Labels are irrelevant.  If I am an “extremist” because I refuse to participate in the delusion that is America in the new millennium, then so be it.  I am more than happy to join the long list of insurrectionaries who inhabit this nation today and who have been the legitimate makers of the world for generations.  Everything in history revolves not around governments, but rule-breakers.  They alone decide whether humanity will live tight in the fist of the authoritarian machine, or live free in the wilds of unbridled independence.

One man with courage is a majority.

Thomas Jefferson

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

Debt Slavery: 30 Facts About Debt In America That Will Blow Your Mind

When most people think about America’s debt problem, they think of the debt of the federal government.  But that is only part of the story.  The sad truth is that debt slavery has become a way of life for tens of millions of American families.  Over the past several decades, most Americans have willingly allowed themselves to become enslaved to debt.  These days, most of us are busy either going into even more debt or paying off the debt that we have accumulated in the past.  When your finances are dominated by debt, it makes it really hard to ever get ahead.  Incredibly, 43 percent of all American families spend more than they earn each year.  Even while median household income continues to decline (now less than $50,000 a year), median household debt continues to go up.  According to the Federal Reserve, median household debt in America has risen to $75,600.  Many Americans spend decades caught in the trap of debt slavery.  Large numbers of them never even escape at all and die in debt.  It can be a lot of fun to spend lots of money and go into lots of debt, but it can be absolutely soul crushing to toil and labor for years paying off those debts while making others wealthy in the process.  Hopefully this article will inspire many people to try to escape the chains of debt slavery once and for all.

Because the truth is that the American people need a wake up call.  Consumer borrowing rose by another $19.3 billion in December.  Right now it is sitting at a grand total of $2.5 trillion according to the Federal Reserve.

Overall, consumer debt in America has increased by a whopping 1700% since 1971.

We always criticize the federal government for going into so much debt, but we rarely criticize ourselves for our own addiction to debt.

Debt slavery is destroying millions of lives all across this country, and it is imperative that we educate the American people about the dangers of all this debt.

The following are 30 facts about debt in America that will absolutely blow your mind….

Credit Card Debt

#1 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.

#2 Overall, Americans are carrying a grand total of $798 billion in credit card debt.

#3 If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent $798 billion by now.

#4 Right now, there are more than 600 million active credit cards in the United States.

#5 For households that have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt is an astounding $15,799.

#6 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#7 The average interest rate on a credit card that is carrying a balance is now up to 13.10 percent.

#8 According to the credit card calculator on the Federal Reserve website, if you have a $10,000 credit card balance and you are being charged a rate of 13.10 percent and you only make the minimum payment each time, it will take you 27 years to pay it off and you will end up paying back a total of $21,271.

#9 There is one credit card company out there, First Premier, that charges interest rates of up to 49.9 percent.  Amazingly, First Premier has 2.6 million customers.

Auto Loan Debt

#10 The length of auto loans in America just keeps getting longer and longer.  If you can believe it, 45 percent of all new car loans being made today are for more than 6 years.

#11 Approximately 70 percent of all car purchases in the United States involve an auto loan.

#12 A subprime auto loan bubble is steadily building.  Today, 45 percent of all auto loans are made to subprime borrowers.  At some point that is going to be a massive problem.

Mortgage Debt

#13 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#14 Mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP has more than tripled since 1955.

#15 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, approximately 8 million Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.

#16 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent.  Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.

#17 According to Dylan Ratigan, 46 percent of all mortgaged properties in Florida are underwater, 50 percent of all mortgaged properties in Arizona are underwater and 63 percent of all mortgaged properties in Nevada are underwater.

#18 Overall, nearly 29 percent of all homes with a mortgage in the United States are underwater.

#19 If you can believe it, the mortgage lenders now have more equity in U.S. homes than the American people do.

Medical Debt

#20 Medical debt is a major problem for a growing number of Americans.  One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#21 Sadly, the number of Americans that are protected by health insurance continues to decline.  An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all right now, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.

#22 But even if you do have health insurance, there is still a good chance that you could end up with huge medical debt problems.  According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States.  Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.

Student Loan Debt

#23 Total student loan debt in the United States is rapidly approaching 1 trillion dollars.

#24 If you went out right now and starting spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#25 In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loan debt.

#26 The average student loan debt load is now approximately $25,000.

#27 After adjusting for inflation, U.S. college students are borrowing about twice as much money as they did a decade ago.

#28 One survey found that 23 percent of all college students actually use credit cards to pay for tuition or fees.

#29 The student loan default rate has nearly doubled since 2005.

#30 Student loans made to directly to parents have increased by 75 percentsince the 2005-2006 academic year.

At this point, most Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt.  According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.

Our entire economy has become based on credit.

Do you need a car?

Just get an auto loan.

Do you need a house?

Just get a mortgage.

Do you need to fill up your house with stuff?

Just get a credit card.

Do you need an education?

Just get a student loan.

In fact, if you are anything like a typical American, you probably have a mortgage you can barely afford, you probably have at least one auto loan, you probably have several credit card balances and you probably have a student loan that you deeply regret.

So what should you do if you are drowning in debt?

First, make a firm decision that you are going to break the chains of debt slavery once and for all.

Secondly, come up with a plan to reduce your debt.  Paying off debt that carries a high rate of interest first (such as credit card debt) is usually a good idea.

The big financial institutions want to get us into as much debt as possible, because all of this debt makes them incredibly wealthy.

Don’t play their game.

Yes, that may mean that you may have to put off certain purchases until you can come up with the money, but in the long run you will be much better off.

Source: The American Dream

The DHS Defends Globalism, Not America

The Department Of Homeland Security is the very epitome of unnecessary bureaucracy.  Its formation was predicated on the existence of terrorist threats, many of which the U.S. government and orbiting alphabet agencies either created through acts of war, or fabricated out of thin air.  Its policies of centralization were sold to the public as necessary to prevent systemic “miscommunications” that never actually took place.  Throughout our history, it has been a rare occasion indeed when an attack falls upon American infrastructure or interests that was not influenced, directly or indirectly, by the actions of agencies which were supposedly employed to prevent such events from ever occurring.  Whether through ‘blowback’, or through ‘false flag’, frankly, most of the harm that comes to our nation is perpetrated by the guiding hand of our inexorably corrupt government.

Knowing that the DHS was established on false pretenses forces us to question the agency’s true intentions, especially when a professional fear-monger like Secretary Janet Napolitano announces that the globalization of the world economy falls within her jurisdiction:

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/01/27/the-urgent-need-to-protect-the-global-supply-chain/

Average citizens would assume that the DHS is a U.S.-centric institution, and regardless of its Orwellian behavior, is at the very least a distinctly American brand of tyranny.  However, under encroaching strategies enforced since 2006 through the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), it is becoming very apparent that the Department Of Homeland Security is quickly taking on an “all-of-nation” role, most prominently in the defense of globalization:

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/NIPP_Plan.pdf

In her most recent op-ed / propaganda piece published by Reuters, Napolitano makes it clear that the business of the DHS is lately focused on what she calls “global supply chain security”.  This by itself could be seen as a perfectly logical extension of the DHS mandate to protect America.  Unfortunately, the situation is not that simple.  A few talking points and guidelines within the NIPP platform are rather disturbing, and create an open door for the internationalization of the DHS.

Ironically, Napolitano sets the stage first by pointing out the brittle nature of globalization, along with its numerous vulnerabilities:

“A vulnerability or gap in any part of the world has the ability to affect the flow of goods and people thousands of miles away. For instance, just three days after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear tragedies struck Japan last March, U.S. automakers began cutting shifts and idling some plants at home. In the days that followed, they did the same at their factories in more than 10 countries around the world…”

As I have pointed out many times in the past, the utter lack of redundancy within our globalized system makes it the most impractical and downright destructive economic model in history.  Janet Napolitano seems to agree at least in part on this point.  The problem is that the weaknesses of globalization are not a mistake; they are a deliberate and useful tool for further centralization of once sovereign economies.  Instead of addressing the obvious concern that globalization does not work, Napolitano, like every other globalist in our government, claims that it must be propped up at all costs for the “greater good”:

“Because protecting the global supply chain is inherently an international challenge, it will take an international effort to meet it. The tremendous benefits we all reap from an interdependent global economy means that we are all stakeholders in the security of that system…”

“…we will continue to think globally, enhancing our coordination with the international community and international stakeholders who have key supply chain roles and responsibilities. We will seek to develop and implement global standards, strengthen detection, interdiction, and information-sharing capabilities, and promote end-to-end supply chain security efforts with the international community.”

What “benefits” are we “reaping” from globalization?  I haven’t the foggiest idea.  The internationalization of banking and finance has led to the creation and subsequent implosion of the world’s largest debt bubble and further devaluation of many of the world’s currencies.  Centralized and corporatized food production has led to a complete lack of self reliance within our society, contributed to food scarcity, not abundance, and opened our means of sustenance to the mad-science and genetic criminality of monstrous entities like Monsanto.  The globalization of law through treaty has supplanted the U.S. Constitution, fed the growth of unaccountable and unelected councils and committees, and stricken our country with policy initiatives that weren’t even written by officials that live here.  There are absolutely no substantial benefits to globalization that outweigh its considerable detriments, unless, of course, you are one of the elite few who stand at the helm of the machine.

At the Davos Economic Summit which took place in the final week of January, Napolitano announced a program called the “National Strategy For Global Supply Chain Security”:

Within this plan, the DHS seeks to unite with international corporate interests in an effort to ensure the dominance of the globalist ideal of centralized economy.  The collectivist rhetoric inherent within the document above is apparent.  Napolitano summarizes it well when she states:

“As globalization brings nations closer together, we need to jointly disprove and leave behind the notion that security and efficiency cannot coexist, and together build a security architecture that better uses information to assess risk. By taking a coordinated, strategic and thoughtful approach, we can expedite legitimate commerce while focusing our attention on that much smaller portion that poses harm. Security and confidence in the global supply chain enhance our collective economic strength, rather than impeding progress.”

Napolitano treats globalism as an inevitability; a future without recourse and without option.  A smart person might ask; “What business is it of Janet Napolitano to comment on the global economic model, let alone utilize DHS resources in its defense!”  But look at it this way; by using the failings of globalization and the spectral boogie-man of terrorism as a rationale, the DHS has created a grey area in which the U.S. government can be more fully integrated into the global corporate dynamic, which furthers the disintegration of American sovereignty.

The global supply chain encompasses everything!  It is a vast artificial international construct.  For the DHS to truly “defend” its integrity, it will be REQUIRED to sacrifice the specific and sovereign interests of the U.S.  In a globalized trade system, every economy is important, as long as it does not compete with any other economy.  The U.S. economy is no exception.  Harmonization diminishes the wealth of more successful nations and transfers it to less successful nations.  This transfer of wealth does, in a sense, create equality; it makes everyone equally poor.  By becoming the militant hand of globalization, the DHS is put in the position of hurting America in order to “save” America.

The National Strategy For Global Supply Chain Security document is extraordinarily vague when it comes to the manner in which the DHS will implement defense directives.  More DHS agents at shipping ports?  Of course.  More DHS involvement in airline cargo centers?  Certainly.  But what about DHS agents overseeing trucking and freight, or even stationed at highway checkpoints (remember, the TSA is an agency under the direct authority of the DHS)?  What about DHS agents acting as permanent corporate liaisons?  Will corporations decide who is a threat to the global supply chain and who isn’t?  What about the usage of copyrighted materials on the internet?  Is this a disruption of global trade?  How does the DHS actually plan to return a disrupted supply line to normal efficiency?  The DHS has no production capacity, and would have to TAKE (possibly by force) a supply from somewhere in order to reinstitute it elsewhere.  What about communities, states, or countries which refuse to participate in globalization?  What about those who choose to decentralize?  Could this not be labeled as an attempt to derail the global system, and thus be interpreted as an act of terrorism?

Under any collectivist society, the act of non-participation is always painted as an attack on the group.  In a fully interdependent system, refusing to contribute automatically hurts others, and therefore, makes you a criminal by default.  These systems are built this way deliberately, in order to control a population by exploiting their sense of innate guilt.  The DHS may claim a limited involvement in globalization, restricted to security issues, but the very process of integration with the international corporate framework as well as foreign institutions makes the agency a catalyst for forced collectivism.  Bombs in shipping containers (the bombs we’re supposed to believe are everywhere), do not warrant the massive shift of our security apparatus into a policy of global centralization.  In the end, this move on the part of the DHS has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with manipulating the attitude of the general public towards globalization.  It is much more difficult to challenge a methodology when that methodology is suddenly treated as a national security issue, and is defended by an army of bureaucrats and blue-shirted thugs.  When a world view is made violently essential to the very survival of a people, defiance is held tantamount to treason, and change, no matter how wise, becomes impossible.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

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